these questions are impossible for me because I never bookmark anything 😭 ok I'll try my best:
the light, the heat by @cyraclove (I've talked about this one probably 7437289 times); honorable mention mixing drinks and messages
obviously If We Don't Leave This Town (We Might Never Make It Out) by @astorytotellyourfriends
Legendary by broomclosetkink, an a/b/o classic
'86 Baby by Em_Jaye, my fave time loop fic!
a year and a day by @enoughtotemptme, which is a beautiful love story
also bonus sixth answer: my most recent read was Chrissy Cunningham's Guide to Not Cheating on Your Boyfriend by @justhere4thevibez which was loads of fun
for 46 we've got Sad Magic by Roadkill Ghost Choir
utterly perfect Chrissy song imo
"No freaking way. Is that Eddie Munson?"
Like a dog that had just heard a command, Chrissy's head whipped up. So fast she nearly spilled her untouched glass of punch on the hotel ballroom floor.
It was the ten-year class of '86 reunion. There were more people attending than Chrissy had assumed might, given how many of Chrissy's fellow classmates hung around Hawkins and still saw each other often. Why attend a reunion when you could just go to any of the local bars and see a dozen Hawkins High alumni on a random Tuesday night?
Chrissy would know. She had the unfortunate luck of being one of those stuck.
Nancy Wheeler, on the other hand, had made the choice to come all the way from New York. This was more because her younger sister, Holly, was graduating high school, and the reunion just happened to line up with Nancy's schedule. She and Chrissy had talked on the phone at length about whether Nancy would actually attend.
"Jonathan has a photoshoot that weekend with the magazine, so he's flying out on Monday," Nancy had sighed the weekend prior, making the radio waves between her and Chrissy crackle. "I don't know if I want to face all those two-faced busybodies alone."
"You won't be alone," Chrissy argued. "You'll have me."
"I don't know why you're going, Chrissy. Truly. Why subject yourself to the torture?"
Chrissy had remained quiet at the time, an explanation teasing along the back of her throat. Words that tasted like a secret when she swallowed them back down.
Logistically, the idea of attending a reunion with a bunch of Hawkins residents that spurned and despised her was the antithesis of keeping her personal peace, which was a thing Chrissy had been working very hard on doing since her marriage blew up.
It was such an overplayed story that, while it was happening, Chrissy kept expecting movie cameras to pop out of the bushes and let her in on the cinematically dramatic unraveling that was her life. She could truly have been any actress in Hollywood playing the role of a scorned spouse. A high school sweetheart love story turned toxic when the wife discovered a pair of panties in her husband's car that clearly did not belong to her. A horribly theatric and entirely too public divorce. Rumors about Chrissy's alleged infidelity that no one could prove but everyone believed all the same.
Jason Carver, ten years later, remained the golden boy of Hawkins, Indiana. A title of which Chrissy now understood the insignificance.
It had taken a few years, but now, she was relieved she no longer had that spotlight following her through town. Though Chrissy lost many of those she thought were friends, the few that remained were impossibly tightknit and the very best support system she could possibly have.
Nancy, of course, who was currently trying very hard to mask her shock at Eddie's sudden appearance. Barb, who was not attempting to mask her surprise, standing beside Nancy. Robin, who had brought Steve as her date despite the fact that her wife and Chrissy's other good friend, Vickie, was also in attendance. All three of them immediately approached Eddie, careless for his status.
And the entire reason Chrissy had bothered showing up tonight.
Eddie.
Though it wasn't at all Eddie's fault her marriage had fallen apart some years back, he had been the catalyst for Jason's lightbulb development of Chrissy's apparent cheating. Because Chrissy had found the panties, and her first instinct hadn't been to confront Jason.
It had been to call Eddie.
Her best friend, despite only truly getting to know one another at the tail end of their senior year. He'd gone to Chicago when she'd gone to Indiana State, and they managed to see each other on weekends that Jason decided to drive home to see his family, which was most. Chrissy usually managed to beg off with needing to study, and Jason used to pat her head like a puppy and tell her how studious she was.
