queenofhawkinshigh: (pic#)
Chrissy Cunningham ([personal profile] queenofhawkinshigh) wrote2022-07-02 08:36 pm
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in that pink dress, they're gonna crucify me

She shouldn't be here. Going into Eddie Munson's trailer to buy drugs is just about the last thing a girl like her should be doing, and Chrissy knows it. That isn't, though, what has her trembling and looking over her shoulder, teeth pressing to her lower lip as they step inside. For anyone to see her now would be the least of her problems, and that's saying something. She can only imagine how they'd react — Jason, her parents, everyone at school. The golden girl, not so golden anymore, all of the effort she's put into not letting anyone see that she's never been that — not golden, just gilded, a perfect surface covering anything but — for naught.

It's worth it, completely, if it clears her head for even just a little while, if it lets her catch her breath. Besides, while he's little more than a stranger, she got the foolish sense, earlier in the woods, that he wasn't looking at that thin gold varnish, but at her, the first person who's actually seen her and not just either what she wants them to see or all her shortcomings in a long time. Just the thought of it makes her feel even crazier than she already does, and she wouldn't have the first idea how to say so without sounding unbelievably stupid, but it makes it easier to follow him inside, arms wrapped around herself and fingers toying absently with the sleeves of her sweater as she looks around.

"Sorry for the mess. Maid took the week off," Eddie says, wry, and Chrissy would smile, offer a reassurance or joke in turn, if her nerves weren't so shot. She wants what she came here for. Anything else can wait.

"You, um... You live here alone?" she asks instead. She doesn't know anything about him, she realizes, except what everyone knows. He's been a senior for years, he sells drugs, he's supposedly a freak. He plays guitar, she knows that now, too. And he's warm, something that makes her feel a little guilty for being so rushed as he searches for the drugs she came here for.

"With my uncle," he answers, moving further into the trailer. "But, uh, he works nights at the plant, bringing home the big bucks."

Heart racing, she turns toward him. "How long does it take?" she asks abruptly. She's never done anything stronger than an ibuprofen or an antibiotic before. This is entirely uncharted territory, and it's terrifying, if not as much so as living with what's in her head. "The Special K. How long to kick in?"

"Oh, uh, well, it depends if you snort it or not," Eddie tells her, with an ease that makes her wonder just how much experience he has here. "If you do, then, uh, yeah. It'll kick in pretty quick."

She nods along. Quick is what she wants. When Eddie looks in yet another little container and says "Oh, shit," though, she feels a fresh burst of nerves. "You're sure you have it?"

"No, no, no, I got it," he assures her quickly. "Uh, somewhere." Without another word, he holds up a hand and runs into the back, where she can only assume his room is, leaving her standing in what amounts for the trailer's living room. It's not such a bad place, really. Run down and lived in, sure, but comfortable —

Or it would be, if the clock weren't beginning to chime.

Gasping, Chrissy turns toward the window, looking out at the still, dark night. There's nothing there, nowhere the ticking sound could be coming from except her own mind. She pulls the curtains shut quickly, turning in the direction of the hallway again. "Eddie?" she calls, trying not to sound so frantic, mostly failing. "Did you find it? Eddie?"

There's no answer. She definitely shouldn't be walking back to Eddie's bedroom, but she's desperate and she needs this now.

She calls his name again, but when she turns into the room, hand against the door frame, he isn't there. Her mother is, sitting at her sewing machine, altering her cheer uniform. "Mom?"

"Just loosening this up for you, sweetheart," her mother says, as sweetly cruel as ever. "You're going to look absolutely beautiful."

Her voice changes, deepens, distorts. Chrissy doesn't have a chance to react before her mother turns, and her face is — wrong, somehow, smile pulled too tight, eyes gone white. With a sharp breath, she pulls the door shut, anything to put distance between them, and she's not at Eddie's, she's at home. How could she be at home?

"Chrissy!" comes her mother's voice from behind her, still with that strange, distorted echo, the door giving way. Instinctively, Chrissy yanks it shut again, fighting as best she can, unable to help letting out a shriek. "Chrissy, open the door! Let go! Let go!" She doesn't want to let go, but she can't hold on, and she's taking off down the hall as soon as the door flies open, not wanting to see what's behind it. Bolting down the stairs, she pauses for just a moment, taking stock of her surroundings. There's a light in the den. Maybe her father will help her. Maybe he needs help.

"Dad!" she calls, taking off again, running to him. "Dad! Dad?"

He turns toward her. His eyes and mouth are sewn up. She screams again, this time loud and long and shrill, until the lights start flickering, and she knows she's caught. There are footsteps on the stairs that definitely don't belong to her mother, a deep voice, one that's become familiar by now, saying her name. She runs anyway, because it's all she can do, away from her struggling father, into the dining room, where she takes in the sight of food on the table — rotted, covered with flies and spiders — before she keeps going, trying to get to the front door, her best possible means of escape.

