I'm not okay

And to be fair, you had tried.

You had moved into your dorm with two overstuffed suitcases and a confidence you had mostly assembled in the bathroom mirror. You had gone to freshman orientation events where everyone pretended not to be desperate for friends. You had learned which dining hall served the least offensive seasoned eggs. You had let a girl from your sociology class drag you to a party in someone’s humid off-campus basement, where warm beer foamed over your hand and a boy in a rugby shirt leaned too close while explaining his father’s boat.

You'd been doing just fine.

Then the first Friday of the semester came around, and by midafternoon you were already in your car, pointed back toward Hawkins with your duffel bag on the passenger seat and a weak excuse waiting on your tongue.

You missed your family, sure. That was true enough. You missed your mother’s kitchen, the particular clatter of her cabinets, the smell of something real cooking instead of whatever the cafeteria claimed was meatloaf. You missed the familiar absurdity of your little brother yelling from three rooms away instead of knocking on your door. You missed your bed, your shower, and the way Hawkins trees crowded over the roads and made every sunset feel tucked in at the edges.

Mostly, though, you missed not having to constantly introduce yourself.

The drive was warm and dull and golden at the seams. Late summer still clung to Indiana, stubborn and sweaty, with the green fields blurring past your windows and the radio crackling between stations whenever the road dipped. By the time you pulled into the driveway, your legs ached from sitting and your hair smelled faintly of sun-baked upholstery.

Your mother nearly dropped a wooden spoon when you walked into the kitchen soon after that.

“Oh my God,” she gave a startled gasp, her hand flying to her chest. “You scared me half to death.”

“That’s what you get for raising a daughter who visits,” your voice was teasing, and you moved in closer tossing your bag near the doorway.

She fussed over you immediately, which meant she kissed your cheek, criticized how tired you looked, and pushed a plate toward you before you had even taken off your shoes. The kitchen was bright and busy just like you remembered it, the counters cluttered with mail, coupons, a half-empty glass of iced tea, and one of Dustin’s notebooks left open beneath a smear of peanut butter. 

You leaned against the counter and ate standing up while your mother talked at a pace that made campus feel quiet by comparison.

You listened, nodded, and answered questions about your roommate, your classes, your meal plan, your laundry situation, your sleep. It took an embarrassingly long time before you realized something was missing.

“Where’s Dustin?”

Your mother waved the spoon toward the hallway. “At his club.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “His what?”

“His club,” she repeated, already distracted by the pots on stove. “The new one. Hellfire, I think? He was very dramatic about the shirt.”

You stared at her blankly, as if she'd grown two heads.

Your mother glanced over her shoulder to look back at you. “Don’t look at me like that…I asked if there would be adult supervision, and he said yes.”

“He said yes?” the incredulity in your voice did little to settle the matter.

Your mothers voice came back light and easy. “He said there’s a senior.”

“A senior is not adult supervision.”

“Well, he seemed very confident.”

Now, your groan felt more instinctual than meant to be. It came from years of experience as an older sister, and even more so from years of experience with your brother. “Mom, Dustin is always confident when he’s wrong.”

She sighed in the long-suffering way mothers did when they knew perfectly well you were right but had already decided they were tired. You couldn't blame her, Dustin could wear down the grim reaper if properly motivated. “He’s at the high school. If you want him home before dinner, you can go get him.”

That was how, twenty minutes later, you found yourself walking through the halls of Hawkins High on a Friday evening. Your keys looped around your finger and your old familiarity with the building returning in unpleasant little flashes. The trophy case still had smudges near the bottom from kids pressing their hands to the glass. The linoleum still carried that waxy, chemical smell that never fully went away. Somewhere deeper in the building, a pipe knocked behind the wall. Your shoes clicked too loudly in the empty hallway. It wasn’t like people graduated from Hawkins to come back.

Well, those who did mostly did so to relieve their glory days, which was just code for how their life seemed miserable to what was promised to them in their adolescence. 

You had expected to find Dustin in a classroom with a few other freshmen. Maybe some awkward boys hunched over graph paper. Maybe a teacher grading quizzes nearby. Something harmless. Something suitably humiliating for him.

Instead, you followed a burst of shouting toward the drama room, pushed open the door, and stopped so abruptly that the strap of your bag slid off your shoulder.

The room was dim except for a cluster of lamps around a long table. Shadows filled the corners where old set pieces leaned against the walls, and painted trees and fake stone archways stacked beside boxes of costumes. The air smelled faintly of dust, pencil shavings, cafeteria pizza, and teenage boy. Around the table sat a collection of kids you recognized only in the vague way Dustin’s stories and faint interactions over the years had given them shape: Mike Wheeler with his sharp elbows and suspicious expression, Lucas Sinclair half-risen from his chair, a couple of older boys in matching black shirts, and Dustin himself wearing the look of religious devotion he usually reserved for radios and scientific breakthroughs.

But none of them were the first thing you noticed.

The first thing you noticed was the guy standing on the table.

He was all black denim, wild curls, and restless limbs. One sneaker planted between scattered papers while the other balanced on the edge of the table with a confidence that seemed both impressive and deeply irresponsible. A ripped denim vest hung over his leather jacket. Rings flashed on his hands as he raised both arms above his head, anr his voice echoed through the room.

“And from the pit,” he thundered, “dragging its hideous body through smoke and bone, comes the Demogorgon!”

Dustin made a noise that might have been despair or joy.

You remained frozen in the doorway. Your expression surely did little to hide your clear cut judgement.

This, apparently, was “adult supervision”.

The guy spun with theatrical violence, hair shifting around his face, and caught sight of you. His performance hit a pause so clean it might have been rehearsed. One hand stayed lifted. His eyes, dark and wide and bright with the leftover spark of whatever world he had been building, swept over you from your shoes to your face.

For one brief, ridiculous second, neither of you moved.

Then he straightened, dragged one hand to his chest, and dipped into an extravagant bow from the tabletop.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, his voice still pitched for the back row, “we appear to have been visited by either a very lost substitute teacher or Henderson’s mother after a tragic de-aging incident.”

For a moment, you didn't know if he was poking fun at you, or was serious. But you didn’t get to ponder on it long before the room broke into startled laughter. Dustin whipped around at the sight of you.

Your brother’s face collapsed into horror. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking you up,” you frowned instinctively at his lack of welcome, though your voice came out flatter than planned because your brain was still busy processing the sight in front of you.

The guy on the table hopped down. He landed lightly, considering the amount of metal attached to him, then spread his arms. “And here I thought we were finally getting raided by the moral majority.”

“You wish,” you scoffed.

It was automatic, a reflex. It was the same tone you used on boys at college when they opened with something ridiculous and expected you to giggle.

His eyebrows lifted.

You expected him to do what boys usually did. Smile a little slower. Look again. Adjust his posture. Decide, all at once, that he was interested. 

Instead, he grinned, sharp and amused, then promptly turned back to the table.

“Henderson,” he barked. “Your carriage has arrived. And since your carriage has interrupted a sacred encounter, your wizard is about to make a saving throw with disadvantage.”

“What?” Dustin shrieked whirling back to the man with wild curls. “That’s not fair!”

“You brought family into my lair, man. Consequences.” The use of the word “lair” had you promptly cringing. It was like you'd met an older version of your brother.

“I didn’t bring her!” You seriously were considering leaving him to walk home now. 

“You share blood. Close enough.”

You stood there in the doorway, absurdly aware of your own hands, your own face, the fact that you had come in expecting pimples and braces and had instead found Dustin’s bizarre new cult leader wearing chains and screaming about monsters under stage lights.

Why did your brother keep collecting older friends? Steve Harrington had been strange enough. Robin Buckley at least made some kind of sense if you squinted. But this guy – this table-standing, denim-clad, and metal-ringed senior with a voice made for trouble was in a category of his own.

Dustin started gathering his things while complaining under his breath. You watched the older boy shuffle papers behind a cardboard screen, still grinning, still moving too much, and energy spilling off him in quick little bursts. He caught you watching and tilted his head.

“Don’t worry,” he grinned with his full face. “We only sacrifice freshmen on alternating Fridays.”

You didn't know how to respond, so you settled on a nod. “I’ll mark my calendar.”

“Please do. Formal attire encouraged.”

Dustin shoved past you into the hallway, red-faced and muttering. You followed, but not before you glanced back once.

The guy was already looking at you.

This time, his grin changed by a fraction. Not softer, exactly or even  less mocking. He just seemed to be aware of your presence more than he did moments ago.

Then Dustin groaned petulantly, “Oh my God, stop being weird,” and the moment snapped shut.

You drove home with your brother ranting about unfair dungeon master abuse, and you listened with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping restlessly against your thigh.

You had been back in Hawkins less than two hours.

Already, college felt very far away.

──

The next weekend, you told yourself you were only going because Dustin needed a ride.

That was the official reason. It had weight and it had practicality. It also sounded responsible enough that your mother accepted it without question when you appeared in the kitchen Saturday afternoon wearing jeans that fit better than your usual weekend pair and a top you had chosen after pretending not to choose it.

Dustin noticed the attempt immediately.

He stood by the counter with a Pop-Tart hanging from his mouth, eyes narrowing. “Why do you look like that?”

You looked down at yourself, the feeling of defensiveness prickling up your spine. “Like what?”

“Suspicious.” he gave you a weird look through his large bites.

Now, you were the one shooting him a dirty look. “I look normal.”

“You never look normal when you’re trying to look normal.”

It was at that moment you throughly were reminded of how much of a brat your sweet little brother had become. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything!”

You grabbed your keys. Your voice was now entirely unamused, not to mention so was your dignity. “Get in the car, Dustin.”

He complained the entire way, partly because complaining was his primary form of communication now in his teen years and partly because you refused to tell him why you had decided to sit in on Hellfire instead of dropping him off. You told him you were curious. He told you curiosity was not an excuse to ruin the sanctity of the campaign. You told him the sanctity of the campaign met in a public school building and smelled like old curtains. Safe to say the both of you were throughly displeased with the other, though for different reasons.

By the time you reached the drama room, Dustin had worked himself into a state of preventative embarrassment.

“Just don’t talk,” he said outside the door. His curls bounced behind his ears as he whipped his head back to face you, his finger outstretched to your face.

You gave him a look, which made him falter slightly because it originated from years of wide eyed warnings glances. Sure, you'd admit you've grown more mature, but you weren't too old that you wouldn't smack your little brother upside the head in public anymore. “Excuse me?”

His wince came quick and left quicker. “I’m serious. Don’t do that –that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you act cool and make everyone weird.”

You smiled slowly, not taking this as seriously as he made it out to be. After all, how much weirder could you make a room of boys who were die-hard into fantasy roleplay? “You think I’m cool?”

“No. That’s not what I said!”

You let the breezy expression back into your face, mostly because you knew it would rile him up further. “You’re worried I’ll be too cool.”

“I’m worried you’ll be deeply annoying.”

“Same thing, coming from you.”

Dustin groaned and pushed open the door. You followed suit after a moment, pulling down the driverside mirror for a second.

Hellfire was already gathering inside, louder in daylight than it had been at dusk. The stage lights were off, the overheads buzzing faintly, but Eddie Munson — you'd gotten his name from Dustin shortly after investigation last week — managed to make the room feel arranged around him. He sat at the head of the table with one leg hooked over the arm of his chair, flipping through a notebook thick with loose papers. His hair fell forward while he read,  and one ringed hand braced against his mouth. Every so often he muttered something to himself and scratched a note in the margin.

