Chapter Text
Thing is, he wasn’t lying when he said he thought it was pretty cool.
The whole cheer thing.
Which y’know, fuck, how pathetic is that? Not liking cheer or whatever, it’s like - - the cliché of it all. He knows the hellhole town he lives in, knows the state, the entire goddamn country has this cultural obsession with hot girls in short skirts waving pom poms around, whether they’re killing them (Slumber Party Massacre, ’82, baby! He and Jeff snuck into the theater his sophomore year and Andree Honore in that little blue nightie has been a starring attraction of the cathouse in his head ever since) or fucking them (Gimme an ‘F’, ’84 – something he always remembers because the soundtrack made his ears bleed and he still kinda blames it for failing senior year that first time).
Point is, Eddie’s counterculture, he’s metal, no exceptions, and cheerleading is just so fucking mainstream, man. A way to take a girl and stick her in a uniform and cheer her cheering for a bunch of guys in another uniform – this performance of social approval, of conformity – a voyeuristic circle jerk of cookie cutter assholes who can’t look beyond the end of their own perfect noses to see that there’s this real world out there that’s more than hoops attached to poles and the first verse of the National Anthem.
Like - - he knows that.
But the thing is, he also remembers too well the middle school talent show and Chrissy Cunningham on stage with a few other girls. Remembers high kicks and in-step dance moves and the way the pom poms caught the light almost as fast as the glitter on their faces did, and he remembers briefly thinking this was real, and then he remembers realizing no one was actually paying attention. Remembers the way the kids in the crowd talked over them and the way a teacher refilled the drip coffee at the snack table for the faculty, and maybe most of all, he remembers the way Chrissy Cunningham’s smile didn’t falter even as people unsaw her.
Because okay, that cultural obsession? It’s for pretty girls in short skirts, it’s not about the actual work.
And yeah, the teenage boy in Eddie is always going to appreciate the legs and the smiles and the flexibility, but the artist in him appreciates the form, the sport, the choreography, the showmanship, and even before everything, he’d wanted to tell her that. That he was watching, that he knew what it was like to be unseen and that he was seeing. That every time the girls were ushered off the court for Jason Carver’s premature victory lap something in him plucked tight.
That every time the basketball team got their flowers for scuffing sneakers on a vinyl court while those girls flipped and danced and flew - - fuck.
Eddie just thought what they did was awesome, even before he saw Chrissy Cunningham take out a demobat with her baton.
(It was Henderson who actually said it though, wrapped up in his self-made armor, hood fastened around his baby face and his curls matted with sweat, looking the wrong side of fourteen as Chrissy twirled the baton the whole way around her hand to refasten her grip on it.
“If we make it out of here alive,” he’d said, voice thick with awe. “She’s got to show us how she does that.”)
And they do make it out alive, with Mike Wheeler’s superpowered girlfriend managing to seal off the gate to the Upside Down with little more than a nosebleed, and look, Eddie can’t say it’s the best Spring Break he’s ever had, but he can’t say it’s the worst either, especially with Chrissy, bruised and tired and dirtier than he thought it was physically possible for her to get (he just kinda figured shit didn’t – couldn’t – stick to her, y’know?) smiling at him like that. All uneven teeth and crinkled nose and eyes kyber crystal blue, and there’s something in his chest that feels tight, but not in the way it normally does. Not in that stretched dead-mom-dad-in-prison-can’t-graduate-trailer-park-piece-of-shit way, but just in a way that sort of feels full.
Like he’s pulled her and been pulled by her through an enemy base, and they’re fucked up but alive and there’s a prize in that. A not-quite-heroes’-end for a pair of not-quite-heroes.
And there’s only a few days left of spring break, and they agree to debrief, agree to talk soon, all of them together, but there’s just so fucking many of them, and they splinter before they seal, but he tells himself that it doesn’t matter. That it’s good that Dustin and Chrissy and Robin and Steve go to the hall to give back and help out, because that’s not going to be him (why should Eddie help a town that’s never helped him?) It makes more sense for him to go help Max and Lucas finally clear out her dead brother’s room, and Eddie even manages to sober her drunk mom up at least one night (it’s not like he hadn’t had the practice). Makes even more sense too, maybe, to help Hawkins demented answer to The Brady Bunch move back into a place, and shit, if you’d told him at the start of the year he’d be helping the as-it-turns-out-totally-not-fucking-dead Chief Hopper unpack his tighty whities he’d have told you to stop smoking what you found under the backseat of Reefer Rick’s car.
Although, y’know, to be fair, Hop had never actually arrested Eddie, even when he’d found him dealing. They’d had a routine for a while there – Hopper with his hands on hips, amused-but-unamused as he confiscated his stash, probably to smoke himself later, and piling him into the backseat of his car to take back to the trailer. Those nights would usually end with Hop sharing a beer with Wayne in a camping chair out front, laughing big before talking in hushed, haunted tones about Vietnam. Eddie would pretend to practice guitar, eavesdropping where he could – because it’s not like Wayne would ever talk to him about it otherwise. Not like this was a part of his life he’d ever invite Eddie into.
Whatever.
The point is, spring break’s over before it even began, and Eddie felt - - he doesn’t really know what he felt, but he knows something in him sparked hot with anticipation. He hadn’t had the chance to see Chrissy again over those last few days, both of them distracted by the hungry mouth this slice of Hawkins had revealed itself to be, and he told himself it didn’t matter, because things were different now. Life was different. The monster under the bed was real and they’d beat him together, been through hell together, just like Hopper and his uncle, and they’d come back to school like veterans, and they’d share this new language, and he’d see her and she’d see him, and everything would fit somehow.
They’d be the ones on the camping chairs sharing beers and scars and war stories, and he could barely sleep the night before school went back, his head sinking him in the horrors of the Upside Down and the heavens of Chrissy’s bruised smile, and he didn’t know what he’d say when he saw her again, but somehow he knew he’d know the second he walked up to the school gate and saw her again.
She might even be waiting for him, like a part of him had been waiting for her.
Only that’s not what happens.
It’s not, because it’s the first day of last semester, and he closes the door to his van and sees Robin Buckley in the passenger seat of Harrington’s car, their bickering audible from across the parking lot, and he heads into school and Nancy Wheeler only offers him a passing wave before she ducks back into the student paper room, and he feels something in him splinter even before he sees Chrissy Cunningham in the lunch hall, Jason Carver’s arm around her shoulders, her cheer uniform on and any bruises or cuts she might have left carefully covered with make-up, and there’s just - -
This look on her face.
