Don't Blame Me {a Kas/Eddie Munson story}

8: The Truth

"You're a canary, I'm a coal mine
'Cause sorrow is just all the rage
Take one for the team
You all know what I mean

And I'm so sorry but not really
Tell the boys where to find my body
New York eyes, Chicago thighs
Pushed up the window to kiss you off

The truth hurts worse
Than anything I could bring myself to do to you..."

-"I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None On My Fingers", Fall Out Boy

*****

Eddie had never been more grateful for never needing to sleep than he was the morning he started following Theo Townsend.

Theo left for work just as the sun was coming up and Eddie knew if he'd begun this surveillance mission when he was alive, it would have never come to fruition for the simple fact that he hated waking up early. Eddie figured if he'd just shown up for his morning classes in high school, he wouldn't have had to repeat his senior year so many times.

That morning Eddie was ready to have to fly all the way into Indianapolis to tail Theo, and was shocked as fuck when Theo didn't get on the highway to head towards the city. Instead, Theo drove to the far side of Hawkins and to the old abandoned Hawkins Lab. Not that it ever ended up mattering. He died before the graduation ceremony. He probably wouldn't have graduated anyways.

Theo's car was let in through a gate and then into some parking structure under the building. There weren't any other cars visible, and Eddie assumed they were all parked wherever Theo's was. That allowed the lab to still look relatively abandoned.

Eddie groaned as he looked over the lab. He didn't want to go inside. He really didn't want to go inside. He didn't know much about it, but from what Dustin had told him when he was alive, nothing good comes from inside that lab. So, he really didn't want to go inside. But he knew he had to.

He waited in a nearby tree until another car pulled up. After the car got through the gate and the steel garage door looking thing at the base of the building opened, Eddie flew like a literal bat out of hell in behind the vehicle.

There wasn't a lot of planning put into Eddie's little recon mission. He knew he'd have to get inside, probably kill a few people to get to wherever Theo was. So when the double doors that lead into a dim lobby opened up, he was expecting a more...colorful welcome. Instead, the man he followed in just swiped a badge and another set of double doors opened leading to a hallway with white tile flooring and all white walls. The fluorescent lights overhead made the walls so bright it almost hurt Eddie's eyes.

Eddie spent the next four hours, slowly climbing up the building, peaking in door windows and listening to conversations. He hadn't gotten to kill anyone yet, a fact he knew he should have been grateful for, and yet he found himself a little disappointed.

He moved silently like a shadow through the halls. He wasn't sure what he was going to do if he saw someone like the party's superhero friend. He tried not to think about it too much as he slunk about.

Finally after another fucking hour of scouring, he found an office with a silver nameplate across it that said Theo Townsend. Eddie checked the halls to make sure no one was coming before sneaking up to the door, leaning against it just under the little window in the upper center of it and pressed his ear to it.

From what Eddie could tell, there was another other man in Theo's office with him and for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was that Theo actually said that he did. Scientist...no...lab tech? No...then it struck him. Engineer. Theo was an engineer. A chemical engineer. The voices inside the office turned into more of an argument than a discussion.