꧁꧂
ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀᴛʏ-ᴛᴡᴏ: ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ
The next morning, the group of us had done another shopping spree out at the local 7/11. It was like we were the only income for the place, and we'd be the reason the manger is getting the food on their plate every night.
"Not to be a wimp but can I stay in the car for this visit?" Robin asks, mainly looking over at Nancy as she drove. Looking for permission-? no, let's not go there, Park. "'Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck." Both me and Max watched from the two seats behind. It was hilarious to know we were the only others who knew about that situation.
"It'll be fine." Nancy tells the girl in the passenger seat. Did it seem like any of this was fine? ANY of it?
"I just can't stand to see those dull eyes of Eddie's break again." Robin says after a moment. Oh. Ouch. Okay. "I really, really can't."
"At least he can drink himself into feeling better!" Steve shouted from behind me and Max, referring to the pack of beers that we'd had to pick up.
"That's what my mom does..." Max murmured.
"Right... well that's gonna be a delight to see when I meet her again..." I mutter back, pursing my lips. Oh, so Susan drinks now? Like... drink drinks? Because my haunting of Lonnie Byers is not enough? I now have to hear that Susan is drinking away her problems?
Max gave me a raised eyebrow of a look, telling me that that idea in itself was probably a horrible idea. Yeah, she knew that if I met Susan it would probably end up badly...
"Why don't we give it a trail?" Robin asks, ignoring my words. "Hey, Eddie, uh... good news first this time. We got you some Dustin-approved junk food and that six-pack you requested." She says.
"We found Vecna." I continued, slightly mocking Robin, "He lives in a creepy attic where lights shatter and at the same time is in that even creepier dark dimension with monsters who's faces open up." I stopped myself when I saw the glare on both Robin and Max's face. "No?" I asked, looking between them both. "Okay, shutting up now..."
"Maybe we shouldn't put it like that..." I hear from Lucas. Thank you, Lucas, I couldn't tell by the way both my girl and older lesbian best friend were giving me a glare that could send me six feet under.
"We're one step close to finding Vecna." Nancy says, trying a better method. I wait for her to say more. "That's what we say. That's what's important."
"See, Robin? See, Park? Positive spin can make all the difference." I hear Steve say before eating a singular pringle.
"Are you referring to our boobies conversation?" I ask after a moment, eyebrows furrowed, confused.
"Technically- I still think I was right-" Steve says to me. Looks like my new challenge was to see how long it took Steve to catch onto me and Max, then.
"Wait, what boobies conversation?" Max asks, looking over at me. Oh shit. Haha.
"I'll tell you at another time." I say, eye wide. There was definitely no way that was getting repeated in the car...
"Oh shit..." Nancy mutters from the front. Oh no, does she know about the boobies conversation?
As the car drove down the path, all eyes looked at where Nancy was. Oh shit... There, in front of us, multiple police cars and ambulances were seen, along with another news van for channel 9. A crowd of people stood at the barriers, causing slight chaos. Only slight.
"Come on..." Nancy began, closing her car door. "this way." Following after her, we all crouched around the other side of the news van to get a better view.
We couldn't hear the whole thing, but... "reporting a homicide out here on the lake." The new chief spoke. "Officer Callahan here and myself, arrived first on the scene." He continued to read from the little notepad in his hands. "We made our way to the shore of Lover's Lake, about ten yards from that house you see behind me... it was there that we found the victim," He flicked over to the next page. "an eighteen-year-old senior from Hawkins High, Patrick McKinney... His limbs, his body, it was disfigured... There was an eyewitness on the scene, and we have also identified a person of interest." Oh no.
The man held up a photo. "Eddie Munson." Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. "We encourage anyone with information to please come forward."
"Oh man..." I heard Steve, stood behind me. Yeah, Steve, you could say that. "This is not good... this is really not good." Taking one look across at Max, I then saw something worrying. Not at her, but when I saw the face of the boy next to her, I was then scared. Lucas had known him...
As the chief walked away from the multiple questions, we then heard it. Eddie's voice. "Dustin, can you hear me?" We all looked at the radio in the back of Dustin's bag. Well, he's alive. "Wheeler?" The group of us began to walk while Dustin spoke.
"Eddie... holy shit, are you okay?!" He asks. Really, Dustin? That was the best you could do?
After a second of silence, Eddie replied. "Nah... man. Pretty- pretty goddamn far from okay." I don't even blame him.
"Where is he?" Robin asks the smaller boy. Yeah, Robin was one of the few of us who had braincells.
"Where are you?" Dustin repeated over the radio.
"Skull Rock." WHOA. There's the nostalgia. "Do you know it?"
"Uh- yeah..." Dustin replied quickly. "That's near Crownwallis and-"
"Garrett." Steve suddenly spoke up. "Yeah, I know where that is." Before I could ask or let a remark slip to Steve about this information, the boy was off, and so were we. Another adventure. Yay. Because it seems we can never find Eddie Munson anywhere.