Like she’s barely even really there. The spark and the anger and the star-bright cut of her smile muted again, and she doesn’t see him, even when Eddie tries to catch her gaze, and Eddie realizes he’s just really fucking naïve.
Just - -
Fuck.
What a joke.
“…and while we welcome back all of our Hawkins High students, we reserve a very special one for our Seniors,” Mr. Eltham says into the mic, holding his arms out to the crowd of students on the bleachers. Eddie slumps back in his seat, dropping a hand to his knee, ignoring the way Jeff casts a sideways glance at him. It’s been a while since any of them actually showed up for a school assembly like this, and maybe even longer since any of them were in the gymnasium, and he can’t remember if it always smelt this fucking bad. All sunscreen and sweat and eau de jock strap. The thought makes him pull a face, gaze pulling down to where the basketball team sits in their letterman jackets, sprawled across the front couple of rows.
He does not let his gaze slip down to where he knows Carver sits, jacket off and knees splayed and hand on the inside of - -
Nope.
“You’ve almost made it!” Eltham continues, balling his hands and extending his arms in an awkward double fist pump. “These final nine weeks of school mark the last time you’ll walk these halls…”
“For most of us anyway,” Jason says, right on fucking cue, and Eddie eyeballs him from where he sits as people titter around them, wondering how easy it’d be to get the yuppy dickbrain paying premium for oregano again. The guy jerks suddenly sideways, says something low that sounds like what the hell, babe, and this time, Eddie can’t stop his gaze from sliding to where Chrissy’s retracting her elbow, and something in him hitches.
Christ, he’s pathetic.
Up front, Mr. Eltham raises his arms just to lower them again, the universal sign of quieten down, before he continues.
“Make the most of these weeks. Enjoy time with your friends, tell your teachers you appreciate them, and most importantly, study hard! The world’s your oyster, but an oyster’s only worth anything to those who know how to open it!”
Which - - lame. Eddie rolls his eyes as the teacher drones on until out of the corner of his eye, he sees Robin Buckley ducking up the stairs. He squints, stares at her as she climbs over Jen Whittle and Rhonda Simon, and squeezes between a few preppy sophomores, and he doesn’t even click she’s coming to him until she gets a leg over Gareth and shoves her way between them.
“Sorry, ‘scuse me,” she mumbles, wedging her ass onto the bench beside him, and Eddie twists, catching Gareth’s baffled look as he turns to stare at Robin’s freckled face, and she’s just like, staring straight back at him, and honestly just - -
“You lost?” he asks her, arching an eyebrow, and Robin arches one right back.
“Are you? Don’t you usually skip this sort of thing?”
With that, she gestures broadly to the hall in front of them, across the swell of what has to be pretty much the entire highschool (except, at least, the burnouts and losers who he’s usually very happy to skip with – they’re typically in a buying mood this time of the day), but Eddie doesn’t look at them, doesn’t need to. Knows the familiar splatter of colour, the tones pre-set for highschool conformity between Afterthoughts and Tiger Beat, and a voice in the back of his head says Chrissy’s one of them, sitting front row in this bullshit assembly, poised and eager and slurping the fucking Kool Aid like a Jim Jones bride, and what the fuck does that make him, but - - shit.
No.
Not the point.
He didn’t actually come to assembly to see her anyway, he was just - -
Whatever.
Eddie lets his mouth stretch into an empty smile, all teeth.
“Guess I’m a new man, huh, Buckley?” he decides, twisting back to stare across the gymnasium, taking in the dusty cut of morning light and the recently polished floors. Vaguely, he’s aware of Gareth and Jeff slumped in their own seats, doing a good job of pretending none of this is fucking weird, and he’s relieved for it in the moment of it. He knew he kept them around for a reason. “Figured I should do my goodbyes properly this year since graduation’s in spitting distance for me now.”
“Right,” Robin says, squinting at him a little as she settles properly into her seat, and he frowns at her, forehead wrinkling, because of all the people to be sidling up to him after their week of interdimensional guerrilla warfare, he really didn’t think it would be Buckley.
The thought sticks like cheap gum, because why is she here?
He lets his gaze tip – taking in her messy haircut that kinda makes her look like Amy from Fright Night got stuck mid-vampire transformation, and the baggy set to her really-fucking-ugly shirt, and her full lips, and y’know, he’s got eyes, okay? Plus what she can do with an oar is almost as impressive as what Chrissy can do with a baton, and he must have a look on his face (he’s just considering, okay, he’s a guy, and anyway she’s the one who pushed her way into his orbit again), because Robin suddenly gives him a look of disgust.
“Don’t flatter yourself, dingus,” she says. “Dustin asked me to check in. He said he hasn’t seen you since Hopper’s place.”
Which - - okay. Eddie sucks on his teeth, laughs something harsh, ignores the way someone turns around from the row in front to shush him, and says:
“Uh, well, that was literally three days ago, and even if it wasn’t, I don’t need anyone – least of all someone sent by a freshman – checking in on me, so. You can go.”
“Hopper’s place? As in, Chief Hopper?” he hears Jeff question, and Eddie can feel his leg start to jump, the urge to move sudden and pressing, and he hears a few people in the crowd clap and the muffled crackle of the microphone as Mr. Eltham struggles to turn it off, and then, out of the corner of his eye, the flick of a copper ponytail. The last catches, stutters in his head, and he stares at Chrissy’s back, her posture - - different. Like she’d - - had she been looking at him? No, fuck, that’s not a thought worth the headspace. He rolls his shoulder back only to regret it because that’s the one he really fucked up when he fell out of the Upside Down, and so he exhales a long breath.
Pathetic.
This whole thing is just - -
Totally fucking pathetic.
The cloying opening chords of Walking on Sunshine start up from Ms. Click’s boombox, signalling the end of the assembly, and Eddie springs from his seat, stepping over Gareth and Jeff and every other too-slow student to get the fuck out of here, and it takes him about .03 seconds to realise Robin’s now following him.
“Don’t you have friends you can go and piss off?” he bites, taking the steps two at a time down the bleachers, dodging Rhonda Simon who’s out into the aisle now too only for Jen Whittle to mouth Thursday over her head at him. He nods, sharp, keeps moving.
