I See You (Please See Me): Chapter 3

A Stranger Things Fanfic

Trigger warning: mentions of abuse and eating disorders

Resetting the bones in her arm hurt, but Chrissy was alive, and that was the important thing.

Her parents couldn’t understand why she had been at Max’s, but they took one look at her arm and seemed to decide questions and a lecture could wait. Her dad held her hand as the doctors put the cast on, and she kept music playing the whole time, leaving the headphones around her neck so as not to be rude. She told her parents that Max had let her borrow the Walkman to distract from the pain.

“I don’t know what possessed you to try that skateboard,” her mom said as they drove home, “but at least you did it at the start of spring break so you’re not recovering during school.”

When they got home, her mom helped her change into her pajamas (the cast would take some time to get used to, and she was still shaken) and put the Walkman on the nightstand. Chrissy picked it back up as soon as her mom left the room.

She didn’t sleep much. Every time she managed to fall asleep, she would be up again in a few minutes, reaching for the Walkman to chase away the nightmares.

The next morning, she slipped down the stairs as her parents got ready to leave for work and sat in the living room. She kept the Walkman on.

Her father handed her the remote and told her little brother to get her anything she needed. “Love you sweetie,” he said as he kissed her forehead. “Rest up today.”

“If only we hadn’t been called in the middle of the night, one of us might have been able to take off of work to help her today,” her mom murmured, loud enough for her to hear as they left.

She didn’t turn on the TV. Instead she listened to music and watched the clock, waiting for Max to visit as she had promised.

Half an hour after her parents left, the doorbell rang. Brian answered it, and Chrissy saw Max and another girl (was that Nancy Wheeler?) standing on the porch.

“We came to see Chrissy,” Max explained.

Brian cast a suspicious at Chrissy, but she nodded and said, “Let them in.” He opened the door wider, waited until they were inside, then shut it and ran upstairs.

It was Nancy Wheeler, with a basket of cinnamon rolls. She gestured to it. “Partially an excuse to visit, but I always crave something sweet when I’m sick. Want one?”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” Her stomach protested loudly at that. She hadn’t had breakfast.

Both Nancy and Max pretended not to hear, but Nancy held out a cinnamon roll anyway. “Why don’t you just have one? We can save the others for later.” She couldn’t be rude, so she took it. Nancy watched, still smiling, so she took a bite and smiled back.

“It’s good.”

“Great! I’m glad you like it. I’ll just put these in the kitchen.”

“Please don’t!” Nancy stopped and turned around, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. Chrissy swallowed. “My mom doesn’t like to keep sweets around the house.”

Nancy studied her for a second, then nodded. “Alright.” She sat down and laid the basket at her feet.

Max immediately snatched one up and gobbled it down, then glanced at the clock. “Where are they?”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Who knows?”

“Where are who?” Chrissy asked, but a knock at the door interrupted.

Max leapt to her feet and answered it, ushering in Eddie, his curly-haired friend, Sinclair from the basketball team, a girl with short hair that she vaguely recognized from the school band, and–was that Steve Harrington?

“When you said ‘we’ last night, Mayfield, were you talking about all of them?” Eddie asked, glancing around the room. He didn’t wait for an answer before turning to Steve. “You fight inter-dimensional monsters, Harrington?”

Steve crossed his arms. “Sometimes. What’s going on, Max?”

Max shrugged. “We’ve got something new this time.”

“You sure it’s not the Mindflayer?” Sinclair asked.

“Positive. Eddie, why don’t you tell them what you saw last night?” Eddie glanced around the group with his arms tight across his chest. “Eddie!”

“Right, yeah, fine. Cunningham was over at my place last night–” his eyes darted away, and Chrissy shrank back into her chair, waiting for the disapproving looks. They didn’t come. “And, uh, she went into some kinda trance, then floated up to the ceiling.” She shivered, still having a hard time believing that had actually happened. “Arm snapped completely, then she woke up and fell down.”

Chrissy chewed her lip, knowing it was her turn to tell the story, but not wanting to go through it again.

“From what Chrissy said, it sounds like her trance was linked to real memories, but turned into some kind of horror movie. Real places, real people,” Max explained, and Chrissy sighed, relieved. “She said music got her out.” Max cast a sideways glance at her. “That and–something else. Whatever this monster is, it seems to make you see bad things, so if you focus on something good . . . " Everyone else was nodding, but Chrissy flushed at the implication and tried not to look at Eddie.

“Okay, okay, that’s good,” Sinclair said slowly. “I mean, we’ve got a way to keep it away from her until we find it and kill it.”

“One problem,” Steve said. “How exactly are we supposed to kill it without Eleven?”

“Eleven what?” Eddie asked, starting to tap his foot.

“Our friend, Eleven,” the curly-haired boy explained. “She has superpowers.”

“Except she doesn’t anymore,” Sinclair pointed out.

Eddie clapped his hands together and flashed a hysterical grin. “Right. Why not?”