You positioned yourself near the back, leaning against a desk with the casual ease of someone who had done very well at house parties without ever learning the names of the bands on the posters.

This was familiar territory. Not the dragons or the dice, but the rest of it.

You knew how to stand where you would be seen without looking needy. You knew how to let your attention drift and return at the exact right moment. You knew what to do with your mouth, your hair, and your eyes. College boys were not complicated creatures, you learned that early on. They liked confidence. They liked the suggestion that you might find them funny if they tried hard enough.

Eddie looked up from his notebook.

You met his eyes and smiled.

Not too much, you hoped, but just small enough it wasn't mistaken.

His gaze held for half a second, then he slapped the table.

“Sinclair! If you keep trying to hide that character sheet from me, I’m adding a curse.”

Lucas froze at the shot of his name, his shoulders jumping slightly. “I’m not hiding it!”

“You’re angling it away with suspicious motives”

“I’m not—”

“Suspicious,” Eddie repeated, pointing two fingers at his own eyes and then at Lucas.

Your smile sat uselessly on your face.

Fine. Bad timing. You could blame it at that.

You waited until later, when the session ended and the boys scattered into pockets of argument. Mike and Dustin were nearly forehead-to-forehead over some rule interpretation. Lucas was zipping his backpack. Eddie stood near the table, collecting dice in a little velvet bag, and his sleeves pushed up enough for you to notice the pale line of his wrist beneath all that black.

You drifted closer.

“Intense game,” you tried nonchalantly.

He glanced up, finally looking at you directly. “You understood any of that?”

Nope, none of it. “Enough.”

“Oh, dangerous answer.” He shook the dice bag at you. “That’s the kind of answer that gets villagers eaten.”

You let your smile sharpen, your head tilted down at him momentarily. “Maybe I like danger.”

There it was, that was what's easy. Familiar. A line delivered with just enough playfulness to let him decide how brave he wanted to be. You were well versed in that language well, at least.

Eddie stared at you for one beat, and his smile made you think you'd won. So naturally, you kept quiet as his broen eyes seemed to twinkle. Then he clapped you on the shoulder.

Actually clapped you on the shoulder.

“Spoken like a true weekend chauffeur,” he grinned. There was no amount of money in the world that could have gotten you to look at your expression now. You were absolutely certain you looked like a fish with how agape you were. “Stick around long enough and we’ll get you a hat.”

You couldn't help but sputter. “A hat?”

“Official title. Henderson’s Ride. Maybe some flames on the side.”

Before you could recover, he moved past you and jabbed a finger toward Dustin. “And you, my curly-haired little menace, are not carrying eighty pounds of loot without penalties. Encumbrance exists for a reason.”

Dustin rounded on him, immediately preening under the attention. You couldn't  even find it in you to turn around to look at the scene behind you. “My strength score—”

“Your strength score is not a forklift!”

The room surged back into noise after being static underwater to your ears.

You stood there with his handprint still faintly warm on your shoulder and experienced the rare, humbling sensation of being treated exactly the same as a fourteen-year-old boy. You were sure you stood there long enough for your pride to reach new levels of low.

It did not improve the following week.

You tried again, because pride had a way of mistaking injury for motivation. It was almost embarrassing how you tried. You wore your hair down and up in styles you saw new magazines, you laughed at one of his jokes even though you really didn't get it. You held eye contact while he cleaned up his miniatures, you even asked one question about his rings that would have made almost any boy your age preen. 

The lackluster responses everytime made you want to groan like a child sent to their room after being denied dessert.

Eddie wiggled his fingers in front of your face. “These? Instruments of intimidation. Also useful for opening stubborn soda cans.”

“They suit you,” you said.

He smiled, his stubbornly pretty features announcing their presence even more. “Naturally. I was born with excellent taste and a tragic lack of funding.”

Then he leaned around you before you could even respond and yelled, “Wheeler, if you spill Coke on my notes again, I’m haunting your descendants!”

There it was again. No paue, no shift, no flicker of realization that you were not, in fact, one of his little sheep.

To Eddie Munson, you were not the cool college girl with practiced confidence and a decent record at parties. You were not mysterious, you were not interesting, and you were not even especially female, apparently.

You were “Henderson’s ride”.

The humiliation settled in small, irritating layers. It left you dumbfounded and irritated. Not because it wasn't true, but surely you weren't that invisible to him, right? After all, even resident freaks noticed pretty girls.

You learned quickly that Eddie noticed everything at the table; a missed modifier, a hidden snack, or any of the boy's actions no matter how little. Mike trying to fudge a roll by half an inch. Lucas muttering something under his breath. Dustin breathing too loudly during a dramatic monologue. He even noticed when the fluorescent light over the costume rack started flickering and climbed onto a chair to smack the fixture with the heel of his hand. He noticed when Gareth got quiet after a bad roll and shoved a bag of chips toward him without making it a thing. He noticed when Dustin’s voice pitched too high and redirected the table before your brother could spiral into a rules tantrum. Thus, there was the annoyance of the situation. 

He noticed everything except you.

Unless you were actively discussing numbers on plastic shapes you didn't fully understand, you might as well have been part of the set dressing.

By the time you drove Dustin home that night, your hands were tight on the wheel.

Your brother hummed beside you, cheerful and oblivious, backpack between his knees.

You made it three blocks before you cleared your throat, “So–”

Dustin glanced over at you quickly, the pout on his face came too rapid for your liking. “No.”

Your scoff couldn't have been more disbelieving. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask!”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re going to ask about Eddie.”

You almost swerved on instinct. Ypu felt a faint scrunch appear on your face.  “I am not.”

“You said ‘so’ in the exact voice Mom uses before asking if I have a girlfriend.” You really couldn't help but wincing at the comparison your little brother gave, though it did feel accurate all things considered.

Still, you tried to play it cool. “That is not a voice.”

Dustin didn't let up, voice potched up with voiced displeasure. “It is absolutely a voice.”

You kept your eyes on the road. Streets rolled past in lit porch lights and dark lawns, the houses familiar enough to make you feel both older and exactly as you were when you were sixteen. “I was just wondering what his deal is.”

Dustin turned his whole body toward you, suspicion sharpening his face. “His deal?”

“Yeah. His deal.”

“He’s our Dungeon Master.”

You rolled your eyes, the dry response was only one you could get from a pre-pubescent boy. “I gathered that from the yelling.”

Dustin seemed intent on upholding the male's honor. “He’s not just yelling, he’s creating atmosphere!”

“On a table.” you were throughly unconvinced.

“That was for staging.” Your brother vehemently defended. And you couldn't quite grasp how quickly the younger boy had gotten distracted.

“Right, sure.”

Dustin frowned, already offended on Eddie’s behalf. “You don’t get it.”

You shrugged, hands opening and closing momentarily on the steering wheel. “I’m trying to.”

“No, you’re doing the thing where you act above something before you understand it.” 

That landed closer than you wanted. You adjusted your grip on the wheel. Now that had to be karma for whatever hell you put your mother through when you'd became a teenager.

“I’m not acting above anything,” you breathed a exasperated sigh. “I’m asking why my freshman brother’s best friend is some guy who looks old enough to rent an apartment.”

“He is not my best friend. He’s my mentor.” the correction did little to give you any real explanation or reassurance. 

You barked out a laugh quickly after that. Your brows twitched up and you willed yourself not to sigh once more. “Your ‘mentor’?”

“In D&D.” Dustin’s tone was clarifying, as if that was the part that need confirmation. 

“Oh, obviously.”

“And life, kind of.”

That made you throw a disbelieving look to the passenger seat quickly. “Dustin.”

“What?” 

“You cannot have a life mentor who still attends your high school.”

“He’s a misunderstood genius,” Dustin corrected with the grave conviction of a boy defending a sacred holy text. “People think he’s just loud and weird, but he’s actually brilliant. His campaigns have political structures. Moral consequences. Long-term narrative payoffs.”

You stared through the windshield, your eye twitched the longer he went on. You swore you felt a headache coming in every time you blinked. Dustin kept going, flopping back against the leather of your car seats. His legs kicked restlessly at your mats.

“And he remembers everything. Not just game stuff. Everything. He knows what kind of character choices people make when they’re nervous, and he builds around it.” He kept rambling now, and you didn't quite have it in you to say anything to dampen his conviction. Ypur brother continued on. “He takes my ideas seriously.”

Your fingers loosened slightly on your wheel at the words, you kept silent for a moment. The only sound was the faint clicking noise of your turn signal as you made a right turn. 

Dustin’s voice had changed by now. His tone was still too loud but also still too deeply allergic to sounding casual unlike yours at times. But beneath the lecture was something more grounded. Loyalty, maybe. You weren't quite sure why. You guessed it was gratitude he would rather smother in terminology than admit outright. 

You looked at him through the corner of your eye sight. You didn't really know the guy beyond a few meetings and what you were told but he seemed to really have an impact on your little brother. Naturally you felt curious. “He takes your ideas seriously?”

Dustin shrugged, suddenly busy with the zipper on his backpack. The metallic noise moving forward and backward, then repeating again.  “Yeah. I mean, when they’re good.”

That released an exhale from you, “which is always?”

“Which is frequently.” His voice came back upholding and matter of fact, and you smiled despite yourself to him.

Then, because you could not leave well enough alone, you added off handedly, “He has nice hair.”

Dustin’s head snapped up quickly, his hair bouncing along with him. “What?”

You winced a bit, pulling up to a red light. The water bottle in the cup holder beside you suddenly felt needed. “Nothing.”

“No, what did you say?” your little brother seemed annoyingly intent on hearing it. 

At final, you sighed and repeated yourself, not before untwisting the cap and taking a much needed drink of water. “I said he has nice hair.”

“Why?” your brows furrowed at that, you barely had the chance to question that before the light turned green once more. 

“Why does he have nice hair?” you asked incredulously.

Dustin's voice came narrowing into your side. “Why are you noticing?”

You rolled your eyes. The conversation felt more like a weighted blanket laying on top of you the longer it went on. “People can notice hair, Dustin.”

“Not you.” the response came thoroughly sure.

“I have eyes, that makes me viable to see things.”

“You also have motives.” Now at that, you gave a disgusted noise. Sure, maybe that was true, but did you want your little brother saying that, much less probably knowing what that meant? Absolutely not.

“You’re fourteen. Stop saying motives.”

“I know what motives are!”

“Do you?” You were seriously doubting that.

He seemed sure of himself either ways. “Yes!”

“Then explain why you keep becoming friends with people old enough to vote. Steve. Robin. Now Eddie.”

Dustin threw his hands up in indignation and made a noise. “Because most normal kids my age don’t understand the intellectual weight of my hobbies.”

The question of what he thought was genuine intelligence was on the tip of your tongue but you held it in. You turned to him slowly at another red light, and he held your stare for two seconds before his expression faltered.

“That,” your lips curved in slightly, “is exactly what a weirdo says.”

Dustin's voice was boosting with loud outrage, making you smack his elbow off your console center as your ear ringed. “I’m not a weirdo!”

Your scoff came as quick as it was allowed to by mere existence. “You are absolutely a weirdo.”

“You drove home from college to spy on my club!” That, was highly inaccurate. You could protest that point at least.

So you did. Your correction came quickly. “I drove home for Mom’s cooking.”

