queenofhawkinshigh | ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

"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, I just brought it for you to look at the ribbon," Chrissy says, pointedly teasing, her nose crinkling as she does. Her cheeks feel a little warm, a slight flush from being flustered that she hopes isn't too noticeable, and she's pretty sure this was actually a terrible idea. There's no turning back now, though. If anything, she can reassure herself with the thought that she would look much, much more stupid if she tried to. It's not like she had to go out of her way or even spend any money, aside from the bow; the box, she just took from work. If he hates it, thinks it's as ridiculous as she currently does, however good an idea it seemed at the time, he can throw it out as soon as he leaves and there will be no harm done.

It isn't as if she even expects him to wear it, or anything. She's noticed the guitar pick he tends to wear as a necklace, but this isn't meant to be a fashion statement, just a small, quiet acknowledgment of a big achievement.

"Yes, you can open it," she adds, wincing playfully, half-shielding her eyes. "But really, I'm telling you, it's so dumb."

"I doubt it," he answers, looking up to give her a grin before he turns the box one way and then another, oohing and aahing over the ribbon, as if she was sincere about that bit.

"Excellent ribbon choice," he assures Chrissy before he pulls the bow to undo it. The ribbon falls away and he levers the lid off the box and stares down at what's inside.

For a second, he doesn't understand what he's seeing. Or he does, but he doesn't understand why and then, with a lurch of his stomach, he does. Eighty-six. It was his year, but it should have been hers, too. This delicate gold necklace with the shining numbers had sat in the hollow of Chrissy's throat all year, not that he'd noticed, of course, and definitely hadn't caught himself staring at it more than once.

"But," he says, lifting his gaze to look at her. "This is yours."

"Not anymore," Chrissy replies, giving him a tiny, self-conscious smile as she shrugs. The first day she got here, as she changed in his bathroom, she'd almost yanked the necklace right off by the chain. She's glad now that she didn't. Even if he does wind up laughing at her, this is better than letting it completely go to waste.

And he's not laughing, anyway, at least not yet. He actually looks more serious than she expected, making her both hopeful and nervous; she's not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but there is some relief in having maybe not embarrassed herself too thoroughly after all.

"I'm not expecting you to, like, wear it or anything," she explains, trying not to trip over her words too much. "Just... that was supposed to be your year, right? And it wound up really, really not being mine. But even if that's not when we are now, that is the school year you just finished, so I think it can still be yours."

Even as Chrissy says she's not expecting him to wear it, Eddie has set the box down and is reaching behind his neck to unhook the ball chain he wears with the guitar pick on it. It slithers onto the table in front of him and he picks the necklace out of the box, then slips the gold 86 from the chain.

"Hey," he says, looking up at her and giving a smile. It isn't his usual charming grin, the one he uses when he wants to distract people, it's a real smile, gentle and kind of shy. "Of course I'm gonna wear it."

He picks up the ball chain again and for a second he worries it might not fit, but then it slips through the circle at the top of the pendant and it slides down to settle against the guitar pick. Still smiling, Eddie reaches around and hooks the chain back in place, the pick and the 86 settled against his t-shirt.

As far as Chrissy is concerned, there's no of course about it. It's nice to hear, though, all the more so for how much he sounds like he means it. She isn't about to pretend that she knows him incredibly well or anything, but the way he sounds and smiles strikes her as genuine, not the kind of posturing she's seen before or an attempt to placate her. Even if it is just that, she doesn't mind. At least he's not laughing at or making fun of her for such a sentimental gift. Eddie hasn't given her any reason to expect that he would, but enough other people have that it's hard to shake the thought.

"I like it," she says as he fastens his chain again, giving him a smile in turn, still soft and self-conscious, but pleased. "Happy graduation. Is that a thing?" Wrinkling her nose, she shrugs again. "I guess it is now."

"Thank you," he says and he genuinely means it. Back in Hawkins, it's really just his Uncle Wayne who would have given a shit that he finally graduated, and that would have been enough. Here, he doesn't have Wayne, but it's really nice to have a friend who actually cares.

