METANOIA | Eddie Munson

The Dive, Part 3

3rd Person's POV

As soon as her back hit the ground, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist and pulled her up against them.

"You're okay, you're okay."

It sounded like they were comforting themselves rather than Valerie.

"I-I made it. Fuck." Feeling the arms around her tighten, she looked down to see Eddie's ring clad fingers. She relaxed into his body, "Really thought I was gonna die back there."

Before she could realise it, Dustin lunged himself at her and wrapped his arms around her neck. She just held him for a while, running her fingers through his curls until he pulled back.

Only to reveal a very grumpy, yet tear stained face.

Valerie wiped at his cheeks, "Okay, you're gonna need to stop staring at me like I'm the asshole here."

"You almost died!"

"Yeah, but I didn't okay? What did you think I was going to do? Leave you with Harrington?" She let out a scoff, turning to look at Steve, "No chance-"

She finally cracked a smile, "Were you crying, Steve?"

A teary eyed Steve blinked a few times, "No?"

She laughed and stood up, walking up to him, "Is it because I almost died-"

Steve glared at her.

"-or is it because I said I wouldn't trust you with Dustin?" She turned to look at Dustin only to see Eddie still sitting on the ground next to him, again, teary eyed.

She opened her mouth and covered it with her hand, teasingly, "Were you crying too, Munson?"

Eddie stood up and wiped at his eyes, "I have no idea what you're talking about man."

She grinned and looked back and forth between Eddie and Steve, "Aw, you guys are so cute."

"You're flattering yourself way too hard, Henderson." Steve shook his head, clearly flustered.

"Yeah, it's not a good look." Eddie said, cheeks tinted pink, "I'm starting to think we should've just left her there to die."

"Yeah, don't know what we were thinking." Steve nodded.

"I, for one, agree-" Robin walked up to Valerie.

"Robinn-" Valerie opened her arms up to hug her, but she swatted them away.

"Why would you not tell us?!"

Valerie frowned, "Tell what?"

"The symptoms. You knew, you were there when I read Chrissy and Fred's file. You never told us." Max said.

"The symptoms..." Valerie scrunched her eyebrows, "I never had any symptoms."

"What?" Max said.

"That's not possible, Chrissy, Fred and Max all had them." Robin said.

"We thought he was like a serial killer, right? Stalking their prey before he killed them? Maybe he realised that we knew." Nancy said.

"Right, we knew about the symptoms. So if he stalked you, we would know. And he knew we would be able to get you out, because we did it with Max." Steve said.

"So he attacked Valerie when she was with the only person, me, who had no clue about what happened to Max. Thanks for not telling us shit by the way." Eddie gave all of them a very clearly fake smile.

"Wait, what happened to Max?" Valerie asked.

"We saved her with the power of music." Robin grinned, batting her eyelashes at her.