Saturday, March 22.
Robin was Oz's favorite coworker. Really, she was. Which is why it did sort of hurt when Oz had to busy himself with plotting how he was going to strangle the life out of her. He was going to do the same to Steve, of course, but that pained him just a little less. He and Steve had never really enjoyed each other's presence, after all.
It no longer mattered just how much Oz liked Robin as a person. After this, killing her was the least he could do to get revenge.
"You cooled off yet?" On the other end of the shed, Eddie Munson was sitting on the floor, legs crossed and big brown eyes inspecting Oz like he was a wild animal.
Eddie's presence was the main reason Oz wanted to murder his coworkers. Sure, they'd kidnapped him, and this fact alone was not ideal, but to lock him in a house with Eddie Munson was taking things a step too far.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice gnawed at Oz's brain, telling him that this was some sort of cosmic punishment.
"Fuck you," Oz garbled against the gag they'd tied around his head, feeling a bit of drool slipping out down his jaw. He struggled against the tie on his wrists, holding him down against the wooden beam like he was less than human, a monster who was chomping at the bit to tear Eddie's throat out.
"Right, right," Eddie agreed, twisting the big, bulky metal rings on his hand. "I guess I'd be pretty pissed too. I mean, I have a hard time believing anything they were saying. For you it's a bit easier, though, right? With the whole—" Eddie sort-of lamely stuck out his tongue and attempted to roll his eyes back. He looked like a dog having a seizure. Oz wanted to bite him for real.
"Sorry. Probably not the right thing to say." Eddie went back to nervously playing with his rings, eyes flitting back and forth but never really looking at Oz. "You're not happy to have me here. I get it. Most people wouldn't be, especially not considering the... uh. The Chrissy... thing."
Right. The fact that Eddie Munson had, supposedly, broken all of the bones in Chrissy Cunningham's body and gouged her eyes out. Something that Oz had learned of exactly eight hours before being locked in a house with him. That certainly hadn't helped his anger.
Oz mumbled something else against his gag, and Eddie cracked a genuine smile at that.
"Jeez, man," Eddie said as he leaned forward, "want me to get that off of you?"
No, Oz wanted to bite at him. To make some snide remark of how he's very comfortable drooling all over himself, actually. Still, as Eddie slowly but surely approached Oz he nodded, once, to let Eddie know it was alright. There was something comforting in seeing the way Eddie hesitated to even come near Oz, much less touch him. At least that didn't give Oz the feeling like Eddie might murder him if the opportunity presented itself.
Eddie's hands wrapped themselves behind Oz's head, untying the gag as he, for some reason, kept his eyes locked on Oz's. Oz, in turn, tried his hardest to look literally anywhere else, but it proved to be rather difficult with Eddie's face barely an inch away from his own. He could feel Eddie's breath on his face, the boy's tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he focussed on undoing the knot.
"There. That's a lot better, right?"
Oz couldn't help but feel slightly like a little kid as he rolled his jaw, giving a short but appreciative nod towards Eddie. He wasn't sure why they maintained eye contact, or why Eddie took a few seconds too long to move away from him again, but he did know that it had left him breathless. Like he'd just been choked.
"I didn't do it. The Chrissy thing, I mean." Oz kept quiet as Eddie spoke. "She came to my trailer that night to buy some... stuff. I was only gone for a second to look for it, but when I came back she was all wrong. Her eyes were all rolled back into her head and she was completely frozen. I—I tried to wake her up, you know, but she didn't. Couldn't, I think. She just, out of nowhere, started floating. No jokes, man. Levitating in my kitchen. Her eyes were bleeding. I feel like I'm crazy even saying it out loud but Henderson and the crowd didn't even seem shocked. How fucked is that? How much worse could shit get that they're used to this?"
Oz wasn't sure why Eddie was telling him any of this. Was that the fate that awaited Oz? Floating and bleeding out of his eyes before a demon sucked the life out of him? He could hardly stomach thinking about it. Could hardly stomach thinking about Chrissy like that, either.
"Do you know what it sounds like when you break a bone?" Eddie asked, staring at something in the distance that Oz would never be able to see. Oz gave a brief nod of his head to answer Eddie, but he was relatively sure that the boy didn't even see it.
"Her arm was twisted in this weird way, almost like it was being pulled back by something. But there was nothing there. Just me, watching. I could have saved her..." Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. "I didn't. I just... stood there. And I ran. That's the worst part. I didn't call anyone or try to help her or even checked for a fucking pulse. I just ran. Like a coward."