Throwing the double doors open, she finds, instead of a way out, wooden boards, keeping her trapped in here. "No!" she says, pounding against the planks, throwing her body against them. "Help, help! Somebody help me!"

No one comes. No one hears her. No one's ever heard her.

"Chrissy," the deep voice says again, rounding the corner now. There's nowhere left for her to go, nothing for her to do but cry as the horrible creature encroaches on her, shrinking back like it will make any kind of difference. "Don't cry, Chrissy," he says, lifting one hand, a long, wet, spindly finger brushing a tear off her cheek. "It's time for your suffering to end."

He says it almost like it's a good thing, like he means to be compassionate, like he hasn't been haunting her for days and chasing her through her own home. And she did want that, didn't she? Not to hurt anymore, the way she's hurt for so long. She just didn't want it like this, the thought just barely crossing her mind before he extends his hand, holding it up over her face, snapping her head back.

Everything hurts, her mind and body both, and then everything goes dark. Somewhere, Chrissy crumples, a cheerleading uniform-clad heap on the ground.
didntrun: (011)

[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-03 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
Eddie's still not sure what he thinks of this place. He figures that's fair, being that this is also apparently an alternate world and the last time he ended up in one of those it had pretty much killed him. Darrow hasn't killed him yet, but Eddie's not totally convinced it isn't trying.

There are people from Hawkins here. Loads of them. Not all the ones he wants to see, but he thinks as long as he steers clear of the Chief, he might make it through the rest of them okay, even if they don't remember him. Or they do, but not really how he wants them to. It sucks. As far as Hopper is concerned, he's a fuck up and a drug dealer. As far as Harrington and Robin are concerned, he's a freak. He would be used to it, except the few days before he got here had kind of shaken shit up.

Now that he has time to sit and actually think, too, there's a lot of guilt. He can feel it clawing at his throat, like a pressure on his chest, and for a second, when the body crumples to the ground in front of him, Eddie kind of thinks he's just lost his mind. For real this time.

But she's real. Lying there in the grass in the park, she's real, and Eddie drops to his knees to grab her shoulders.

"Chrissy?"
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-03 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)
The few days before Darrow had been terrifying, Eddie had seen and done things he never would have thought possible, but even with all that shit under his belt, he knows he's never been as frightened as those moments watching Chrissy die. Afraid for himself, yeah, but afraid for her, too.

The last time he had seen her, she'd been broken, twisted, like a discarded doll, and Eddie feels something inside him tremble and threaten to crack.

"Holy shit, are you real?" he asks, his hands moving from her shoulders to her upper arms, to the sides of her neck, touching her in ways he never would have dared back in Hawkins. Jason Carver and half the basketball team would kick his ass for laying his hands on the Queen of Hawkins High, but Eddie isn't thinking that. Eddie just needs to be sure she isn't dead.
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-03 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, the jocks and conformists of Hawkins High would have a heyday with this, but screw 'em, honestly. The only thing Eddie cares about right now is making sure Chrissy is okay, so he hooks his arms around her when she leans in, holding her close, aware of his thundering heart.

He can't just lie to her. He can't keep all that awful shit from her, even if it would be better for him. Running away when she was dying is pretty much the worst thing he's ever done. Ever. He can't run away from the truth, too.

"Yeah," he says. "I know. I think we're real. As real as we can be in this weird place we are now, but... shit, Chrissy. I ran. I'm sorry, I should've stayed, but I just... I freaked."
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-04 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
"Shit," he says again, then sits back on his heels so he can properly look at her again. They're still just out here in the open, sitting in the park, and he realizes suddenly that the unburdening of his guilty conscience should probably wait. He needs to tell her the whole truth, but he has the chance to do the right thing now. Again. For Chrissy this time, though, where he failed so badly the first time.

"Okay, come on," he urges, getting to his feet, then offering his hands to her. "Let's, uh... we should go somewhere other than sit in the park here and I can sort of explain some really fucked up shit."

Sort of. There's a lot of disbelief she's going to have to suspend.
didntrun: (015)

[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-04 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
"My... place?" he suggests, more a question than anything, because the last time they went to his place hadn't gone so well for her. He realizes, maybe a second too late, that she doesn't know what any of this is about and he blinks, feeling really goddamn stupid.

"It's a different place," he assures her quickly. "Not the trailer. We're... kind of in a different world. Reality? I don't really know, it's pretty hard to make sense of it and... it's just not the trailer, okay? I wouldn't bring you back there."

To the place where she died. Even being there while trying to save Hawkins had been like a punch to the gut.
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-04 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"If it was all in your head, wouldn't you imagine Jason instead of me?" Eddie asks in return, without a trace of malice. It's a genuine question, even given what he's learned of Chrissy, and he's not accusing her of anything. Jason is her boyfriend and even with Eddie's cynical eye, it's always seemed like they were in love, though he's never understood it. Jason Carver is a complete dick.

Realizing it's not really a fair question doesn't unask it, though, so Eddie does the next best thing and pinches his own cheek. Hard.