“We’ll figure out something,” Nancy promised. “I mean, the Demogorgons hate fire, right? So maybe we can fight this thing with fire.”

Eddie blanched. “Did you just say ‘Demogorgon’? Please tell me we are not fighting actual DnD monsters.”

The curly-haired boy shrugged. “i mean, basically? They’re close enough that we use the names to make things easier.”

Eddie tapped his foot faster. “So when you said the Mindflayer before . . .”

“Yes.”

Eddie covered his eyes with his hand. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“I’m sorry,” Chrissy said. It came out squeakier than she would have liked, and she winced.

Eddie dropped his hand and looked at her, foot still now. “For what?”

“For getting you into this.” She looked at all the faces around the room. “All of you.”

Steve shrugged. “Nothing we haven’t handled before.”

“They’ve done this, like, three times before,” the short-haired, band girl said. “I’ve only done it once, but they’re really good at this, and you don’t have anything to worry about. I mean–” She laughed a bit hysterically. “Last time we saved the world with fireworks and The NeverEnding Story–”

“Robin!” the curly-haired boy complained, and Steve snickered.

“What she’s trying to say, is don’t worry about us,” Nancy said, forcing a smile. “We can take care of ourselves, and we’ll make sure everything ends up fine.”

Eddie pointed at Chrissy. “Don’t apologize again.” She opened her mouth, and he raised both eyebrows. She shut it.

Eddie turned to the curly-haired boy. “So, Dustin, got any brilliant theories on what this is?”

The boy cocked his head to consider. “You said it was like she was in a trance, right?” Eddie nodded. “Or a spell?” the boy continued, raising his eyebrows.

Eddie cursed. “Vecna.” Sinclair cursed as well, but everyone else looked at the three of them inquisitively.

“Vecna is an evil, undead wizard,” Dustin explained. “He was in our last campaign.” The others nodded as though this made sense. Chrissy was still confused.

“What’s a campaign?”

“They–” Steve gestured to Sinclair, Dustin, and Eddie, “like to play this nerd game where they go on fake adventures by rolling die.” Sinclair and Dustin rolled their eyes, but Eddie sputtered in protest. Steve waved him away. “This wizard was in their last adventure.”

She stared at the three of them, something finally clicking into place. “Is that Hellfire Club?” Eddie nodded, sliding his fingers through his hair and not meeting her eyes. “But–” Everyone turned to look at her, and she shrank back into her seat, lowering her voice. “I heard–I heard the Hellfire Club was really dangerous.”

Steve chuckled. “It may be nerdy, but that’s as bad as it gets. It’s just a game.” Eddie gritted his teeth, and Chrissy watched him nervously. Sure Eddie and Steve had always run in different circles, but she couldn’t figure out why they both looked like they would leap at each other at the slightest provocation.

“An-yway,” Dustin said, leaping up between the two of them. “I think our first step should be to call Will and El, see if they’ve noticed anything. Chrissy, can I use your phone?” She pointed to it, and he ran over and started dialing.

“We also need ot figure out what Vecna wants,” Nancy said. “I mean, why Chrissy?”

“The monster, did it show you anything? Say anything?” Max asked.

“Show me something?” Chrissy asked. She had seen a lot of strange things in her visions.

“Yeah. I mean, Will seemed like he could see what the Mindflayer was planning. So did–” She swallowed. “So did Billy.”

“Wait,” Eddie said, raising one hand. “You’re telling me the Byers kid and Hargrove were possessed by the Mindflayer?”

Everyone ignored him. “So?” Max asked.

“Um, he said it was time to end my suffering,” Chrissy said quietly.

“Well that certainly clears it up,” Robin muttered.

“No one’s answering the phone,” Dustin called.

“We’ll call them again later,” Nancy said. “Don’t worry about it. Mike kept talking about all their big plans, so they’re probably just out.”

Robin glanced at the clock. “Listen, Steve and I want to help, really we do, and we’ll do whatever we can, but we’ve got to get to work in a few minutes.”

“She’s right,” Steve said. “If we’re even a few minutes late, Keith won’t hesitate to fire us.”

“Fire you, maybe,” Robin said, rolling her eyes. “He likes me.”

“Okay,” Nancy said, spreading her hands. “I’m sure other people have things to do as well, and for now we don’t really have a set plan, and we’re still waiting to call Will, Mike, and El, so we’ll talk more later, but for now, no one goes anywhere alone, got it? We still don’t know why this thing is attacking, or if it’ll attack anyone else, so stay with someone else at all times.”

“Easy enough,” Steve said, clapping a hand on Robin’s shoulder. “We’ll see you guys later. Hope you feel better, Cunningham.” They waved and left.

Chrissy chewed her lip. Including her, there were only six people left, but Nancy hadn’t necessarily said they would divide into pairs, and everyone there was friends except her, so she didn’t feel like she could ask them to stay with her. She looked down at the floor and curled her toes under her chair.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. Nancy smiled down at her. “I’ll stay here with you, okay?”

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