Hey, now, don't get too excited. I never said I was into your Dungeons and Dragons sh-crap. ( He'd started to say "shit," decided that was a little too harsh halfway through and switched to "crap," ended up saying something that sounds more like "shcrap." Very smooth. Very cool. Good thing he's not actually here to try and impress Eddie. He just has to convince him that monsters, alternate dimensions, and time travel are all real, and that seems to be going just fine.

That fateful night in November when he'd had his first real encounter with the weird and terrifying seems like a lifetime ago now, but it's still as crystal clear in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. )

Anyway, we, uh... we forced it into a beartrap and set it on fire. ( Not that he had anything at all to do with that plan. ) To tell you the truth, it was all Nancy and Byers. They had this plan all laid out with the trap, gasoline, a gun, the whole nine yards. I just kind of stumbled into it, you know? A "wrong place, wrong time" kinda deal.

( Except it wasn't, not really. The only thing he would change if he could go back (ha) is his own shitty behavior. He wouldn't trade being there for Nancy and Jonathan in that moment for anything. There's no telling what might've happened if he hadn't gone back inside that house that night. )