Then, the band found a label that wanted to promote them, and Chrissy got engaged, and their friendship became more phone calls and letters than in-person hangouts.
Chrissy was pretty sure she fell in love with Eddie Munson well before she started planning her wedding, though she couldn't admit it to herself. Amidst all of their handwritten correspondence and hours-long conversations, the drives he made when he was close enough to swing by, and the safety she felt during the brief hugs they shared, the idea of marrying Jason was something she'd simply resigned herself to.
Which was why she called Eddie when it fell apart.
No one else would understand when she burst into tears. From anger and upset and betrayal, yes, of course, but also from relief.
Jason had demanded, mere hours after they'd vowed themselves to one another for the rest of their lives, that Chrissy cut Eddie out of her life completely. She'd refused, and it had always been a point of contention in their marriage. So, when he cheated, and then came home to find her sobbing on the phone to the man Jason felt threatened by, he pointed his finger at her for the rest of Hawkins to see.
Though he never explicitly said it was Eddie with whom Chrissy had this affair. Admitting that would mean admitting that Chrissy had reached well beyond Jason, into rockstar territory, and succeeded.
Still. She hadn't actually expected him to show up. Even though she really, really hoped he would.
"How funny would it be?" he asked the previous weekend. The band was on break, having just recorded their fourth album, in preparation for its release and the subsequent tour. "If I showed up unannounced to dozens of flapping jaws. God. Everyone who wanted to scrape me outta that school like gum off their shoes would be clamoring for an autograph. And I'd get to tell them to go fuck themselves."
"Just for me?"
"Everything for you, sweetness," he'd responded without hesitation. "Not just anything. Everything."
After her catastrophic divorce, Chrissy and Eddie had kinda sorta been dating. Secretly. For over a year now.
Every time Chrissy traveled, it was to see Eddie, though she hadn't told any of her friends that. They all assumed she was seeing the world outside of Hawkins because Jason had kept her so confined, hardly leaving Indiana. Even their honeymoon had been to Indianapolis.
Their honeymoon.
The intent of the secret had been to keep her name out of Eddie's limelight until they could navigate it properly. He was watched, always, and the prospect of dragging her through all that bullshit, as he inferred, seemed outrageous to him.
"You like quiet," he'd stated. "Shit won't be quiet again for a while if we go public."
"I don't care about quiet, Eddie," she'd argued back. "I care about you."
During his last secret trip to Hawkins, three months prior, Eddie had asked her to move in with him. To his home in New York City. Chrissy cried from sheer joy when she said yes.
Crashing the reunion had started out as a joke. Because most things started out as a joke with Eddie.
This was, by far, the best punchline she'd ever gotten from him.
"Eddie!" Fred Benson said, the surprise obvious in his tone as he walked toward the new arrival. Fred had been tasked with putting this entire reunion together, but his duties of greeting people and handing out nametags seemed long since over.
Until now, of course.
"You, uh, didn't RSVP, so I don't have a nametag for you," Fred continued as Eddie finished slapping Steve on the back in greeting. "Not that I think it matters. Everyone knows who you are, obviously."
A few feet away, Chrissy heard Jason snort. He'd been slowly, steadily creeping toward her throughout the night, and Nancy kept swooping in to whisk her away. Making Chrissy laugh at how aggravated he clearly was.
"Nah, no worries, Fred, my man!" Eddie said, smacking him on the back so hard Fred's shoulders buckled a little. He looked so much smaller, standing there beside Eddie. Then again, Eddie Munson had always been larger than life. "I'm, uh, actually not staying long. Duty calls, and all that. Just thought I'd stop by and--"
He cut himself off when his eyes, scanning the room as they had been since he arrived, finally landed on her.