Just then, their drinks arrive, which saves Eddie from stumbling through something sentimental. He's really touched by Chrissy's gift and he moves the box off the table as his beer and her iced tea are both set down, then touches the number resting against his guitar pick without even realizing it.

"Have you two decided what you'd like to eat?" Mina asks and Eddie looks to Chrissy to see if she's ready.

It means more than Chrissy would have expected, that he actually seems to like what she's given him. Really, it's just a silly little necklace, one that came to seem even more so after she showed up here, having pinned her hopes on a year that she didn't even make it three months into. By passing it on, though, it can mean something again. She doesn't really know how to say that, beyond what she's said already — how to convey that it's not so much about the necklace itself as what it signifies — but she hopes that he gets it anyway.

The arrival of their drinks is a welcome distraction, preventing her from overthinking this or second-guessing herself too much. She smiles, just a little, when she sees his fingers brush the gold charm she wore for so long, then looks up at Mina without missing a beat.

"Yeah, I'll have the garden salad?" she answers. "With blue cheese dressing, please."

"Can I get the club sandwich?" Eddie asks with another smile. "And a side of fries."

"You got it," Mina says, smiling back as she collects the menus from their table and leaves them again.

Eddie picks up his beer and takes a sip, then drags his fingers through the condensation on the glass as he sets it back down. "It's kinda funny," he says. "Uncle Wayne always sort of figured I'd go to work with him if I ever graduated and I kind of figured the same. But now I'm here, so I have to figure out a whole new plan."

"I know what you mean, sort of, I think," Chrissy says, her expression softening to one a little more thoughtful as she leans one cheek in her hand, elbow on the table. "I was gonna go to college and cheer. That was just it, you know? Nothing else was ever really in the picture." She shrugs, reaching for her glass with her free hand so she can squeeze the lemon wedge into it and take a sip. "Now I'm here, without having graduated, not going to college, working in a tourist trap in a place that doesn't have any tourists. And I have no idea what I'm doing."

She speaks lightly, but there's still an earnest truth in the words. It's not something she's told anyone else; there's no one else she would tell. "You'll figure something out, though. I'm sure you will."

Chrissy can do anything, Eddie is sure of that. Maybe she hadn't really focused much on school, but he hadn't either, and he knows neither of them are stupid, it's just... school. No matter what the teachers always said, it wasn't really about education. It was about regurgitating the right information in the right order, saying what they wanted you to say and acting the way they wanted you to act.

Eddie has a lot of ideas about the world, but no one at Hawkins High ever wanted to hear them, least of all the teachers.

The more he gets to know Chrissy, the more he realizes she's more like him than either of them ever would have thought. She was doing what she was told, not because she wanted to, but because she felt like she had to. They both knew it wasn't real, high school and all its associated shit, they just went different ways with it. So he knows Chrissy is smart. He doesn't judge her for doing what she needed just to get through these years.

"So will you," he says sincerely. "I mean, without all the high school bullshit, without having to, y'know, conform to those rigid ideals of what the cheerleader and the freak are meant to be, there's a whole world out there now. I mean... a whole city, but you get it."

No one has ever said anything like that to her before. No one has ever encouraged that line of thought, never mind thought that she would actually be capable of anything else. Of course, she never tried to step outside of that box, but there wasn't really any way to when it already felt like she was just barely getting by, a thinly-veiled disappointment in every aspect of her life. No matter how much she balked against the rigidity of those expectations, Chrissy never honestly thought she would get away from them, or that it would be worth trying. Looking over at Eddie now, she's not sure she shares his confidence, but it's nice — moving, really — that he seems to believe what he's saying.

"I think... high school bullshit would have carried into college bullshit would have become general Hawkins bullshit," she admits, pulling a face as she does. There was no getting away from it, not for her. Maybe not for him, either, with the way people there saw him. "Does it ever feel daunting to you? Having all this... space?"

It's not quite a confession, not quite the same as saying that it feels like that to her. It's pretty close, though, and she has a feeling that he'll see it anyway.

