Chapter Text
The evening is horrible.
Not that Chrissy didn’t expect as much in the first place. They’re in college now, and everything is going down the drain.
Well, it has for a while now. Years. Maybe her whole life. But she just didn’t want to see it, did she? No, it was easier to just pretend to be as perfect as everyone seemingly thinks she is. Grin and bear her mother, ignoring the glances of pity her father throws at her, play with her little brother.
Let Jason put his arm around her waist, holding her too tightly as he’s doing now.
They don’t live in Hawkins anymore, but it’s close. They’re still in Indiana, just in a bigger city, and Chrissy goes to college and lives in her dorm room and stares at the ceiling every night and wonders where in her life she went wrong.
(From the moment she set foot onto this earth.)
Tonight, they’re at the local nightclub. Not really her scene, but Jason has taken a liking to it—to the music, to the drinks, and especially to the pretty girls. The girls so much prettier than Chrissy. The girls who aren’t as much of a prude as he has taken to calling her recently, when she turns him away from time to time.
So yeah, things are a little horrible. Deep down, Chrissy has known Jason is cheating on her for a while now—but she didn’t allow herself to think about it. It’s so much harder to ignore now that he’s drunk, trying to put his hand up her skirt, and she has to push it away for the fourth time until he just rolls his eyes and wanders off.
To fuck another girl, probably.
Chrissy doesn’t know when she got so bitter. She doesn’t know when she got so pathetic. Never… ever has she been strong enough to make decisions for herself. To fight back against the people who have always, always controlled her life.
Just smile, Chrissy. Be smart, Chrissy, be pretty, Chrissy, go out with Jason and everything will be fine. You will be happy.
And now… she’s here. Now she’s here and bile burns at the back of her throat as much as her eyes burn in their sockets. Now she’s…
She blinks, the cool air hitting her face. She didn’t even notice she was walking out of the club, pushing past people, until she could finally breathe again.
And breathe she does. For a few moments, Chrissy just breathes, presses her hand to her chest, lashes fluttering as she looks around. The back. She got out of the back door. She’s at the back of the club and her boyfriend is still inside and now the tears are burning in her eyes so much she thinks she’s going to sink to the ground and start to sob.
“Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw,” a voice cuts through the silence—deep. She doesn’t know it, but it feels so familiar that it tingles under her skin. “If it isn’t the prom queen.”
Chrissy blinks. Looks up.
She’s not alone. Which should have been obvious, by now, really, but still. It’s a little cool outside—she left her jacket inside—and there’s a man in front of her as the breeze tousles through her hair.
He’s tall. Dark brown hair, long and curly, almost frizzy looking. His clothes are dark, too—a leather jacket with a denim vest, a black Metallica shirt and black, ripped jeans. His skin is pale against it, shimmering in the neon light of the nightclub as Chrissy stares at him, her mouth really dry all of a sudden.
She… knows him. From somewhere. She furrows her brows and squints, but before she can say anything, he takes a drag from the cigarette in his hand and continues.
“You don’t remember me, huh?”
Well. Chrissy swallows, looks off to the side, wraps her arms around herself. Part of her wants to go back in—but really, she’d rather die than be in there with all the music, thinking about Jason and how little she actually loves him. How little she actually values her life, and everything in it.
It’s embarrassing, though. This guy—he clearly knows her. She’s not even drunk, yet she feels a little dizzy, a little unsteady on her feet.
“Sorry,” she mutters, glancing at him again. He’s leaning against the wall, seemingly non-caring, just smoking his cigarette, and she has no idea what the fuck he is doing out here in the cold behind a nightclub all by himself. She swallows at how the rings on his fingers glitter in the light when he drops his hand again.
Hold on. Prom queen, he said. Suddenly, she can vaguely place him.
“Did we,” she starts, carefully, fiddling with her fingers. She’s still standing right next to the back door, which is probably stupid. If it opens, it’ll hit her, yet she’s frozen in place. “Uh, go to school together?”
His face cracks with a grin, his dark eyes twinkling in the light in a way that makes Chrissy’s breath hitch in her throat. There’s something so elated about it—as if he’s really and truly happy that she remembered just this much. It makes something in her chest throb.
“Aren’t you clever, Chrissy Cunningham,” he says, with a small, breathy laugh, drifting off into the dark night sky with a cloud of smoke. She flushes even darker, finally takes a few steps towards him. Just to… get away from the door. “Munson,” he continues, finally, and she leans against the wall next to him, leaving some distance between them. Too little, probably. If that matters. It doesn’t matter, Chrissy decides. “Eddie Munson.”