“You dressed up.” You weren't appreciating his tone of voice at the moment.

“I did not.” You did. 

Now, he was even more unconvinced.  His tone continued to be just as accusing. “You wore the jeans.”

“What jeans?” 

“The ‘trying’ jeans.”

You gasped, throwing a look to your side. You were highly unsure how a boy who forgot his shirts were worn inside out could be this observant. “You little creep.”

Your little brother was unbothered as he kicked back adjusting your passenger seat for the tenth time. “I live with you. I know your patterns.”

The light turned green, and you hit the gas harder than necessary while Dustin cackled into his sleeve. You ignored him and smacked his hand away when he tried to change your radio station. You didn't bother acting affected by his pout.

You should have let it go then. You should have written Eddie Munson off as a strange footnote in your brother’s already strange social life. You should have returned to campus and found a boy in one of your classes who understood when he was being flirted with.

Instead, you spent the week thinking about the words Dustin had used.

Misunderstood genius.

God-tier Dungeon Master.

And finally, takes my ideas seriously.

You thought about Eddie noticing everything at the table. You thought about his voice dropping when a player got uncertain. You thought about the careless weight of his hand on your shoulder, the grin that never stayed in one place for long, the way he treated you without reverence, without hunger, and without the usual level of calculation.

You hated that it interested you.

You hated even more that he still hadn’t looked at you properly. That affected you more than you'd ever like to admit.

By the next Friday night, your pride had become a living thing.

It paced, it scratched at the door, and it made you do something unforgivable.

You stole Dustin’s stupid spare Player’s Handbook.

Technically, stole was such a strong word. You borrowed it from his room while he was in the shower, which would have felt morally distinct if you didn’t examine it. The book was heavier than expected, its cover worn at the corners, and several pages marked with scraps of paper and gum wrappers. You carried it into your bedroom in your hands with the grim focus of a criminal and dropped it onto your desk.

For a while, you only stared at it, before you got agitated once more and then you opened it up.

The first problem was that none of it appeared to be written in English. 

The second problem was that it was definitely written in English, which meant you had no excuse. You could only stare at it with furrowed brows for so long, you found out your max had been 4 minutes.

You sat cross-legged on your bed then with the handbook open in front of you, a notebook balanced on your knee, and tried to force your college-trained brain to process the words on the page: armor classes, hit dices, saving throws, spell slots, proficiencies, races, classes, modifiers, initiative. It had the density of a textbook and the emotional tone of a tax form written by wizards. You underlined things. You circled words. You wrote “IMPORTANT???” beside paragraphs you did not understand.

The sad thing was, you still had no genuine clue what any of it actually meant.

At some point, your mother knocked and asked if you wanted tea.

You slapped a magazine over the book and said, too loudly, “No thanks!”

She paused outside your door, her voice soft and curious. “Honey?”

“I’m fine.” You cooled your tone down quick.

“All right,” she hummed then, not sounding convinced. She took only a few steps in and leaned in to kiss your forehead, to which you did the same. “Don’t stay up too late.”

You stayed up until nearly two in the morning. By then, your eyes burned. Your notes had devolved from careful definitions into frantic questions: Why are there so many dice? Why does charisma do magic? What is THAC0 and why did it feel oddly personal? 

You had written spellslot as one word because you could not remember if the space actually mattered or was just exaggerated. You had copied down Vvardenfell from a crumpled page tucked into Dustin’s book, not realizing it did not belong where you thought it did. It sounded impressive though, but it also sounded obscure. You wondered if it was a thing that sounded like something Eddie might look up for.

Or, look at for.

On Saturday, you walked into the club a few steps behind your excited brother armed with one good term, three questionable facts, and a level of determination usually reserved for final exams.

The session had already started. Eddie was behind his screen, hunched forward, voice low enough that everyone leaned in without realizing. Candles were not allowed in school, apparently, so he had settled for a flashlight propped behind a stack of books, throwing strange shadows up his face. His hair fell around his cheeks. His rings tapped once against the table.

You took your usual place near the back.

He didn't look over.

Fine.

You waited.

The opportunity came during a heated argument about magic. Dustin was explaining something to Mike with his entire body, hands slicing through the air and Eddie watched with the tolerance of a man deciding how soon to punish them.

You cleared your throat, for a second. No one noticed, and you cleared it again.

Dustin glanced back at you, annoyed at the interruption. “What?”

You pushed off the desk and forced your voice into casual shape. “Couldn’t you just use, you know, a spellslot from Vvardenfell?”

The room went quiet, and not normal quiet.

Dead quiet.

That should have been your first clue. Mike’s mouth opened at you but then closed with that familiar judgment you saw resemblance of his sister in. Lucas had blinked up at you as if you were a foreign subject, and even Gareth slowly lowered his pencil from his own sheet in front of him.

Dustin looked at you with an expression you had only seen once before, when your mother tried to pronounce “Walkman” as two separate words. That was the only small you had gotten before realizing that you must've said something wrong.

Eddie froze behind the screen.

For a terrible second, he did not even blink. His stillness was unnatural for what you'd studied him to be. His eyes fixed on you then, wide and unreadable. One hand remained suspended over his notes.

And you felt your confidence leave your body in a clean, efficient evacuation.

“What,” Dustin gasped horrifically and yet very softly. It was as if he were afraid of repeating your words, “did you just say?”

You lifted your chin, you were thoroughly prepared to double down.  Nothing you said should be that bad, right? “I said—”

“No, don’t repeat it.” Your little brother's words came out as a desperate plea. And before you could even feel the familiar prickle of defensiveness appear, you heard Eddie lowered his screen by an inch.

Your face suddenly felt a lot more warmer than it had been.

Somewhere in the hallway, you could hear a locker slam, and the sound traveled through the walls and disappeared through the dead silence of the room.

Then, Eddie Munson laughed.

Not a polite laugh, and thankfully, not a cruel one either, which basically just had made it worse. It came out of him full-bodied and startled, it was the kind of laugh that made him knock his head back and made him grab the edge of the table. His dark curls shook, amd his shoulders folded forward. The rest of the room followed in scattered bursts, confused at first and then helpless.

Dustin buried his face in both hands.

You stood there, pride crumpling around your ankles. Still, you wouldn't let that show in a room filled with mostly teen boys that barely touched the outside world unless it was held in the comfort of neon lights and sticky arcade game machines.

“I was joking,” you tried to give what you could only hope was a breezy shrug.

“Were you?” Mike asked, the snark too familiar and you already had one teenage boy you've had enough of, you really didn't need another.

You pointed at him with your eyes, your own gaze fighting the smaller boys. “Don't.”

Eddie wiped at one eye with his thumb, he was still grinning so hard it changed his whole face. And almost against yourself, you had to admit, he had a beautiful smile. It was a real one, maybe that was why you liked it so much. “A spellslot from Vvardenfell,” he repeated, reverent now. “Gentlemen, pack it up. We have peaked.”

“It was a joke,” you insisted, suddenly very interested in the nonexistent lint on your top, picking at it between your forefinger and thumb.

“Of course,” Eddie nodded solemnly while pressing one hand to his chest. “A devastating one. The bard takes psychic damage. I may never recover.”

Dustin looked up at the ceiling and gave a whine that already had your fraying nerves ready to explode.  “I’m transferring schools.”

You returned to your desk and sat down with as much dignity as a person could manage after publicly inventing nonsense in front of  teenage-ish boys and the only man in Hawkins apparently immune to your entire existence. 

The rest of the session blurred quickly by then. 

You remembered Eddie glancing at you more than once, which should have felt victorious. And, really, it didn't. Each time his mouth twitched the slightest bit upwards, you fully wanted to disappear behind the costume rack and live there among the fake trees until your brother's graduation.

When the game finally ended, you stood too quickly. The heel of your shoe caught a bit on the edge of the desk,  making a noise that you pretended didn't happen. 

“I’m going to the car,” you told Dustin, motioning behind you with your hand.

“No, you’re not,” Dustin protested immediately, shoving his books into his big backpack. “Mike and I have to settle something.”

You didn't care.  “Settle it in the car.”

“This is important.” Dustin didn't seem to either. 

Your warning was sharper now,  already wanting to disappear given the chance.  “You have thirty seconds.”

“It will take longer than thirty seconds!”

You were ready to leave with or without him, and your mother would only be slightly upset knowing you left him. You could deal with her frowns and soft chastisements, what you couldn't deal with was staying here a moment longer when just you wanted to melt into a puddle just to escape.“Then make it twenty.”

Mike appeared in the doorway, passing around you promptly.  “Dustin, come here.”

Dustin pointed at you and his gaze was sure, “do not leave without me.”

“I should leave without you on principle.”

“You love me too much.”

“Do I, though?”

He ran out before you could answer, his backpack half-zipped, and bouncing against his spine. The room emptied in pieces until only you and Eddie remained. That was doing you much favors either.

The silence after the club always felt strange to you. Too much sound had filled the room for too long, and when it left, the old drama room seemed larger, and full of abandoned corners. Eddie moved around the table, packing away his kingdom. Miniatures disappeared into foam trays. Dice went into bags. Notes were stacked, tapped against the tabletop, and clipped together. The heavy chain at his hip clicked when he bent to retrieve a fallen pencil.

You stayed because Dustin had your car keys in his backpack. The realization came when you had reached for them in your bag and didn't find the familiar keyring, safe to say he really didn't trust you to not leave him. You also stayed because leaving would have required walking past Eddie, and the thought of doing that while he was still visibly amused felt completely and utterly mortifying for you right now.

Mostly, though, you stayed because Eddie finally seemed aware of you. Though, on principle you would deny it if questioned.

He didn't really anything for a minute; instead, he let the quiet stretch while he put things away. That was new, you'd seen him loud, theatrical, amd quick to fill any space he entered. This quiet version of him made you shift in your seat.

At last, he said, “So.”

You stared at the floor, suddenly feeling your relaxed composure become more awkward and forced. “If you’re going to make fun of me, get it over with.”

“Tempting.”

You didn't like his tone. “Munson.”

“I’m thinking.”

The rhythm of familiarity found you before you could stop yourself. “That doesn't sound good.”

He laughed under his breath. Though, not the booming laugh from earlier; rather, it was something smaller, and closer to private. You didn't quite know how to process that. “You stole the kid’s handbook, didn’t you?”

Your head snapped up, feeling weirdly caught off guard.

Eddie’s grin tilted when your face finally came into view, and apparently told him all that he needed to know. “Oh, that is a yes.”

You forced yourself to swallow before answering, as if that gave you some sort of control. It really didn't. “I didn’t steal it.”

“Borrowed without permission?” again, irritatingly accurate.

You tried to make it sound better, and in doing so you just dug yourself deeper. “Borrowed with the assumption that permission would have been denied.”

“Lawful evil.” Eddie's voice was far too amused by now.

You didn't want to further dignify him with a response. “I don’t know what that means, and I refuse to ask.”

He came around the table slowly, not prowling or preforming, it was more like moving with a kind of very bloose ease that made you sit very still and rigid. He stopped at the desk in front of you and leaned back against it, arms folded. Up close, he looked less untouchable than he did at the head of the table. There was a nick near one knuckle. A loose thread hung from his sleeve and his eyeliner, if that was what darkened the edges of his eyes, had worn down unevenly.

“You’ve been trying to figure it out,” he said at last.

You looked away on contact and refused to admit reality. “No.”