Finally, after letting a few moments of silence pass between them, Oz dared to speak.
"You're not."
Eddie jolted slightly, not expecting any sound from Oz, and finally looked back at the other boy with a confused frown on his face. "Huh?"
"A coward," Oz clarified, "you're not a coward. I'd know."
Eddie laughed, though it sounded more similar to a scoff, and leaned back against the shed's support beam behind him. He began messing with the rings on his hand again, twisting them around and sliding them up and down.
"You don't. You don't know me."
"I know enough real cowards to recognize one."
Eddie scoffed again, looking down into his lap and shaking his head a few times. His long brown curls moved with the motion, almost like a halo around his head. "Who? Your basketball buddies that hesitated on a goal or whatever? Sorry man, but that doesn't really compare."
Oz took a deep breath. He didn't want to tell Eddie, but he also couldn't help himself.
"No. Me." Eddie frowned at Oz's words. "I'm talking about myself."
"What makes you a coward, Reynolds?"
They'd told him about the curse. Steve, Robin, and the two kids had sat Oz down and told him all about some dark wizard named Vecna that had cursed him to end up just like Chrissy did. One of the kids—Dustin, Oz figured—had done most of the talking, while Robin sometimes interjected to try and make it all sound a bit more hopeful. It hadn't worked.
So, Oz was going to die.
It sucked that it was a lot sooner than he'd anticipated, and it sucked that it wasn't entirely on his own accord, but he also couldn't quite summon the feelings to be sad about it. He always knew he wasn't exactly going to live a long and happy life. This might as well happen to him.
For a moment, he considered he might as well tell Eddie the truth. But he couldn't get the words out.
"Does it matter?"
Eddie looked away for a second, really considering it.
"Guess not."
The boys sat in silence for a while. Oz wanted to ask Eddie to untie him, but he wasn't sure what the answer would be. He couldn't even blame Eddie for not doing it. With the way that he'd almost chewed his way through his binds just to attack Steve not even half an hour ago, he could hardly get mad at Eddie if he never untied Oz at all.
"I don't think you did it."
Eddie's head shot up at that, eyes wide and glassy.
"Chrissy, I mean. I don't think you killed her," Oz clarified, "I don't really think you're capable of murder at all, really. Despite the... everything." He nodded his head towards Eddie, attempting to gesture towards the way he looked. Considering he wore a denim vest with all sorts of strange pins, a shirt with a literal demon on it, and the fact that every inch of his outfit seemed to include metal and chains, Oz figured Eddie didn't exactly dress to give off a likable impression.
Surprisingly, this made Eddie crack a smile.
"Yeah, not as big of a devil worshiper as the clothes might suggest."
"It's not that, though," Oz said before he could really think about it. "Remember Chance's birthday party last August?"
Eddie cringed a little before nodding his head, "yeah, I remember. Sorry about that, again." He must have been recalling the way he'd shouted at Oz to get out of his fucking face, or how he'd almost shoved him to the floor right before that.
"That's not what I'm talking about." Oz wished he had the power to shut himself up, but he didn't. His mouth kept on moving on its own accord. "Before that. With that drunk girl you let cry all over you. You're a nice person."
Eddie had done far more than just let a very drunk Rachel Hudson cry on him. He'd helped clean her up after she vomited in Chance's bushes, and even made sure her friend took her home immediately. He'd looked out for Rachel, just as he had for various other people at other parties. Oz only barely managed to hold himself back from mentioning that, too.
He wondered if the crack to his head had shaken something loose in his brain.
Oz looked at Eddie, who'd fallen completely silent at the other end of the shed. He was staring at Oz with a strange expression on his face that Oz couldn't entirely place. Somewhere between curiosity and confusion. They sat like that for a long time, simply staring at each other in something of a comfortable silence. At least, Oz found it rather comfortable. By the way Eddie had started tapping his foot and fidgeting with his rings again Oz assumed Eddie wasn't all that used to being quiet for this long.
"It's getting dark," Eddie finally said to break the silence. "Are you hungry?"
Not really. Somewhere between being haunted by the voice of his dead best friend and being hunted by his video store coworkers Oz had lost his appetite.
"Cold, mostly."
"Fair." Eddie pushed himself off the ground and walked towards Oz, hands reached out. "Let's head inside and see what kinda weird shit Rick has lying around, huh?"
And before Oz knew it, Eddie had completely untied him, wrists and all. No conversation or promises necessary. Oz could feel how sore his wrists were from the rope burn, and how his entire body felt like it was about ripe to collapse, but at least he was free now.
Oz didn't even think about running. He followed Eddie into the house without hesitation, even allowing Eddie to open the door for Oz with a dramatic bow.
Reefer Rick's house was—in spite of all expectations—a pretty nice place. It was a small lake house with two floors and a bedroom, and far less disheveled than Oz had expected the home of a man nicknamed after drugs to be. There were dishes in the sink and loose VHS tapes scattered on the coffee table but Oz could honestly say he'd seen much worse. Living with his mother had caused him to be accustomed to much worse.
"I think Rick has a few cans of soup laying around," Eddie mumbled as he dug around in the kitchen drawers. "It's not much, but it's food, right?"
He raised a can of Campbell's towards Oz, who turned up his nose to it.
"You can sit. I'll make food." It wasn't even something Oz really needed to consider. He was good at making food, even from the barest of scraps, and he needed something to take his mind off the day. Cooking would do.
"Uh, you sure?" Eddie had already moved closer to the couch, but he still felt the need to check in with Oz. Partially out of worry for Oz, but also out of the fear that Oz might try to poison him. Accidentally, or for fun.
Oz just hummed in response, back already towards Eddie. The other boy shrugged, turning around as well and busying himself with digging through Rick's collection of VHS tapes. He admired Rick's dedication to sticking to his preferred stereotypes, twisting the Caddyshack tape in his hands before laying it down on top of Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. He knew Rick had hidden depths somewhere, though, taking to the TV cabinet to try and dig out some actual good movies. Beyond the usual Fast Times and Stripes Eddie found some real treasure in the shape of The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street, and even The Thing.
Eddie had always known Rick was a freak, deep down.
He gathered the good tapes on the coffee table, wanting to jump up and present them to Oz. Attempt to charm him into a movie night. Anything to get both of their minds off the shit they'd gone through in the past twenty-four hours.
When he turned to tell Oz as much, he forced himself into silence instead.
Oz had gathered all of the useful things he could find in the kitchen, and was cooking what looked to be an actual, real meal for the two of them. More startling than that, though, was the fact that he was gently swaying back and forth while singing to himself.
It wasn't much more than a hum—some tune that deep down, Eddie knew he had to recognize—and a slight step left followed by a step right, but it was enough to take Eddie's breath away.
He knew Oscar Reynolds—or at least he thought he did. He knew the boy who always got in fights and who only smiled about once every school year and who'd never so much as offered him a kind word before. He was a completely different being from the one in front of him, happily humming to himself as he cooked Eddie a meal.
Although he'd met several different versions of Oz that day, this one struck him the most. Enough so that his heart felt like it was stuck in his throat, and his body didn't dare move an inch. Like this was some sort of illusion, and moving would make it disappear.
Eddie had always thought Oz was pretty. Despite his own better judgment most of the time. He couldn't help it. He never really imagined he'd ever have a normal conversation with Oz, much less that the two of them would essentially be locked in a house together. It had honestly never been a real problem before, until right then. It was one of those moments where Eddie knew he was doing something that was going to get him in trouble, but he kept doing it regardless.
"Food." Oz's sudden voice pulled Eddie from his thoughts, right before a plate of food was handed to him.
"Spaghetti?" Eddie questioned, looking down at the plate in his hands. It looked... nice. Nicer than he could expect from a meal made from literal scraps.
"Best I could do." Oz sat down on the other end of the couch with his own plate, staring ahead at the wall while picking at his food.
Eddie wanted to talk—offer to turn on a movie, ask Oz why he wasn't eating, or any of the other millions of questions racing through his brain—but he was too starved for it.
As he took his first bite of the meal, he came to another startling conclusion.
Oscar Reynolds was a fucking good chef.
If Oz had noticed the quiet moan that escaped Eddie, he thankfully didn't mention it.
"The Stones?" Eddie finally said to break the silence, mouth half-full of food. It suddenly hit him—the song Oz had been singing—and like with every thought Eddie had he needed to share it immediately, before he lost it again.
Oz frowned at him for a moment, but finally nodded when he realized what Eddie was talking about.
"Paint It, Black, right?" Another nod. "It's one of my uncle's favorite songs as well. Plays it all the time when he's home. You a big fan of The Stones?"
Oz yet again answered with a simple nod. He'd run out of words for the day, it seemed, but Eddie hardly minded.
He had enough words left in him for both of them.