⊹˚˖⁺
"They're definitely getting us lost..." I muttered, seeing the two boys walk off now in a different direction. Watching Lucas ahead of us, walking on his own, made feel bad, though, setting a sickening feeling in my stomach. "How did he know Patrick?" I asked Max as we walked on.
"They were in the basketball team together." She says. What the basketball team that had shitty straight men who were probably all sexist and homophobic other than Lucas? That team? We continued to awkwardly walk in silence before she then spoke up again. "It's weird." I glance down over at her. "I don't really pay attention, but, I think one time, before me and Lucas broke up, I saw at one of the basketball practices that he had a blackeye."
"Who? Lucas?" I asked, eyebrows furrowed. It was probably Erica-
"No. Patrick." Oh. My bad. "I mean, it could be nothing-"
"You said that the lights in your house were nothing when you came to me and Dustin." I point out. "That's probably something." The girl nodded at my reassurance that she wasn't overlooking it. "So... everyone who's been targeted by Vecna..." I begin, trying to connect the shit together. "They're like..."
"Hurting." She says, now stopping to actually speak to me. "Or..." She tried to think of a word that fit it.
"Haunted..." I add on, not looking anywhere else but at her. "by something... or someone. Their past... Their present..." Okay, not to say something else was on my mind that wasn't the boy that had just been attacked by Vecna, but there was definitely something else on my mind that wasn't the boy that had just been attacked by Vecna. "Max... you do know that if I had the choice, we never would have had to leave for Cali. Even if that meant I'd be staying at Dustin's full time." The girl pulled a confused look over at me.
"I'd hope so..." She says after a second. "I have made out with you three times now, and confessed feelings." She teases, going to walk on while I still kind of stood there.
"I would've picked up." I continued. "At stupid o'clock in the morning, if you called I would've picked up." The girl looks back at me from where she now stood, head tilted a little bit.
"Where is this coming from...?" She asks over at me, eyebrows furrowed.
"I just wish I was there." I tell her, noticing that the group were still walking on. "When you were slipping away... mourning... But I was across the country..."
"You don't seriously think that that then makes it your fault?" Max asks me, stepping back over to me. "The Upside Down shit was always gonna happen-"
"HEY? LOVEBIRDS?" Both of our heads turned to look at Robin. She's one to talk. The taller girl smirked as she looked from Max and then to me. "Come on. Don't wanna lose you in the forest. We'll be searching for the both of you and Eddie, otherwise." She continued to have that devilish smirk play as she walked back away, leaving both me and Max stood there, expecting us to follow after her.
"Come on." The red head took my hand in her own. "Like she said. Don't wanna get lost in the forest." Right. Don't wanna get lost.
⊹˚˖⁺
Eddie crouched down as he uncapped the canteen. "When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh..." He then took a sip as we stood around the Skull Rock awkwardly. Yeah. This was not going exactly to plan, but whatever. "my walkie was busted, man." Dustin, meanwhile behind us, paced back and forth. "Drenched. So, uh, I did the that thing I do now, apparently." He smiled, obviously close to insanity as he spoke. "I ran."
Eddie chuckled falsely, pissed without even getting that drunk at all. "Do you know what time this was?" Nancy asks him, changing the subject a little. Does he look like the talking clock to you, Nance? "The attack?"
"Yeah, no, I... I know exactly what time it was." Eddie tells her, reaching for his wrist and taking off his watch. Never mind. "My walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked." He held it up before chucking it over to the girl.
She read the time his watch read before nodding. "9:27..."
"Same time our flashlights decided to turn to confetti..." I murmured, eyebrows furrowed. This looked great. SO great.
"Which means what, exactly?" Steve asks, not connecting the dots. Come on, Steve, catch up.
"That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick." Nancy says, then sending us into a moment of silence.
"Well," Robin begins, trying to lift the horrible mood. "we're one step closer. We know how Vecna attacks."
"And where he attacks from." Lucas then adds on from behind me and Max.
"So, now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down," The red head beside me says. "and drive a stake through his heart." She finishes her sentence, getting a nod from me.
"If he even has a heart." Robin says. Great. We don't even know the bitches' weakness. Shit.
"A stake?" Steve asks, returning to what Max had just said. It was like he was on jetlag. "Is he like a vamp- Is he a vampire?" Someone send this boy back to middle school, I'm seriously over him. 'but Tammy Thompson and Max Mayfield are girls' BLAH BLAH BLAH-
Max shakes her head in disbelief. "It was a metaphor."
"Uh- a bullet should work on him, right?" Eddie asks, confused. Who's gonna catch him up on that?
"I say we chop his head off." Lucas says, earning a nod from.
"No, really, can we do that?" I ask the group, smiling a little. I promise I'm not a psychopath.
"Yeah, I'd say all of the above," Nancy says to us, stopping all of our morbid thoughts. "but we can't do any of that 'til we find a way into the Upside Down."
Max then looked primarily over at me. "We need El to get her powers back." She says. "What's that looking like?"
I grimaced a little. "Every time I've seen her try, there's been no reaction from any object around the house." I shrug. "And I don't know if there's one thing she's not doing that she used to, or what, but I dunno if we can even get in contact with anyone in Cali, anyways." I pointed out.