Everything around them went quiet. Fading into the background, into insignificance, until the only thing Chrissy could see was the deep, unending honey of Eddie's gaze. They widened, just a fraction, as he absorbed her presence, then crinkled with a smile so broad it ripped the breath from her lungs. Abandoning the people who were still trying to talk to him, Eddie strode across the ballroom and met her where she was standing.
Gosh, he was electrifying. Donning his stage persona for the public always made her body heat up in the most delicious way, and Eddie had turned that up to an eleven for their former classmates.
"Chrissy Cunningham," he greeted, his voice loud as he intentionally used her maiden name. Knowing it would make Jason bristle, as though his name she reluctantly still wore was a brand he'd imprinted on her. The thought made her cringe.
It wouldn't be her last name much longer regardless. If the ring she accidentally found in Eddie's sock drawer six months back meant anything.
"Eddie Munson," she greeted in turn, her own smile making her cheeks ache. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I was just in the neighborhood."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Figured I'd swing by and, y'know, see how my beautiful girl is managing in this podunk town," he shrugged, his hands coming up and gently cupping her cheeks. She'd heard multiple camera clicks at this point, so she knew her face was on the verge of being slapped across every tabloid by next week.
Chrissy couldn't care less. Her things were already in a small moving van, halfway to New York by now.
Humming, she brought her own hands up to wrap around his wrists. Holding him in place, like an anchor in the storm of their onlookers.
"She's managing," Chrissy responded. "Quite a bit better now, though."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that just swell?" Eddie asked before leaning in and capturing her lips with his.
For as long as she lived, Chrissy would never get over the feeling of Eddie's lips on hers. Every kiss was a new sky full of shooting stars, altering the very gravity of her existence. Until it wasn't the ground that held her in place, but his arms, his existence. Until he was the only tether to reality she had ever known.
More camera clicks. Of course. Chrissy grinned, breaking the kiss with her own elation, and giggled when Eddie rolled his eyes.
"Told ya," he murmured, a secret just for them.
Smiling, she just shrugged again. "Let them talk."
"Oh, I plan to," Eddie responded, suddenly bending down and scooping Chrissy up into his arms. She squealed, clinging to him, as he marched his way through the flapping jaws he'd expected. Everyone staring like they couldn't believe what had just happened.
Nancy, Barb, Robin, Vickie, and Steve all seemed to be in various states of shock themselves, and Chrissy knew her voicemail would be full to bursting by the time she actually got to plug it back in.
That would be later's problem, though.
As he walked them through the hotel lobby and toward a waiting car, Chrissy giggled in his ear.
"You certainly know how to make an entrance."
"All part of the biz, baby," Eddie laughed. "Though, between you and me?"
"Hmm?"
"That was, by far, the best entrance I've ever made."
"Was it?"
Stopping before the car, Eddie grinned again. Giving her yet another long, slow kiss. A show for the droves of people that had followed them from the reunion. Cradled against his body, Chrissy had never felt more complete. More comfortable.
More at home.
"Can't wait to one-up myself."
"Is that already planned?"
"Yep," he smacked his lips, then grinned, devilishly handsome, as he slid them into the backseat of the car. "Guess you'll have to wait and see."
Thinking of that ring, the home they would soon share in New York, and the life they were on the cusp of beginning, Chrissy grinned. She couldn't wait.
Number 15 of the soft sentence starters I think would be perfect for Chrissy to say to Eddie!
15. "I didn't realize I was waiting for you until you showed up."
She'd read about a million ways authors described people with weather metaphors.
Chrissy loved to read. To escape into alternate worlds. To maintain some modicum of sanity, stuck as it was between the pages of her favorite novels. A reminder that, no matter how everything seemed intent on going wrong, there was always, always hope that it would get better.
Getting publicly dumped at a party over spring break, for example, and then being told by her own mother that it was her fault for not being a good enough girlfriend? Seemed like the lowest point of her life.
Then, to find out that said ex-boyfriend was suddenly and miraculously dating her best friend? Or, well, ex best friend, she supposed, despite Monica's insistence that it just happened. Like a person could do a back tuck handspring and happen to fall into bed with the basketball captain that just ended the Hawkins cursed dry spell and won the state championship trophy.
