MARLEY // Max Mayfield

How You Sound

Rhythmic and muffled thuds bounced through the boat house as Marley tossed a small ball she had found against the wall, the room remaining silent otherwise. The sun had risen once again and with it, Eddie had taken refuge beneath his tarp and would only occasionally speak to make sure Marley had not left. Their night had been mainly uneventful, save for the time Eddie almost soiled himself again when a squirrel snuck into the boat house and knocked over a shelf of miscellaneous crap, and had been mostly filled with questions, light-hearted ones to alleviate the depressing mood they would have otherwise fallen into.

Screeching interrupted their calm and Marley missed a catch, the ball colliding solidly with her nose so that she fell back off of the chair she had been swaying on, Eddie jumped out from under his tarp, rushing over to the window with his broken bottle raised. He whispered profanities under his breath, panting quietly as Marley rolled out of the chair and onto the floor, groaning and watching the ball roll away.

It was smacked to some other corner of the room when the door swung open and four familiar faces poked their heads inside. Eddie turned quickly, weapon raised, "Jesus Christ -- !"

"Delivery service," Dustin smiled, holding up two bags in offering.

"Whatcha doing down there, Mars?" Robin grinned, setting her load down. 

"Oh, you know...push-ups," Marley replied vaguely and forced herself to her knees. Eddie rushed past her and over to Dustin, grabbing quickly at the bags and dragging them back over into his boat.

There he tore open a box of cereal and popped off the cap of a Yoohoo bottle with his ring, stuffing his face instantly and taking a quick swig of his chocolate drink. Marley sat atop a flipped bucket and accepted the bottle when Eddie handed her one, doing the same as him with one of her own rings. The five let Eddie gorge himself a moment, letting him have that period of respite before they reported their findings and simply glance around at one another, waiting as Eddie's munching remained the only sound among them.

Marley wiped across her face and rubbed her eyes, blurry from her lack of sleep, before taking a swig from her bottle and setting it down beside her foot. She didn't really like Yoohoo but Eddie had offered and she didn't fancy drinking any of the other drinks the gang had bought so she'd just settle.

"So we got, uh, some good news and some bad news," Dustin began just as Eddie crammed another handful of Honeycomb puffs into his mouth. "How do you prefer it?"

"Bad news first, always," Eddie said quickly, making a gesture as if to say it were obvious.

"All right. Bad news," Dustin nodded, looking quickly over at Marley before settling back on Eddie, "we tapped into the Hawkins PD dispatch with our Cerebro."

"Which, by the way, they're totally going to have Marley's badge for," Robin quipped, winking over at Steve.

"All right, all right enough with the badge jokes, Robin," Steve said, rolling his eyes as he pressed his hands against his hips, "you interrupted, Henderson."

"My bad, totally my bad," Robin said, holding her hands up as she glanced over at Marley who simply shook her head, smiling around the lip of her bottle.

"Anyway," Dustin began again, "they're definitely looking for you. Also, they're, uh, pretty convinced you killed Chrissy."

"Like, 100% kind of convinced," Max added and Eddie looked over at her.

"And the good news?" He asked.

"Your name hasn't gone public yet," Robin told, leaning up against a rack with her hands clasped, "but if we found out about you, it's only a matter of time before others do too. And once that gets out, everyone and their shallow-minded mother is gonna be gunning for you."