" '86 Baby " [Eddie Munson X Y/N]

Chapter 10: Lifeline.

You and Eddie are bolting it through the forest, well Eddie's sort of dragging you with him. Sirens wail in the distance, you and Eddie ade terrified. You keep thinking about Patrick in the air.. his bones.. you almost trip, causing you to snap out of it.
Those were two Vecna kills, back to back. You.. or Max are next. Eddie is mumbling to himself as you are running, you hear a few curses from him. "Eddie- slow down!" You tell tugging on his arm to stop him. He's out of breath and turns to you, he sees your eyes are puffy and red, you were crying. He could see how tired you were, you haven't slept in three days.
He takes a deep breath and slowed down, and walked in silence for the rest of the night.

Hours pass, it's bright outside again. You've been walking for hours, your feet were sore. You guys hear noises in the distance, you look at each other and jog lightly to the noise.
You cautiously peaked around a tree and saw a construction sight, looks like they are building a house or something.
You see a man run to the 'Portapotty' placing his tool belt, which has a radio strapped in, on a work bench. You go to turn to Eddie but he's gone, you turn back and see him grab the radio and run back to you. You both start running again.
"Eddie- where are we going?" You ask as he clearly is taking you somewhere. "It's an old Hang out spot- its Skull Rock." He says leading you again. Skull rock? Sounds familiar.
He slows down in front of a huge rock with trash spread around it. Well, it's name makes sense, the rock was shaped like a skull.
Eddie quickly pulls out the radio he stole and tunes it to the right channel "Dustin, can you hear me?" He speaks, there was static for a split second "Holy shit, Eddie, are you okay?" Dustin whispers into the radio. You lean back relieved that they're okay, and finally responded. "Nah man. Pretty...pretty goddamn far from okay." He says rubbing his eyes.
"Where are you?" Dustin says worried. "Is Y/n with you? Are they okay?" He adds
"Yeah- yeah they're okay-" He puts the radio to your face so you can speak "We're, uh, we're at Skull Rock. Do you know it?" You ask.
You hear a few sighs of relief from the other end "Uh, yeah- that's near Cornwallis and—" Dustin gets cut off and it goes straight to static. Shit, shit.
"Hold tight, we're coming, we're coming!" Dustin says, Eddie nods frantically. He puts the radio down and puts his head back, he was scared, so were you.