Eddie Munson really was annoyed when he was amused. And you decided that you didn't know how to feel about that just yet.“Bad roll.”

Your voice came quickly and unimpressed, or tried to.“I hate you.”

“Another bad roll.” His grin seemed to widen, though that seemed impossible by now.

You rubbed a hand over your face, already feeling worse than you felt before. “Can we not?”

His expression shifted. Not into pity like you'd thought. That really would have been unbearable, and instead, it settled into something more carefully placed, the amusement still there but it was softened at the edges.

“You know,” Eddie started, his forearms now crossed against the other, “most people just call us freaks and keep walking.”

Your eyes dipped for a moment to see the faint black ink on his exposed skin, then immediately looked away. “ Well, I didn’t call you freaks.”

“No. You committed espionage.”

You dropped your hand and glared. That was absolutely not what you did. “I was curious.”

“You were trying to get my attention.”

The words landed too cleanly, and with an embarrassing amount of clarity.

Your mouth opened, then closed. There were several responses available to you. Denial, outrage, even sarcasm. You could have picked any of them. Your usual self would have. Your usual self would never been caught studying a fantasy rulebook at midnight because one guy in a school club had failed to flirt back.

Eddie watched you work through this with infuriating patience.

Finally, you settled on, “maybe I just wanted to understand what Dustin was talking about.”

“That too,” he added then and that threw you off just as quickly

He shrugged, oddly relaxed with your tension. “The kid worships the game. Makes sense you’d want to know why.”

The answer unarmed you because it didn't flatten you into one simple, childish motive. Eddie, who had laughed so hard at your mistake he nearly fell out of his chair, was now giving you more credit than you had given yourself.

Your fingers curled around the edge of the desk, suddenly all too aware of your limbs.

He reached into his dice bag and pulled out a single twenty-sided die. Deep red, almost black except where the light caught the edges. He rolled it between his fingers with practiced ease.

“Here,” he said as if that made perfect sense, and was explanation enough.

You looked at it, then at him. “What?”

“Take it.” that just continued to make you stare at him more wearily than you'd have liked.

“Why?”

“So the next time you want to impress me, you can use the right cursed object.”

Despite yourself, you laughed. It came out entirely too unsteady, half-embarrassed, and somewhat half-relieved. When you held out your hand, he dropped the die into your palm. It was warm from his fingers.

He leaned forward then, bracing one hand on either side of the desk. Not close enough to touch you, but certainly close enough that you noticed the faint smell of cigarettes and leather and then the spearmint gum he must have been chewing earlier. It certainly was close enough that the room seemed to narrow around the space between his arms.

“You don’t have to pretend to like the dragons, Henderson,” he hummed, his head tilting with the words.

His voice had changed now, the loud theatric volume was gone. there wasn't any thunder or mockery that was reserved for his table. It was rougher in this low, rough way that there was still enough of it that you had to hold still to catch all of it.

“If you wanted me to look at you,” his pretty brown eyes were twinkling with an unfair mischief by now, “all you had to do was ask.”

You really should have had an answer ready. You were sure of that by now.

You had answers for everything. That was part of your charm, or your defense, or whatever you wanted to call the shiny thing you carried in front of yourself so no one looked too closely. Yet with Eddie leaning there, rings pressed flat to the desk, hair falling forward, and big eyes fixed on you without the safety of an audience, every clever line scattered out of reach.

So you looked down at the die in your palm. Then back at him. At final, you decided to say, screw it, because what was the worst that could happen? After all, if all went to hell, you could just go back to letting Dustin fend for himself at carpooling home on the weekend.

“I didn’t want to ask.”

His mouth curved and he nodded with an unfair amount of faux pity. “Yeah. I got that.”

You cleared your throat and shrugged. “Seemed bad for my image.”

“Your image?” You tried not to wince at his clear entertainment of the potential prospect your words implied.

The nod that came from you was far from self assured, “I’m very mysterious.”

Eddie didn't seem to be convinced. “You asked if Vvardenfell had spellslots.”

Your eyes narrowed and you couldn't help the subconscious frown that stretched over your face. “You said you weren’t going to make fun of me.”

“I never said that. You asked me to get it over with, and I chose psychological warfare instead.”

The roll of your eyes wasn't subtle and you were glad for it. “You’re awful.”

“True.”

The word hung there, light and easy, but neither of you moved. His gaze dropped briefly to your mouth, quick enough that you could have pretended not to notice if your pulse had not immediately turned traitor.

From the hallway, Dustin shouted making his voice travel quicker before him, “I heard laughing! Are you making fun of her without me?”

Eddie closed his eyes for one second, and you really, really wanted to leave your little brother here at the ruined moment.

You leaned back, exhaling through your nose.

“Saved by the gremlin,” he murmured, and he seemed to mimic your actions, or maybe that was just your wishful thinking. Or ruined, you wanted to say, but you bit your tongue.

Dustin appeared in the doorway, flushed with victory or irritation. Probably both. “We’re leaving.”

You stood, closing your hand around the die. If looks could kill, you'd have to tell your mother to prepare funeral flowers already for him.  “Finally.”

Dustin looked between you and Eddie. His eyes narrowed on instinct from your expression.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” you and Eddie said at the same time, though yours came out more somber than you'd have appreciated. 

Dustin’s suspicion deepened into horror. “Ew.”

“Nothing happened,” you snapped, and you were almost disappointed you were telling the truth. That was a lie, you definitely were disappointed. 

“That was synchronized.”

Your tone hardened, by now your jaw was held completely with gritted tension. “Get in the car.”

“I don’t like this.” The judgemental frown on Dustin's face affirmed that.

You were practically hissing by now. “You don’t have to like it, just get in the car.”

Eddie lifted one hand in farewell, grin returning in lazy increments. You didn't even want to begin to disect that. “Study hard, Henderson.”

You pointed at him with the hand still holding the die between the closed fingers. “Don’t even start.”

You tried not to think about his voice as he answered. It wasn't a successful mission. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You left with Dustin ranting at your side, but your palm stayed closed the entire walk to the parking lot. The die pressed twenty tiny edges into your skin. All noise turned to static to the walk to your car in the parking lot, and all sights turned to a blur.

You had kept it in your jacket pocket for the rest of the week.

───

The main problem, you found, with being seen was that it made invisibility impossible afterward.

Once Eddie knew, he kept knowing.

At the next session, you tried to sit in your usual place near the back. Eddie looked up from behind his screen, spotted you, and frowned.

“Absolutely not. ”

You froze halfway into your chair, a People magazine already halfway out of your bag. “What?”

He pointed to the empty seat beside his end of the table. “New recruit sits where I can keep an eye on her.”

Dustin made a strangled noise alongside Lucas. “New what?”

“I’m not a recruit,” you immediately rejected the prospect. Sure, you'd admit you learned a few terms in hopes of impressing the guy, but a recruit? You couldn't be less interested even if you tried.

Eddie held up the matching red die you had forgotten he could identify from across the room. “Possession of contraband says otherwise.”

The sputter you gave was filled with incredulity. “You gave it to me?” 

“And you accepted. Binding contract.” You couldn't help the face you made then.

“That is not how contracts work.” 

“You’d know if you read the legal section of the handbook.” Eddie’s voice was gleeful and in a song-y pitch.

You were sure that had to be a joke. “There isn’t a legal section.”

“Look at you,” he grinned, pleased. “Learning.”

You should have refused omce more, and you should have stayed at the back and maintained some remaining fragment of dignity.

Instead, with Dustin staring at you in betrayed disbelief, you picked up your bag and moved to the seat beside the Dungeon Master screen. 

You really were out of your depth in this situation. 

The table absorbed you awkwardly at first. Mike eyed you with the distrust of someone who did not enjoy unexpected variables. Lucas seemed amused but cautious, he was always your favorite after all. Though, Dustin sat directly across from you, practically vibrating with the need to object. You couldn't help but agree.

Eddie handed you a blank character sheet and you looked at him like he'd grown ten different heads.

You looked at the paper like it’d explain itself and it looked back doing nothing of the sort. It was covered in boxes, lines, and labels that seemed designed to expose your ignorance.

“Don’t panic,” Eddie murmured under his breath besides you. His voice hitting your ears differently now that it was closer.

“I’m not panicking.” you were, and you were panicking hard.

“You’re holding the pencil too hard.”

You loosened your grip on instinct, and immediately hate the grin that appeared on his face.

Dustin leaned forward, his cherubic features exasperated, and for good reason. “She doesn’t even know what class she wants.”

“I know what class I want,” you protested with a fervor that you didn't know where it even came from.

Your little brother sounded akin to a parrot. “Oh yeah? What?”

You glanced at the sheet. Your brain offered nothing useful. Quickly then, you blinked a few times in hopes that the words might suddenly translate themselves. It didn’t help.

Eddie tapped one section with his finger. “She’s thinking.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking,” you echoed. The nod of your head was quickly stopped when you realized just how much familiar you looked akin to a baby duck and the older ones beside it.

Mike muttered with a groan then, “This is going to take forever.”

Eddie’s head snapped up, his tongue clicked quietly,  almost as if it were on instinct. “Wheeler.”

Mike sat back at that, his arms coming up to cross against his chest.

You bit the inside of your cheek to hide a smile. It didn't do much to stop the slightly shocked expression from stretching across your face. You tried not think about the reaction from the  moment pulled from you, or what you felt when Eddie’s hand came to pull the leg of your chair closer.

Eddie guided you through the sheet with surprising patience. You weren't expecting it, after all, it wasn't the exaggerated patience boys sometimes used when they wanted everyone to notice how generous they were being. You knew that language well enough back at your college campus. He didn't talk down to you in a condescending way that was familiar in the way men tried to explain simple things. He did not make it too easy either. Instead, he explained, waited, watched your face, and even corrected you when you guessed wrong. When wanted Dustin interrupted, Eddie lifted one finger without looking at him.

“Let the lady cook up her ideas.”

“She is not cooking. She is burning water.” That got a glare from you, but he continued. “Seriously, she actually did burn a pot boiling water one time—” he was quickly interrupted when you kicked him under the table, the heel of your shoe pressing into his knee.

He yelped and shot up slightly in his seat, that did little to ease your glare, and now, his. “Assault!”

“Consequence,” Eddie gave a simple shrug, leaning back with all the confidence you seemed to have everywhere except from where he was.

The game itself remained confusing to you, but not entirely impossible now. You learned that part of the fun was pretending certainty until the dice betrayed you. You learned that the younger wheeler argued when nervous, how Lucas got quieter when invested, and Dustin could really turn any number into a personal grievance. 

You also learned that Eddie’s chaos had structure underneath it. He let the room run wild only until it needed direction, then snapped everyone back with a look, a voice, amd then caused a sudden shift in the stakes.

You had also then learned that if you asked a question softly enough, Eddie would lean closer to answer.

The first time, it was accidental. You genuinely could not even remember which die to roll for an attack. You bent toward him and whispered, “Which one is the stabby one?”

His mouth twitched, his rose tinted lips were bit back to hide amusement.

“The stabby one,” he repeated in a familiar hush of your tone.

The frown came instinctively with the feeling of being poked fun at. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, and I’m deciding whether to let that become official terminology.”

“Eddie, come on.”

His amusement stayed in his energy but he moved instantly. He reached across you to pick up the twenty-sided die, his arm brushing the back of your chair as he did so. “This one.”