"Everything was way easier." Steve adds on, because it was really helping. "We had this girl-" He spoke, turning to Eddie. "She has superpowers-"
"Superpowers." Eddie nodded, finishing his sentence. "Yeah, you mentioned her." He then looked around to the boy still pacing behind Lucas, Max and I. "Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh... cursed, is he?" He clarified.
I glanced back at Dustin as he stopped, looking off in the distance. "Cursed?" Steve says. "No, no, he's fine... Mental? Absolutely."
"BOOM." Everyone then turned back to Dustin as his voice echoed in the woods. The boy looked over at Steve, slowly nearing closer. "Bada... bada... boom." We waited for further explanation. "I was right." He says, not looking away from Steve. "Skull Rock was north." I've had it with all men. I'm sorry but I have had enough.
"Seriously?!" Steve asks, arms crossed. "You're serious?" In the corner of my eye, I could see Nance roll her eyes at how stupid the argument was. Girl, tell me about it.
"Mmhmmm." I hear Dustin hum, probably nodding along as I looked over at Steve.
"THIS IS SKULL ROCK, OKAY?" Steve shouts, gesturing at said rock. "OKAY?!" Dustin nodded along, agreeing. "YOU'RE TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY, 100% WRONG... RIGHT NOW."
Dustin had a mischievous look in his eyes. There was something he wasn't saying to us, and he was finding it fun. "Yes... and no." The younger boy's words might as well have sent Steve over the edge, because he was not in the mood.
"Oh my God..." Steve murmured, head in his hands.
"This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheeler's." Dustin continued, holding up the compass he'd been using previously. "It was correct when we got in the car on Curly, but it started to slip the further east we went." Oh. Wait- wait- wait- wait- It's been a while since we talked compasses I can't remember shit- "Now, it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."
"So, you're using faulty equipment." Steve continued on, while my mind worked at fifty miles an hour trying to recall what I could about compasses. "Dude, you're still wrong."
"Except, it isn't faulty." Dustin then says before looking across at me and Lucas. "Do you two remember what can affect a compass?"
"An electromagnetic field." Lucas says, now catching on while my eyes went wide.
"Yep." Dustin says proudly.
"I'm sorry, I must've skipped that class." Robin butted in, confused.
"Right, so if the electromagnetic field is strong enough, and we with the compass are close enough to this field," I begin, scratching the back of my head as I tried to explain. "the needle of the compass deflects away from the power." I get a few nods from around the place. "Guess what has a stronger electromagnetic field, though..." Now, there's a few stares. "Jesus Christ, why are there only so many smart ones here?" I ask, glancing around at the older teens mainly. "Two-mark exam question, multiple choice," I mock the older part of the group, glaring between them all. "A) There's this huge ass magnet in the forest. Or is it B) There's a gate somewhere close by?"
Now, all eyes were wide. Is this what it's like having braincells over the count of ten?
"We're nowhere near the lab, that geographically-" Before Nance could even finish her sentence, Dustin spoke over the top.
"Right." He says. "But what if, somehow, there's another gate?" The boy asks her. "A gate we don't know about... It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful."
"Snack-size gate." Robin chimed in. We love Robin and her thought process.
"How?" Steve questions. "Why?" Why did you wake up in the morning? WHY IS VECNA SUCH AN ASSHOLE? Some questions we don't know the answer to, Steve.
"No idea." Dustin says to the boy. "All I know is that something is causing this disturbance," He gestured again to the compass in his hand. "and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate..."
"And, let's really hope that it is." I add on, looking around at the blank, confused faces. "Because then we've got a perfect way to find and beat Vecna's ass... or more importantly, freeing Max from this dumb curse." I then glanced over at Dustin, of who nodded before starting off again, following his compass.
Grabbing Max's hand, we both started right after the curly haired boy, while Steve shouted after us. "Hey? Where are you going? HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY?!" With an annoyed look, we all eventually turned back to look at the mother of the group with his hands on his hips. "Eddie's still a wanted man." Oh, so now he cares? "We can't just go for a hike in the woods."
Dustin held up his compass for what felt like the millionth time. "This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie." Silence. Dustin looked over at Eddie, now speaking in a voice rather posh and slightly English. "What say you, Eddie the Banished?"
All heads turned to Eddie as he squatted underneath Skull Rock, still, thinking away. "I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor," So he was speaking DnD, now? We really do need my twin here... "which, if I'm totally straight with you... I think is a really bad idea." When is it ever going to be a good idea when the Upside Down is involved? "But, uh, the Shire..." He looked up to the sky. "The Shire is burning..."
This caused Dustin to jump up and down on the spot, rabbit-like while an excited face played for all to see. This was good news, then. We were going to the gate. Eddie stood up, a mischievous glint in his eyes and the way he smiled could tell me that he was about to send us on a five-month campaign that would not be worth as many hours as others would say. "So Mordor it is."
a/n- no one: me returning every three weeks and calling it 'writing' and not laziness:
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