Chapter Text
Fuck, Eddie couldn’t do this again. Unexplainable shit just continued to happen to him and there was zero way he was going to, for even a second, accept the fact he’d just woken up on a beach. This had to be a nightmare, maybe Vecna had gotten him, maybe they never actually killed Vecna- did spring break mean nothing? Or was it the storm? To be fair, he’d acted like a complete idiot, deciding to plug the TV back in when lightning was striking close by, probably hitting the building dead on. But did it kill him? Was this hell?
Glancing around, Eddie caught a glimpse of an unmoving lump covered in sand, and scrambled to his feet. He ran over, brushing sand off himself as he made his way to what he presumed the lump was: Robin. Hey, at least if he’d been damned to hell, he wasn’t alone. When Eddie got close enough, he dropped to his knees and rolled her over, his presumption correct.
“Robin! Robin, wake up! Hello?” Eddie practically shouted at her, shaking her by her shoulders. When she remained unresponsive, he cupped her face in his hands and leaned in closer, “Shit… Shit! C’mon, Robin, please- please don’t be dead, I can’t-”
Suddenly, her eyes shot open and she gasped for air. Eddie reflexively dropped his hands and lept back, a short high-pitched scream escaping him. He dropped back onto the sand, eyes wide, trying to slow his breathing, while Robin took in their surroundings. “This definitely isn’t Family Video… Where are we?” She asked.
Eddie stood up and dusted sand out of his hair. There was going to be sand in every crevice of his body for months after this, he could already tell. “Incredible question, Sherlock, except I already asked it five minutes ago and I still have zero damn answers. For all I know, we’ve died and been damned to hell, ‘cause this? All of this? Personal torture,” He said, incredulously. To be honest, his only remaining theory was being dead, considering nothing would ever possess him to go to the beach. That and they lived in the-middle-of-nowhere, Indiana, absolutely nowhere near the ocean. The closest they had was the Great Lakes and those didn’t smell half as bad as salt water. Another wave of nausea washed over him, almost doubling him over. “I think if we spend another minute here, I’m going to vomit, and I will personally be aiming towards you when I do.”
Robin dusted herself off as she rose to her feet, staring out at the water. It really made no sense, mostly the fact they were no longer inside the store, but also how they coincidentally ended up on a beach after watching Wet Side Story. Obviously, Vecna was dead, and this was only hell to Eddie, so that ruled out the chances of another creature from the Upside Down doing this. She glanced over her shoulder, asking, “Have we considered the possibility- and this is going to sound stupid, before you start freaking out on me- that we’re…inside the movie?”
Eddie scoffed at that. “Yeah, ‘cause that makes so much more sense than this being the tenth circle of hell…”
However, before their conversation could continue, a small bronze-colored car blasting music drove past, heading to the far end of the beach. Robin perked up, walking to Eddie and tugging on his sleeve. “That car is ridiculously familiar! Look!” She exclaimed.
Eddie shot a look in its direction. “Huh… Well, if you recognize it, maybe that’s a good sign? Like you could know the driver, whoever they are, and maybe we could hitch a ride,” He suggested, before depanning at Robin and adding, “If this isn’t hell. And if we aren’t just walking towards the light ‘cause we’re complete idiots for messing with electricity during a storm.”
But Robin ignored Eddie’s followup statement, largely focusing on the idea of following the car. It wasn’t half bad, especially if they weren’t stuck in some alternate dimension and just magically ended up on the West coast. She grabbed ahold of his hand and started speed walking down the beach with him in tow. Perhaps Eddie continued whining, but Robin was blindly determined to get them back to Family Video as soon as possible. As they swiftly encroached on where the car parked, the music playing grew louder and seemed to stutter before repeating from the first chord. Music Robin was all too familiar with.
“Wait. Robin- Robin, stop! I don’t like this. This feels wrong, we need to go back, we should’ve stayed put” Eddie said, halting all movement. She wouldn’t release her hold on him though, gripping his hand until her knuckles were white. “Seriously- and trust me, I hate running from everything- something is off and I don’t trust it.”
Blue skies, gentle breeze, what a day…
“You hear the music, too, right?”
Sunshine and sweet harmonies, time to play…
“Yep, liked when I wasn’t though.”
No more complications, from now on, just good vibrations!
Robin yanked Eddie onward with her, ducking behind an overturned rowboat. As she peered over the edge, her suspicions were confirmed- the scenery was recognisable and that was no ordinary car. They were inside Wet Side Story. Six or so teenagers clambered out of the antique car, sprinting down the length of the beach and immediately into the water. Others, too many for either of them to count, set up towels and danced around on the sand, with their small radio off to the side. Backflips, cartwheels, a dozen or so beach balls tossed around, girls sitting atop their boyfriends’ shoulders and waving around towels. Some lathered on sunscreen, others waxed their surfboards. Last out of the car, a rather tall, brunette man clad in striped swim trunks and a matching button-up jogged his way to a surfboard. Neither Robin nor Eddie could see his face, but clear enough to most, that was Tanner. And this was his gang.
Eddie curled in on himself the moment Robin let go of his hand, not sparing a single glance over the side of the boat. “We’ve died and ended up in hell, this is my own personal circle of hell,” He laughed, shaking his head, “I can’t catch a break, can I?”
Then, Robin gasped. Loudly. “Hey, dingus! You oughta see this!”
“On my way, feelin’ fine. I can see my reflection in my surfboard’s shine!” Tanner’s solo began, only it sounded nothing like the original actor. However, when the girls with towels ran past, nothing could’ve shocked her to the core more. The carefully groomed hair, that ridiculous grin… Her jaw dropped. None other than Steve Harrington had replaced Tanner.
“I can hardly wait to cause a commotion!”
Eddie peered over, curious as to what had Robin in such shock. Quickly enough though, their expressions were matching. Tanner- well, Steve- had stripped off the button up after he danced over to his surfboard. Distractedly checking himself in the reflection, girls dropped like flies at his feet, fainting and hitting the sand. “Son of a-” Eddie didn’t get to finish his sentence, as Robin had snatched his hand into hers again and pulled him out from behind the boat.
“C’mon, everyone, jump into the ocean!” Steve tucked his surfboard under his arm, and headed for the water. Just about everyone on the beach followed him in, leaving Robin and Eddie standing on the beach, surfboards obscuring their view. But, within mere seconds, the crowd was back on the beach, dancing in unison around Steve as he continued his solo. “Flying high, just out of reach. No ands, ifs, buts! We’re next for the beach!”
The surfers spun in place, kicked, and each grabbed a striped towel from the ground. They spun clockwise again, then twirling the towels in their right hands as they stumbled backwards. Every move was immaculately coordinated and calculated, as if they were connected via hivemind. Then again, who was to say the music was doing it itself? If Eddie had any weaker will, and got any enjoyment out of dancing and singing, he probably would’ve been possessed to join the number. But he stood and watched, stiff as a board, as the dancers continued the number, using their towels as jump ropes and doing backflips.
“Surf, surf! Surf, surf crazy! Ride the perfect wave, say hi to the sky…” Robin, at his side, softly sang along with the group, watching in awe as the number unfurled in front of her very eyes. How could anyone not want to run into it and follow along? “Surf, sun, sand; it’s a bikini wonderland! Summer’s on, and we’ve gone surf, surf crazy…” The group dropped their towels and girls leapt into the arms of the men, being spun around freely. As the song continued, it only got more wild, but remained exact to the choreo Robin could remember learning in her childhood. Men performing balancing tricks with beach balls, girls mimicking diving with life preservers around their waists, some sitting atop guys’ shoulders as they surfed. None of them had a care in the world, and Robin wanted exactly that. She found it increasingly hard to resist, even if it was a little weird for her best friend to be leading the number. And honestly, when she threw herself headfirst into the middle of it, she didn’t know what’d possessed her.
Robin joined the group as they formed into a tight line, Eddie hot on her tail, chasing her and attempting to pull her away. She simply followed them, bobbing her head side to side as she created wave motions with her arms; she felt as if she’d practiced her whole life for this moment. “Burgers hot, water warm, a cool seaside bash! Catch a wave, turn it up…” Robin ceased her other movements and kicked her leg out, sending it like a shockwave down the line. The surfer at the other end jumped and spun around midair, sending the movement back the way it came. With it, a bucket traveled, mere seconds and always a person behind who the movement reached. “Make a splash…” The bucket was two away from her, “...make a splash…” One away.
“...make a splash!” Eddie stumbled back and fell flat on his ass, drenched in water. Robin had seen the film enough times to know whoever gets the bucket last dumps it to their right, which, this time, just so happened to be onto her friend. A concerned look flashed across her face, before she quickly burst into laughter, copied by the surfers.
The attention shifted, however, a limbo pole placed in front of the line as they turned to face their left. Robin followed, as one by one, the surfers ducked under and popped back up to introduce themselves. Presumably to the camera, except there was none.
“I’m Tanner!”
“Seacat!
“Giggles!”
When Robin popped up, she squealed and tossed her arms as high as they could go. “Robin!” And, seemingly since they’d been recognized as characters, the pole didn’t immediately go away. Eddie stumbled to his feet, brushing his soaked bangs out of his eyes, and walked directly into it, letting out a soft ‘oof’ as he did. He made direct eye contact with Robin for a moment, before confusedly muttering, “...I’m Eddie?”
The music resumed and surfers picked up the song at the conclusion of introductions, grabbing their towels, surfboards, and beach balls. Reforming into a circle, the girls danced around the interior with beach balls, passing them back and forth, as the boys formed shapes on the exterior with multi-colored surfboards held above their heads. Robin grabbed an extra ball and wormed her way into the center, leaving Eddie behind again. This time, he stayed put, refusing to interrupt and get drenched in water again. At least when the character came out of the water they didn’t look like drowned rats. He did.
However, within seconds of the musical interlude and final chorus ending, the surfers broke into a new formation surrounding Eddie, a line breaking off into different directions as they hugged their surfboards. As the final surfer moved from in front of him, Eddie dove face first onto the sand to get out of the way, and Steve, having stood at the back, raced up the beach with his surfboard. Like a connected hivemind, the surfers dropped their boards to the sand and flopped backwards onto them. The waves rolled in and out, no sound but them. Finally, the song ended.
Eddie sat up, spitting out sand. “You suck, Buckley,” He groaned.