His hair grazed your cheek when he leaned in. It wasn’t in any way cinematic, in fact, it was barely enough to really count it. Still, your hand paused above the table, and your fingers hovered for a moment over the die.

Across from you, Dustin went still in a way that could only be compared to a prying mantis’ steady gaze.

You rolled the die, albeit a bit hesitantly.

A nineteen apeared.

The table erupted, and the jump of your shoulders along with it. You were fully prepared to face whatever stupid bragging comment from your little brother across from you at that.

Eddie then slammed both of his hands down and went back to his theatrics. “Critical threat from the rookie!”

“I did something?” you asked, entirely startled. You scanned the table quickly to make sure it wasn't just Eddie making fun of you again.

“You did something,” Lucas said with a nod of his head, grinning.

Dustin pointed at you, clearly displeased. And of course, that was to your much greater pleasure on the win won over your younger brother. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Sounds like jealousy,” you gave a pitying nod with your lips brought together in a mocking pout.

Dustin's corrective voice came out quickly, it often did when you were right. You'd learned that ever since he could talk and you could tease him. “It is statistical outrage.”

Eddie leaned back in his chair, eyes bright, and his voice a pitch calmer now. “Roll damage, Henderson.”

You didn't know what damage to roll. So, you asked, even though Eddie had told you three minutes earlier. He leaned in again, closer this time, and showed you with a murmur meant only for you. You had to stop yourself from asking another time. Though, you weren't perfect. 

After that, the accidents became less accidental.

You misplaced numbers you had already learned, which were already very little. You asked whether your character could do something obviously illegal within the rules just to hear Eddie explain why with increasing theatrical despair. You let your pencil roll off the table and watched him bend to retrieve it, then thanked him with a smile that made his fingers linger around it a second longer than necessary.

Eddie, for all his noise, was not stupid. There could be many words to describe him, but stupid wasn’t an entirely accurate one.

By the second week of this new arrangement, he had caught on.

You knew because he stopped correcting you immediately. He would wait, the watch you from behind the screen while you pretended to study your character sheet.

“Question?” he would ask, and you had to bit the flesh of your lips in order not to smile.

Your voice came back cool, you appluaded yourself on that. “Maybe.”

“About the rules?” Eddie’s came back low and questioning, you tried to ignore the faint tinge of amusement you heard In it.

“Obviously.”

“Not about my hair being in your personal space?”

You would look up, innocent expression plastered on as you asked. “Is that a rule?”

His grin would spread slowly, and you would try to repeat that as many times as you could just to see it again. “It is now.”

Your little brother suffered through this with the rigid endurance of a boy witnessing a natural disaster in his own home.

“This is disgusting,” he announced one night after Eddie leaned over your shoulder to point at your spell list. You had had to actually bite your tongue in order not to snap at him.

“You say that about everything,” you replied swiftly, throwing him a barely there glance as you kept your head tilted slightly so you could peek at Eddie through the corner of your eye.

His whine was throughly ignored by you.“Because everything keeps being disgusting.” 

Eddie did not move away, that was the only win you really cared about by now. His hand rested on the table near your elbow, silver rings glinting beneath the overhead lights. “Henderson the Younger, your sister is simply pursuing an education.”

Dustin's voice came murmured. “She sure is pursuing something alright.”

“Careful,” you warned, though without looking up. The tip of one of the stored up threats already prepared on your tongue.

Dustin gagged loudly besides Mike who snickered so hard he had to hide behind his binder.

That was how the weeks changed. Slowly enough that you did not notice the shape of them until you were already inside it. Though, it was a weirdly welcome routine.

You still drove back to Hawkins every Friday afternoon after classes pretending it was for laundry or dinner or because Dustin needed you. But your bag started including the red die, your half-finished character sheet, and a notebook where your class notes competed with scribbled spell names. Your mother asked why you were home so often, and you told her college food was bad. She believed you because college food was, in fact, bad. 

Eddie started saving you the seat beside him.

Sometimes he teased you in front of everyone. Sometimes, when the others were arguing, he lowered his voice and asked about your classes. Not in the empty way people asked because they wanted their turn to talk. He remembered details. The sociology professor who mispronounced your last name. The dormate who you were sure was draining your expensive shampoo. Even the stupid party with the rugby boy and the boat.

“You hate the boat guy,” he said one evening while packing up while you had been seated atop of an empty desk table.

You'd made a face at him. “I never said I hated him.”

“You called him ‘the human yacht brochure.’”

“That was descriptive.” that had been your attempt at flowery embellishment.

“That was poetry.”

You snorted and took a stack of papers from him without being asked. “Are you making fun of my academic environment?”

“Never. I deeply respect institutions that produce phrases like ‘human yacht brochure.’” Eddie’s voice would come back in dramatic tandem with the familiar twinkle in his big eyes.

In return, you learned pieces of him in the spaces between performances. He liked cheap diner coffee but complained about it every time. He taped his guitar picks to the inside of his notebook and lost them anyway. He acted insulted when people underestimated him but looked uneasy when they praised him too directly. He walked Dustin to the parking lot if the session ran late, pretending he only did it because your brother was too short to see over parked cars.

On one Friday, during a break, you found a note folded beneath your character sheet.

You looked up.

Eddie was behind his screen, apparently absorbed in drawing a map. His hair hid most of his face, but the corner of his mouth gave him away. That reaction had your brow twitching on instinct.

You unfolded the paper in your lap.

It wasnt what you were expecting. There was no lore on the white material, no clue, certainly no dramatic prophecy.

Instead, it was just a phone number, written in messy black ink, and with a crooked little crown drawn beside it.

Beneath that:

For emergencies involving dragons, spellslots, or pretty girls with wounded pride.

You stared at it until the words blurred slightly at the edges, and the smile that grew on your lips had to be bitten back by the fangs of your teeth.

Dustin leaned over, overly interested for a boy who had been fighting with you for any small noise he deemed a distraction. “What is that?”

You folded it so quickly the paper nearly tore. Though, it did little to wipe the expression from your face or the warmth that crawled and rested besides the back of your neck. “Nothing.”

He didn't seem convinced. “That didn't look like nothing.”

“It’s game stuff.”

Dustin seemed motivated now. “Show me.”

“No.” you barely looked up at him.

He leaned even further over, his head poking over your shoulder as he frowned. “Show me.”

“Roll perception,” Eddie then called without looking up. That just made it even harder to school your expression, or even worse, your reaction.

Dustin turned on him, with greater conviction. “Don’t encourage her!”

Eddie finally lifted his head. His eyes found yours, and for once his grin did not arrive right away. Instead, it built slowly, almost careful, and all while your thumb pressed against the fold in the note.

You tucked it into your pocket and tried to act like you weren't wholly aware of it. 

Later, after you dropped Dustin at home and sat in your room with the door locked, you dialed the number from memory because taking out the note again felt too embarrassing. Though, it wasn't much better to amdit it only took a few glaces to memorize it either.

Eddie answered on the fourth ring.

“Munson residence,” he had answered blankly. “If you’re calling about the ritual sacrifice allegations, our official statement is no comment.”

You sat on the edge of your bed, biting your smile into the side of your thumb. “What if I’m calling about dragons?”

A pause took place for a moment.

Then his voice changed, warmth threaded through the static. That warmth seemed to transfer out from the receiver quickly. “Hey, Henderson.”

You talked for forty-seven minutes. 

About nothing important at first. Then about music. Then about school. Then about how neither of you knew what counted as a normal conversation once Dustin and dice were removed from the equation. Eddie made you laugh so hard you had to press the receiver against your shoulder and cover your mouth because your mother’s room was down the hall.

Near the end, when the line had gone softer and both of you were tired enough to stop performing, he cleared his throat suddenly, “You doing anything Saturday?”

You stared at the wall as you shifted uproght on your bed, knees becoming propped up on the soft material. 

“Define doing.”

“Leaving your house. With me. No freshmen. No dice unless you’re into that now.” His voice seemed less sure as he went on, and for a second you were truly wondering if he'd actually been rambling or if that was your wishful thinking again.

You pressed your free hand into your temple, as willed your voice to behave and not jump. “Are you asking me to hang out, Munson?”

His laugh sent goosebumps against your skin as you heard it ring directly into your ear.“Terrible, right? Very uncool of me.”

“Devastating.” Your tone was unconvincing. 

“I can take it back.”

“Don’t.” The word came out quicker than you meant it to. And once more, you gave a faint curse as you covered the receiver to get a grip.

On the other end, Eddie went quiet. The only real sound was a faint swallow of his, that you were sure mirrored your own.

You picked at a loose thread in your blanket now, resisting the urge to scream at how your body seemed mindless in behaving to what you wished for. “I mean, yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

“Whatever,” he repeated, amusement clear as day in his voice.

You made that familiar face, though It was concealed just to you in the comfort of your room. You cleared your throat before giving a hum. “Don’t make it weird.”

He didn't seem particularly affected by the attempt at collection.  “Henderson, weird is my primary export.”

You smiled at your knees.

By the time you hung up, you realized you had failed to ask where you were going, what you were doing, or even what kind of hangout Eddie Munson considered appropriate for a Saturday night with the older sister of one of his so called  “sheep”.

That failure came back to punish you.

Your bedroom looked bombed out by Saturday afternoon.

Clothes covered every available surface. Your bed had disappeared beneath the wreckage of six different versions of yourself. A knit sweater that made you look studious but possibly boring. A tight black top that felt too obvious the second you put it on. A skirt you had worn to a party once and now regarded with suspicion due to the memories in them. A denim jacket you liked until you remembered Eddie’s vest and threw it across the chair in a panic.

You stood in the middle of the mess wearing jeans, socks, and a bra, holding two shirts against your chest while your reflection looked back at you from the dresser mirror with open accusation.

This was Eddie Munson.

He practically raved about being the towns outcast. He wore ripped denim and chains to school. He stood on tables. He drew crowns on phone numbers and called freshmen sheep. He might take you to a diner. He might take you to a concert. He might take you to his trailer and play music loud enough to rattle your fillings. He might not even consider this a date at all, in which case showing up too polished would make you want to walk into traffic.

You changed again.

Then again.

By the time the doorbell rang, your nerves had turned physical. They hit your stomach, your hands, the back of your neck.

You bolted out of your room, still tugging one sleeve into place, anm your socks slid on the waxed hallway floor. From the kitchen came a blur of curls, graphic tee, and pure fourteen-year-old malice.

Dustin.

“No,” you hissed as you looked down at his closer position to the doorway. “No, no, no! Dustin, don’t you dare–”

“I live here too!” he shouted back, and he was already sprinting before you could even say anything else.

You lunged for him with a precision that came from years of keeping him grounded and caught the back of his shirt. He made a strangled sound, twisted with the terrifying flexibility of someone who had not yet learned to fear injury, and planted one foot against the floor.

“Move,” you all but seethed, hopping your voice was quiet enough it didnt announce the possible situation to anyone else in close area.

He didn’t share your sentiment and yelled back. “No!”

“Dustin.”

“I have a right to know who’s at my door.”

“You know who’s at the door, you dork!”

“Exactly!”

You reached for the knob. Dustin threw his shoulder back with shocking force. Your shoulder hit the wall with a dull thud, and for one breath you were too stunned to react.

“You little—”

He yanked the door open as your cursed turned faint as you rubbed at your shoulder with a wince, and before you could even prepare yourself mentally Eddie stood infront of you on the porch.