"Yeah," Eddie says. "I kinda think it would've been the same for me."

Just because he'd been on the outskirts of it all didn't mean he hadn't still been well aware of the path his life was taking. If he'd kept up with the dealing, which he probably would have, he'd likely have ended up getting himself arrested, spending some time in prison, just like his old man, and that's the last person Eddie ever wanted to be like.

At Chrissy's question, he's quiet for a moment, considering. He does that a lot around her, he finds. Really pays attention to her words, to how she's saying them. He wants to give her real answers.

"Sometimes," he says. "It's like... the world had a plan for me, no matter what I wanted to do, right? So being here, that plan suddenly turns on its head... yeah, it's a lot."

"Right," Chrissy agrees with perhaps a touch more enthusiasm than the subject should call for, tempered though it is by obvious relief. For that matter, it's more than she should be saying at all, but it's hard to help it. There's something easy about talking to Eddie that she's never had with anyone else before, and besides, it's much less frightening to be honest when he's saying what she's so long since felt.

The world had a plan for her, too, after all. She never chose it for herself; she also never questioned it, even when it felt suffocating, even when she found herself wishing that she could just stop existing. In those moments, it seemed preferable never to have been born in the first place than to be born into one that was already laid out for her. Even so, now, the lack of that is overwhelming.

"It doesn't really matter whether you wanted that plan, or liked it, or anything," she continues, finding it more comfortable to speak in a general sense than specifically about herself. "It was always there, so then when it's not..."

"When it's not, you're like, oh shit, now what?" he says, finishing the thought for her, even though he doesn't think Chrissy would phrase it quite like that. The feelings are the same, though, regardless of the words they choose and Eddie never feels like he has to pretend to be some highly educated, well spoken college guy around Chrissy.

She knows what he's like and not only is she still hanging out with him, she's giving him really thoughtful gifts, too.

"It's scary, but it's kind of exciting, too," he says. "Now what can be anything. I mean, I guess we can't become explorers when there's only so much Darrow to explore, but other than that... no one here gives a shit what we do. No one has to tell us where we need to go next."

"I used to wonder what it would be like," Chrissy admits, her smile lopsided, wistful. "To get out. To not have anyone care anymore." Just saying so makes her feel a little guilty. In so many ways, she was lucky. Her family had money, she lived in a nice house, she was popular. She's not really sure, though, that being popular is the same thing as being liked, and there was a dark side to it, too. There was always the sense that it might not last, always the high expectations to live up to that she constantly felt like she was falling short of.

In fact, she would be willing to bet her whole last paycheck that Eddie is the only person in her life who's never looked at her that. He might have had particular ideas about her before they started talking, but not in the way of standards for her to try to meet, and whatever interest he has in hanging out with her doesn't seem to have anything to do with the popularity she left behind back in Hawkins. She's not sure what it is, but it's not that, at least not as far as she can tell.

As much as she would have liked to be free of the weight of all that, though, she never actually thought that she would be. Where Eddie sounds optimistic, she mostly just feels lost, even as she knows he's right. "Turns out it's... really overwhelming."

"Luckily no one is expecting either of us to figure it out tomorrow," Eddie answers. "Or next week. Or next year. We can take as long as we want."

And he thinks he's going to need that time. The job at the record store is great, he's enjoying it, it's pretty cool, working with Steve, being surrounded by music, even having control of what gets played some of the time, but it's completely different than anything he would have expected to do back in Hawkins.

Beyond that, he's pretty clueless. A regular future was never really in the cards for Eddie Munson, freak, dealer, son of dead alcoholics, trailer trash, and apparent Satanic worshipper. None of that followed him here, except maybe the freak bit, but he likes that part.