Yeah, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the truth. All at once, Jason's extra attention he'd been giving her the past couple months made so much more sense. Despite being official, she and Jase had never needed to be so public with their relationship. It was a comfortable thing; a coexistence of sorts didn't demand every spare part of her.
Then, like the flip of a switch, she was suddenly doted on. Told constantly and consistently how loved and valued she was, with entire declarations made before the school that had her masking her discomfort with a small smile and a blown kiss.
Realizing that Jason was using that sort of behavior to cover up sleeping with her best friend for, like, two whole months before he finally worked up the courage to leave her was maybe the lowest she could be.
Or so she thought.
When she finally confronted him, asking him how he could just flush two entire years down the drain for the person Chrissy thought she could confide everything in, and having Jason look at her like she was some pathetic animal stuck in a drain?
The clincher was his excuse.
"It just seemed like, I dunno, you'd fall apart if I left. You're so fragile, Chris."
As though her entire life, her happiness, depended on a boy who couldn't even be honest with her.
That--- That was the lowest she could be.
She had other friends, of course. Friends who were absolutely there for her as she worked through the nightmare of navigating the last couple months of school in the shadow of betrayal. Friends who were happy to cut off Monica, Jason, and all of Jase's friends in the aftermath.
But it was her books that kept her afloat. That reminded her, staring up at the crevice from rock bottom, she had nowhere else to go.
So, she started climbing.
And it was then that she learned all those metaphors about people and weather were real.
Because Eddie Munson blew into her life like a hurricane of leather and denim. A maelstrom of destruction and devastation, unafraid of leveling everything in his path. All of those expectations laid on her shoulders, weight heavier and heavier as they stacked higher and higher, were lifted into the eye of him and washed away in the wake of his thunder.
What the fuck? Don't let those assholes' judgements make you feel like that. God, Chrissy, seriously, why do you let them speak for you? Why do you let them dictate you? What are you, a marionette? Cut your strings, Pinocchio, you're ready to dance on your own. I'll hold your hand if you need it, but swear to Christ, you've got incredible legs. Let them hold you up.
Chrissy, why the fuck do you put yourself through all that bullshit? Why are you pretending you're fine with that asshole dating your ex best friend? Aren't you fucking mad? Then be mad. Be fucking furious. Be feral. Go for the goddamn jugular.
Cunningham, are you serious? Why do you let your mom control you like that? Why does she think it's okay for to talk to you like you're fucking worthless? You're not her doll. Jesus, Chrissy, be you, I'm on my knees here. I'm desperate to see the real you, c'mon, don't leave me in the dirt.
A chance encounter at a party that snowballed into this incessant need to be near him. To listen to him as he rambled on about his dungeons game or his music or anything and everything that came to mind. Never had she met someone so unapologetically unafraid to be themself. And Eddie wasn't only unapologetic; he was loud. He was boisterous.
He was captivating.
And he was right.
She was mad. She was fucking furious. She had spent so long, so painstakingly long, trying to make herself small and demure and perfect when all she wanted to do was file her nails into talons and rip those expectations to shreds. She wanted to scream, blood dripping from her teeth and hands, and prove that the desolation of imperfections wasn't desolate at all. It was beautiful, full of haphazard debris she could use to build something new.
Something honest.
Something real.
"Start here," Eddie said, standing at the edge of the quarry. Of course, she'd told him about all those desires. All that desperate need to feel whole after so long letting everyone else pick pieces of her for themselves. They'd been friends for over a month, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore those butterflies that took flight in her stomach whenever he so much as glanced in her direction.
Would she mess everything up if she took that chance?
Could she forgive herself if she didn't?
"C'mon," Eddie said, reaching out and taking her hand. Collecting her in the calm of his embrace as the storm raged on around them. "You scream, I'll scream."