He was leaned against the railing with his hands tucked in his jacket pockets, his hair loose around his face, and his expression caught halfway between greeting and confusion. He wore his leather jacket, of course he would, and dark jeans with one knee torn. But his shirt looked unnaturally proper, not formal, but clean cut. His hair looked slightly less wild than usual. He had probably tried, which did something inconvenient to your chest.

Eddie didn't seem to expect he sight that welcomed him, and blinked at the scene in the doorway: Dustin planted in front of him, you shoved against the hallway wall, one sleeve still twisted at your wrist.

“Evening,” Eddie settled for carefully.

“Eddie,” Dustin barked quickly in greeting, and you kicked at your brother but his unexpected jolt of adrenaline induced strength made it difficult. 

Eddie’s eyebrows climbed and he blinked even slower now at the shorter boy. “Henderson.”

Dustin stepped fully into the doorway, turning himself into a small, aggressive barricade. A barricade that you were trying to shove out of the way of the doorway that was hidden to you.  “Look, man. I don’t know what kind of brain damage you suffered at the table last week, but you don’t want to do this.”

You closed your eyes and was ready to just give up on pure instinct of knowing what came next.

Dustin continued with the confidence of a prophet. “She’s so not cool. She thought a saving throw was a baseball term again three days ago. And she listens to pop radio!” That had you jabbing your elbow in his ribcage, having purposefully left that out last night on your phone call. He shoved back into you as he continued. “She has a decorative pillow that says ‘dream big.’ Save yourself.”

“That pillow was a gift,” you snapped as you tried to calm whatever dignity you could in your current position.

Eddie’s face opened into delight. You saw it happen in real time. It was slow, helpless delight that appeared. His eyes flicked over Dustin’s head and landed on you, still half-pinned by embarrassment and a badly behaved sleeve.

“Is that so?” he drawled. The tone was more pointed than you'd have liked, more specifically because when asked last night you'd just given a vague answer in hopes his named artists rang any familiar bells in your head. “A pop fan?”

“Don’t,” you warned, though it felt already weak all thing consodered.

“Man.” He shook his head with grave disappointment. “My reputation in the trailer park is going to take a serious hit.”

Dustin jabbed a finger toward Eddie. “I’m serious. She’s going to pretend she understands your music and then ask if the singer is okay.”

Your voice came quick with indignation. “I did not ask if the singer was okay!”

Dustin did little to help, and you really should've known he wouldn't do anything of the sort when you'd asked him about the artists Eddie had mentioned last night. “You asked if he needed water.”

“He sounded dehydrated!” the defense came pathetically weak now.

Eddie pressed his lips together, visibly fighting for control. That did little to help you gain back your dignity. 

You pushed away from the wall and advanced on your brother. “Dustin, shut your mouth.”

“I am protecting the integrity of Hellfire!”

“You are about to lose teeth.”

“You can’t threaten me in front of company.” He sounded to sure of himself for your liking.

“Wanna bet?” Your scoff came just as quick as his. Finally twisting from your position, you put your whole palm over his face and pushed back.

Dustin shrieked into your hand, muffled and outraged, while you shoved his head backward and wedged yourself into the doorway. He tried to bite your fingers. You moved them just in time and shot him a look that promised violence later.

Then you turned to Eddie and offered the tightest smile of your life.

“I’ll be right out,” your voice came a little too disheveled for your liking. “I just need to grab my bag.”

Eddie gave you a lazy two-finger salute, big eyes bright as they locke donto yours. “Take your time, Henderson. I’ll stay here and let your manager give me the full warning label.”

Dustin wrenched your hand away finally. “Good. Because there’s more–”

“No, there is not,” you turned your head back to glare furiously at your annoyance of a brother.

“There is so much more.”

You fled before either of them could continue. But if referred to in the future, you refused all admittance of the usuage of the word.

Back in your room, you grabbed your bag, stared at yourself once in the mirror, and decided there was no salvaging dignity from a situation that had begun with your little brother publicly mentioning your decorative pillow. You fixed your sleeve, took a breath, and returned to the front door.

Dustin and Eddie stood on the porch now. Dustin had his arms crossed. Eddie was listening with exaggerated seriousness.

“—and she cheats at Monopoly,” Dustin was saying and you immediately regretted leaving him alone with Eddie. 

“I was eight!”

“You bankrupted me.”

Your voice was all loud and disbelieving. “You couldn’t count, how was that my fault?”

Eddie looked between you with open fascination. It was a look you'd have preffered not to show him on the first…whatever this was. “This family has layers.”

“Goodnight, Dustin,” your voice was now strained and fixed.

Dustin pointed at Eddie again. “Home by eleven.”

You stared at him with a wide eyed disbelieving look that you were sure could compete with your mother's. Eddie coughed into his fist, throughly breaking you out of your agape expression.

“You are not my father,” you scoffed, it was hard to take the words of a 14 year old boy seriously when you were already half a decade older than him. 

Dustin returned your expression, arms crossed against his chest in a way that seemed less intimidating and more endearing if it wasn't embarrassing you at the moment. “No, but I am Mom’s favorite.”

You felt your eye twitch, needing to correct the wording. “You are Mom’s loudest.”

“Same thing.”

Eddie stepped backward off the porch, still grinning. His grin didn't seem to die down even slightly even when your head twisted to look at him with a glare. “For the record, I respect a strong managerial presence.”

“Don’t, encourage him,” you strained to keep a even tone, brushing past Dustin.

Dustin followed you to the edge of the porch and yelled out. “If he murders you, I’m telling Mom you stole my Walkman.”

You turned, an exasperated sigh left you as you looked up to the skin for an intervention, and when recieved by none, you just closed your eyes shut. “If he murders me, I think Mom will have bigger concerns.”

“Not if she finds out about the Walkman first.”

You didn't even bother responding to that, already walking to your driveway. Eddie came up from behind you and opened the passenger door of his van with a flourish. “Your chariot, my lady.”

You glanced at Dustin, and gave a flat tone as your hand gestured to Eddie from beside you. “See? Chivalry.”

Dustin made a gagging sound so violent it followed you all the way down the driveway. It was safe to say he was thoroughly tuned out quickly. Eddie waited until you were both inside the van, the doors shut, and the engine rumbling reluctantly beneath you, before he looked over.

He asked at last, with a grin that had you wanting to melt into his keather seats. “Decorative pillow?”

“Drive.”

“Dream big?”

Your eyes were now firmly screwed shut, as if peering into an abyss could save you from any more possible embarrassment. “Munson.”

Eddie finally put the van in gear, and had laughter tugging at his mouth. “I’m just trying to build a complete character sheet.”

Your voice was strained enough to be considered static. “You are one comment away from walking.”

“You’d make me walk from your own driveway?” His amusement did little to keep the warmth down from your body.

“I’d make you walk from another state.”

He laughed then, one hand on the wheel, and the other reaching to turn down the music before it could fully blast through the speakers. That surprised you. You had braced for noise, for chaos, for Eddie in full volume. Instead, the van rolled through the Hawkins suburbs under a dimming sky, and the music was low enough to sit beneath the conversation rather than swallow it.

You watched familiar houses slide past. Porches, lawns, bikes tipped over near driveways, and the windows lit warm against the blue evening. Hawkins looked different from Eddie’s passenger seat. Not better, necessarily but not worse. It felt looser around the edges, if Hawkins could ever be considered loose.

“So,” you asked after a quick, restless minute. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

Eddie answered quick. “Nope.”

You threw him a look from the passengers seat. You let your head lean back against the seats, feeling oddly comforted in the position of being the non driver for once. “That’s not ominous at all.”

His voice came back airy, his hands tapped against his wheel, and the faint thud of his rings made quiet noises that only appeared when you listened for them. “It’s a test.”

“For what?” 

“Trust. Adventurous spirit. Ability to withstand questionable upholstery.”

You glanced at the seat beneath you. “Already failing the third one.”

Eddie’s gasp came all too familiar, dramatic and warm. “Rude to insult a man’s steed.”

“Your steed has duct tape.” your voice did little to soften, and neither did your expression.

He ammended with a shrug in his shoulders. “Battle scars.”

You smiled despite yourself and looked out the window again. Eddie drove with one wrist loose over the wheel, but he paid attention. He checked mirrors. He slowed near a group of kids on bikes. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel again  in time with a song you did not know, and his rings catching the last of the light.

“You’re quiet,” he hummed after a moments rest.

“I’m assessing whether I’m being kidnapped.”

Eddie’s expression turned entertained quickly, his head tirning to you for a second before looking bavk to his path. “To a public location? Very poor kidnapping strategy.”

“Maybe that’s what makes it clever.”

He nodded, his head bobbed alongside his curls, and a exhaled left his lips. “See, this is why you’re college material.”

The road opened beyond the clustered neighborhoods, taking you past the edge of town where Hawkins thinned into trees and gas stations and long stretches of darkening field. The air through the cracked window smelled of cut grass, dust, and the faint metallic coolness that came after sunset. You let your hand rest near the window and felt your fingertips catching the draft.

After a calm twenty minutes, Eddie pulled into the parking lot of a diner you had only ever seen from the road. Its neon sign buzzed red and blue over the entrance, and a few cars sat scattered across the cracked asphalt. Through the windows, you could see booths upholstered in faded vinyl, chrome-edged tables, and one waitress refilling coffee beneath fluorescent light.

You looked over at him, clearly surpised. It wasn't necessarily the diner that shocked you, it was more so the fact that he brought you to one. After all, he didn't scream like the diner type. “A diner?”

He shut off the engine and suddenly seemed less sure of himself. It only lasted a second, but you caught it. The way his fingers tapped once against the keys before he pulled them free. The quick glance toward the building.

“I figured neutral territory,” he cleared his throated after a moment, voice still coming up a little raspy. “No kids. No dragons. Food that probably won’t kill us.”

“Probably?”

“I like to keep expectations realistic.” Your eyes rolled before you could help it, and your smile came even more instinctive. 

You followed him inside.

The diner smelled of frying oil, coffee, sugar, and old smoke embedded in the walls probably from years of people ignoring signs. A bell over the door gave a tired jingle when Eddie held it open. The waitress looked up, recognized him, and pointed with her pen toward a booth near the back.

“Don’t make a mess, Munson.”

You probably did a poor job of hiding your clear surprise, but thankfully, your weren't the main focus. Eddie pressed a hand to his chest. “You wound me, Marge.”

The older woman's response came weary. “You still owe me for the sugar packets.”

“They were for science.” Eddie's was all relaxed charm. 

“They were for your friends throwing them.”

“Social science.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was no real bite in it. She gave you a small smile before moving on to her customers. 

You slid into the booth across from him. The vinyl stuck faintly to the backs of your legs. The table had a little metal napkin dispenser, a ketchup bottle with dried sauce crusted near the cap, and a laminated menu that curled at one corner. Outside, headlights passed in brief white streaks across the window. Every so often one caught your eyes, making your head stare out the window.

Eddie shrugged out of his jacket and shoved it beside him. Without the leather and the club table and the audience, he looked different. Not smaller in any real way, perhaps just more human. His shirt was faded soft from washing, there was one curl caught near mouth, and he blew it away twice before finally pushing it back with an impatient hand.

You ordered milkshakes and fries because Eddie claimed anything else here was “a dance with the digestive devil.” Another waitress brought water in cloudy plastic cups and left you alone.

For the first few minutes, the conversation came out uneven.

