queenofhawkinshigh | ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

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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?"

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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."

ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

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