"We all scream for ice cream?" Chrissy jested, making Eddie guffaw. Which only served to heighten the wings beating tornadoes in her stomach. To know that she could make him laugh was such a power.
"Of-fucking-course, sweetheart," he grinned, that pet name falling off his tongue like chocolate fudge topping. Like limbs broken from trees in the aftermath of the rain. Devastating in its rich sweetness. "We'll go out for ice cream anytime you want."
Lacing their fingers together, Chrissy squeezed tight as she stepped even closer to the ledge. Staring at the long, deep drop beneath her feet. Like she'd step off the lip and plummet straight back down into rock bottom.
Like she'd somehow, incredibly, already found the strength to climb out. Or maybe, maybe, like Eddie's rain had helped her float back up.
These were the thoughts that plagued her mind as she screamed, long and loud. A werewolf howling at the moon, teeth and claws unable to rip into flesh and bone instead tearing into the dark expanse of night. Bleating out the excess of scars she didn't realize pulsated beneath her ribs.
She screamed until her throat was raw. Until her lungs burned with the effort of holding that thunderous note. Until tears blurred her vision, the rainclouds of her eyes finally full enough to burst from her ducts and leak down her cheeks.
When she was finished, Eddie grinned, bright and beautiful. The sun peeking through the clouds, white teeth like rays glinting rainbow fractals against her heart. Then, he turned and let out his own howl. Far more animalistic, like the wolf she envisioned herself to be, and Chrissy took in another big breath before joining him.
Harmonious disaster, amplified against the quarry walls.
As they finished, laughing together in cleansing relief, Chrissy realized that this, this, was precisely where she wanted to be.
Hand-in-hand with Eddie.
Standing at the precipice of everything and nothing as it echoed their fury back at them, becoming quieter and quieter the longer they stood together.
Turning toward her, Eddie was all light and joy as he opened his mouth. Probably to ask her if she felt better. If she needed another go. But Chrissy was far too distracted by the little piece of hair stuck to his bottom lip.
Her free hand came up, brushing it away, before her fingertips trailed against his jaw. Head tilting curiously to one side, Eddie watched her with those dark, dark eyes, swirling with promises that she would never be the same if she took that leap.
She couldn't take it anymore.
She wouldn't forgive herself.
She surged onto her toes and crashed her lips against his like a clap of thunder.
It wasn't fireworks.
It was lightning.
Electric and unpredictable, it zipped across her skin in a jagged pirouette of sensation. Igniting her from the inside, making her glow with blinding light as Eddie gasped and groaned and let go of her hand to wrap his arms around her. Holding her to him. Keeping her.
"Christ," he breathed when they finally parted. The hand against her waist fisted in the fabric of her sweater, pulling her closer and holding her like rivers had carved his arms from stone just to keep her in place. "What-- What? Am I dreaming?"
Chrissy giggled, reaching up to kiss him all over again.
"Not dreaming," she swore, her fingers twisted in the lapels of his jacket. "Just, um. I've been--b-been waiting for that, I think."
"Yeah?" he verified, his voice a breath against her neck as he pulled her in, in, in. "You been waiting for little ol' me, baby?"
The smile that stretched her cheeks tasted like the air after the rain had passed. Sweet and terrifyingly addictive.
"I think maybe I have all along. I just didn't realize it until you showed up."
lmao for 23 we've got Breaking the Law by Judas Priest
we love to see it
There was an art form to picking locks.
It took a gentle, skilled hand. Delicate steadiness as the tension wrench held its place; as the pick itself was eased into the mechanism, searching out the correct code that would imitate the teeth of the lock's key.
Eddie had that shit down to a science.
House locks were, of course, significantly easier to pick, which Eddie only knew because he'd practiced on his own, Jeff, and Gareth's houses multiple times. His own because, well, obviously. Jeff and Gareth's houses were hit because they had a running joke on who could get away with stealing his DM screen for a couple weeks over the summer.