You asked about his band because it felt safe. He answered with enthusiasm, then caught himself and asked about your classes. You gave him a funny story about a professor who wore the same brown jacket every lecture. He laughed, then drummed his fingers against the table,and tthen stopped when he noticed you watching.

It was strange, seeing him search for the right amount of himself to use. You certainly weren't used to it. And you couldn't exactly say you liked it,  sure you appreciated he seemed to make an effort but it felt a bit too straining for you to really embrace the results.

At Hellfire, Eddie filled rooms because the room and kids expected him to. Here, with only you across from him, he seemed to test the air before tossing a joke into it. Some landed. Some didn’t. When one didn’t, he winced and covered it with another. You recognized the habit because you had your own version: a smile angled just right, a sarcastic or breezy comment delivered before anyone could tell you cared.

The fries arrived hot enough to steam. Eddie immediately dumped ketchup onto the paper placemat.

“Okay,” he said, grabbing a fry. Immediately, you were sure you weren't to interested in whatever would be done. “Educational demonstration.”

Your lips let out a small exhale “Oh no.”

Eddie’s gave a grin. “Oh yes.”

He placed one fry upright in the ketchup. It fell over just as quickly. Against yourself, you leaned in, with one hand cupping your cheek as you watched him rather that whatever he was so focused on showing you.

He frowned at it, ghe pout on his lips oddly cute. The thought was quickly shut down as you forced your eyes to avert their gaze and stare at the plate of fries. “Dustin’s wizard is drunk.”

“Already?”

“It might be a morale issue.”

You laughed, and he looked pleased enough to continue. Eddie tore a corner off the paper placemat and drew a crooked square grid with a pen from his pocket. Then he arranged fries across it, using a salt packet, a napkin wad, and one tragic pickle slice to represent enemies.

“So if this fry is Dustin’s wizard,” he began and you really tried to listen, “and this puddle of ketchup is a dragon—”

Your voice cut his explanation off quickly.  “Why is the dragon a puddle?”

“Budget cuts. Stay with me.”

“I’m trying.”

Eddie's fingers then decided upon your fate soon after that. “And this fry is your character.”

“My character gets to be a fry?” Your head slightly tilted as you tried to envision the structure he was trying to compare it too.

His voice came automatic in its pace, and light in its teasing. “An elegant fry. Distinguished. Wounded pride. Great hair.”

You pointed at him, and had to display a great amount of willpower to bite back your smile. “Careful. Flattery'll get you everywhere”

He grinned and moved your fry to the edge of the placemat. “You can’t just run straight at the dragon because, one, you’ll die, and two, Dustin will write a ten-page complaint about party strategy. So you move here, flank with Sinclair’s guy, and then—”

He demonstrated by dragging Dustin’s fry directly through the ketchup.

You stared, eyes promptly wide as you gaped up at him in offense. “You just killed my brother.”

“It was an ccupational hazard.”

You didn't bother controlling the grin now, and it seemed like neither did Eddie. You leaned back against your side of the booth and hummed. “Does he know you think of him this way?”

The solenm nod came entirely exasperating. “He knows I value his sacrifice.”

You were still laughing when Eddie looked up at you through his bangs. His hand remained on the table, fingers shiny with salt. The smile stayed, but it eased into something quieter.

“You really didn’t have to do all that,” he cleared his throat after his pitch ended up smaller than he menat near the end.

You reached for your milkshake spoon, stirring though there was nothing to stir. You didn't look up right away, letting the cool mixture hit your tastebuds. “Do what?”

“Read the handbook. Show up every week. Watch a bunch of geeks yell at plastic dice.” Eddie's finger seemed to fidget restlessly, bringing your sight to the twisting of his rings that had him restless.

The exhale you gave was airy in its amusement. “You make it sound so glamorous.”

“I’m serious.” that was when you glanced up.

He was serious. That was the problem, or rather a problem. Eddie serious was harder to handle than Eddie loud. Loud Eddie gave you places to hide, but serious Eddie seemed to look at you and wait.

Your spoon scraped softly against the glass.

“My pride was wounded,” you admitted with a small raise of your shoulders.

His eyebrows lifted and you continued.

You shrugged again, trying to make it lighter than it actually felt. “I’m used to being the cool older sibling.”

“Ah.”

His lack of reaction brought that familiar prickle up your spine. “You completely ignored me.”

Eddie leaned back against the booth. For a second, his face went blank with surprise. Then he laughed, low and genuine, shaking his head.

“Ignored you?” 

The laughter did little to make you feel appeased, but a small part of it made your heart stutter. You decided you would let the small part win this time. “You did!”

“I absolutely did not.”

Your words came pointed. “You called me Henderson’s ride all off-handedly.”

“Because I was trying not to stare at Henderson’s sister.” Eddie’s came as a incredulous scoff as his arms crossed against his chest, the movement tensing the muscles against the fabric of his shirt.

The words moved across the table and left the air changed behind them.

You looked down too late to hide your reaction. Heat had already climbed your neck. And your fingers tightened around the spoon, stirring thoughtlessly around your milkshake.

Eddie noticed, and of course he noticed, you had a feeling he had always noticed more than he admitted.

“You’re an actual college girl,” he decided to say after a moment, his voice a little softer. “You're like actually smart—I mean Dustin never shuts up about you—and you walked in looking—” He stopped, huffed at himself, then tried again. “You walk in looking like you know exactly what you’re doing. And I’m supposed to what? Casually flirt in front of the sheep while your little brother is sitting three feet away with the moral judgment of a tiny pope?”

You pressed your lips together, though it didn't help much. “A tiny pope?”

His words came with a somber expression then. “With braces.”

You laughed into your hand.

Eddie took that moment to reach over a steal one of your un-ketchuped fries while you were distracted. His knuckles brushed your wrist. It was brief, barely anything really. But still, neither of you moved right away.

His fingers rested on the table beside yours.

The diner continued around you. Plates clattered near the kitchen. A man at the counter coughed into his coffee. Marge refilled a cup without looking near the cashier. Neon continued to buzz against the window, none of it vanished. Nothing became cinematic or clean. Your milkshake glass left a wet ring on the table. One of Eddie’s rings were twisted to far back on one finger. Your brother’s name was still somewhere between you, ridiculous and unavoidable.

That made it worse.

Or better. You didn't quite know yet. But you decided that then and there, you wanted to find out. 

You turned your wrist slightly, sp that it was enough that your knuckles touched his. Eddie’s gaze dropped then quickly. He smiled without showing his teeth, but his eyes weren't so unaffected.

“Pretty girl with a lot of pride,” he murmured, his sigh amused and almost dreamy in a way that made you unable to stare directly into his eyes for long. “Dangerous combination.”

Your breath caught, but you managed to roll your eyes. “You’re certainty impressed with yourself.”

Eddie placed a large palm over his heart and his head bowed. “Constantly. It’s a burden.”

You let your own voice become exaggerated in response. “Must be hard.”

“You have no idea.”

The rest of the date, because by then, even if neither of you had said it, the shape of it had become obvious, unfolded without the sharpness you had feared originally. Eddie told you about his band’s worst show, where the power went out halfway through a song and the drummer kept playing for almost a minute before noticing. You told him about your other roommate’s habit of labeling every item in the mini fridge, including a single slice of cheese. Eddie confessed school never really was for him, but he said it with enough practiced humor that you heard the bruise beneath it.

You did not press either ways; instead, you stole one of his fries.

He looked at you, offended. That only won him a grin in return. “Thief.”

“You stole mine first!” 

Eddie’s tone was all fake hurt and offended. “Mine was romantic.”

“Mine was justice then.”

He leaned forward with a entertained look then. “You know, for someone new to campaigns, you’re picking up revenge arcs fast.”

“You’re a good teacher.” your voice seemed to be so genuine that it shut him up.

Only briefly, but it seemed to be entirely enough.

He looked down at the made up battlefield of fries and ketchup, mouth twisting at one corner. When he looked back at you, the softness there made you reach for your milkshake just to have something to do with your hands.

Long after,  in the drive home, he played the radio music louder, but not too loud. You did ask if the singer needed water. Eddie nearly had to pull over from laughing.

“He sounds pained,” you insisted with a bite of your tongue. 

“He’s expressing the agony of existence.”

“He should express it with tea.”

Eddie’s weary sigh was worth the small moment of weakness. “You’re killing me.”

“Hydration is important.” you didn't let up on your positioning, a shrug on your shoulders.

“I can’t believe I let a pop listener into my campaign.”

You weren't going to take all of the heat. “You gave a pop listener your phone number.”

“Moment of weakness.” His grin didn't seem to match his words. 

“You drew a crown.”

“A flourish.”

You were, needless to say, thoroughly unconvinced.  “A romantic flourish.”

He glanced over, big brown eyes catching green from the dashboard lights. “Maybe.”

You looked out the window because your smile felt too honest all of a sudden. 

Hawkins returned slowly, first as scattered houses, then familiar turns, and then your street folded under the quiet weight of midnight. Eddie cut the headlights before the van fully stopped at the curb, leaving the interior dim and green-lit, and all hard edges softened by darkness.

The music ended. He turned the volume down until the speakers gave only a faint hiss.

For a moment, neither of you opened your door. And neither of you made a move to.

“So,” Eddie swallowed his head looking straight ahead, his hands resting loosely on the wheel now but still restless. “Did the horizon expand enough for you tonight, college girl? Or was it an all-time low?”

You leaned your head back against the seat and turned to look at him. In the low light, his face was mostly shadow: the sharp line of his nose, the curve of his mouth, and even the dark fall of his hair. Without the diner’s neon, and without his club's noise, he seemed to be waiting again. Giving you the room to decide what the night had been.

“Shut up,” you scoffed softly, but the smile softened it promptly. 

His mouth curved almost as if he were in on an important secret. 

“It was,” you added, then paused because saying it plainly felt unnaturally dangerous. “Surprisingly high.”

Eddie’s smile changed. It was small, even more genuine now, and entirely stripped of almost everything he usually put in front of it.

“Yeah?”

Your voice didn't come out as sharp as you'd have liked. “Don’t make me repeat it.”

“I would never.”

That made you laugh for one second, before settling with a hun. “You absolutely would.”

Eddie seemed to agree with a soft shrug of his own. “Only under extreme circumstances.”

The silence returned, but it was not empty. It sat between you with warmth in it, with the leftover buzz in your blood, and with the hum of the van and the faint chirp of insects beyond the curb.

Eddie shifted first.

He leaned across the center console slowly enough that you had every chance to move away. You didn’t. His hand came up to the headrest beside you, his thumb brushing near your temple, not quite touching your skin at first. His eyes searched your face, and for once neither of you covered the pause with a joke.

When he finalky leaned in to kiss you, it was careful for half a second.

Then you made a small sound against his mouth, startled by your own wanting, and his hand slid from the headrest to the side of your face. The kiss deepened unevenly, sweet and clumsy around the edges, interrupted once by your elbow knocking the gearshift and Eddie huffing a laugh against your lips. You laughed too, breathless, and then abeuptly reached for the front of his jacket and pulled him back.

Almost months of watching him from the edge of the room caught up all at once. The failed smiles, the handbook, the red die in your pocket, the way he had leaned over your shoulder while pretending not to know exactly what you were doing. It all gathered in your hands, in the quick tilt of his head, and in the warmth of his rings when his fingers brushed your jaw.