As ever, in keeping with what seems to have become a pattern, he takes what she's been agonizing over and makes it sound so simple, even optimistic. It may not do anything to change how terrifying Chrissy finds it, all this vast, empty space in front of her, the possibility of making different choices for herself but knowing that, to do so, she would be implicitly acknowledging, at least to herself, how stifled and unhappy she was before. For that alone, she would find herself overwhelmed. She spent a lifetime trying to be the person everyone thought she was and wanted her to be, but she doesn't know who might be underneath all that, or even how to figure it out.

Scary or not, though, there's reassurance just in hearing him say so. She smiles a little again, shy but warm, as she reaches for her glass to have another sip of iced tea.

"I wish we'd started hanging out sooner," she admits, self-deprecating even as she does. "Is that weird?" Weird or not, she does know that it would have been social suicide, never mind what she would have had to deal with at home. The more time she spends with him, though, the more she thinks it would have been worth it. "That's probably weird."

"Oh, it's totally weird," Eddie agrees. "But we've already established, you're a freak, Chrissy Cunningham. A full blown weirdo."

He says it all with a smile, genuine and warm, and the words that might sound like an insult coming from someone else are nothing but a compliment from him. Chrissy is a bit weird. More than Eddie would have ever expected from what he had known of her before.

"It would have killed your social standing," he says. "But I would've benefited from a really cool new friend."

"It would have," Chrissy agrees, smiling at what he says. She knows Eddie well enough by now to know that when he calls her a freak, he means it as a compliment, no matter how many times that word was slung at him as a vicious insult. Of course, it's easier for her to say all this with the security of distance. Back in Hawkins, no matter how much she likes to think she would have, she doesn't actually know if she would have been brave enough to act on that thought, to let everyone see who she really is and what a fraud she's always been, to face the hell she knows she would have gotten for it.

She likes to think, though, that she'd have done it. She likes to think, too, that the friendship they've built here isn't just because she died in his trailer. Something changed for her, that day in the woods. She has no idea how she would explain it if she tried, but she feels sure of it all the same.

"But I would have, too." This, she means entirely. He is really cool, far more than she ever realized before they started spending time together. "Honestly... I would have benefited just from having a friend at all. I don't think anyone I was hanging out with back home was. Not really."

"That sucks," he says, plain and honest, just as their food arrive. Flashing a grin at Mina, Eddie waits until she's set down their meals and walked away before he continues, because Chrissy has dealt with enough shit. They both have. Whatever they're talking about now, it's private. Just for the two of them.

Once they're alone again, Eddie starts to eat, then wipes the corner of his mouth and says, "I always thought it seemed kinda hard to be popular for certain people. Others... not so much. They seemed to get off on being bullies, but people like you, who are kind and... yeah, it just seemed like it would be rough."

"You mean the ones who are mean and scary?" Chrissy asks, giving him a tiny smile, a tentative inside joke. She doesn't know if he remembers both of them saying they'd thought that of each other, but she does. As difficult as it is to imagine anyone seeing her that way, she gets it, too. Something about popularity tends to go hand in hand with unapproachability, and the way a lot of other popular people act doesn't help with that. She thinks maybe she liked that about it. It provided protection, in a way, kept anyone from getting too close. It was lonely, though, too, knowing no one actually knew her or liked her for who she really is.

She can think of a few people specifically who would fit Eddie's description, the ones who get off on being bullies, but that feels suddenly too honest. It's not that she feels like she can't tell him. It's just that there are some things it's hard to admit to herself. "It... I guess it was rough in some ways, yeah."

"Scary," Eddie allows, grinning again. "But not mean."

No matter what opinions he might have of the popular kids from Hawkins High, he knows Chrissy was never cruel to anyone. Looking back, he knows he'd never seen her participating in any of the bullshit or bullying. Not all of them had been like Jason Carver and his cronies.

He takes another bite of his sandwich, then eats a few fries as he thinks.

"It seems like you had to always be on your toes," he says, then sips his beer. "You know, if you wore the wrong shoes or combed your hair the wrong way, they might all turn on you."