The joke was, in fact, on them, as Eddie not only got his screen back all five times, but he also unscrewed all of the lightbulbs in both houses, took every single battery from every device, and hid every left shoe he could find in their respective dryers on the way out. Plus he might've gone free range on the kitchen snacks available.
Still, he'd gotten pretty damn good at picking commercial locks at this point, too.
Which is why he was currently perusing aisles of Starcourt's J. C. Penney in search of a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.
Look, alright, so maybe one of the dumbasses on the closing shift happened to forget to turn on the security alarm after Eddie bribed him with a free quarter-ounce. What was he going to do, not take advantage of someone else's shortcomings to get his beautiful girlfriend something she absolutely deserved?
He'd buy her stuff, too, of course. He wasn't a total asshole. But Grant and Gareth, who had come into the store with the expectation of spending their hard-earned cash on gifts for their mothers, had instead been kicked out by some haughty clerk who thought they were fucking degenerates or something. Getting a little smidge of revenge at the cost of free-ninety-nine was a bonus. Plus, it wasn't like he was stealing from Melvald's or some other mom-and-pop. The CEO of a monopoly like Penney's could afford the tax write-off his little fractions-of-pennies-on-the-dollar excursion would be.
Still. Penney's was pretty old-lady-adjacent, so Eddie didn't have super high hopes that he'd find something worthy of Chrissy Cunningham.
The thought stopped him in his tracks, flashlight pointed up toward the ceiling as he let out the most lovesick fucking sigh known to man. Which, thankfully, no one else was around to hear. He couldn't help it. She was just so--
She was just--
She was Chrissy.
What a fucking rush that was to remember.
They'd been together since Halloween, which was still wild to think about. Tina's Halloween Bash; the continuous catalyst of the goddamn century. The year prior, it had been Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler's end; this year, it was Eddie Munson and Chrissy Cunningham's beginning.
Though, technically, they'd been friends since the second week of school, when they were randomly assigned as partners in biology to do a project on manatees. Which her boyfriend-at-the-time had thrown a goddamn fit about. Very toddler tantrum-adjacent.
Thank whatever god was listening Chrissy considered that the final straw and freed herself from that jerkwad.
Was her kinda-kleptomaniac of a current boyfriend much of an upgrade?
Abso-fucking-lutely, thanks so much for asking.
Eddie paused in front of the perfumes, taking a moment to sniff a few of the testers. While most of them carried a heavy dose of Eau de Grandma, one of the citrusy ones was actually really nice. Eddie took a moment to clear his nostrils, then sniffed it again just to be sure, and, yeah. He could totally see himself burying his face in her shoulder, that scent filling his nostrils as he thrust--
Yep. Going in the bag.
(He was not gonna pop a hard on while looting the local J. C. Penney, actually.)
Alright, onto jewelry.
Of course, most of that stuff was locked away, and while he could easily slip the case open and perform a diamond heist, he wasn't willing to get any of the poor salespeople in trouble when Bitch Manager walked in and saw all the jewelry was missing. Plus, if he kept his findings small, the chance of anyone checking the security footage from the parking lot was nil, so.
He wasn't stupid enough to park in the lot, but he still had to walk out of here.
"Sorry, sweetness," he muttered to the Chrissy phantom living in the back of his mind, fingertips tapping against the case. "No diamonds this year."
Maybe next year.
Snorting, Eddie instead walked along the discounted jewelry still adorning some of the displays. Searching for something that screamed Chrissy Cunningham at him. He knew she liked small, delicate pieces. Pretty and classic, like her. And gold over silver, he was pretty sure. She usually wore thin gold bands on her fingers to match that gold bracelet. She had her share of bangles and shit, too, but those weren't every day wears for her.
He wanted to get her something she'd want to wear all the time.
A claim, of sorts, he knew. Adorning her with something he picked out. Kinda sick, maybe, but she drove him crazy, so. 'Sick' was just another goddamn adjective when it came to his endless depths of feelings for her.
