Papa, Part 10

[Trigger warning: Abuse, attempted SA]

3rd Person's POV

"Well if it was bad enough for Vecna to give you nightmares about the dude-" Eddie trailed off with a scoff.

"He was the first and only guy I dated. He wasn't a bad boyfriend. He was actually pretty great. Well, at the start anyways." She bit her tongue when she saw the skeptical look in Eddie's eyes, realising she was already making excuses about a guy who deserved none.

"It started off as petty comments. He'd ignore me and would stop talking to me if I talked to any other guy. Or if I went to parties without him. Or if he had a problem with my clothes. I didn't really think much of it, just brushed it off as him being protective." She sighed.

Eddie leaned his head against her shoulder, waiting for her to continue.

"It seemed the more we dated the more comfortable he became doing whatever. At school, if I did something that pissed him off he'd grab my hands or waist tightly, almost as a warning. Sometimes it would leave marks but I didn't think anything of it. He surely wouldn't have done it intentionally." Valerie shook her head, at just how naive she'd been to miss the signs.

She took a glance at Eddie to see his mouth clamped shut, jaw clenched. They both knew what was coming.

"Then he slapped me. For the first time." Valerie sucked in a breath, wondering why her eyes threatened to spill tears over someone so pathetic, "I had a fight with him and I hadn't picked up his calls in a few days. I was sleeping over at Steve's, we fell asleep watching a movie. Apparently he'd been looking everywhere for me, and he barged into Steve's house in the middle of the night."

"He saw you two together." Eddie said.

"Yes. He had the decency to act unbothered in front of Steve, but when we got to his car he hit me. I tried explaining to him we were just friends but he wouldn't listen. After that he was the one hurt, and me the asshole." Valerie felt a bitter smile taking over her features, "And sure enough, the next day it was me apologising for my mistakes and him being great enough to forgive me."

Valerie paused before speaking again, "He had a way of doing that. Making you feel like it was your fault, making you feel fucking terrible for your decisions. I never felt good enough for him, I just realised it too late."

"Didn't any of your friends ever?..." Eddie trailed off.

"Oh no, like I said, he was also a great boyfriend. He'd kiss me, buy me flowers, take me to the movies. Girls at school used to be jealous of our relationship. I stayed with him because the parts of him that made me happy, far outweighed the parts of him I considered slip ups."

"We had been dating for a year by that point, and I noticed him getting touchy. Which was fine, I was okay with it. But after a while I could tell that wasn't enough for him anymore, that he wanted to have sex but I just-"

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows, "You don't have to-"

"No, I need to... I need you to know." Valerie mirrored his expression, "I told him I wasn't ready and he was surprisingly okay with it. I thought we were over it. I was hanging out at his place one day. His parents weren't home. I didn't feel like drinking but that didn't stop him from doing so. He was drunk, he started kissing me, taking my clothes off-"

"Val..." His eyes almost looked pleading, as if begging her not to let the story get worse.

"He tried forcing himself on me and that was when I just... I felt something in me snap. I didn't want to apologise, neither did I want an apology. I didn't care that he was drunk. I didn't care for whatever reasons or excuses he would come up with. I didn't care if I was making a fuss over nothing. I didn't want anything to do with him. I pushed him off of me, broke up with him and left."

Eddie felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, and he couldn't feel prouder that Valerie left when she did.

"I didn't speak to him after that. He tried, but I avoided him. You remember the Mind Flayer? And the russian lab?"

Eddie nodded.

"It was the 4th of July. We just came back home from Starcourt mall. We lost Billy. Hopper too. I remember being so fucking exhausted and drained. All I wanted was to get into bed and forget everything that happened. That's when he decided to fucking show up, drunk again."

"Did he-"

"He didn't." Valerie reassured him, "He was begging me to take him back, and said he didn't do anything wrong in the first place. I didn't want to hear any of it. When I asked him to leave that's when he started to get pissed. He started yelling at me, and I guess it woke Dustin up. Because the next thing I know he was about to hit me but Dustin took the blow trying to protect me."

"Motherfucker." Eddie grit out under his breath. The thought of the fucker laying his hands on both Valerie and Dustin made his blood boil.

If Peterson was alive right now, he would personally put him six feet under. He would gladly prove the town of Hawkins right, he would gladly be a murderer.

"Seeing the blood pouring from Dustin's nose... I just- my brain stopped working. Josh was seething, no one had ever interfered between us before. No one had ever seen him hit me. He grabbed Dustin by the collar, he was about to hit him again."

Valerie took in a deep breath, "I killed him. In a split second. I grabbed the nearest thing I had- a vase, and I smashed it on his head. He turned around slowly and looked at me, glass was sticking out all over his face, blood was pouring down it. And he just stared at me. Before he collapsed to the ground."