Chrissy wants to say that it wasn't that bad — that it wasn't bad at all. Anything else seems stupid, something that she knows shouldn't be worth complaining about when she had it better than most. He's not wrong, though. Popularity was always precarious, and living up to expectations was never guaranteed; it was, at once, both a shield and a weakness, that status offering protection even as it left her more vulnerable by ensuring that people's eyes were always on her. It might have been nice just to fly under the radar, unnoticed. She suspects that it wouldn't have changed much, if anything, and it definitely would have left her with a different slew of problems, but all the same, it's hard to argue with the idea of that.

"That's pretty much exactly what it was like," she admits, expression thoughtful as she spears a piece of lettuce with her fork. Just being seen with him like this back in Hawkins would have been the end of her, as far as her reputation is concerned. The more time she spends with Eddie, though, the more convinced she becomes that it would have been worth being ostracized to have a friend like him. "Everyone watching you all the time... knowing who they expect you to be."

"No wonder I was never popular," Eddie jokes. "I wore the wrong shoes and combed my hair the wrong way all the time."

Of course, he had never wanted to be popular. He means every word of what he's said, that it all seems exhausting nd kind of lonely. Having Chrissy confirm it isn't much of a surprise to him and he knows she's probably missing some of the benefits, being here in Darrow, but he's also glad she doesn't have to deal with it anymore. He's glad no one here is watching her and waiting for her to mess up.

"I'm definitely still doing it," he adds, then grins. "But that's okay."

"It is," Chrissy says, giving him a little nod. "I think it all matters even less after high school, anyway." Saying that makes her stomach flip uncomfortably, but she tries to ignore it. Ultimately, it's a good thing, it has to be. She knows Eddie didn't really care what most people thought of him, and at least always seemed more than willing to accept the label of freak, but she imagines that it must be pretty nice not to have to deal with all of that anymore. And for her, it's nice in a lot of ways to be without so many of the sources of the unbelievable pressure she was under.

It's just hard to acknowledge that all of it was virtually meaningless, that the things she agonized over will have no real bearing on the rest of her life.

"Besides, the things that were right usually looked kind of stupid."

"I never paid attention," he admits, grinning. "It probably still looks stupid, but we're vintage now."

Which amuses me every time someone says it. His hair is so eighties he was told. His clothes are vintage, he's had excitedly said to him. Eddie just wears what he likes, he does what he likes, and he doesn't hurt people in the process, so he feels pretty good about that.

"Has anyone said that to you?" he asks. Chrissy looks more like she fits here than he does, but that's always been the case.

"I get that at work sometimes, yeah," Chrissy says with a knowing smile. What she doesn't say is that she hates when her coworkers say it, though they never do so meanly and occasionally do so with a little envy. For her, though, it's the polar opposite of what she wants. She's worked so long and hard to try to fit in, only to find herself inadvertently turned into some weird misfit relic of the past.

Eddie doesn't seem to mind, but vintage probably beats freak by a long shot. Not that she ever actually saw him as the latter, but back in Hawkins, the label tended to follow his name as a matter of course.

"I still can't get my head around it. The whole... being in the future thing."

"Thirty-five years," he says, nodding. His fingers find the 86 at his neck again and he laughs a little, then finishes off his beer. "It's crazy, right? So much has changed and nothing has changed all at the same time."

People are still more or less the same. There's more acceptance in a lot of ways, people who are kinder and generally better, but there are still assholes and bullies. They're just assholes and bullies about different things than they used to be.

"Weed is legal, music is totally different, but people still worry about the same things. They still want the same things."

"And what about you, Eddie Munson?" Chrissy asks, her smile widening, almost teasing, as she leans her head in her hand again, elbow propped on the table. "Now that you've graduated high school and all, what do you want? Like, really."

Maybe it's unfair to be asking a question that she wouldn't know how to answer, especially when they've both expressed some measure of cluelessness over how turned around their lives have gotten. Maybe it's unfair to look at him and feel warm like this, all the more so for seeing the way he touches the charm that, until the day she got here, sat at her neck instead. She can't entirely help it, though. All they've been through, and she still feels like she's getting to know him, something she wishes she'd done a lot sooner.