He was on the verge of giving up. The longer he spent in here, the higher his chance of getting caught by one of the night patrol security guards currently walking the mall. Plus, he had the perfume, and a few things he still planned to get her from better, less corporately evil places.
Then, as he turned back toward his unlocked door, he saw it.
And grinned.
~🦇🩷🎄~
"Eddie! What are you doing here?"
She was grinning, though. That whisper-shout of her admonishing belied by the spread of her teeth. Glinting in the muted moonlight, Eddie just shrugged, dramatic enough for her to roll her eyes from her bedroom window.
The window Eddie had just pelted with pebbles.
They'd seen each other at school earlier that day. Had plans the following morning to hang out at his house and drink hot chocolate, which, Chrissy admitted, she hadn't had since she was a small child. Eddie splurged when he went to the Big Buy for their date. He bought milk to heighten the chocolatey endeavors and everything.
Still, it wasn't enough.
He'd never get enough of her.
"What, you want me to leave, baby?" he asked, matching her whisper-shout. "Resign me to the destitution of not getting to see my gorgeous lady in the late hours?"
They were technically on winter break now, so it wasn't like he was interrupting her beauty sleep by showing up after eleven.
Plus, her light had still been on, so.
"Oh, my god," Chrissy groaned, still smiling. "Get up here, then!"
Eddie scaled the wall with a practiced ease. Chrissy's bedroom faced the backyard, with a trellis that climbed up to the first-floor awning covering the back porch. It took a few seconds for him to get a good grip, considering the soft flurries of snow currently floating down from the sky and wetting her windowsill, but he tumbled into her warm room maybe a minute after her beckon.
"Brrrr," he said, pretending to shiver as Chrissy slid her window shut. Shaking a few droplets of wetness from his hair, he dove at her. "Hold me, sweetness, I'm freezing."
"Oh my-- Eddie!" she hissed when his cold hands found purchase beneath the Metallica t-shirt of his she was apparently wearing to bed. A t-shirt he'd left unintentionally the last time he stayed over and had to jump out the window with unzipped pants and a bare chest so her mother didn't catch them.
Shivering herself at the cold, Chrissy grumbled half-heartedly as she pushed on Eddie's jacket, trying to get him to strip. Eddie pulled back just far enough to waggle his eyebrows down at her.
"Damn, Cunningham, you want me that bad already?" Leaning close, he caught the lobe of her ear before whispering, "What, this afternoon wasn't enough?"
"Eddie--"
"I thought I got you there at least twice before I fu--"
The shiver she gave him this time was entirely unrelated to the cold, he was pretty sure, but she still shoved against his chest with an embarrassed squeak, which made Eddie laugh. Grabbing the straps of his backpack, she stepped around him to pull that and his jacket off.
"The leather is cold," she explained, carefully hanging it on the back of her desk chair. "I don't want it touching me!"
"I dunno if you noticed, but it's snowing out there."
"Yeah, which is why I think you need a proper coat," she huffed, though entirely without malice. She knew what his battle jacket meant to him.
"Aw," Eddie cooed, pulling his backpack off the shoulders of his jacket and setting it next to her bed before grabbing her hips and yanking her against him. "My pretty girl cares about my health and well-being?"
Those gorgeous blue eyes rolled back so far, Eddie was pretty sure she was looking at her own brain stem.
"Of course I do," she mumbled petulantly. "One of us has to."
Jesus Christ. Barely two months and she had his heart in a fucking sieve, ready to pulverize it into mush. Maybe she'd make a smoothie out of it. Drink him down so he could find space to live inside of her, his heart right next to hers.
He never needed it, anyway. Goddamn him if it could go to a worthier recipient.
"I know Christmas isn't until next week," he murmured, brushing a lock of her hair back over one ear, "but I got you something."
At that, her eyes lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
"You did?" she asked, disbelief coloring her tone. "You didn't have to do that."
"Well, I did it anyway," he shrugged. "Actually, I got you a few different somethings, but I wanna give you this one first. The rest are under the tree back home."