"Don't cry Val." His sighed, thumbs swiping the tears gathered against her cheek.

"And I fucking held him, like an idiot. For half an hour I held on to him, kept thinking he would wake up. In that moment I forgot everything he had ever done to me, I just wished he hadn't hurt Dustin. Because that was one thing I couldn't excuse, ever. But I didn't mean to kill him-"

"Valerie, you protected your little brother and yourself from an abusive, drunk older guy." Eddie grabbed her shoulders, looking into her eyes, as if it would somehow help drive the point across better.

"I know. I know on some levels, he deserved it, maybe not death but- It isn't that I killed him that bothers me as much, rather-" Valerie let out a sigh of frustration, struggling to articulate her words, "It's the fact that I killed somebody, a person. I took their life away, even if I didn't mean to. Dustin saw me do it, and he was fucking fourteen."

"When you started dating Peterson you were only sixteen, so stop talking as if everybody's a victim in this situation except for you. You dealt all of this by yourself then, and you're still doing it now."

Valerie didn't know how to respond to that, so she continued with the tale, "Dustin saw I wasn't in the right state of mind. I wouldn't get up, wouldn't let him go. He didn't know what else to do, so he called Steve. He picked us up in his car, didn't ask any questions and drove us to Starcourt mall. Police had thinned out by then, only a few patrol cars around that weren't too hard to get past. We dumped his body inside."

"The police didn't have any clue?" He asks.

"If the police in this town knew how to do their damn jobs properly, a couple of teenagers wouldn't have to save their asses every fucking year." Valerie scoffed, "Besides, there was the dead body of a monster from another world inside the burnt mall, and a secret Russian lab underneath. They didn't question his death. They were all too eager to sweep the whole situation under the rug."

Silence overcame the van, the only sound remaining being their slow, rythmic breathing.

Valerie pushed herself off of his lap, "Still like me?"

She felt way more anxious than her tone let on.

"Well, it's like what I said." He flashed her a warm smile, "You're my hero, Valerie. More now than ever before."

She poured out the heaviest, darkest parts of her and leave it to him to take it with a fucking smile.

"Well your hero sucks. She's stupid, naive-"

"Oh please, name one other girl who's helped save the world three times, all while dealing with a shitty boyfriend. You can't." He grinned, "My girl's one of a kind."

Her cheeks grew warm.

What was he doing to her?

He however, mistook her silence for hesitation. She did just tell him about her past, one that was enough to scar a person and their nightmares for evermore.

He tentatively raised her chin with his fingertips, "I'm sorry if I've been too pushy or, I don't know. He was an asshole, but he was also your boyfriend. You lost him not too long ago and I get if you miss him-"

"I don't."

"Oh. Well, good. You... shouldn't."

Valerie bit back a smile at how startled and cautious he sounded.

"What I'm trying to say is, I'll wait as long as it takes. Or if you're not interested that's okay too-"

"I told you I like you. A lot."

"Right." He scratched the back of his head, "I just want you to take all the time you need."

"It's the one thing we don't have."

"What?"

"Time. I was lucky enough to make it out last time. I don't know what's gonna happen tonight."

"Are you scared?" He took her hands into his own.

"Yes." She whispered, "I'm scared that I'll die. I don't want the people around me to go through that."

"You're worried about them?" Eddie fidgeted around with her fingers.

"Yeah. But I'm also scared that they'll move on in a year or so, because people die everyday. And... it'll be as if I was never even here." She didn't know where all of this was coming from, maybe because she'd never dared admitted it to herself before, "I don't want to be forgotten."

"You think I'll forget about you?" He almost looked offended.

"Not like that." She shook her head with a slight smile. The cool metal of his rings did wonders in keeping her calm, "I know everyone will remember me, but, life goes on right?"

"How about..." He tapped the pads of his fingers along her wrist, "When I come back I write a song about you. Songs don't die. We'll be long gone, but in a way pieces of us will still be here. You'll never be forgotten. Even if it's an old tape of me singing about you."

I fucking love you, Eddie Munson, was what she wanted to say.

"If you come back." She ended up saying.

His smile doubled in size, "Don't worry, I have a tendency of following you around. And I'm also only yours to kill, remember?"

Staying at Rick's house felt like a distant memory. Back then, it was just the two of them. Sleeping in boats, eating spaghettiOs, seeing Eddie half naked.

She definitely missed it.

"Uh huh. I intend to keep that promise."

"Oh, you already have. Several times now. Four, to be exact."

"Are you referring to us kissing, Munson?"