"You know, I don't know," he answers. Eddie has never been afraid of honesty, he would give an honest answer than lie to someone he likes, someone like Chrissy, who is quickly becoming the closest friend he has here.

"So back in Hawkins, I figured I'd end up working with Uncle Wayne," he says. "At the plant. It was an okay job. Legitimate, you know? I didn't want to end up like my dad, in and out of jail until I died doing something stupid. Wayne would've vouched for me and I could have stopped selling weed and stuff."

But Wayne isn't in Darrow. There's no plant in Darrow. He's not sure what he's going to do now.

For her part, lost as she might be, Chrissy knows what she wants, in the simplest sense. She doesn't have the first idea what she would have to do to accomplish it, or even if it would be possible for her, if maybe there's just something irrevocably broken in her head preventing her from ever feeling content. That's all she wants, though, really. The details don't matter. She just wants to be happy. She's not sure she can honestly say that she ever has been before. For that matter, she doesn't know if she would be able to tell what it even feels like. It would be nice, though, to find out.

"Well, selfishly speaking, I would definitely also rather you not wind up in jail and then die doing something stupid," she says, her smile softer than a teasing one should be. "I'd get pretty bored."

She has other friends here, people she likes spending time with. None of them, though, are people she feels as comfortable around as she does with Eddie.

Edited 2022-10-22 08:15 (UTC)

"Yeah, I am pretty entertaining," Eddie agrees with a grin, leaning his chin in his hand. They might not have ever ended up here back in Hawkins, the way things were, the roles they were meant to play, but this isn't Hawkins and Eddie was never one to conform anyway. He's not here to satisfy someone else's expectations of who he's meant to be.

And he's glad he and Chrissy get to be friends.

"Well, weed is legal and I don't have a supplier," he says. "So dealing is out. Besides, the market here seems a little more dangerous than Hawkins, so I'm thinking I'll branch out. Not sure where just yet, but working at the record store is cool for now."

"It seems like it would be," Chrissy says, smiling as she finishes off the last of her iced tea. What she doesn't say, what she doesn't think she needs to, is that it seems like something people would be far less likely to look down their noses at, too. Eddie may not care all that much about what people think of him, but she still doubts it could have been easy or enjoyable to be dismissed the way he so often was, not really even given a chance. Here, he gets a fresh start. They both do, but she still has a hard time grasping what that might mean for her.

With a little shrug, she adds, "I'll have to come by when you're working sometime. You can help me figure out what's worth listening to here." Even as she says so, she has a hard time feeling like it isn't too much. While it should be clear by now that he hangs out with her because he wants to, not out of some misplaced sense of guilt or obligation, she still isn't entirely sure why, half-convinced that he'll get bored and find someone more interesting to spend time with before long.

"Definitely," he agrees with a grin. Music is something he's always happy to share with other people, even if not many people back in Hawkins particularly cared for the music he liked. There's a wider range in Darrow, more people who like all kinds of music, plenty of which he'd never even heard before this place.

"There's loads of new stuff," he tells her. "But there's access to stuff we would recognize, too. Crazier still, there are albums here from bands I love that hadn't even been recorded back in eighty-six. Blows my mind that there's this whole Metallica catalogue I've barely had a chance to touch."

"I still can't make sense of any of it," Chrissy says, laughing as she shakes her head. More often than not, at least on her own, thinking about all the years they skipped over is daunting, kind of terrifying. Like this, though, it doesn't seem so bad — more fun than anything else, if still intimidating. Being in the future does have its upsides. While she still hasn't entirely gotten the hang of it, being able to send text messages and take pictures on a portable phone is pretty neat, and she can only imagine how cool it must be to suddenly have years' worth of new music from a favorite band to listen to.

"At least it's not all new. But I don't even know where to start with the things that are."

"It's bizarre," Eddie agrees. "But also kinda cool."

Even though he doesn't know for certain, he has a pretty good idea he died back in the Upside Down. It seems likely, given how much blood he'd lost upon his arrival in Darrow and the fact that he'd needed a transfusion. The Upside Down didn't seem to be ripe with hospitals or doctors to help with that, so Eddie can't help but think he never made it out alive. Which means all the music he has access to now is music he was never meant to hear.

