queenofhawkinshigh | ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

Entry tags:

eddie munson

ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

Occasionally, Chrissy wonders if she should have tried to finish school the way Eddie did. It feels a little pathetic sometimes, having been two and a half months away from graduating and then just giving up. Every time the thought crosses her mind, though, she can't really bring herself to change her mind about it. Starting over so close to the end, even if she wouldn't be doing so for very long, just feels too daunting. There's an odd sort of comfort in the prospect of invisibility, in being no one for a change, having nothing to try to live up to, but there's terror in it, too. If people saw her for who she really is, she doesn't think they would like her at all. They certainly wouldn't think she's good enough.

Most people, anyway. Since that first day out in the woods back in Hawkins, Eddie has seemed different — different from what she expected, but also different from nearly everyone else she knows. She got the sense then that he actually saw her, and that's continued ever since. Strange as she may find it, he actually seems not to mind having her around, too. For her part, she knows there's no one here she's closer to. So while she couldn't bring herself to finish high school, she knows that it's a pretty big deal that he finally did. She can't just let an occasion like that pass without mention.

The idea has been in the back of her head for a while now, since just a little after he first told her that '86 was supposed to be his year. She's pretty sure it's stupid, and she figures the odds are about fifty-fifty that he'll wind up laughing at her, but she hasn't been able to think of anything else. In a small, plain gift box, she's put her gold 86 necklace. It may not technically be 1986 anymore here, but he still finished what he started then. And while it wound up very much not being her year after all, at least she'll have some use for this now.

She hasn't bothered with gift wrap, but she has tied a ribbon around the box, sitting now in the bottom of her purse as she waits to meet up with him. When she does spot him, she smiles, an instinct now that she chooses not to think too much about. "Hey," she says. "How does it feel, officially being a high school graduate?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

"Hey," he answers as he comes up to Chrissy, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. With a long hmmm, Eddie gives the question some real thought, even if he's making it look as if he's going to give some over the top and dramatic answer. Before he says anything, he takes a deep breath, as if in preparation, and his shoulders lift.

"I think it mostly feels the same," he admits in his normal voice, shoulders dropping suddenly. He's still grinning, though, and he shrugs.

"It'd be different if I walked on stage and got my diploma," he continues. "And flipped off all the teachers. I think they're just going to mail it to me."

"So much less dramatic," Chrissy says, biting back a laugh as she shakes her head. It doesn't surprise her at all to hear that that's what Eddie would have done. Even without such a memorable goodbye, though, at least it's done. If anything, she thinks the lack of ceremony probably makes it all the more deserving of a celebration of some kind, tiny though it might be with just the two of them. Maybe she should have tried to actually plan something, but it would have felt like massively overstepping to do so. Giving him such a ridiculous gift is bad enough in that regard.

She's not even sure why it matters so much, why she's overthinking all of it to this extent, though in all fairness, overthinking things is something she's a little too good at. He must have other people here, ones he would probably prefer to mark this occasion with. That's all the more reason to make the most of this chance while she can.

"Still pretty cool, though. So what do you wanna do? I'm good with whatever."

For a few minutes earlier, Eddie had wondered if this was supposed to be a date. The thought had been dismissed almost as soon as he'd had it, because not only is it nuts to think Chrissy Cunningham would want to go on a date with him, he's also deeply aware that she technically sort of still has a boyfriend -- not that either of them have mentioned Jason Carver once -- and not too long ago she died.

That's probably not the sort of thing a person just rebounds from. Besides, they're pals, and he likes that.

"Let's get something to eat," he suggests. "It's on me, especially now that I've got a job and everything. High school graduate turned working man."

"Wow, a high school degree and a real job? You're really moving up in the world," Chrissy says, warmly teasing. There's a small part of her — not too preoccupying, just there in the back of her head — that wants to be careful joking about such things, not wanting to seem like she's disparaging him for his background. She genuinely doesn't care that he lived in a trailer park or repeated senior year three times, and if it weren't for his having dealt drugs to make money before, they might never have started hanging out.

Whatever brought it about, she's really glad they did, even if she has to try to ignore the dual instinctive response of being pleasantly flustered that he offers to pay and uneasy at the idea of eating around someone else. The former doesn't mean anything; the latter is hardly new. She can deal with it.

"Alright, food it is. Have anywhere in mind?"