You were trying your best not to fall asleep, while resting your head on Eddie's shoulder. He put his arm around you, rubbing your shoulder with his thumb, comforting you.
You think about Patrick, repeating his bones being snapped. If the others don't find you soon, the same will happen to you.
You hum Tainted love again, trying your best to stay calm. It's the only thing keeping you sane.
Your eyelids were getting heavy, you needed to sleep. Eddie noticed you were getting tired "You can sleep, I'll wake you up when they get here." He says nudging you a bit. You open your eyes pulling away from the sleep tugging at you. "It's not that.. It's just." You pause yawning. "It's just, if I sleep I'll have another nightmare... One I might not come back from." You say looking at the leaves on the ground. There was a silence between you two.
You branches snap, you and Eddie quickly hide in between the two rocks. You hear a familiar voice speak, Steve. "Woah- Baddabing baddaboom! In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face."
Yep, definitely Steve. "Doesn't make sense.." Dustin says "Yeah, yeah. Even with it staring you in the face, you can't admit that you're wrong, you butthead ." Steve replies.
Eddie walks out "I concur." The group jumps a bit. You walk out beside Eddie rubbing your eyes. "You, Dustin Henderson, are a.. total butt head." He says smiling a bit.
"Jesus, we thought you were a goner." Dustin says and hugs Eddie, Eddie hugs him back "Yeah- me too man. Me too." He replies. Dustin goes to hug you but you flinch. "Woah Y/n, it's just me, Dustin." He says putting his hands up.
You can barely tell what's real anymore "They've been like this for a while, they haven't slept in three days.." Eddie says to Dustin. You were half paying attention, still humming the song. Max knew what was going on "They're under Vecna's curse.." she says.
"The night Fred died, I didn't understand it at first, we had similar symptoms but after going through the files in the counsellors office ... it confirmed everything." She says look up at you.
"Y/n, how long has it been since you saw... the clock?" She asks walking up to you.
You look at her trying to think, it was hard since you were running on no sleep. "Uhm.. a day or two?" You say walking towards the rock "We were inside Rick's house, they sort of fell into a.. trance." Eddie says giving them more details. "Like Chrissy.." He adds.
"How have they been holding off from Vecna for so long?" Steve asks Max.
"Eddie, does Y/n have their Walkman here at all?" Max asks looking around "Uh, no it's fell into the water a few days ago, while you were out." He answers confused. You were humming Tainted Love while leaning against the rock, resting your eyes.
"They've been, keeping it at bay, themselves?" Robin asks confused. "They've been their own lifeline..." Nancy adds. "I don't think this will last long.." Max says looking at you slowly falling asleep.
Dustin quickly shakes you awake, you put your hand in his face and shove him away "I'm awake.. I'm just resting my eyes." You stand away from the rock. "Listen I'm fine, and stop talking as if I'm not here, I may be tired, but I'm not deaf." You snap at the group.
"What exactly happened last night?" Nancy asks, changing the subject. You look over at Eddie and give him a tired look as you slide down against the rock. He crouched down in front of you and explains everything to the group.
"That's when I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh.." he takes a quick sip of water. "My walkie was busted man, drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently. I ran" he said with a frustrated smile and chuckled a bit. "Do you know what time this was? The attack?" Nancy asks Eddie.
"Yeah, no, I... I know exactly what time it was." He said taking off his watch and passing it to Nancy. "My walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked."
Nancy glanced at it "9:27." She reads. "The same time out flashlights went kablooey" Robin adds as she glances at the watch "Which means what, exactly?" Steve asks. "That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick" Nancy answers Steve and throws the watch back to Eddie.
"Well that means we're one step closer, we know how Vecna attacks." Robin says "And where he attacks from" Lucas adds. "So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down, and drive a stake through his heart." Max chimes in. They all bounce off each other smoothly, they were all on the same page. You were impressed, you weren't as screwed as you thought.
"If he even has a heart.." Robin says. "A stake? Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?" Steve asks genuinely. You all just stare at him. "It was a metaphor." Max says unimpressed.
"A bullet should work on him, though, right?" Eddie asks. Lucas looks at him "I say we chop his head off." Now it was getting unrealistic, no way you could just take out some evil wizard with a bullet or a stake.
"I would say all of the above, but we can't do any of that 'til we find a way into the Upside Down." Nancy says. "We need El to get her powers back" Max says. You notice Dustin pacing in the back "Everything was wayyy easier. We had this girl, with superpowers." Steve says to Eddie. "Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her." He says.
You interrupt everyone's brainstorming "Hey, uh, Hendersons not cursed, is he?" You watch him pace back and forth. "Cursed? No, no. He's fine. Mental? Absolutely.." Steve says answering you. Dustin stops in his tacks and turns around to face you guys.
"BOOM!" He yells, making the group jump and face him. "Bada... bada.... Boom." He whispers pointing at Steve. "I was right. Skull rock was North" Dustin says. Steve rolls his eyes "Seriously? You're serious?" Steve says annoyed "Mm-hm" Dustin replies confidently. You hit your head against the rock getting annoyed. "This is Skull Rock, Okay?" Steve exclaims "You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now." He says getting as equally annoyed. These two can't be serious..
"Oh my god." Steve says putting his hands on his face.
"This worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'." He says pointing it the compass "It was correct when we got in the car on Curly. But, it started to slip the further east we went. Now it's way off." He says crossing his arms "When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was." You still didn't get what he was saying, you were too tired for this shit.
"So you're using faulty equipment, you're still wrong!" Steve says, fed up.
"Except it isn't faulty. Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?" He says point at Lucas "an electromagnetic field" Lucas says pointing back at Dustin. "Yep." Dustin says with a confident smile as if everyone knew what he was saying.
"Sorry. I must've skipped that class." Robin says, she was confused as well. "In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either some super big magnet is around here, or-" "There's a gate!" Lucas interiors Dustin's long speech.
"But we're nowhere near a lab." Nancy says confused. "But what if, somehow- there's another gate. A gate that we don't know about. It'd have to be smaller, way less powerful." He explains to Nancy.
You were still so lost, and so tired. You could feel sleep just crawling at you "Snack-size gate." Robin chimes in. "How- why?" Steve asks "No idea. All I know is that someone is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, because then we'd have a way to Vecna, and a shot at freeing Max and Y/n from the curse." He says before walking off.
Eddie helps you up and gets ready to follow Dustin.
"Where are you going? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Steve says "Eddie's still a wanted man. We can't just go for a hike in the woods." He said. Steve was right, it wasn't safe to just go out in the woods, but it was your only chance "That compass is the only chance at saving, Me, Eddie, and Max." You say walking next to Dustin. "What say you, Eddie the Banished." You say nodding towards Eddie.
"I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But, uh, the Shire...the Shire is burning.." Eddie says thinking about it. Dustin does little happy hops. Eddie stands up and stretches while looking at you "So Mordor it is." He says walking towards you.
Everyone follows.
"What is Mordor.." Steve whispers to himself.