And that does make her remember. Eddie the Freak Munson, and the millions of scary rumors about him. The boy with the long hair and the wide grin. The guy Jason picked all too many fights with, always complaining about him.
Something about that just makes her want to stay out here even more. Spite, perhaps.
(And Chrissy supposes she should be scared. All the things people said about him back in Hawkins—satanist, freak, murderer, drug dealer… But really, she can’t find herself to care. Even if he should kill her, what would it matter anyway? It’s not like she has any impact on this world whatsoever.)
“Right,” she says softly into the silence, shivers into the cold. “I remember you. You climbed on the cafeteria table at least once a week.”
Eddie barks out a laugh at that, and like this, closer, he smells like smoke and weed and sweat and leather. It makes Chrissy’s head spin, in a way that is almost pleasant. In a way that’s not as overwhelming as the smell of alcohol and the loud music and Jason’s hand on her hip back inside.
Back inside. Chrissy swallows.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, even though she doesn’t really care. Just to… talk. To avoid having to go back inside, or being alone. She’s never talked to Eddie Munson before, after all—just watched him from afar back in high school, sometimes, wondering how it feels to be so free.
He’s still like that, isn’t he? With his sparkling eyes and the deep voice and the strange, honest comfort he radiates.
Eddie snorts, dropping his cigarette to the ground, digging the heel of his shoe into it with a small crunch. From the side, she watches how he rubs at his mouth, his rings glittering in the light. He’s… tall. She never really noticed that. Did he grow since high school or has he always been this tall?
Well. He was already around nineteen back then—and it’s only been two years. Can’t have been that much growth if there was any.
“You thought I was gonna stay in Hawkins once I finally managed to graduate?”
That’s… not exactly what she meant. Still, something in Chrissy’s rib cage tingles at that. So he lives in the city, doesn’t he? Just like she does. Close to Hawkins but not quite there. She wonders why that is, with all the resentment in his tone. Remembers the whispers about his parents and how he ended up living with his uncle.
(She wants to ask. There’s something burning under her skin, and she wants to know. All of it. It’s stupid.)
“No,” she says slowly, almost whispering it. She feels like an intruder everywhere she goes, but right here, in this alley behind a nightclub, they are both intruders. “I meant, what are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m definitely not enjoying the music,” Eddie mutters under his breath, and he looks at her from the corner of his eyes. They look almost black, like this. “I’m selling drugs, sunshine, same as I did in high school. You want any?”
The last part is very clearly sarcastic, because prim and proper Chrissy Cunningham would never even think of it, obviously.
Part of her wants to ask for some. Just to surprise him. Shake this picture he must have of her in his mind when he greets her with prom queen. She wonders how he views her. Wonders if she could really drown in his eyes, wonders what that weird pull at her chest is when she glances at him.
Why does she care about his opinion, anyway? Why does the sarcasm in his tone irritate her so much?
“Maybe I do,” she says, and she’s still Chrissy Cunningham, no bark and no bite, so there’s not even a hiss in her tone. She wraps her arms around herself again. “Would that be so bad?”
From the corner of her eyes, she can see Eddie raise his brows. Okay, maybe there was some annoyance in her tone. She’s frustrated. What does it matter? Is she not allowed to feel anything?
“Woah,” he says, amusement clear in his tone, and her face flushes. “Princess got teeth, huh? I like that.”
And it’s so stupid. All of it is stupid. Coming here in the first place, stumbling out of the club, being with Jason and continuing this stupid life even when she clearly hates it. This is stupid, too, talking to Eddie Munson, feeling relieved at his words. Yearning for… something.
(Something she thinks he could give her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.)
The world is clear around her. For the first time in a long while, Chrissy feels like she’s really and truly in the moment, and it’s stupid. She barely knows the guy. Glanced at him sometimes in school. Envied him terribly. Thought of him in her bed in her frilly little childhood bedroom. Tensed when Jason called him a freak. Wondered what went through his head every day.
She shivers again, and Eddie next to her shifts. He’s already shrugged off his jacket before she realizes what’s happening.
“Here,” he says, surprisingly soft, holding it out to her. It somehow still manages to catch her by surprise. “A lady shouldn’t be cold.”
There’s a weird pause in the air. Her body is turned to him, now, and she glances up at him, all dark hair and dark, kind eyes, and her lips are slightly parted. Eddie clears his throat, and she could swear his face is flushing a little, but maybe that’s just the cold.