“Don’t you have friends your own age? Like Mr. Price maybe?”
Robin gestures with that to the decrepit math teacher now talking to a few of the science geeks in the corner of the gymnasium, and Eddie barks on a laugh, finally turning the corner to beeline for the exit.
“HA! Yeah, sharp, Buckley. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do they actually make you buy those stupid hats for band, or do you get the bullshit honor of making them yourselves?”
“I’d ask you the same question about your dumb cult club shirts, only I already know the answer,” she offers sweetly, somehow speeding up until she’s in-step with him, her backpack low on her back and her bomber jacket tied up around one of the straps. It makes her look like she did in the Upside Down, weighed down by flares and the sawn-off shot gun Nancy had thrust in her hands, and he hates the way the image sticks like a crumb in a cavity, wonders if Wayne feels the ache like this sometimes, the strain in his jaw as he tries to tongue a memory out.
He shakes his head, aims for his locker.
“Also, just for the record, I don’t actually care how you’re doing, or how Dustin thinks you’re doing, I’m just here to get a ride because Steve can’t pick me up. Dustin said you could drop me at the video store after school.”
And okay, that’s enough to make him stop in his tracks. He pivots on the spot, turning to stare at Robin, who’s now a half-step ahead of him, not quite having stopped herself in time, and before he can say no, because they are not friends, something this conversation has made very clear, and even if they were, Eddie isn’t the sort of guy who chaperones anyone anywhere unless he’s in a band with them (or they’re Chrissy Cunningham apparently), Robin just grins, all teeth.
“Thanks, bud,” she offers, sarcasm thick in her tone as she picks up her pace again, walking backwards down the hall so she can face him as she adds: “I’ll meet you at your van after last bell.”
Thing is, he does think of tracking Henderson down, but lunch has been and gone and he’s got no idea the kid’s class schedule, and so he decides instead to leave early, skip last period entirely and leave Buckley in the dust, only by the time he gets to his van, Robin’s already there, her English homework pressed into the window as she writes up answers (apparently that’s how she chooses to half ass it), and she’s gotta see him in the reflection, because she turns the second he gets close to grin at him, all fucking teeth, and just - -
Yeah, okay.
He drops her at Family Video.
He’s never been a good sleeper.
Wayne doesn’t really talk about it, but once when Hopper was over, when they were both a couple of beers deep, he’d laughed about it. Told Hop how Betty didn’t know what to do with Eddie after he was born, the way he cried through the night, the way he didn’t stop when he hit those milestones where babies were supposed to get easier. That she’d try everything – a feed, a change, a cuddle – but none of it worked because what Eddie wanted to be was awake.
Like he was worried the world would pass him by if he closed his eyes for too long.
Eddie stores the memory somewhere deep, where he stores all the memories of his mother, but he feels it resurface now, the ease in his uncle’s tone and his own unchecked yet unspoken need to hear any and every scrap of information about her, as he turns over for what feels like the thirtieth time in bed.
Shit.
He’d slept like crap last night too, had really since Hawkins decided to open its sleepy maw and swallow him whole, and it feels like his nerves are newly alive beneath his skin, infectious and festering, whispering about what lives in every flickering light in this Podunk, hellmouth town. He jerks up, pulling off his sweat-soaked t-shirt and flinging it to the floor by his bed, and then, after a beat, shoving off the mattress himself.
He needs to play.
That’s what he needs.
Needs next week’s gig at The Hideout or tomorrow’s D&D, something that can make him feel normal again, because it seems like with the exception of Buckley, that’s what everyone else is looking for. He eyes off his guitar, but he heard Wayne get in an hour ago and the wheeze of his mattress as he collapsed onto it, and he doesn’t want to wake him, so that leaves…
His eyes gravitate towards the built-in shelves, and he makes his way over, crouching in front of it and starting to scavenge through it for weed (do you have anything stronger? her voice whispers in his head, and fuck, no, not here too). He finds his personal stash in an old cassette case, prying it open and is relieved to find what he needs. He hadn’t been sure – hasn’t been back to Reefer Rick’s since Spring Break started (but fuck, he needs to go pick some up) – so to find it loosens something in his chest he hadn’t realised had gotten so tight.
Rolling himself a joint, he drops back into bed, reaching below his mattress and forgoing the condoms, bottle opener and thin wad of cash from sales, he yanks out his lighter, flipping at the starter only to stare at it, annoyed, when no lick of flame appears.
“Come on,” he grunts, shaking the thing, but it’s no use.
Out of juice.
He exhales, glancing at the door to his bedroom, feeling the familiar shiver creep up his back at the prospect of going out there, and it’s not that he’s afraid, fuck no, just he hadn’t made a habit of hanging around in his living room after seeing her - -
After seeing her like that.
Fucking catch-22 bullshit motherfucker, he thinks, can’t get rid of the memories until he faces the memories, and with that in mind, he slinks back off the bed again and pads out of his bedroom. The trailer would be eerily quiet if it wasn’t for the vague comfort of Wayne snoring like a freight train the next room down and the low, meditative hoots of the nightjars coming alive in the dark outside.
He moves deliberately and swiftly to the kitchen, lighting the gas stove top just to kiss his joint to the flame, relieved when it takes and letting himself take a long drag in the kitchen, revelling in the familiar loosening of his head, and he’s so lost in that, that he doesn’t even think about it when he turns to the living room.
It’s not that the memory follows him exactly, not like that shit is hounding him, tearing at the edges of his tired psyche, not leaving this house (well, trailer) anymore haunted than it already was, but he’d lying if he said it wasn’t close enough to the surface for it to always be a little visible. Like it’s only ever concealed with dust and all it takes is the drag of a slow finger to bring her back. Pressed up into his ceiling, her face hollow and her eyes empty, the starburst of her laugh swallowed up in the blackhole of what he’d learn was Vecna, or - - or maybe it wasn’t.
That’s what Max had said, wasn’t it?
That Vecna didn’t create the darkness, he just fed off it, but nothing about Chrissy ever seemed dark. She’d always made Disney princesses seem like gothic heroines, but there she’d been, scooped out and feasted on, and she would’ve been rendered something other – a skin suit of broken bones like Fred – had Eddie not stumbled sideways into Wayne’s radio.
