Eddie Watch// Eddie Munson x Henderson!Reader

5

"Does this kind of thing happen often?" Eddie questioned.

Y/n looked up from her place on the floor. It had been about three hours since Dustin had left, they hadn't exactly spoken much to each other since. What were they supposed to say?

At one point the silence got so suffocating that y/n spewed some kind of bullshit about 'securing the premises' and went for a 45-minute walk in the surrounding forest. Now she was laying on the cold concrete floor, reflecting on all her life decisions that led her to be here.

She made eye contact with Eddie, who was peering over the boat and looking down at her.

"What kind of thing happens often?" She asked.

"You know," He said, shrugging "Like this stuff. Crazy demon shit. Does it happen often?"

y/n thought for a second, laughing at the use of 'crazy demon shit'. She sat up, stretching out her stiff muscles.

"That depends on what you would consider often," She began "But I would say, considering how absolutely batshit crazy this can get, it happens way more often than it should," she explained.

Eddie nodded, eyebrows creasing as he thought about her words.

"So like, what are the ballpark numbers?"

y/n thought for a second, quickly equating the average time between these 'leaks'

"Uhh, probably about once every nine months, since '83."

"Shit." He whispered, eyes growing wide at the realisation.

She hummed in acknowledgment. The silence engulfed them once again.

"What do you do for fun around here?" She finally asked.

"Well, I mostly keep an eye out for potentially angry mobs and wallow in self-pity." He explained.

"Right, sounds like a good time," she said, finally standing up from her spot on the floor and making her way over to her bag. She fished around for a moment before pulling out a slightly tattered box of playing cards and the bag of m&m's. "Well, I don't know about you but I've done my day's worth of self-pitying."

Eddie watched as she sat back down on the floor and began shuffling the cards.

"Have you ever played Texas Hold'em before?" She questioned. He shook his head quickly, which pulled a slight smile from her "Do you want to learn?"

—-

Teaching Eddie to play poker was an extremely good waste of 3 hours. Currently, he was staring down at his hand, eyebrows furrowed with confusion. His pile of m&m's, which they had decided to use in place of poker chips, was pitiful compared to y/ns.

"So wait," he said, looking up at the girl across from him "what does this one mean again?" He asked, showing her the joker card.

She let out a loud laugh at that.

"How did you end up with a joker card? I took those out at the beginning."

"Does that mean I won?" He asked, a grin spreading across his face as he watched her attempt to stifle her laughter at his antics.

"Yeah sure, I think we should have just played go-fish." She said, collecting the cards up and putting them back into their box.

"Now that's a card game I can get behind." He exclaimed excitedly.

"Maybe later, I'm kind of sick of staring at cards if I'm being honest." She said, cracking her knuckles.

Eddie cringed at the sound.

Before she was able to tease the man about it, the walkie talkie crackled and Dustin's voice yelled back at her.

"Y/n do you copy?" He asked, she picked up the device and spoke into it.

"Dustin, yes i copy. What's wrong?"

Eddie moved from his place across from y/n to beside her, peering over her shoulder at the walkie-talkie in her hands.

"Chrissy and Fred were both talking to Ms Kelly before they died-" He began but was cut off by y/n.

"Wait, fred? As in Fred Benson?"

She heard some voices in the background as Dustin asked a question she couldn't quite hear.

"The kid with the glasses and the scar on his face," Steve spoke, she felt her stomach do a flip. She had never really been close per se but he had spoken to her a few times when she went to visit Nancy during lunch.

"Well that's not really the point, the point is," Dustin butted in, "We went through their files and they both reported headaches and hallucinations a week before they died." He explained.

"So this Vecna thing, what? He's stalking his prey before killing them?" She asked.

"Yeah, not only that but we think he's targeting people with past trauma and guilt-"

"If you start getting headaches and hallucinations, tell us ok?" Steve's voice interjected once again.

Y/n laughed lightly.

"I haven't slept a full night of sleep since 1983, I have a perpetual headache." She explained. "But I promise I'll let you know if I start hallucinating."

"How's Eddie?" Dustin asked, changing the subject.

Y/n passed the walkie-talkie over to the boy beside her, prompting him to speak to Dustin.

"Hey, I'm... I'm gonna level with you, I'm freaking out a bit." Eddie said, staring into the walkie as if he could see Dustin and not just hear his voice.

"Yeah, that'll wear off eventually," Dustin spoke. There was some chattering in the background before Dustin spoke again. "Okay, I need to go now. Stay safe and if you need anything tell us." 

With a crackle, Dustin was gone. Eddie let out a huff.

"It doesn't wear off," Y/n spoke up, turning her head to look at the man beside her, slightly taken aback by the closeness of the two of them. "I know that's not exactly what you want to hear. But I'm not exactly one to sugarcoat things."

"So I'm just going to be terrified for the rest of my life, great."

"Well, it just depends on how you want to look at things. You kind of learn to live with it, you know? Some days it just falls into the back of your head and some days it's so overwhelming you feel like you're drowning. Obviously, I can't tell you how to deal with this, but just know if you need someone to talk to, we're all here for you." She said, offering him a small smile.

"You know, you're a lot different than I thought you'd be," Eddie stated, moving away from her to snatch up the bag of m&m's.

"What do you mean?" She questioned, eyes scanning his face for some kind of answer, after a beat of silence Eddie spoke again.

"I dunno, just they way Dustin and Mike and Lucas spoke about you, they made you out to be like this scary mysterious chick who is no nonsense, you know?" he said, not looking up from the candy in his hands.

"Really? That's so strange."

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you when i found out you were Dustin's sister, but then he told me about how you and king steve were like best friends and how you beat up Hargrove that one time. So then i was totally convinced you wanted nothing to do with me." he admitted.

"Seriously?" She questioned. The idea that not everyone views her the same way she viewed herself was completely throwing her for a loop. "I mean i did kinda want to hit you when we started back at school. I don't know if you remember but you were yelling something about positions of power and shit, but Dustin told me you were cool so."

She could see the bashful smile that arose on his face.

"Dustin told you i was cool?"

"Well his exact words were temperamental and melodramatic at the best of times, but I read between the lines."