Birds Of A Feather // Eddie Munson

023

"BOOM!" Dustin yelled loud enough for anyone in within a ten mile radius to hear. "Bada, bada, boom."

If there's one thing I know about my little brother, is that he sure knows how to be dramatic. "Dustin? Is there something you'd like to share with the class?" I say, he better hope that this is some mind blowing thing, or I'm gonna kill him for scaring me like that.

"Skull Rock is north! I was right!" Steve rolled his eyes at Dustin's statement. "Dude you just cant admit when you're wrong. I literally JUST proved to you it wasn't north! You're 100 percent WRONG, DUSTIN. WRONG. " Dustin clapped his hands together and pointed at Steve "Yes! And no." Steve crossed his arms, not eagerly awaiting Dustin's excuse.

"My compass was working perfectly fine when we left the wheelers, but as soon as we got to the woods it started playing up." He gave a quick glance to Lucas, who seemed to understand almost immediately. Steve wasted no time in interjecting Dustin's revelation. "Okay so you're carrying faulty equipment, that's on you man!" I narrow my eyes at Steve and put my finger to my lips, telling him to be quiet and let him speak.

He throws his arms up in frustration then looks back at Dustin, gesturing for him to continue. "Lucas, can you enlighten everyone on why it was playing up, please?" Lucas continued on. "There would have to be some kind of strong magnetic force nearby which throws off the compass and the only other time it's done that is when-" "-when we were near the Hawkins lab, correct!"

Nancy looked around seemingly understanding. Eddie looked just as confused as Steve and Robin in what this meant. "So there's some kind of gate here or something? One you guys didn't know about before?" I question, wondering where they're going with this.

"Exactly! Which means there could be other gates. If we follow the compass it should lead us right to the gate to the upside down!" He pointed at his compass and smiled, clearly proud of figuring this out by himself.

"Well then, let's go shall we?" I walk over to Eddie and grabbed his hand, lifting him from his spot on the floor. "So you guys just wanna run straight into danger? Are you crazy? Especially you and Max, Elaine. You guys are BOTH cursed." I shuddered, not liking the wording of his sentence. 'Cursed' made it sound like I was going to be stuck like this forever. Steve noticed that I was uncomfortable and pulled Eddie along with him, walking ahead of us all with a small, "Yup, let's go Eddie."

As the group walked ahead, me and Max fell behind the rest of them. "For the record, I don't like it when they use the word curse either. Stupid D&D nerds just have to relate all of this upside down stuff to it, its a whole thing." Considering Max was a kid, she knew exactly what to say to make you feel better and seemed to know exactly what you were thinking. "Could they seriously not just like, make an exception, just this once?" Max laughed at me and shook her head. "I've dealt with this for three years and every time they relate it to D&D, so no."

"Max, if we make it out of this, you can have my Running Up That Hill vinyl. Its like your theme song at this point." I say, looking over at her. I watched as her eyes basically popped out of her head. "Dude, Vinyls are expensive! I couldn't accept that!" I hit the back of her head lightly and shook her words off. "You're one of the only people keeping me sane through this, the only person who gets it, ya know?" Max smiled a real, honest and genuine smile. It suited her.

"Thanks Elaine. I'm pretty sure this would suck so much more if I were doing this alone. Sure Steve, Lucas and everyone else would help me, but they wouldn't really get it. Its nice that someone does." I nod in Lucas' direction. "You and Lucas again, huh?" I smirk at her, wiggling my eyebrows. She quickly hides her reddening face and barges me with her shoulder lightly.

"You cant say anything! You totally have a crush on your brothers friend!" She retorts with a lot of sass, causing me to turn to her and say "Which one?" Causing an outburst of laughter between us, making Steve and Eddie turn around to look at us, perplexed.

Eddies Point Of View.
During the awkward silence between me and Steve, we hear a loud rupture of laughter from the very back of the group. We turned around to see what was going on and the first person my eyes looked for was Elaine.

When I saw her, she didn't leave my eyesight for what felt like decades. Because of the whole Vecna, Chrissy and upside down situation I very rarely heard her laugh, or saw her genuinely smile. Most of the time it was sarcasm or forced.

This time was different. The way her eyes lit up, cheeks flushed red due to whatever conversation she was having with Max, holding her sides with her head hung back lightly. It was the most beautiful I had ever seen her, or anyone else for that matter.

That was when I decided I would do anything to protect her. I had found my reason to not run anymore. If I don't live then I want her to and if worst comes to worst, I would trade my life for hers.

She was the most radiant person I had ever seen, although she did have an attitude shitter than Dustin's dress sense. Somehow that made me like her more.

If I'm honest with myself, I don't like her. I'm almost certain that I-

"Earth. To. Eddie!" Steve waved his hands in front of my face. "Dude you gotta stop spacing out when I try to make conversation." I snap back to reality fully and give a fake laugh, playing with my rings. "Right, you're right. Sorry."

Steve gave me a weird look that I saw from the corner of my eye. "What's got you so deep in thought anyway man?" I looked up so fast that I'm sure I heard my neck crack. "Just thinking about uh... like all this um crazy shit, with Vecna and stuff." Steve gave me a knowing look and shook his head.

"Dude, just tell her."

"Oh yeah and say what, 'Elaine you're all I can ever think about even when the world could be ending and I would even go so far as to give my life up just for you to keep yours. Oh and by the way I may be in love with you!" I spoke quickly and lowly so that nobody else would hear me. "Why don't you do that to little miss Wheeler over there huh? It's clear you still like her!"

Steve looked at me, mouth open slightly. He grabbed my arm and walked faster, pulling us further from the group. "Do you realise what you just said?" He whisper tells to me. "Yes Steve, I know what I said. I'm only failing English, i don't have dementia or something." Steve nods slowly.

"So, you really do love her?"

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SORRY IF RHIS ISN'T THE USUAL GOOD QUALITY, I TRIED TO PUSH THIS CHAPTER OUY ASAP BC I'M WORKING ON MY STEVE FIC AND ITS SO LATE AND I'M SO TIRED.

I AM SO SORRY FOR FORGETTING TO UPDATE🫶🏻