“Sorry,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. Like this, with him just in his shirt, she can see his wiry arms. The tattoos scattered on them. “You probably think it’s gross. I’ll, uh, put it back on.”
And he lifts his hand holding the jacket just as Chrissy’s closes around the leather. For just a moment, both of them are tugging at the jacket, until Eddie’s gaze flicks down to her hand, and he swallows visibly. He lets go. Slowly, she puts his jacket on.
It smells rather strongly. It’s way too big. Eddie next to her shifts where he’s standing, as if he’s suddenly bashful, and Chrissy realizes that she likes him. That she likes this. That it feels more real than any interaction she’s had with anyone for years. Maybe even all her life.
It’s stupid to base her self-worth on the opinions of other people, she realizes that. She still can’t help it. Still turns towards him and tugs at his shirt and bats her lashes at him, watching how his eyes widen, before asking, “What do you think of me, Eddie?”
The way he looks at her is addicting. There’s something swirling in those dark eyes—something honest, something genuine, in a way that is so goddamn rare. No one has ever looked at her like that.
It’s stupid, but she thinks there hasn’t been a single day in her life where she hasn’t been stupid. So what does it matter, now? Is it really bad if she chases this feeling? If she thinks about going home with him, see all the other things he can do to her?
(She thinks about Jason inside, and the random girl he probably disappeared with. Her hand tightens at Eddie’s shirt, clawing into it.)
Eddie swallows. “Jesus,” he mutters, puts his hand on top of hers. It’s big—but he doesn’t try to push her away. “Are you drunk, Chrissy?”
His hand is so warm. Rough, in a way she’s never felt before. Jason’s hand is…
She doesn’t actually want to think about Jason. Ever again, that is. So she shakes her head, furrows her brows at him.
“I’m not drunk,” she says. “I thought about you in high school, sometimes, Eddie. Thought about how you acted, how you just did what you wanted without caring what everyone else thought. I always… I always wanted to be like you. I would have died to be like you.”
He looks at her for a few moments, suddenly very quiet. The smell of smoke is so close to her now—engulfing Chrissy completely, just like his jacket is.
“My boyfriend is cheating on me,” she continues, suddenly unable to stop talking. Her voice is breaking a little. “I don’t love him, but it’s still horrible. I’ve never—I’ve never done anything just because I wanted to. Eddie, what do you think of me?”
It feels like she’s begging him, now. Begging for something she doesn’t even know. There’s a voice at the back of her head, a voice that is always there, calling her shameful and embarrassing and childish and stupid, but Eddie looks at her with a steady look in his eyes, his hand still on hers.
He’s warm. He’s close. He’s a bad idea but he’s the first idea she’s had all by herself in years. And Chrissy… Chrissy is so sick of being a bird in a cage.
“Chrissy Cunningham,” Eddie says, slowly, taking her hand and prying her fingers from his shirt to turn it around, rubbing his thumb down her lifeline. “I think you’re the most fascinating girl I’ve ever met in my life.”
He pauses for a moment, looking at her palm with furrowed brows, as if he can’t quite believe the situation he’s in.
“I thought about you in high school, too,” he says, almost carefully, his gaze still turned away from hers. She wants to reach out and brush her fingers over his cheek, so she can see if she can feel his stubble. She wants to kiss him and put her tongue in his mouth so she can taste the bitterness of the tobacco and switch the bitterness on her own tongue with it. “But for different reasons, I’m afraid.”
When his eyes finally flick back up to hers, there’s something sparkling in them, but he’s not grinning anymore. It’s a silent invitation. It’s a promise Chrissy doesn’t quite understand yet—but she doesn’t need promises, anyway. What she needs is a taste of freedom. What she needs is…
“Yeah?” she breathes out, her heart hammering so fast she thinks she’ll die. She thinks about taking Eddie’s hand and running away with him. Thinks about ending her old life and starting a new one. Will she ever be brave enough for that?
Eddie swallows. Nods.
And Chrissy isn’t drunk, but she thinks she’d like to try. It’s a bad idea, and that’s exactly why she wants to do it.
(And if she dies, then so be it. Though she highly doubts she’ll die in the conventional way—obviously, she barely knows him, but there’s something in Eddie’s eyes that makes her feel like maybe she does. Maybe he knows her too. Maybe they could know each other. Maybe life can finally start feeling like life again.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. The only thing she knows for certain is that his lips are warm when she presses hers to them.)