"It's at the record store," he tells her. "Harrington's the manager there, he got me the job. It's pretty cool, actually, being surrounded by music all the time. I can deal with that."

Mr. Hauser had asked about his future, his plans, and honestly, Eddie doesn't have any. Some of the time he's cool with that, but other times he feels like maybe, if he doesn't make some sort of plan, he'll just be squandering this opportunity he has. Like Darrow is supposed to make him better or something.

But that's a lot to put on Chrissy, so he grins and says, "I found this sandwich place. It's got all these fancy sandwiches and salad and it makes me feel like, yeah." He pauses, laughing. "Like I'm moving up in the world, only it's not expensive, which I also like."

The restaurant he describes comes as a relief, though Chrissy tries not to show it. Somewhere with sandwiches and salads is good. It means she can get something light, preventing it from being too noticeable if she doesn't eat much, while still sparing her the guilt of throwing up a meal bought for her by someone else. Of course, the latter hasn't always mattered. It certainly never stopped her after meals with her family, or when Jason would take her out.

With Eddie, though, she knows she would feel terrible, even if she isn't entirely sure why. Maybe it's just that she wouldn't want to waste the money he's been earning here. Maybe it's that she doesn't feel like he has some set expectations of who he wants her to be that not eating would help her meet.

"Sounds perfect," she replies, light and easy, before returning to his previous comment. "So Steve got you a job? That is... definitely not something I ever would have expected back home."

"Yeah, me neither," Eddie admits, hands shoved into his jacket pockets again, even though it's still a little too warm for it. Sweat pricks at his hairline, his curls tightening a little in the damp heat.

"After, uh... well, y'know, after what happened at my trailer, Dustin Henderson, he got Steve and Robin roped into helping me out," he explains as they walk. "They both turned out to be pretty cool, which was not what I expected of Steve Harrington."

Robin Buckley, sure, but like him, Robin was never exactly in the popular crowd.

Chrissy doesn't need to hear more detail than that to know exactly what he's referring to. There's only one thing that happened at his trailer that would have any relevance to her, and it's not something she could ever forget. Under the circumstances, though, when they're meant to be celebrating, in a way, it isn't something she wants to think too much about, grateful that he keeps it vague. They both know what took place there. She's haunted by it enough without dwelling on it now.

"I'm glad you had that," she says instead, a little more earnest, though trying not to be too overly serious. "People to help out. I didn't really know Robin until I got here, but she's really nice. And Steve... I think he's changed a lot, the last few years. In a good way."

"Yeah, did you guys date?" he asks. "Freshman year? Something like that?"

There's no reason for him to know that they dated, beyond their level of popularity, but he had known anyway. It's like like there was any real reason for it, he'd just sort of thought she was cute back then, that's all, and so he'd paid a bit of attention.

Not that it mattered. Girls like Chrissy don't date guys like him, especially not in high school, and he's fine with that.

"How do you even remember that?" Chrissy asks, brow furrowing a little as she lets out a laugh, followed by a nod. "Yeah, we went out for about half a second when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore." After that, they still ran in the same circles for a while, especially with Steve on the basketball team and her on the cheerleading squad, but that died off eventually, too. There were no hard feelings there or anything, they just went in different directions. By the time she started going out with Jason, that was probably for the best, anyway. She doesn't think he would have liked at all to see her hanging out with an ex.

He would have liked this even less, she thinks, only to forcibly push that thought aside. Jason isn't here, and she has no reason to care now what he would think about her being friends with Eddie. If anything, she cares more about what Eddie thinks. There's no reason why her dating history should matter, but she puts it down to old habit. She's always had someone she didn't want to judge her too harshly. "We weren't really a good fit. But I guess we're friends now, and that's pretty nice."

Even if Steve doesn't remember helping him, or the fact that they'd bonded, Eddie is still glad Chrissy has him as a friend here. She deserves that, having people who look out for her, who are kind to her without expecting anything in return.

He knows he could only ever see her life from the outside, but based on what he's learned about her, Eddie has a feeling Chrissy never really had that back in Hawkins. At least he had his Uncle Wayne, the Hellfire Club. Eddie had people who loved him and appreciated him as exactly who he is.

Chrissy should have that, too.

