Chrissy Cunningham (
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.
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.
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She's all sorts of messed up inside, and in a strange way, she badly wants Eddie to know that just as much as she wants him not to.
"I told you I felt like I was losing my mind," she points out, her voice still wavering, the slight hint of a smile she dredges up equally unsteady. By her count, it was just a few hours ago that they sat at the picnic table in the woods and he made her laugh for the first time in days. It feels like another lifetime, though, and in a way, it kind of was. "I wouldn't have known what else to say." She means to leave it at that. She can't quite shake the thought, though, idly picking at a cuticle as her smile fades again, and figures the best thing she can do is ask. "How much did you find out?"
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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."
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"Sorry," she says, glancing over at Eddie as the elevator doors open and she steps inside. "Describing it like that is just..." He's not wrong. While it doesn't lessen the terror that still clings to her, it makes it a little easier to bear for just a moment.
"You called it... Vecna, right?"
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"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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Even now, with his tying it to what's been happening to her, she's more curious than wary. Maybe she's just been too frightened of too much else to have the energy to worry about a game now. Maybe, as horrified and shaken as she still is, there's a little bit of relief, too, in simply being done.
"This is going to sound really stupid," she admits, her expression turning sheepish as she ducks her head, nose wrinkling. "I didn't know there was actual lore."
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"Even people who play all the time don't know everything," he says. "There's way too much content. It's a fantasy game, though, with bad guys and monster, so I guess... it was easy. Naming the monster."
He thinks maybe they needed to name it. With a name, it became real, rather than some otherworldly entity. With a name, it became something they could fight, even if Vecna was nearly impossible to defeat in the game.
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It's everything else that she finds strange enough to comment on. The elevator doors opening, she steps out into the hall, shifting her weight as she waits to see which way they're going. "It was this thing that I thought was happening just to me," she explains, a little awkward. "And now you know more about it than I do, even... gave it a name. I feel like I missed so much."
She did miss so much, she reminds herself. She died. There's still something unbelievably surreal about considering that while standing here, alive and comparably well, at least physically.
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"It's seriously weird," he says before letting them both into the apartment. It isn't much, but at least it's clean.
"It sucks that you missed it." He winces a little, then shakes his head. "Not that it was fun. It was pretty shitty, honestly, and terrifying, but that... you know. That you died."
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Until today, she wouldn't have thought that what happened to her would make any kind of difference to him, either. They didn't know each other at all. They still don't, really, though it doesn't feel like that. But it also probably changes things, for someone to have a person drop dead right in front of them, in their home. He said it was bad, and she's inclined to believe him.
"Yeah," she agrees, her voice weak and a little uncertain. Glancing around, because she feels like she needs to say something, she adds, "It's nice. Your place."
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Eddie realizes he doesn't really know what to do here. He needs to explain this place to her, even though it's as crazy as the whole Upside Down thing, just in different ways. What he should do is sit her down, tell her the deal, and then take her to the train station.
Instead of doing any of that, Eddie asks, "Do you want some water? And maybe to... lie down?"
Christ, it's like he's never talked to a girl before, which isn't true. Eddie does really well with a certain subset of women, usually ones that wear tight jeans and have teased hair and are maybe a little bit older than he is. But now he feels like kind of an idiot just trying to explain Darrow.
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As much as she already feels like an imposition, though, something to drink does sound like an alright place to start, as does getting off her feet. She feels unsteady, a little woozy, and she's not sure if it's because of whatever happened to her body in Eddie's trailer, whatever brought her here, or simply that she can't remember the last time she ate anything she kept down. "Some water would be good. And to sit?"
Even with his having basically offered, she still waits to get an okay before she heads to the couch. Once there, she takes a seat at the far side of it, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, toes of her sneakers hanging off the edge of the cushion, like she's trying to make herself as small as possible. A part of her has wanted for a long time just to disappear, and maybe she should be relieved now that she apparently did. She just wouldn't have wanted it like this.
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He's probably dead, too. Back in the Upside Down. Maybe telling her that might help.
Running the water so it gets cold, Eddie goes to grab a glass and stops when he sees an envelope inside the cupboard.
"What the hell?" he asks, taking it down. Chrissy's name is scrawled on the front and he recognizes it from when he'd gotten his own. Still chewing his lip, Eddie fills up the glass, then returns to the living room with the water and with the envelope.
"Um," he says. "I think this is yours."
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That's still true, but it's more than a little confusing why there would be anything waiting for her in his apartment. No one should have known she would be here. It doesn't make sense. None of this does.
"What is this?" she asks, frowning at the envelope as she sets it against her legs. "I don't understand. Did someone leave this here? For me?"
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"We're in this city that's completely self-contained," he tells her. "We can't get out and a bunch of people here are like us, just sort of transported here somehow." He laughs, the sound forced. "Steve Harrington is here."
And he doesn't remember any of the shit they went through together, which sucks, but Eddie just shoves that bit aside.
"The envelope thing is weird, but it's got an ID card and keys for an apartment. Probably a lot like this one. There's some money, it sort of looks like play money, but it's real."