"What kind of music do you like?" he asks. "Tell me some artists from home you were into. I'll find you some new stuff."

"Oh, I don't know," Chrissy says with a shrug, suddenly sheepish, though she was the one to bring it up. "I'll listen to whatever, really." At least this time, she knows it's probably stupid to worry that he'll judge her or laugh at her for her taste in music. Despite the number of times she's found herself fretting over that same possibility, it's never actually happened. Besides, especially now that he works in a record store, she thinks it's at least safe to assume that he wouldn't judge her too overtly. It probably wouldn't be very good for business if he laughed at anyone who came in looking for something that wasn't to his taste.

"Some stuff that's a little older. I like Fleetwood Mac a lot," she continues, almost a question. "But new stuff, too. Or... what used to be new. I really liked Tears for Fears's last album." One corner of her mouth curls up a little. "I liked your talent show performance, back in middle school, but I've never really listened to anything else like it."

"Fleetwood Mac has new stuff," Eddie answers, brightening and going for his phone. "I mean, new stuff, too. They went on tour again something like twenty-five years after us. But this one is from 1987. Still kinda new for us, but..."

It's stupid, trying to explain time when they're both dealing with it in the same way. Chrissy knows what he's trying to say, even if neither of them can make complete sense of it. He just taps away at his phone, making sure the volume isn't too loud, then hits play on the song Everywhere.

"Oh, no way!" Chrissy says, breaking into a grin as music starts playing from his phone. The very fact of that is still pretty awe-inspiring for her, and all the more so for being able to hear music from after their time, from a band she knows. While she has no doubt that Eddie wouldn't lie to her, she's not even sure she would believe it, except that it's clear within moments that it is in fact a Fleetwood Mac song, the phone speaker making the sound slightly tinny, but the vocals distinct enough anyway.

Her teeth press to her lower lip for a moment, her cheeks suddenly feeling a little warm. Maybe it's the lyrics of the song, unquestionably romantic, or maybe it's the fact that he could so easily find this for her. Or maybe it's neither, and it's just the fact that she's listening to something she shouldn't have lived to hear. Whatever the reason, it's stupid on her part, but it's nice all the same. "They seriously went on tour twenty-five years later? That's insane."

"It's cool, knowing all these musicians just kept going, kept making music," he says, looking at his phone instead of Chrissy. Everywhere is a great song, but he hadn't really considered the lyrics before playing it and now he wonders if she'll think he's trying to tell her something, if she's going to start thinking of things to say in order to let him down easy.

He tries to think of something else, some other music fact he's learned, in order to make things feel less awkward, as least in his head. The only thing he can come up with kind of sucks.

"But then stuff like... well, Freddie Mercury died. In ninety-one, I think. It sucks."

For a moment, with Eddie seeming so focused on his phone even as he speaks to her, Chrissy feels strangely awkward. It's hard not to wonder if she's said something wrong, except she hasn't said much at all. Maybe, instead, it's her expression that gives her away. Stupid, really, to be flustered by song lyrics when she knows full well that it doesn't mean anything, when she can't even see why it should matter.

What he says next quickly distracts her from that thought, anyway, her eyes going a bit wide as she draws in a breath. "Wait, what?" she replies. "Oh, my god, that's horrible."

Her mom never wanted her listening to Queen, but she likes them all the same. She's not sure she can bring herself to say that, though, not wanting to be laughed at for it.

"Complete shit," Eddie agrees. "No one in music had a voice like his, there's just no way anyone could ever be that daring, too. He didn't give a shit what anyone thought of him."

He's a really talented musician, there's absolutely no pretending otherwise, but a big part of what Eddie has always liked about Freddie Mercury was that whole part of his personality. He never cared what others said, he never let it stop him if someone told him something couldn't be done musically or that it might fail. Maybe it would, but he still tried.

ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

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