"Have you met his girlfriend here?" he asks instead of saying any of that, then grins. "Not the kind of girl I'd have ever pictured Steve Harrington dating."

"I've seen her around," Chrissy says with a nod, her smile turning a touch amused. "Definitely not what I would have expected, either." She's seen the girls who used to be Steve's type, after all; she used to be one of them. If anything, Steve's girlfriend here seems more like the kind of girl she would expect to see Eddie with, though she feels weird thinking that, like it would seem judgmental somehow when it would be meant as anything but.

She envies that a little, after all — the impression she gets from Steve's girlfriend, and Eddie's whole thing, too. It isn't that she would want to look like that, specifically, but just to feel free enough to. She spent so long trying to fit herself into one tiny box that, now that that box no longer exists, she doesn't know how to step out of it or what she would want to do instead.

This probably counts, though, going out to eat with Eddie Munson, smiling over at him as they head down the sidewalk. "But, hey, if it works, it works."

"She's probably too cool for him," Eddie says, turning them down the street where the restaurant sits. "Just like you were too cool for him. Just like most girls are too cool for most dudes, that's just fact."

Eddie likes women. A lot. He's liked an occasional dude, too, not that he's about to start talking about it here with Chrissy, but he tends to lean toward women. And without fail, they're always so fucking cool, so much cooler than he is, even the ones he's just kind of fooled around with.

"Here we are," he says, opening the door and holding it for Chrissy, then waving his arm with a little bow.

"Okay, now I think you have me confused with someone else Steve went out with," Chrissy laughs, shaking her head. "No way was I too cool for him." Even being aware, in a strange, distant sort of way, of her own popularity, she was always taken aback by it and never really saw herself as cool. Instead, she felt like it was something she stumbled into, something unearned that could have been gone at a moment's notice. She was as surprised that Steve wanted to go out with her, all the way back in her freshman year, as she is that Eddie apparently likes hanging out with her now.

When he holds the door open, she pauses in front of him just long enough to give him a tiny, teasing curtsy as an answer to his bow. Inside, it's neither crowded nor empty, a faint but not overwhelming chatter filling the room, the scent of fresh-baked bread in the air. "This seems nice."

It's cool to him, the way Chrissy plays along with him, dropping into a curtsy before she heads inside. He follows her in and grins, a close mouthed smile, pleased that she seems to like it.

It's not that he thinks she'd had a dive bar or a greasy spoon diner, it's just that they're celebrating. They both deserve a bit better than that today.

"Nope, definitely you," he answers as they find a booth and sit down. "Most girls are too cool for most dudes, that's just fact." Girls have the softest skin, even the tough, badass ones, and they're always smarter, usually kinder.

"Okay, well, I can't argue with that," Chrissy says with another soft laugh as she sits down, partly because it's easier than getting earnest about any insecurity, partly because it's hard to resist the temptation to joke about something like that. The fact that she staunchly disagrees that she was too cool for Steve is beside the point, really. Besides, that relationship is ancient history, enough so that it feels a little strange to be dwelling on with Eddie now.

"Don't worry, though, I won't tell Steve you said so. Wouldn't want to get in the way of your new job, or anything."

"Steve Harrington and I have bled together," Eddie answers as he passes Chrissy the menu -- a new, pretty, one-paged deal he's still kind of amazed by -- and then looks at his own. "I mean, he doesn't actually remember that, but I'm pretty sure that bonds people for life."

And it's so much easier to make jokes about it. Eddie hates that Steve and Robin don't remember what happened between them. The memories he has are shitty and now he has to deal with them alone.

It's on the tip of Chrissy's tongue to make a joke about dying in someone's home bonding people for life, too, but she can't bring herself to say it. For one, it would be presumptuous, different than talking about someone who isn't actually present, but that wound is still fresh, too. She can't really find much humor in her own death, or in the fact that it happened in Eddie's trailer, knowing that it got him blamed for it.

"I mean, I'd say it does, but I'm not sure how that works if one person didn't actually experience it," she points out instead. Even if Steve doesn't remember it, it's nice that the two of them can be friends here regardless. She can't imagine that ever having happened before. "At least he got you a job anyway. And working at a record store seems fun."

"It's funny, 'cause there are CDs and vinyl and even some cassettes, which are old now, and people buy them, but it's just to have them," Eddie says. "Steve told me the music is all in a cloud now. Or the cloud. I dunno, it's like... he explained it and then another guy who works there explained it and I know it's a computer thing, but it's wild that this dumb thing can just get music."