Rendered something other than the girl who fell from his ceiling, heaving breaths and crying so quietly it was like she was used to hiding her tears, and Eddie hadn’t known what to make of that. Hadn’t known what to make of any of it, because a cheerleader had gone full Exorcist on his ceiling, and he hadn’t found her salvation, he’d just managed to stagger them both into a pit stop, but that night, after he’d managed to get her a glass of water with a hand he couldn’t get to stop shaking, she’d still just - -
Fuck.
She’d looked at him.
Saw him.
“Hi,” she’d said, like it was the first time they’d ever met.
“Hey,” he’d replied, voice wobbly, because maybe it felt like it was.
He only has the one class with her.
That’s weird, right? He feels like it’s weird. After all, it’s not like Hawkins High has the student populous to make for that many conflicting schedules, but he figures they take different classes. Knows for a fact that she does Home Ec and Social Studies when he does Wood Shop and Music to say the very least, but even still, he wonders sometimes why they don’t cross over more in English or Calculus or even Gym. Wonders if he would’ve skipped class less this year if they had.
Whatever.
Point is, they have Biology together, and Jason Carver does not take Biology, and Eddie dumps his books onto one of the raised lab tables, sliding onto his stool and feeling the pre-summer sweat pool at the base of his neck, frizzing up his hair as Chrissy wanders in with Jen Whittle, one of the other cheerleaders, their heads bowed together and their voices low beneath the buzz of the classroom. They’re both out of their uniforms – Jen in some oversized blue sweater and a white mini skirt, her dark hair teased so high and wide, it’s almost as broad as her shoulders, and Chrissy with her hair down, in a pink-striped shirt and figure-hugging three-quarter length jeans, a look straight out of Risky Business and the thought makes him blink, stare down at his books, a hot flush crawling over the shells of his ears, and by the time he looks back up, she’s sitting with Jen at one of the lab tables at the front of the class, her back to him again, and right, Eddie thinks, stabbing his pen into his text book.
Like - - fuck.
What did he expect? That this class would change anything? All of this - - none of it was about Jason. It was about Chrissy, about her stepping back into the life before she tried to melt into his ceiling, about the fact that whatever he felt during Spring Break - - for her, with her, it didn’t count.
It didn’t - -
Bang!
Eddie jumps, spins in his seat as Buckley drops into the seat beside him, squinting a little as she asks:
“Did we always have this class together?”
And fuck if Eddie knows the answer to that.
But if he wants normal, if he wants right, he thinks this is it.
“Barely one day’s march from Kelven, the unchartered tracts of the Dymrak Forest conceal horrors enough to freeze the blood of civilized folk,” Eddie starts, his voice low, thick, the classroom lights off and instead the surrounding desks scattered with candles. The flames on each flicker as the guys around the table all lean in. “Those who have ventured there tell how death comes to the unwary – for the woods at night are far worse than any dungeon.”
They’re all here – Gareth, Jeff and Nate, along with Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and the Byers kid, Will, his Hellfire t-shirt still creased from where Eddie had pulled it out of his bag (and the kid hadn’t even hesitated, like he’d been waiting to pull it on all week). Eddie grins, slides a hand onto the table, his rings making a heavy, metallic sound against the cheap vinyl surface.
“But you are adventurers, veterans of many battles, and the call of the will is strong. Will you answer the call, or are you afraid of the dark terrors of night?”
“We answer the call. We are not afraid,” Dustin says, breathless and honest, and yeah, Eddie thinks, affection thick and warm in his chest.
He knows they’re not afraid.
With a flourish, Eddie starts his last highschool campaign.
The door to the trunk of his van whines as he wedges it open, sliding in the box of D&D equipment and propping it against one of his amps so it won’t slide around as he drives. The fuzz of the carpet offcuts he’d thrown into the back to soften the trunk catches instantly on the fraying cardboard corner of the box, and he really should get something better, something more permanent, if he’s going to keep running campaigns after highschool (although, fuck, where? And with who?)
He shakes his head. The night air nips at his neck, and he resists the urge to shiver as he closes the van door, turning to lean against it as he looks out across the school parking lot. He can already see Dustin and Lucas and their friends cycling into the night, and Nate’s set to drive Gareth and Jeff home in his mom’s station wagon, and he can see them riffing as they pile in. He catches Gareth’s eye, who suddenly grins, amused, which - -
Well.
That’s gotta be her cue.
Eddie’s gaze slides sideways, and it’s easy then, to spot Jen Whittle crossing the parking lot towards him, her dark hair a little flat after the day at school and her lips painted a shade of pink Eddie thinks he’s only ever seen in Wham! music videos. Not that he watches Wham! music videos, but MTV is almost always on in the background of the only record store in town, and he always has to wait until the place is empty to convince Andy to turn the TV off and crank up Iron Maiden instead.
He throws a hand to his forehead, offers her a two-finger salute, and feels more than hears Gareth laugh somewhere behind him.
“Getting bold, Whittle,” he tells her, and Jen shrugs, leaning back against the van beside him the second she reaches him.
“Who’s gonna see? No one’s out here at this time of night unless there’s a game on,” she says with a shrug, and then, peering over to where Gareth, Jeff and Nate are piling into the car, she looks back. “I mean, no one who matters.”
“Weird take for someone who wants something from me.”
She rolls her eyes at that, reaching for her neon yellow bag – a pillbox purse for a drug deal, he appreciates the symbolism, even if it is a bit heavy-handed – and pulls out a few crumpled bills.
“You want me to play nice, Munson? Ask about your little game?”
“Sure, if you think you’re ready to experience Night’s Dark Terror.”
He lowers his voice as he says it, uses the one he only really does when he’s performing, and he knows the depth of it takes her aback, can see it in the way she pauses, not so much curious as she is a little cautious, gaze dipping down to the devil on his shirt, which is kinda dumb, because they’ve been doing this for way too long now for her to be scared of him. After a second, she blinks her big brown eyes back at him (and fuck, what is it about the cheerleaders at this school having eyes that belong on cartoon animals?) and if he didn’t know any better, he’d swear he caught a smile tugging at her thin lips. After a moment, she offers him the cash, and Eddie just jerks his head, directing her to the front of the van.
Jen always gets the same – two joints (he rolls them for her) and a single molly, which he’s pretty sure she splits in half to share with Rhonda Simon on the weekend. It’s a weekly deal – has been since she flunked junior algebra and had to re-take the entire subject over the summer and needed something to unwind – and Eddie’s mostly just appreciated her reliability. She’s kind of a bitch, but only in the way he’s sort of a dick, and if he’s honest, he thinks there’s a universe somewhere they could’ve even been friends.
Striding around to the front of the van, he opens the passenger door and whacks the compartment in front of the seat until it opens to reveal his black lunchbox. Pulling it out, he grabs the sandwich bag he’d dropped her order into last night, and they swap cash for drugs easy, practiced, and she seems as relieved as he felt the other night to tuck her stash back into her purse.
He's ready to wave her off then, or at least see her to her car (he hates to admit it, but he’s more reluctant to leave both cheerleaders and freshman wandering around on their own at night since Spring Break), when Jen swings her pillbox back over her shoulder and purses her lips up at him.
“You still playing The Hideout on Tuesdays?”
Which - -
What?
Eddie stares at her, forehead furrowed, gaze darting across her small, round face, trying to figure out exactly what she’s asking, because there’s absolutely no way in hell Jennifer Whittle’s looking for a free ticket.
“Yeah,” he says slowly, and Jen nods.
“I could probably meet you there after your gig next week? Or before? I can’t do pick-ups on Thursdays anymore. Cheer practice is changing nights, and I can’t buy with the girls around. Most of them are just total prudes, but a few of them are like, literal narcs.”
Eddie blinks.
He’d vaguely known that cheer practice was on Tuesdays before (a part of him thinks maybe he would never have actually invited Chrissy Cunningham to The Hideout if it wasn’t a night he knew she had an excuse not to come), but it’s never been something that’s been particularly relevant to him outside of deals. None of the cheerleaders pick up Tuesdays – Jen always stayed back Thursdays macking on Patrick Fox under the bleachers until she could pick up from Eddie after D&D, Lori Vela on Sundays from his trailer on her drive home from church, and the only other cheerleader who bought was Andrea Ballard, a sophomore who clearly saw herself as next in line for the title of Queen of Hawkins High, so they didn’t even meet in person.
She preferred a locker drop-off, which suited Eddie just fine.
Andrea wasn’t a bitch in the way Jen was, she was a whole other breed.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’s cheer changing nights?”
It doesn’t even matter – Jen’s already pitched an alternative, so it’s not like he’s gonna lose her business, but still. Sue him. He’s curious.
In reply, Jen just gives him a look.
“What?” she asks. “You looking for a virgin sacrifice for your freaky occult shit? You’d probably find more of them in your little club than on our team.”
Eddie gives her a sardonic smile.
“Good thing I don’t think Satan would want any of you anyway,” he says, then shrugs. “And I sorta figured Thursdays were for pre-gaming ahead of the weekend for people like you.”
She rolls her eyes at that, and then, to his surprise, reaches for her purse. She doesn’t pull out the baggie he’d just sold her, but instead a cigarette, offering one to him, and when he nods, she passes it over before pulling one out for herself. She lights his first, then her own, taking a long puff and twisting an arm around her waist.
“Basketball season’s over, so’s football. We don’t have any games to prep for.”
Letting that sink in, Eddie takes a drag of his own cigarette. He can’t make out the brand, but it’s smoother than the sort he usually gets, which means they’re probably expensive and he sort of wonders who sold them to her. He holds the smoke a little longer, watching as Jen does the same.
“Don’t you have like, your own cheer championships or whatever?”
It’s not the first time he’s wondered it – has maybe wondered since he first saw Chrissy Cunningham do a high kick in middle school – but it’s the first time he’s ever thought to actually ask. First opportunity he’s had maybe, he thinks. He takes another drag.
“There’s competitions, yeah,” Jen says, amusement back on her face. “I know this might shock you, given your lunch time sermons, but your little dragon club isn’t the only one Hawkins doesn’t give a fuck about. There’s an entry fee, and this place would never pay for us to compete, so we’ve never done it. They’d rather get the basketball team’s sneakers bleached, I guess. Chrissy tried to talk to Principal Lowe this year, and when she said no, she tried to organise this fundraiser, but…”
Jen trails off, gestures a little with her cigarette, the smoke zigzagging into the night air, and Eddie stares at her, feels something in him tighten as he tries to remember a cheer fundraiser at all this year, and he can’t, but he can picture Chrissy’s face – determined and too sweet and then he remembers middle school.
Her smile as everyone unsaw her.
He drops his cigarette to the asphalt, stamping it out with the toe of his sneaker, and after a minute, Jen does the same.
“Whatever,” she says. “Chrissy’s the one who wants to change practice to Thursday. Something about us getting to feel like the main event now that basketball and football are done, which is like, so sweet, but totally stupid, because it’s not like anyone’s going to hang around to come to see us, y’know? In Hawkins, it’s basketball or bust. There’s a reason only losers meet on Thursdays. No offense.”
With a snort, he buries his hands in the pockets of his vest, staring out across the parking lot towards the school. Everyone but the janitor is out of there now, and it shows in the lone light still on, somewhere down the hall. It’s weird to look at the place at night like this, it feels almost like a children’s toy, something that you could turn upside down and shake until all the desks and chairs and people fell out.
“You don’t have to come all the way out to The Hideout,” he tells her. “What time’s practice? I could work around you.”
“Four til six, so like - - ”
“Same as us.”
The thought sets somewhere funny in him, and he doesn’t really know why. So what – Chrissy’s changed the night her team cheers to the night his club meets. Shit, maybe she knows Jen’s been buying and is trying to put a stop to it, maybe she really did just want her team to feel like the stars of the show for a change, none of it matters. After all, if Spring Break was ever going to be something real, it would be Chrissy here buying off him and not Jen Whittle. Chrissy had the chance to go back to her old life, unhaunted, and she took it. She chose it, chose Jason, and any friendships with this weird ass group of Upside Down survivors was over, and any spark between him and her is snuffed like it was always going to be.
None of them were united in battle – they weren’t characters in a D&D campaign, or even Wayne and Hopper – and this was the ending they were always going to have.
Or at least, that’s what he thought until Friday afternoon when he saw Chrissy Cunningham coming out of the student paper office laughing with Nancy Fucking Wheeler.
“Munson! You are driving like an insane person!”
In the passenger seat beside him, Robin has one hand flat on the ceiling of his van and the other death gripping her seat belt, but he really doesn’t care as he lurches the car between gears to get out of the school grounds as quickly (and loudly) as possible.
“The moocher doesn’t get to have an opinion, Buckley. You got an issue, you walk.”
His tyres screech as he tears around the corner, bumping out onto the road and starting the fifteen-minute drive to Family Video, because apparently taking Buckley to work after school is something he just does now. He grits his teeth, drums his fingers against the steering wheel and this is just all so fucking stupid.
What does he care if Chrissy and Nancy are apparently going to stay friends? Shit, it even makes sense – they’re both straight-laced, straight-A students who date jocks (are jocks, given Chrissy with her whole cheer thing and Nancy with her gun) and live in a world painted in blush pink and rose gold, and Eddie knows that’s not him, doesn’t want that to be him, never felt that that was a galaxy, a universe he could exist in. Eddie’s world is on the outside, and he likes it that way, loves it, feels himself in noise and colour and the strings of his guitar and the earthy smells of his uncle’s trailer, and the fantasy of a game that lets him wield a sword or control a universe.
Eddie is Eddie and Chrissy Cunningham is - -
“Dude, seriously, what’s crawled up your ass?”
Eddie jerks from his thoughts, turns to see Robin staring back at him, lip curled and brow furrowed, and it’s small, the tiny knot of fear, but Eddie sees it straight away (like recognises like, he guesses), and it’s instant like it always is. The knife of guilt. He takes a breath, loosens his grip on the steering wheel, eases his foot on the pedal.
“School fucking blows,” he says, and Robin softens, the knot of fear massaged out.
“Tell me about it. Mrs. Click totally sprung a pop quiz on us, like, who does that the first week back? She’s a total sadist. She said she wasn’t going to grade us or whatever, just like - - wanted to know what we knew before we started this last unit, but what does she expect me to know about America’s involvement in the Korean War? I’m 18! I wasn’t even alive. I don’t even know if my mom was alive.”
Eddie tunes her out, but he’s also weirdly comforted by her blind chatter. A blanket of noise to soften the sharp cut of what feels a hell of a lot like rejection.
It’s Gareth who starts them off – the rat-a-tat-tat of his sticks against the high tom, his foot on the pedal of the snare, and Eddie counts his way into the beat, pick smooth between his calloused fingers as his other hand finds the neck of his guitar, fingers the strings, and gets ready to shred.
The music doesn’t hit, it soars, a hawk caught in the concrete walls of Nate’s cousin’s garage, and Eddie feels his fingers move, controlling the bird’s - - the song’s - - flight. He drops his head forwards, hair hanging like a cape, hips gyrating, body curved and willing as he shreds, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Nate on bass, and then Jeff on his own guitar, his hands moving just a step behind Eddie’s, building on the melody, and fuck, they’re good.
Eddie knows they’re good, has known he was since middle school, but Gareth and Jeff weren’t in the band back then, and Nate still thought he could play drums, and Corroded Coffin was something different. They weren’t this.
Propping his foot up onto one of the amps, Eddie lets his eyes slip shut, curls his way through the song, fingers moving almost of their own accord, the music so fluent in him it seeps out of every joint, every pore, and he thinks this is where he belongs. Feels at peace maybe for the first time since Spring Break.
The music slows, the song over, and Eddie opens his eyes, stares at his guys, and just says:
“Fuck.”
It’s Gareth who wants to go to The Hawk.
Dude fucking loves horror movies, and Eddie’s pretty into them too, but Jesus, Poltergeist II: The Other Side? The first one was barely worth the reel it was filmed on, but to be fair, ghosts have never really been Eddie’s jam. He’d rather a creature feature (or at least, he did before he got up close and personal with a few in the Upside Down), or a bit of hyperviolence – he’ll take The Thing or Videodrome over Amityville any day of the week.
But today he was willing to make the sacrifice, skin still buzzing with just how fucking good band practice was, the music in his head still striking hot, and it’s how he finds himself collapsed back into one of the sloped seats at The Hawk Movie Theater on a Saturday afternoon, his legs propped up on the chair in front of him, watching some nutso ghost priest chase Carol Anne down the street.
“You just know that albino fuck’s commit a hate crime,” Jeff says in the seat beside him, squinting up at the screen, and Eddie grins, dart quick, before turning to face him.
“He’s got backwoods bigot written all over him,” Eddie agrees, and Jeff snorts, stretching a little in his seat like he’s ready to get up and out of here too, but then again, Jeff’s never been that big on horror in general. Hell, guy would rather read Terry Pratchett than Stephen King. “Hey, you want popcorn?”
Jeff shrugs, and Eddie re-phrases:
“You want something to throw at the screen?”
It makes Jeff laugh at least, even as Gareth and Nate give them annoyed looks down the row, and Eddie waves them off, dropping his legs only to kick up from his seat and head out into the lobby. He’s got the cash from Jen’s sale burning a hole in the pocket of his jeans, and he really should keep it to buy a bigger stash off Reefer Rick later, but he figures he can spare a few dollars at the candy bar.
The smell of butter and salt hits his nose the second he’s into the lobby, and he inhales deeply, weirdly glad to be out of the stasis of the theater. He’s still too like - - fucking wired from practice, and it leaves his legs jittery, his body restless, and loosely he thinks he probably has a joint somewhere in his van that could help him unwind, but his stash is pretty low, so courting a snack coma will have to do the trick.
The Hawk is midway through a session block, which means the lobby’s pretty quiet – the only people out here the kids who bought tickets for something PG trying to sneak into something rated R, and the gaggle of moms hovering around the bathrooms. Eddie cruises by all of them, beelining for the candy bar, and the line there’s a little bigger than he expected. Some guy arguing over the size of fountain drinks with the pimply sophomore behind the counter, while some chick in a paisley dress taps her foot behind him.
There are a few other people too, and Eddie’s gaze drifts across them as he moves to join the back of the line, and he’s only half in his head at all when his gaze suddenly catches on a slight frame in a blue sundress and a cape of copper hair.
Which - -
Fuck.
It’s instant, the way his mouth goes dry, and he drops his gaze to the tacky red carpet printed with cartoonish movie clappers, tries to fix on every gaudy, cookie cutter, bullshit detail of this gaudy, cookie cutter, bullshit theater, but his thoughts are still buzzing, and now they just keep buzzing back to her, because it’s just like - - go fucking figure.
