slut [ eddie munson ]

010

Max and Steve had found Talia sat on the ground, her back leant against the door to her car and her knees pulled up to her chest. She had wrapped her arms around her legs, her forehead rested on her knees as she silently wept.

Max and Steve had approached slowly, not wanting to scare her off.

"Talia?" Max asked, slowly lowering herself down to sit next to the girl. Steve stayed a few feet away.

Talia slowly looked up to them, defeat clear on her face, "I don't get why this keeps happening to me," she cried, "why does everyone I love keep dying? Billy already almost killed me, and now Chrissy? God, and they'll kill Eddie for this—won't they?"

Max held back tears, knowing that all the effort she put into keeping Talia away from everything to do with Hawkins' curse was futile. She glanced back at Steve and motioned toward the boathouse, silently asking him to leave them. He looked at Talia once more with worry, before turning on his heel.

Max turned back to Talia, pain in her eyes as she began to speak, "That's why you have to believe us, Talia. Eddie didn't do this—I know that you know that—but if we don't defeat Vecna soon, then it won't matter that he's innocent. It won't take long before people start to put things together and, when they do, they're going to come for Eddie. But we can help him, we can stop this."

Talia's face scrunched up, "I want to believe Eddie—to believe you. I really do, Max, but it's so hard for me to. But, I mean, a fucking dark wizard? I don't understand what's going on. All I know is that my best friend is dead. I don't know if Eddie killed her or not, or if this Vecna thing is real or not—just that she's dead. Can you honestly tell me that you'd believe you, if you were me right now?"

"I can't," Max sighed, "but I've dealt with this before, Talia. I know that it's real. There is a world under Hawkins that is filled with evil, and it's been trying to escape for years. It started when Will Byers went missing a few years back, and every time we think we've won, it comes back." Max went on to explain all that had happened in the years since Will's disappearance, the Wheeler girl carefully listening as she spoke of strange beasts and mind control and a girl with strange powers.

By the end of Max's explanation, which had skirted over last summer and Billy's involvement, Talia was speechless. The story was far too elaborate to have been made up—especially in the short amount of time between finding Eddie and Talia running out.

The only thing Talia was still confused about was the most recent attack from the Upside Down—the one that had occurred in the summer of 1986.

"That's how Billy died, isn't it?" Talia slowly spoke, her mind reeling as she slowly put the pieces together, her eyes bearing into Max's, "that mind flayer thing, it got Billy. That's why Billy was at the mall that night—why he'd been acting so weird the days before."

Max nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks, "we almost saved him, but he died protecting El. He..." she sighed, trying to collect herself, "he wanted me to tell you that he loved you, that he always will, and that he knew you didn't mean what you said. He was sorry, too, for everything that he did—he said you would know what he meant."

A choked sob escaped Talia. She did know.

"We got into a fight," she said lowly, "on the second. He had been so annoyed earlier in the day, at the pool. I came to have lunch with him, but he looked so sick, and I kept trying to get him to just go home. He didn't want to though...said he was fine and I was overreacting," she paused, reaching over and wiping away the tears on Max's face, "I got mad and left, and when he came over that night...it was like he was a completely different person. I guess he was though, wasn't he?"

"That...that was the day we found out—that Billy had been flayed. We cornered him after his shift, locked him in the sauna to see if we were right. It went to shit," Max grimaced as flashes from that day played in her mind—flashes of Billy cowering away and crying as he begged for help before the Mind Flayer took over completely.

"He was so mad. Not even at me, just at life, it seemed. But I was the only one there for him to take it out on," Talia said, frowning, "I don't even know what set him off, but he just started throwing my shit around and yelling. Started calling me names, told me I was nothing but a dumb slut that he just wanted to use when he was bored but got stuck with. I started crying, told him to get out and all these other things—I got mean. It just pissed him off more. At one point...I thought he was going to hit me, he looked like he was—but, then it's like something clicked. Everything about the way he was standing...switched, like he was only just realizing what he was doing. Then, he told me that I had to stay away from him and that he wasn't good for me and would only end up hurting me. Said that it was a mistake to come and see me. I was so angry and so hurt. I told him to get the fuck out—the last thing I said to him was that I hated him. But, I didn't—I don't. I love him so fucking much, and knowing that I'll never be able to see him, or talk to him, or fucking hold him—god, every breath feels like I'm drowning and every time I feel like I'm about to surface, I just get pulled deeper and deeper."

Max had been silently crying the whole time, heart breaking as the Wheeler girl recounted the last time she had seen Billy. Carefully, Max shuffled closer to Talia and wrapped her arms around her.

Talia let out a weak whimper, circling her own arms around Max and resting her head onto her shoulder as she desperately tried to hold herself together—she was so sick and tired of crying.

"He loved you," Max said, her head resting on top of Talia's, "and he knew that you love him too."