"Ow," he says. "I feel pretty real to me. You wanna give it a go?" He leans in, offering Chrissy his cheek, hoping to make see a hint of that smile she'd given him in the woods not too long ago.
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-04 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
At that, Eddie finally laughs, a dry, hollow sound. There's nothing humorous to be found in everything that happened, but he remembers saying those very words to Henderson and his pals, knowing the horror of what had happened to Chrissy was too fucking awful to be real.

"No," he says. "I don't. Or if you're crazy, then I am, too, and that's not as bad. For me, anyway, it might be kinda worse for you."

But at least here, he's only Eddie the Freak to a few people, and Harrington doesn't seem as bad as Eddie remembers him being. Even the Chief seems too distracted by being a dad and a proper cop to give Eddie much thought. It's all kind of a relief. Here, if nothing else, no one thinks he hurt Chrissy.

He's quiet as they walk, staying close to her, not going too fast. She's been through a lot of shit and he wants to give her time. After a minute or so, he says, "I saw the thing that was following you. In your head or... it wasn't really in your head. Or it wasn't just in your head. It was a real thing. A real monster."
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-05 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
It feels like he keeps saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and usually Eddie wouldn't give a shit. This feels different, though, he feels like he has to try harder, and Eddie is quiet again, rubbing his thumbnail against his lower lip as he tries to figure out where to start.

"Time is sort of different here," he says to start. "It's like... a lot of time has passed since we were in my trailer. Almost a week. It was happening to other people, too. That kid Fred, the one with the scar. McKinney, on the basketball team. This girl Max, too, the one whose brother died at the mall."

Eddie chews his lower lip and exhales slowly. "We went to where it lived. To try and kill it."
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-05 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Eddie can't look at her when he nods. He blinks a couple of times, his eyes stinging, but he nods, because he wants to be honest with her. She deserves that much, even if he couldn't do anything to help her.

"I tried to wake you up," he says. "You were in this... this trance. It's what he did. Vecna. When you started levitating and then... shit, Chrissy, I ran away. I just freaked out and I ran."

At this point, Eddie knows he really couldn't have done anything, but if he could change that moment, he would. He would be less of a coward and he would just stay with her, even if he couldn't save her life. She shouldn't have been alone.
didntrun: (015)

[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-05 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"You were still there. The other stuff was all in your head," Eddie says. "But that doesn't make it not real. Everything he made you saw, that was real, he lived in this messed up version of Hawkins and he made people see all this horrible shit and after he was done torturing them..."

He trails off again, his face screwed up against the emotion. Eddie hadn't known Fred beyond him being the kid who'd caused that accident, and he sure as hell hadn't liked Patrick McKinney, but that doesn't mean he thought any of them deserved to die. What this creep did to Hawkins, a place Eddie has only ever wanted to escape, turns his stomach.

"It was bad," he says finally as his building comes into view. It gives him something to do, getting his keys out of his jacket pocket. "It was really bad. I shouldn't've run.
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[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-07 02:14 am (UTC)(link)
Whether that's true or not, Eddie doesn't want to argue about it. Running wasn't the right choice, he can't take that back and it isn't Chrissy's job to make him feel better about it. All he can do now is just make things better from here on.

If he can.

"Vecna?" he asks as he unlocks the front door of the building. The place isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot better than the trailer, not only because she died there. At least the apartment is relatively clean and he's been at least trying to take care of it, which he's pretty grateful for now. He never figured he'd have Chrissy Cunningham in his place once, never mind twice.

"It wouldn't've helped," he says, wishing he could tell her otherwise. "Music worked. To ground people, pull them back. But the drugs... yeah, it wouldn't have done much. I wish I'd known what you were seeing. All that shit..."
didntrun: (011)

[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-07 07:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"About the shit you were seeing?" he asks, then shakes his head as he presses the button to call the elevator. "Not much, really. You remember Steve Harrington? And Nancy Wheeler? They knew all about this shit, they said it had something to with, uh... trauma. But it's personal, I guess, so it's stuff no one else really knows."

He wonders sometimes what Venca would have made him see. Eddie doesn't think he's had much in the way of real trauma, not until he watched Chrissy die in front of him.

"But if I knew about the creepy floating vine guy with no nose?" he asks. "Well, okay, definitely would've thought you were crazy for real and definitely would've been wrong."
Edited 2022-07-07 22:20 (UTC)
didntrun: (006)

[personal profile] didntrun 2022-07-09 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
It isn't quite the laugh he'd prefer to get out of her, but it's something, and Eddie smiles a little and shakes his head at the apology. Once they're inside the elevator, he jabs at the button for the fourth floor, then leans back against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his vest.

"Yeah," he says. "It's a DnD thing. Dungeons and Dragons? The Hellfire Club?"

All the shit that made everyone in Hawkins think he was some sort of satantic cult leading freak. The shit that made everyone decide he was capable of hurting Chrissy in such a horrific way.

"He's like... a god, basically," he explain. "In the lore. We needed something to call this guy and we just sort of latched onto it, I guess."

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