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What he says should sound like one. Instead, finally, she lets out a breath that's nearly a laugh, helpless and confused. "I don't think I have any idea what you just said," she admits. "An alternate dimension? But how... I should be..."
She should be dead. She would have known it even if he hadn't confirmed as much for her.
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He pauses here, leaning back and lifting up his shirt. The worst wound is still bandaged, but there are others, clear bite marks, pink and healing.
"Anyway," he says and drops his shirt. "The next second I was here. With some bats. The hospital had an envelope just like yours with my name on it."
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She winces as she lifts her head to look up at him again. It's a stupid question. Nothing about any of what happened is remotely okay. She changes her approach instead, her worries about the creepy envelope temporarily forgotten. "Is it bad?"
He seemed alright when they were coming back here, at least, but she wasn't exactly paying attention to how he was walking at the time. Distracted as she's been, she hopes she didn't miss anything significant.
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He hasn't talked about it much, how scary it had been, how sure he had been of his own inevitable death. Back in the Upside Down, he doesn't know what happened, how it ended. Steve and Robin don't know, neither does El, and he's keeping his distance from Chief Hopper. Not that he's done anything wrong in Darrow, he just knows the man doesn't like him much.
But he can't talk about it now. Not with Chrissy. Not with what she's gone through.
"It's not so bad," he tells her. "You'll have a place of your own. Money." And she's alive.
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"I would have been pretty surprised if you could," she replies, as close as she can get to teasing right now. The words come out softer, more sincere, but she guesses it's better than nothing.
There's only so long she can put this off, though. Looking down at the envelope again, she worries at her lower lip with her teeth, fingertips nervously skimming over where her name is written. "So someone left me money," she says, "and a place to stay, but... they knew I would be here to find this?" It doesn't make sense, she thinks again. No one saw them together out in the woods; no one saw her get into Eddie's van and go back to his trailer.
She died, though. Not just now, but for him, a week ago, in his home, and as pieces start to come together in her head, she feels her stomach lurch uncomfortably. "Oh, god," she murmurs, half to herself, before turning to Eddie, wide-eyed again. "Everyone knows, don't they? That I was buying drugs."
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He says it with a bitter smile, because being a freak had never bothered Eddie before. Knowing people blame him for Chrissy's death sucks, but it isn't like he did anything to try and help her. Maybe Eddie didn't kill her, but he didn't save her either. But being weird, being different, that's all the evidence they needed that he would do something as awful as that.
"But this place, it's sort of magic," he says, not wanting to dwell on what Hawkins thinks he did. "I still can't cast spells, but yeah, that's the only way I can explain the envelope and the bank account and the ID card."
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That anyone could think he was responsible for what happened to her when she'd been dealing with something so awful is baffling to say the least, and unsettling beyond that.
"That's — that's crazy," she says. As much as she hates the idea of everyone knowing what she was doing when she died, at least it would have been the truth, and at least she wouldn't have been there for the fallout. When she somehow, improbably, feels safer around Eddie than she has in a long while, this alternative seems even worse. "They wouldn't believe that I was looking to buy drugs, but they'd believe that?"
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Some of them grow out of it, apparently, like Steve. Some of them were just always kind, like Chrissy. It's just that people were too scared of her to really notice.
"Don't think the demon tattoos really helped my case," he says with a crooked smile. "Don't worry about it, though, all that's pretty much done with. I feel kinda shitty for my uncle, though."
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Before she can realize it or hold it back, she feels her eyes start to sting with tears, and abruptly looks away, gaze fixed on her knees instead.
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice wobbling and deeply earnest. "God, I never should have dragged you into all of this." At the time, it felt like a last resort, the only thing left for her to try. She didn't know, though, how nice he would be, or that things were so much worse even than she realized. She definitely didn't know that anyone would get hurt.
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Eddie Munson has been Eddie the Freak for a long time. A lot longer than just the past week and a half. He'd been a freak in middle school, with his buzzcut and his angry music, and he'd been a freak as a kid, too, with his criminal dad, then his dead parents.
"If they need to blame me..." He shrugs. "It doesn't matter now. Not here. Now we can both be the freaks we were always meant to be." He's hoping to get another smile out of her and he tries one of his own, smile and tentative.
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Really, she doesn't understand any of this. He barely knows her, and yet not for the first time, he's going out of his way to try to make her feel better — this time, over something that does very much feel like her fault, even if she couldn't have known how everything would end. Stranger still, he's succeeding, at least as much as it would be possible for anyone to right now. She's not sure if he's right about her having always been meant to be a freak, but she's not sure he's wrong, either. If she's honest with herself, as somewhere deep, deep down, she has to be, so much of her life has been dictated by other people's expectations that she doesn't know who she would be — who she is — without that pressure overhead.
"You make that sound like a good thing," she says, not a disagreement, just an observation. Whether or not it is, or she is, is something she's going to have to figure out later, much too daunting when there's so much else to take in. "But I guess... the way things have been didn't work out so well for me anyway."
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