He tosses his phone on the table as he speaks. Slowly, he's figuring out how to use it. Calling Jules had been really good incentive toward that, actually, so he has to thank her for that. And work stuff gets texted to a group chat a lot of the time, so he's worked that out, too.

But music in a cloud is still beyond him.

"Yeah, I have no idea what you just said," Chrissy says, shaking her head as she laughs. Her phone, she's started to get the hang of well enough, if only for making calls and sending texts, and maybe taking the occasional picture, but beyond that, the technology here is still pretty baffling to her. She has time, though, to figure it out, and a lot of it seems unnecessary anyway. As far as she's concerned, they all got along well enough without all of this. "I think I'll stick with records and cassettes, not... cloud music."

She gives a little shrug, setting down the menu she's been idly looking over. "But hey, at least I know where to go to get them."

"I'll even share my discount," Eddie tells her with a broad grin just as a waitress shows up at their table. Her name is Mina, she's older, even if he doesn't know how old. He's seen her before, talked with her a few times, she's always been nice to Eddie, the way he sort of feels like maybe a proper mother figure would have been.

Not that he'll ever say so or even really acknowledge it to himself.

"Hi, Eddie," she says with a smile. "And Eddie's friend."

"This is Chrissy," he tells her. "We knew each other back home."

"Welcome, Chrissy," Mina says, glossing right over the bit about back home. "Can I get you guys some drinks to start?"

"Thanks, Mina," Chrissy says with only a slight pause between the words as she reads the waitress's name tag, smiling up at her in return. If she's a little surprised that Eddie has been here often enough for staff members to know his name, she tries not to show it. There's no reason for it, really. He's been here longer than she has, for one, and if there's one thing she thinks can be said about Eddie Munson, it's that he makes an impression, even if he doesn't stand out here to the extent he did in Hawkins. Of course he's begun to settle in a way that feels completely out of reach to her. "Um, I'll have an iced tea, unsweetened, if you have it, with lemon?"

In looking at the menu, she didn't actually get as far as seeing what drinks they listed, but it seems a safe enough bet, something she can typically get most places. She's proven right within moments, something that comes as a relief. She still has picking a meal to worry about, after all, and the little box for Eddie in the bottom of her purse, too.

"You got it," Mina says, then looks at Eddie. "Let me guess. A bottle of that local IPA you seem to like so much."

Eddie grins broadly and says, "You know me so well."

Once she's gone, he turns his attention back to Chrissy, elbows on the table, chin against his hands. "I swear I don't drink that much. It's just that beer has gotten so much better since 1986 and it's not confusing like most of the rest of the changes are."

Beer is just beer. It tastes good and occasionally it gets him drunk. Even food is complicated now, organic and gluten-free and dairy-free and also made without being genetically modified, which Eddie thinks is actually kind of impossible, since corn and all that.

"Hey, no judgment here," Chrissy replies, laughing as she shakes her head a little. "Haven't tried it, but I'll take your word for it." The only person whose meal choices she tends to judge is herself, and it is admittedly pretty nice to be able just to legally order a drink in a restaurant now. Anyway, they are technically celebrating. Thinking about it that way, plus his mention of the year they came from, reminds her of what's sitting in her bag, and she decides she might as well just go ahead before she talks herself out of it. She's definitely about to make a fool of herself, but hopefully he won't make fun of her too much.

"Actually, that reminds me, uh—" she says, reaching around in her purse so she can rummage around in it, placing the ribbon-topped box on the table a moment later. "I kinda have something for you? A graduation gift. It's really stupid, and you're probably going to laugh at me, but, you know, finally graduating, that's a pretty big deal."

"What? Seriously?" Eddie asks, lighting up in a grin. "You didn't have to get me something for a thing I should've done two years ago."

Ever since he failed to graduate the first time, his pride a little wounded, Eddie has treated it like a joke. Like something not really worth doing, because if it was, he would have done it in the first place, no problem. But he had always kind of cared. He had wanted to graduate, even if he knew it would never get him out of Hawkins.

And hadn't that turned out to be true?

"That's really cool of you," he says, more sincere. He takes the box and then looks at Chrissy. "Can I open it?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject