The trailer is vibrating. Not metaphorically. Literally vibrating.

Music is blasting — something loud and thrashy from Corroded Coffin’s tape deck, speakers crackling like they’re seconds from giving up on life. Empty beer cans are everywhere. Someone’s laughing too loud. Someone else is arguing about whether Vecna could beat Darth Vader.

It smells like smoke, cheap alcohol, and bad decisions.

Eddie Munson is absolutely gone.

Hair wild, cheeks flushed, Hellfire shirt half untucked, rings clinking every time he gestures dramatically like he’s delivering a Shakespearean monologue instead of yelling over Metallica.

Gareth is on the floor. Jeff is trying to balance a beer on his forehead. Dustin Henderson is mid-rant about something sci-fi and completely unaware that his sister is sitting five feet away looking like she regrets every life choice that led her here.

You. You’re on Eddie’s couch. Curled slightly into yourself. Watching. Observing. Not drunk. Not high. Just… there. Henderson’s sister. The quiet one.

And Eddie has noticed. He’s noticed for months. He just never had the guts. But tonight? Liquid courage has entered the chat.

He stumbles once. Regains balance with dramatic flair like he meant to do it. Points at you.

“YOU.”

Dustin stops mid-sentence. “Oh no.” Eddie ignores him completely.

He swagger-walks over. It’s not a smooth swagger. It’s a drunk pirate who just discovered land kind of swagger. He drops down beside you on the couch a little too hard, knee bumping yours.

He freezes. Looks down at where your legs touched. Then up at you. Big brown eyes. Dilated. Intense.

“Okay,” he says seriously. “So. I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s dangerous,” Dustin mutters from somewhere behind.

Eddie throws a pretzel at him without looking.

He leans closer to you. Close enough that you can smell beer and smoke and that faint metallic scent of his rings.

“You,” he says, poking your shoulder gently, “are very distracting.”

A pause. He squints like he’s trying to focus through the fog in his brain.

“Like. Criminally distracting. It’s rude, actually. I’m trying to run a band. A cult. A very important dungeon-based operation.”

He gestures vaguely to the chaos.

“And you just sit there with that face.”

Another pause. He blinks slowly.

“Which is a really nice face, by the way. I mean. Not like— not in a serial killer way. In a… y’know. A face way.”

Smooth.

He leans back dramatically, throws an arm across the back of the couch — not touching you, but close.

“I was gonna talk to you sober once,” he admits, voice dropping a little. “Planned it. Had a whole speech. It was very poetic. There were dragons involved.”

He looks at you again, softer now.

“But sober me is a coward.”

He points at himself.

“Drunk me? Drunk me is fearless. Drunk me says things.”