Rock Steady (Steddie)

Some Kind of Cult Thing

Dr. Cavenaugh released Eddie the next afternoon after another meeting. He reiterated to Eddie the importance of not using illegal drugs or drinking while he was taking the medications he'd started. Eddie seemed ready to give up when Dr. Cavenaugh told him that he could possibly be on the medications for years. It all depended on how well Eddie responded to them and to the behavioral therapies they were going to try. But he promised to give it some time.

Eddie didn't say it out loud, but deep inside he was almost glad that this had all happened. He wanted help but he had never known how to ask for it without looking weak. He'd suffered through this for ten years because he was afraid of looking weak in front of his uncle. He couldn't believe now that he'd ever thought that. When he had told Wayne everything, Wayne had not called him weak or ridiculed him the way he always thought he would. It had been a massive relief to Eddie.

Before he left the hospital, Dr. Cavenaugh gave Eddie a composition notebook. He asked Eddie to write his nightmares down, then to alter them, so they have a positive conclusion. He wanted Eddie to spend a half hour each day rereading the altered dreams he wrote. He explained that doctors believed that nightmares were a learned behavior and by altering the dreams and rereading them over and over, he could relearn and replace the nightmares with more positive dreams.

Eddie sat quietly staring out the window as Wayne drove him home that evening. He had a lot to think about. So much was changing for him, and he was just trying to process it all. Smoking weed and drinking, even if it was just beer, had become such an integral part of his life over the last couple of years that he knew the habits would be hard to break. Especially when hanging out with Jeff and Gareth. They always drank and got high when they played shows or practiced at Jeff's house. He couldn't ask them not to do those things. And he didn't know how he'd react being around them when they were doing things he wanted to do but couldn't.

When they got home, Wayne went inside, and Eddie headed across the street to Max's trailer. He knocked and when she opened the door and saw him standing there, she looked surprised. She stepped outside and shut the door behind her. Eddie handed her the Walkman that Dustin had loaned him.

"Thanks for letting me borrow your Walkman."

"Thanks for returning it," she replied. "You look awful."

"Thanks," Eddie chuckled. "I feel awful."

"Are you okay," she asked. "Steve wouldn't tell us anything. And after he took Dustin to see you, Dustin got all secretive and said it was top secret stuff and if he told us he'd have to kill us."

Eddie laughed loudly. "Good old Henderson," he said. "I asked him to keep it to himself."

"The rumors at school are that you tried to kill yourself." Eddie's smile disappeared. "One of the junior girls volunteers as a candy striper at the hospital and she was there when they brought you in."

"Rumors get around quick, don't they?" Max nodded. "I went in Saturday and this is only Monday."

"They're saying that you tried to summon the devil and he made you do it."

"It wasn't the devil, just a couple of low-level demons." Max involuntarily took half a step back, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "I'm kidding." Her face relaxed. "I didn't try to summon anything, and I didn't try to kill myself. It was just an accident."

"That's what Dustin kept trying to tell people today, that you had an accident." Eddie's lips turned up in a smile. Leave it to Henderson to come up with something to try and protect him. "Some of the other kids were giving him and Lucas and Mike a hard time about it. You know, because of Hellfire and all. Ms. Kelley called all of Hellfire Club into her office after lunch to make sure it wasn't some kind of cult thing and that none of them were going to try it."