Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hey… Good luck,” Eddie offered as he handed Steve the torch.

Steve dived in with excellent form. It was quiet and still on the lake. Robin wouldn’t let Eddie smoke and Nancy’s nerves were palpable. When it was closing in on a minute, the girls time checked Steve.

Eddie felt awkward in the silence. He was on the verge of saying something, anything, when Steve broke through the water’s surface, scaring the trio.

He’d found the gate, a “snack-size gate” to be specific. Steve was proud of himself, but the victory was short-lived as something pulled him under. He was barely able to keep hold of the boat. He looked up at Nancy for only a second before it yanked him down again, this time, he didn’t reappear.

Nancy didn’t hesitate. She told Robin and Eddie to stay put, and she was diving in after Steve.

Robin sat on the edge of the boat, her back to the water.

Eddie stuttered out a line of no, no, no, no, then, “What are you doing? She said wait,”

“Yeah, I heard her,”

“She’s in charge!” Eddie reminded Robin, happy in this case to have someone in a position of authority telling him what to do. As it turned out, in situations where he was utterly terrified, he wasn’t so punk after all.

It didn’t matter, Robin was in the water, leaving him alone on the boat in the middle of a lake filled with the unknown. After screaming at the gods, Eddie stood.

“Oh, this is so stupid!” And he was diving in after the others.

Eddie wasn’t a strong swimmer; he’d barely made it out after Patrick was killed by Vecna, Jason’s grief-stricken screams following him all the way to the opposite side of the lake. The red glow on the lake’s bottom though, it guided him. He pushed down, down, down, and finally – through.

He wasn’t sure what to expect on the other side of the gate. What he’d been able to piece together from the fragments of exposition given by the others, it was going to be like Hawkins, but with monsters and nasty shit. 

The gate felt bad. Thick. Slimy. Like mucus. Or maybe being born. But Eddie didn’t have time to dwell. He was still in water. It was still dark. And he felt like his lungs were going to burst.

He looked left and right, and back again. Where did the gate go? The red glow was gone. Panic was setting in, a feeling Eddie was becoming all too familiar with. He was down too deep; by the time he found moonlight his vision was going blurry.

A ringing in his head was quickly rising to the status of loudest sound he’d ever heard. It was the moment it stopped – complete and utter silence left in its wake – that Eddie’s eyes closed and his mouth opened. He tried to breathe, finding only water to inhale.

Eddie regretted not making time to hear that story about Wayne’s mugs and caps. He regretted selling to Chrissy, not because it had led him to Lover’s Lake that night, but because he had seen fear and pain in her face. He wished he’d said something to her. He regretted failing classes and not shooting his shot more.

Eddie was unconscious as you heaved him up, up, up and into the freezing nighttime air.

You gasped, struggled, barely maintaining a hold on him. Adrenaline kicking in and a good dose of stubbornness too, you slowly made your way to shore. When your energy waned, you floated on your back, trying to push Eddie’s deadweight to do the same.

Safe on land, you pushed Eddie onto his back. All you knew about CPR was learned by watching too much Netflix.

“Fuck, fuck,” you mumbled as you attempted to find a pulse. Maybe it was there or maybe it was your own speeding one you could feel.

Okay, okay, alright, you told yourself, do the heart thing. You began pumping against Eddie’s chest to the tune of a song your father used to sing.

“It’s the CPR song!” he had said a million times, like it was his favourite thing about it. You had always told him his taste in music sucked.

Suddenly, in the middle of your melodic memory, water spluttered from Eddie’s mouth and he began to cough.

“Oh my fucking god!” you yelled, relief pushing you back to land on your ass. You watched him as he sat and began to look around wildly. “Woah, woah!” you said as he stood, wobbly on his feet. You stood too.

“Where-what-” he said, holding his arm out to keep you at a distance.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,”

“Is this it? Did we- Is this the upside… side… down… The fuckin’… Where’s Harrington?”

His confusion was almost scary, so you took a step back and let him continue to take in his surroundings. A string of expletives sounded out as he ran up and down the shoreline.

“I think you should sit down!” you yelled after him. “You almost drowned!”

He wasn’t listening, but he was aware of you, throwing glances at you as he searched for something. It was during one of the glances you realised you were still in just your underwear. Never in your life had someone seen you just in your underwear, and not even the emergency status of the situation stopped you from feeling embarrassed.

As you quickly put your clothes on over your lake water wet underwear, you scanned your memory. You hadn’t seen anyone go into the water. Where did he come from? Was he already out there when you throw yourself into the lake in a desperate attempt to find some sort of momentary oblivion?

If he was already out there, why was he still in jeans and… Reeboks? Vintage Reeboks. Shit, you thought. Maybe he was having some sort of mental break. It would explain the pacing and mumbling.

“HARRINGTON!” Eddie yelled. “STEVE?! WHEELER? Jesus… DUSTIN!? ANYONE?!”

“Uh… I’m gonna call 911, okay?” you tried to talk to him again but nothing.

You fished your phone out your bag, still sitting where you’d left it on the shore. The screen lit up, and the light drew Eddie’s attention. He went quiet as he watched you.

“Uh… I don’t know… Ambulance and police,” you answered the 911 operator’s first question.

Eddie lunged, hitting the phone out of your hand. “No cops!” he yelled, then picked up a large rock, smashing your phone. It scared you. He scared you.

Eddie realised what he’d done when he looked over at you. His face softened but he didn’t say anything, turning back to the phone. He dropped to his knees and picked up the smashed thing, studying it.

“No cops,” he repeated, quieter. “What is this?”

“Look… I’m, ah, glad you’re not dead. No need to thank me… But I’m going to… go,” you told him.

“Wait- I’m sorry- I…” Eddie said, standing and turning to you.

You didn’t like how he was flipping between chaotic and calm so quickly. There was something about his sad eyes that glued you to the spot though. He was on the verge of tears. You could see that even in the moonlight.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said, dropping your phone like it was burning him.

“Okay,” you replied, nodding.

“I was with… my friends, and they’re gone, and I don’t think this is where I’m meant to be…” Eddie had his hands on his hips and he was calming down, the panic being replaced with a painful and deep sense that something was very wrong. More wrong than the Upside Down.

“Um… You’re in Hawkins,” you started. “That’s Lake Hopewell…”

“Hopewell? No, no, that’s Lover’s Lake,” he corrected, sounding so sure of himself.

It made you laugh, a sound neither of you expected to hear.

“I think people used to call it that? My mum calls it that still,”

“Used to?”

“Yeah, like, when she was growing up. In the 80s or whatever,” you clarified.

Eddie’s face dropped and he looked like he was about to lose his shit all over again. He could see you were confused.

“The 80s?” he asked, voice cracking a little. “It’s not the 80s… Now?”

The question sounded sad more than unhinged. You looked at him more closely. The vintage Reeboks. The hair. No. Absolutely not.

“It’s 2022,” you told him.

Eddie began to shake his head and he made a sound that was too close to a whimper to be anything other than tragic. He was mumbling to himself, quietly at first, then it got loud and you could make out names and maybe a Lord of the Rings reference, then he began to scream again.

“Fuck! Fuck! Jesus Christ! You’ve got to be shitting me!”