It became a little embarrassing how enthusiastic you were.

It became easier to forgive because Eddie was no better.

He kissed you with one hand braced awkwardly against the seat and the other careful at your cheek, restraint and hunger tripping over each other until both of you had to pull back to breathe. His forehead hovered near yours. His eyes were dark, amused, and unsteady in a way that made your stomach turn over. 

The rough heel of his palm was gentle in its cradling of your face, and it was soon followed with your own hand trailing up his jaw to tangle in his hair. This time, when he leaned in, he seemed to be even more enthusiastic. His lips met against yours once more and he tilted in so deep he might’ve been trying to inhale the same oxygen as you. You followed with the same pathetic burst of energy, feeling all too much like you were back to being sixteen and discovering what kissing could be with someone you actually wanted it happening with. 

“Mm, Eddie–” your sentence was over just as quickly as it had attempted to start, with his mouth pouting everytime it wasn't against yours. Eddie’s pupils were so close that you could see the way they were blow out and dilated, and the dazed smile he wore wasn't helping the stuttering in your pulse.

“That’s my name, pretty girl.” His words were murmured, the vibrations tickling you. He broke the kiss with great effort, his clear effort in wanting to hear what you're saying, but his nose trailed down to trace under the shape of your jaw. A string of soft kisses were messily placed against your exposed skin leading a faint line of goosebumps to appear as you felt an eye twitch shut at the sensation.

“Think I've gotta go inside, Eddie.” Your voice came out embarrassingly thin, and your fingers did little to loosen their grip in his curls. Your head was gently tilted upward by his continued actions as he gave a mumbled response against your skin that sent consistent shivers against your skin. 

“But you just got here,” the teasing smile of his lips was felt against your skin making you shove at him lightly with a exasperated sigh, and your own smile stretched across your face. A quick look at the dashboard clock had you feeling all warm once again. “You've been kissing me for like the past five minutes, you dork.”

“Ouch. You're so cold, you know that?” Eddie's laugh betrayed him, unable to keep the amused look off his face. 

Outside, Hawkins was quiet. Your house stood dark except for the porch light your mother always left on. Somewhere inside, you were sure that Dustin was probably asleep with comic books on his floor and no idea that his entire world had just become more irritating, or amusing if you were left to explain it.

Eddie’s thumb moved once near your cheekbone then.

“See you next weekend, Henderson?”

Your lips still felt warm and your skin even more so. You tried to answer normally and failed.

“Yeah,” you breathed, reaching blindly for your bag near your feet. “See you next weekend.”

He did not let you get out immediately. Not because he physically made a move to stop you, but just because he smiled at you, slow and pleased and a little disbelieving, and you had to sit there an extra second to recover from it.

When you finally climbed out, your legs suddenly felt too untrustworthy on their own. 

You shut the van door as quietly as possible. Eddie waited until you reached the porch before starting the engine again. You turned at the door. He lifted his hand from the steering wheel.

You lifted yours back before you caught yourself and spun around with a regained fervor as you became all too aware of every action of yours.

Then you went inside and leaned against the closed door in the dark hallway, pressing your fingers to your mouth.

From the living room, Dustin’s voice cut through the silence.

“If you’re being weird by the door, stop.”

You nearly jumped out of your skin.

He sat on the couch in pajama pants and a Camp Know-Where shirt, hair flattened on one side, and a comic open in his lap. His eyes were narrowed to slits.

“What, are you doing awake?” you breathed a sigh at the exaggerated pulse of your heart, leaning down to undo your shoes.

“Protecting the bloodline.” 

The groan you gave was entirely unimpressed. Yeah, you were convinced the teenage boy who called you to get the ladybugs out of the house in the summer would thoroughly protect your honor.  “You are so dramatic.”

“How was the ‘hangout’?”

You walked past him toward the stairs. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

Seriously, you had to give him some melatonin or something next time.  “Goodnight, Dustin.”

“Did he try anything?”

The dumbfounded expression you had on surely was worth a pretty penny. 

Dustin held your stare for one second before raising the comic higher, hiding half his face. “I’m just asking for safety.”

“You are asking because you’re nosy.”

“I contain multitudes.”

The scoff left you rapidly. “You contain several juice boxes and attitude.”

“I know things,” he warned and you called his bluff. 

“You know nothing.”

He squinted at you over the comic, and you squinted back. Then, you went upstairs before your face could betray you.

The next afternoon, you sat at the kitchen table with a blank notebook open in front of you and the red die near your elbow. Sunlight spilled across the linoleum. Your mother hummed somewhere in the laundry room, smiling at you far too pleased and knowing for your comfort. And the house smelled faintly of detergent and toast.

You had meant to work on an actual assignment.

Instead, you had written:

Elven pantheons? cleric domains?? ask Eddie about campaign gods DO NOT say Vvardenfell ever again

You were halfway through underlining the last note when Dustin walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed a juice box. He stabbed the straw through with unnecessary violence, took one sip, and paused.

His eyes moved to your notebook.

Then to your face, then quickly back to the notebook.

“Why,” he sighed all exasperated slowly, “are you looking up Elven pantheons on the kitchen notepad?”

You turned a page with great calm. “No main reason.”

“And why do you look like you just won a football game?”

You shrugged your shoulders with a self pleased smile on your face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Dustin still seemed unimpressed with your reactions. “You have a face.” 

“Most people do.”

“No, you have a specific face.”

You picked up your pencil. “Mind your business, Dustin. I’m studying for my electives.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Then his expression changed, horror dawning piece by piece.

“Oh my God.”

You wrote the word initiative in the margin, ignoring his outburst. 

“Oh my God,” he repeated, louder, and then immediately cringed to himself. “You’re into it.”

Your smile was now free, “I’m into many things, little brother. As you know, I’m a complex person.”

“No.” Dustin shook his head quick. He pointed the juice box at you. “No, you are not allowed to be into my thing.”

“Your thing?”

“Yes, my thing.”

Your voice came entirely delighted now, “I thought it was a 'collaborative storytelling game'.”

“Don’t use the language against me!”

You smiled brightly and wide without looking up. Dustin then groaned so loudly your mother called from the laundry room to ask if someone was injured.

“Yes,” Dustin shouted back with a disgusted expression on his face. “Me!”

“No,” you called back out, voice calmer than his, and therefore, more reliable.. “He’s being dramatic.”

Dustin leaned over the table, lowering his voice as if he was aware pf a new secret.  “This is because of Eddie.”

You tapped the pencil against the notebook, and if you were in a lesser mood, you were sure you'd male a comment on how slow his train of thoughts seemed to run for a self- claimed super- genius of a teenage boy. “What’s because of Eddie?”

“All of it. The notebook. The dice. The face.”

“I don’t have a face.” You did, and you quite liked it even more as of late.

Dustin seemed to agree. “You have such a face.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“You kissed him, didn’t you?”

Your pencil snapped, and Dustin gave a noise so loud and startled you'd think you stabbed the broken wood in him.

You looked down at the broken pencil in your hand, then up at your younger brother. He backed away, pointing at you in a sense of all knowingness. “That is a confession!”

Your voice came back just breezily enough to further spur him on. “That is just a cheap pencil.”

“That is evidence!”

You tried to brush him off off-handedly. “Dustin.”

He seemed to care less about calming down and shrieked. “You kissed Eddie Munson. My Eddie Munson!”

“Lower your voice before I deck you.” your sigh came with a roll of your eyes now, and before you could've helped it, you added. “And he's not yours.”

“You did!”

You stood so fast the chair scraped behind you. Dustin bolted around the other side of the table, juice box clutched in one hand.

“I knew it!” he shouted, now slightly jumping in place as he pointed at you. “I knew something foul was happening!”

Your voice was a soft coo now. “Come here.”

“No!”

“Dustin.”

“I am a child of divorce now. Emotionally.”

“You are a child of one mother and a sister who is about to end you.”

He darted toward the hallway. You chased him past the counter, both of you skidding in socks while your mother yelled for you not to run in the house. Dustin shrieked when you caught the back of his shirt, laughing and protesting at the same time as your forearm twisted around his neck, and for a minute the whole kitchen filled with the old familiar chaos of being home.

Eventually, he escaped by sacrificing the juice box, which burst under your foot and sent a sticky splash across the floor.

Your mother appeared in the doorway, and both of you froze promptly. She looked at the juice on the floor, then at Dustin, then at you in a way only an experienced mother could.

“I don’t want to know,” she questioned more than said at last.

“You really don’t,” Dustin affirmed her decision strongly.

You grabbed a towel and threw it at his head.

Later, after the floor was cleaned and Dustin had retreated to his room to process the betrayal, you returned to the table. Your notebook remained open. The red die sat where you had left it, catching sunlight along one edge.

You picked it up and rolled it once across the page.

It landed on twenty.

For a second, you could only stare. Then you laughed under your breath, quiet enough that no one came to ask why.

By the next day, you had memorized three more terms. Correctly, this time, you'd like to add to.the record.

You had also learned enough to know you were in trouble.

Not because of the game, although that was part of it. The game had become more interesting than you wanted to admit. There was satisfaction in understanding why Dustin got so worked up, why the table erupted over certain rolls, amd even why Eddie’s voice could pull everyone into silence when the stakes turned. There was a rhythm to it. A strange one, sure, but not entirely as childish as you had thought.

No, the trouble was Eddie.

Eddie, who called you college girl when he wanted to annoy you and pretty girl when he wanted to watch your composure slip.

Eddie, who phoned you twice that week and stayed on the line until neither of you had anything left to say but neither of you hung up.

Eddie, who looked at you across the Hellfire table with so much sitting between you and still somehow made the room feel smaller.

The campaign resumed with the party entering some ruined temple. You followed better than before. Not perfectly, you honestly doubted ever even achieving a above average rating. You still forgot which modifier went where, and at one point you asked if your character could flirt with a guard for information, which made Dustin put his head down on the table and whisper, “Please don’t make this your thing.”

Eddie looked delighted, his brow twitching up at you and smirking lazily in a way that made you had to biteback your own grin.

“I’ll allow it,” he decided after a moment.

Dustin shot upright, the display did little to take your eyes off of the older boy besides you, which of course only riled your brother up more. “Of course you will!”

“It’s roleplay, Henderson.”

“It’s gross.”

“It’s strategy,” you hummed in a easy way, which was simpler now that you at least understood parts of what even made up a good game strategy. 

Dustin simply glared from where he sat. “It’s gross strategy.”

You rolled well enough that Eddie had to improvise a flustered guard. His voice went higher, then cracked on purpose. The table lost it quickly after. Even Dustin laughed before remembering he was supposed to be disgusted.

After the session, Eddie slipped you another note. You waited until you were in the car to read it, ignoring Dustin’s attempts to see.

This one had a little map drawn in the corner and a single line beneath it:

Next lesson: avoiding traps.

You smiled down at the paper on reflex by now, and Dustin groaned from the passenger seat. “Oh my God. You’re so not cool!”

You folded the note and tucked it away in your bag.

“That’s funny,” you hummed in grand effect, turning the key listening to the starting of your car engine. “I heard I’m dangerous.”

Dustin made a strangled sound and turned toward the window. The displeasure seemed to even travel all the way to his unruly hair, as he shoved back against your car seats. “This is a nightmare.”

“Oh, shut up. It's not that bad.”

“You stole my mentor!”

“Well actually, he made the official first move—”

“Stop it!”