The first day since Spring Break she hasn’t been taking up valuable real estate in his head, and the universe conspires to move her straight back in. Plants her there fresh and lets her roots take hold, and he’ll dig her up if he has to, knows he can (hopes he can), because she doesn’t belong in there anymore.
She never really did.
Sucking in a breath through his teeth, he glances back up, just intending maybe to catch another glimpse of her, only this time when he looks, she’s staring straight back at him, her eyes bright and her mouth curved in an uncertain smile, and she lifts her arm, wiggling her fingers in a little wave, and he hates it. The way his pulse leaps.
He tilts his chin up in acknowledgement, shoving his hands into his armpits to stop himself from waving back like a freshman - - like fucking Henderson - - but she seems to take that as an invitation anyway. She apologises to the people behind her in the line, and ducks beneath the bollard rope, losing her place in the queue and heading straight for him instead, and if his pulse leapt before, it’s jackhammering now, thumping so hard he sees spots.
Dropping his head again, he kicks a little at the carpet, still stinging from the memory of her distance at school, and it means that his first indication that she’s close is the too-sweet smell of her perfume and a glimpse of her green jelly sandals.
“Chrissy Cunningham out in the real world, huh?” he says, before he can think better of it, because he has to say something, his gaze darting up her body (shit, shouldn’t have done that), and finding her pretty, smiling face staring up at him.
“I could say the same about you, y’know,” she replies, her own gaze dipping and she seems to take in his ratty jeans and his Metallica tee, the flannel shirt tied around his waist, and she shakes her head, wrinkling her nose a little. “For some reason, you don’t really fit here in my head.”
And whatever it was he was expecting her to say after a week of radio silence, it certainly wasn’t that. He blinks at her, lips quirking into something that feels suspiciously like a grin, because apparently he just can’t fucking help it around her.
“At the movies?”
“At a matinee session on the weekend.”
He squints at that, tilts his head sideways and curls forwards a little. Shrinking himself down towards her, and it’s not deliberate, it’s not, but he likes the way her perfume smells, likes just - - being close to her.
“But one during the week fits?”
And her smile widens at that.
“Some of the girls on the team have seen you skipping class here,” she says, and he blinks, coughs out an amused breath. Does that mean they talk about him? The thought drops hot through his chest, belly, lower, and he racks his head for any memory of making eye contact with a cheerleader while watching a midday movie on a school day, but he comes up empty. It’s enough to make him exhale, warm, but a little uneasy with the idea of being seen and not seeing. He wets his lips.
“But not you?” he says, not really meaning all that much by it, but Chrissy stands up straighter, like maybe she’s trying to get a little closer to him too.
“I’ve never skipped,” she says proudly, and then, like she heard herself, her face scrunches and her cheeks pink. “That sounded cooler in my head.”
Which - - shit. Eddie laughs, louder than he means to, shaking his head, and he takes his hands out from under his arms to wave at her.
“Impossible for that to ever sound cool.”
The sound she makes isn’t one he’s heard often, maybe even only heard it that one time at that picnic table – something between offended and delighted – and he doesn’t know what it is about being called uncool or weird that makes her light up, but he really kind of loves that it does. He wets his lip again, the buzzing in his body stretching to a warm thrum, and Chrissy fiddles with the strap on her purse.
“I guess I just always figured you’d have better things to do on the weekend than see a movie,” she decides, and Eddie stares at her for a minute, takes in her sweet, pretty face, the shine to her perfect hair, and there’s something about her saying that to him that makes him give her an incredulous look, and she bites her lip quickly, before adding: “Playing rock concerts, selling - - what you sell, fighting interdimensional monsters…”
She trails off, and in front of them, the line inches forwards – the guy at the front now clutching two huge fountain drinks as he makes his way back to his theater – and Eddie kinda hates that a part of him finds the words fighting interdimensional demons so hot coming out of her mouth.
“Okay,” he says, taking a step forwards. “First of all, it’s metal, not rock, and secondly, I seem to remember you knowing your way around a few monsters too.”
Matching his step, Chrissy gives him a coy look, but - - but it’s not an entirely happy one. Like there’s something underneath it – bitter grounds in a milky coffee – and Eddie - - fuck. Why did he say that? Suddenly the memory is stark again of her on his ceiling, of Max, only days later, telling them that Vecna ate the darkness in people, knows that the thing had its teeth sunk in Chrissy.
He swallows, just - - fuck. He knows it’s different for her, knows Vecna was in her head and outside of his, and he knows that matters, that it means something. He rolls his sore shoulder back, glances across at the woman in paisley now at the front of the line, pinching a piece of popcorn while the guy behind the counter reaches for a bag of Reece’s Pieces. His gaze falls back on Chrissy, who suddenly looks really far away, and his leg starts to jitter again.
“So, what are you seeing?”
And just like that, she startles back to look up at him, her blue eyes so big he’s pretty sure they could swallow him. He clears his throat, aims for something like a smile, and Chrissy aims for something like that back.
“Top Gun - - we - - I actually saw it with Jen and Ronnie the other night, but Jason really wanted to see it, and I didn’t mind seeing it again. Makes it easy to sneak out for snacks during the boring bits too, I guess.”
And right, he thinks, something in him smarting.
Of course she’s here with Carver. His gaze dips again to her blue sundress, her purse, her green jelly sandals, and he’s not sure why, but his head flips back to what she was wearing the other day at school – that outfit he’d thought looked straight out of Risky Business – and something in him pulls a little tighter.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who finds Tom Cruise just so dreamy.”
He swallows a little thick and clutches his hand to his heart to hide it, bats his lashes a few times, and finds himself rewarded by a blush rising high and fast to her cheeks.
“He’s got a nice smile!” she insists, and Eddie rolls his eyes, because go figure, but then Chrissy keeps talking. “I - - it’s kinda weird seeing him so clean cut now. I’m used to him like - - do you remember that movie, The Outsiders? He looked so different in that.”
“The guy definitely got his Hollywood makeover,” Eddie agrees, and it’s not like he was that into the movie, but it played on TV all the time, and he didn’t mind catching it. Liking the familiarity of it sometimes, the white noise. He shrugs down at Chrissy, and she wrinkles her nose again, purses her lips, like she’s trying to figure out whether or not she should say something, and then she opens her mouth and says:
“That jacket you wear to school sometimes kinda reminds me of it.”
He blanches at that, turning around to raise an eyebrow at her.
“Of Tom Cruise?”
“Of The Outsiders,” she says with a laugh, and then she shakes her head, copper hair bouncing in a way that makes something in his chest do the same. “It’s nice! I mean it like, in a nice way. You look like you could be in a movie.”
“A movie about teen gangs in Oklahoma?” he folds his arms over his chest again, ducks low to catch her giggling gaze. “Chrissy Cunningham, do you think I look like I should be in a teen gang in Oklahoma?”
The sound of her laughter is so fucking musical, Eddie can barely stand it, and when she covers her face with both hands, head shaking, shoulders trembling with giggles, his own smile gets so wide he feels his cheeks ache.
“At least imagine me in a gang in New York, I’m fine with the delinquency, it’s the location that’s killing me here.”
Vaguely he’s aware of the line moving forwards again, but he’s finding it hard to move from the spot. Hard to pull himself away from this picture of her as she tugs her hands away from her face, cheeks flushed red and mouth open and eyes watery from how much she’s laughing, and she stares up at him just to say:
“Oklahoma’s not so bad!”
“Have you been there?”
“I saw the musical!”
“Oh my god, Chrissy, you’re killing me here,” and he’s laughing now, miming a dagger to the gut and staggering backwards, letting himself get caught by the bollard rope and he knows there are people around them, that he’s probably pissing someone off, but he can’t bring himself to care when Chrissy’s following him back, flailing, and then - - she grabs him.
Or maybe that’s the wrong word, but her hand finds his, the one he has holding his make-believe dagger, and she tugs it gently back, as if to pull it out of his belly, or maybe push it deeper, Eddie doesn’t think he cares, because all he can focus on is the soft touch of her skin against his, and then - -
She steps quickly back, clutches both hands to the strap of her bag, her face beet red, and vaguely Eddie’s aware of people in line staring at them. He nods at the guy in front, who gives him a knowing look, and whatever, it’s not - - they’re just messing around. It’s totally innocent, he thinks, ignoring the way his hand still feels like it’s on fire.
“Um, so, what are you seeing?” Chrissy asks suddenly, and Eddie blinks down at her.
“Me? Uh, I am seeing Poltergeist.”
And that seems to surprise her.
She glances up at him, a dubious look on her face.
“Spring Break wasn’t enough for you?”
“I mean, they weren’t ghosts,” he offers with a shrug, and Chrissy frowns at him, shaking her head before she glances down at the floor.
“Kinda felt like it sometimes to me.”
Her voice is so soft, so quiet, that Eddie almost misses it, and for a moment, all he can do is stare at the crown of her golden head, the sound of the popcorn machine snapping behind them, and this is what he wanted, wasn’t it? To talk to her about this, and he’d been so sure that he’d know what to say when it happened, that the words would come to him like this was a D&D campaign, but maybe he is a total fucking dickbrain, because it’s not that, and they don’t have the shared language like Hopper and Wayne, because what they went through isn’t the same, and they’re not the same, and he’s got no clue what to offer her now.
(Did he ever have anything to offer her at all?)
“Did you - - ” he glances away, over at the pimply candy bar kid, scooping ice into a cup, and then back at Chrissy’s small frame, and shit, he just really wishes he could see her face right now. “Are you okay? After everything?”
The question seems to surprise her, and she jerks her head up, her eyes wide, and it’s not fair, the way she looks. Arwen the Evenstar or something better because she’s here and real and just - - her. She bites her lip, then she just tilts her head and asks:
“Are you?”
Fucking deflection 101.
Eddie kicks at the carpet. Moves forwards in the line.
“Me? Yeah, super great, can’t believe how normal life is again now that that’s done.”
And the thing is, he can feel it. The door they’d wedged open slamming shut – Chrissy’s gaze shuttering, her expression going that way it does when Carver’s got his arm around her shoulders, and there is no world where Eddie ever wants that to be something he makes happen. He never wants to be the reason she feels unseen. He wets his lips, body jittery.
“Not sleeping though.”
And it’s instant, the shift in her face.
The door open again, just a crack.
“You’re not?”
He shakes his head, kicks at the carpet again, and he feels more than sees Chrissy swallow.
“Me either,” she says quietly. “It feels sometimes like if I do, I’ll be back there, y’know?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, because they’re not the same, but he feels it sometimes. The creep of it. The Upside Down. Sees it sometimes too, the rolling tentacles and the dust and the lack of light and her, empty and broken and plastered to his ceiling. The thought makes him look at her, makes him fix, need to see her like this, a little fractured, but alive and still just her.
“I - - you could call me, maybe,” he adds, before he can think any more of it. “Next time. When you can’t sleep. If that would help. Or I could call you.”
Chrissy stares at him, and all Eddie can hear is the pop-pop-pop of the popcorn machine, the ffffttttt of the soda fountain, and he thinks he’s totally fucked this up, when Chrissy shakes her head.
“I can’t give you my number,” she tells him, and right, Eddie thinks, nodding, and he overstepped and he was right and this is not what they are, and she has a boyfriend who she’s on a date with right now, but then Chrissy’s opening her purse and she pulls out a small flower-shaped notebook and a pink glitter pen and she’s giving it to him. “My parents are just - - they’re a bit overprotective. Um. I could call you though? It would have to be after they go to sleep, but - - if we’re talking because we can’t sleep, it’ll probably be late anyway.”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, and his hand feels sweaty as he scratches his number in pink glitter into Chrissy’s flower notebook. “You can call whenever. That parent thing’s not a problem with me, my uncle - - ”
“Works nights, I know,” she finishes, taking her pen and notebook back and sliding them into her purse, and it shouldn’t matter, doesn’t matter, that she remembers, but he looks at her and she just looks at him.
Sees him.
Eddie thinks he might have forgotten how to breathe.
“Next!” the kid behind the counter yells, yanking them out of the moment, and fuck, when had they gotten to the front of the line? He glances back at Chrissy, who’s looking at him expectantly and he quickly bows forward a little, gesturing for her to go first, and she grins, thanks him, like she hadn’t lost her spot in line to talk to him, and he watches as she ducks up to the counter, standing on her tiptoes to peer over it and points to something off the candy bar shelf.
She ends up ordering a cherry cola and a Snickers and a large popcorn, and Eddie’s pretty sure they’re all for Carver, and as he watches her head back into her theater, he thinks of her boyfriend’s hand on her leg while his number is in the notebook in her purse.