Beauty Queen ✿ Eddie Munson

PROLOGUE

From the outside, Valerie Walsh was a carbon copy of every popular girl from every 80s movie. She had impeccable taste in fashion and always managed to look put together. She was projected to win prom queen. She was co-captain of the cheer team with her best friend Chrissy Cunningham. But she wasn't one of those popular girls that was mean to everyone. No, she was popular because everyone genuinely liked her. And how could you not? She was nice to everyone, even total weirdos like Nancy Wheeler's younger brother.

Val actually knew Mike Wheeler pretty well; she may or may not occasionally have fought monsters with him. No big deal.

She had first gotten dragged into the whole mess with the Upside Down as a Sophomore. She was Steve Harrington's neighbor (their mom's were close friends and so the two had pretty much grown up together) and on the night of Steve's little house party, she had decided to crash it.

"I'm assuming my invitation got lost in the mail, Harrington?" she teased, closing the back gate behind her. "Because otherwise I'm telling your parents about why their liquor always taste a little watered down."

The group quickly welcomed her the way people like Tommy H and Carol did: by offering her a beer.

She went back home once the couples started disappearing upstairs. She felt bad leaving Barbra Holland to wait for Nancy alone, but she didn't know her well enough to stay and make small talk while their friends hooked up.

She felt even worse after learning of Barb's fate. When Nancy raised concerns to Steve's friends about Barb's whereabouts, Val was the only one who seemed genuinely concerned about finding the missing girl. That act of kindness had led to Val being mixed up in all sorts of strange things from buying bear traps with Jonathan Byers to watching Steve fight off a Demogorgon with a baseball bat tricked out with rusty nails. It was also how she lost her favorite pair of shoes by stabbing the Demogorgon in the neck with the heel. But she eventually got over it (the shoes weren't very good for running anyways).

She had thought that was the end of it. She had gone back to her usual friends, occasionally talking to Nancy or giving Jonathan a smile in the halls. But then Will started having 'now memories' and she got roped into the whole thing again.

She had ended up comforting Steve after his break up with Nancy at the Halloween party and through a chain of evens, it led her to being 'on the bench' while El closed the gate and Joyce, Nancy, and Jonathan tried to get part of the Mind Flayer out of Will. Being on the bench had been a lot more eventful than Val thought it would be: hitting Billy over the head with her purse while he beat the shit out of Steve, setting fire to the Upside Down tunnels. Regular weekend activities.

That summer she worked at The GAP where she had met fellow mall employee, Robin Buckley. Helping El find her style and being a member of the Scoops Troop was an honor. But the Battle at Starcourt Mall... she didn't know if she would ever truly recover from that, and not just because the place she usually got her nails done had burned down in the 'mall fire'. She had known Billy (even gone on a date with him once), seeing even an ass hole like him die in such a horrific way was something a person could never wipe from their mind. It's always right there, ready to haunt you when you close you eyes.

She had started her senior year off trying to think positively. This was going to be a good year, she could just feel it.

At lunch on her first day she spotted Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. She wasn't quite nice enough to invite them to sit with her, knowing she would have to deal with the torment from her friends later, but she wasn't going to just ignore them, especially when they looked so intimated by the crowded cafeteria.

"Hey, guys," she smiled. "How's your first day of high school going?"

"Great," Dustin lied, trying to smile at the older girl. "We we're just trying to find our new friends, right guys?"

Lucas and Mike quickly nodded in agreement.

Val sighed, able to see that they were struggling. "You see that table over there," she pointed to a nearby table filled with rowdy boys wearing matching shirts. "They call themselves the Hellfire Club. They play D and D."

The boys smiled gratefully before approaching the table she had suggested.

"Hey, uh, we heard you guys play D and D," Mike said, setting his tray down and hoping they wouldn't get kicked out of the table.

"Yeah," the dark haired boy at the head of the table nodded. He seemed like the group's leader. He looked at the three freshman boys suspiciously. "How do you know Valerie Walsh?"

"Oh, uh," Mike stuttered. "She's friends with my sister. It no big deal. Is it okay if we, uh, sit here?"

"Take a seat at your own risk," Eddie gestured dramatically.

Val sat down with her usual table of friends: a mix of the cheer team and the basketball boys.

"I swear to god, the Freshman look smaller every year," Patrick muttered, watching a scared group of kids claim a table.

"Seriously," Jason nodded in agreement before turning to Val. "Why were you talking to those three weirdos?"

Val shrugged. "One of them is Nancy Wheeler's brother. She doesn't have this lunch so she just wanted me to make sure him and his friends were okay."

"She was just being nice," Chrissy added.

"Yeah, but you're too nice to people, Val. Someone's going to take advantage of that," Jason warned.

"Thank you so much for the advise, Jason, but I think I know how to handle myself," she said with a fake smile.

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered. "Just trying to look out for you."

"So," Chrissy said, trying to change the topic. "Do you guys want to see a movie or something tonight? I doubt we'll get much homework on the first day."

Patrick and Val exchanged a look. Ever since Chrissy and Jason had started dating they had been trying to force Patrick and Val to be a couple as well so they could go on double dates.

"Sure," Patrick finally agreed. "But I'm not sharing Sour Patch Kids with Val again, she eats all the red ones."

"Because they're the best ones!" Val protested, a smile on her face.

As her friends debated what movie they wanted to see, Val looked around the lunch room, feeling eyes on her. It wasn't unusual for people to be staring at her and her friends, but she had felt someone's gaze on her for a while. She finally made eye contact with Eddie Munson, the leader of the Hellfire Club. He smirked at her and she felt herself involuntarily blush.

She quickly looked away, going back to the conversation with her friends. But when she let her eyes trail over to Eddie Munson again, he glanced back at her.

This was certainly going to be an interesting year...