It was the first time he and Wayne put up a tree in years, and it was entirely because Chrissy had mentioned in passing that she'd never gotten to decorate one, even as a kid. Her mother always did it, with designer bulbs and perfect white lights. Not a lick of character to be found.
They'd even made new ornaments last weekend. With construction paper and glitter, with popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, and with hollow bulbs and paint. All of Hellfire, plus Max and Jane, had piled into Eddie's tiny trailer with supplies and snacks, and they'd made a night of it. It was a fucking great time.
Chrissy cried in his arms once everyone was gone because she had been so insanely happy, and the heart in his chest that was already hers had constricted and expanded like it was gonna burst. Full Grinch style.
They sat on her bed together, Eddie toeing at the backpack for a second until he could drag it close enough with his foot to get it open.
The jewelry box from J. C. Penney's sat on top of a spare change of clothes and his toothbrush. It was just a paper and cardboard thing with a bow, not at all the velvet box of anything fancy, but Chrissy's eyes were still wide and a little wet as she plucked it carefully from his hands. Looking up at him for a long moment, like she was waiting for him to yank it back and psyche her out of her gift.
When he made no move to give her a stipulation, which was a thing he'd hopefully eventually work out of her, she slowly eased the top of the box open and gasped in delight.
"Oh," she breathed, one small, delicate finger gently tracing the golden curve of the charm. "Oh, gosh, Eddie, it's beautiful."
A gold-plated necklace with a simple '86' charm sat atop a cottony pillow. Discounted, probably because it had been a gift for new students to the class of '86. Now that school was well and truly underway, the drop in sales had been enough for it to hit the rack with a slight price decrease.
Or, in Eddie's case, a very lofty price decrease.
Eddie gently took the box from her, plucking the charm from its pillow and twisting the chain until he could find the clasp.
"Turn around."
She did, lifting her hair for good measure as Eddie slid the chain around her delicate neck and clasped it. He leaned down, letting his lips trail against the elegant slope of her throat.
"Gorgeous," he murmured into the soft spot just below her ear. Making her gasp and squirm a little, her hips twitching against her bed. "Gonna be our year, baby. Isn't that right?"
Breath hitched, Chrissy just nodded. Leaning back until she was reclined against his chest, giving Eddie unfettered access to her neck. Trailing lazy kisses up and down the expanse, Eddie paused again, nibbling her lobe before asking,
"You know what would make it even prettier?"
"What?" She was already breathless, and Eddie grinned against her flesh.
"If it was the only thing you were wearing."
Chrissy sat up again, turning fully to look at him. Her eyes were wide, full of unabashed heat, and a half-second later, her shirt - his shirt - was hitting the ground.
Eddie groaned. Pouncing, swallowing her giggle for himself.
that would be When the Curtain Falls by Greta Van Fleet!
well 👀 never let it be said I have conventional ideas
~~✨~~
In the distance, a bell tolled.
Too close. Much too close and much, much louder than it should have been, tucked as she was in the safety of Eddie Munson's trailer.
Eddie. Chrissy couldn't believe she'd never really noticed him before.
Well, that wasn't entirely correct. It was sort of impossible not to notice Eddie. He was so unabashedly loud, so boisterous, that his presence filled up a whole room when he wanted it to. And sometimes, even when he just existed in the same general space as her, Chrissy couldn't help but see him.
But she felt so shallow when she realized that she'd never noticed him.
That afternoon, at the picnic table, Eddie had looked at her and managed to parse out far more about her mental state than anyone else in her life. All of her friends, her boyfriend, who laughed and cooed and told her they loved her so much that the words felt empty. Hollow. Entirely void of meaning, while their hawkish eyes watched her just to make sure they saw it when she finally fell apart.
That wasn't fair. She knew that wasn't fair. But she couldn't stop thinking about it.
Eddie wasn't like that, though. And maybe it was because she just hadn't been around him enough to think he might find use for her outside of a silly drug deal in the woods, but there had been more concern in his eyes as they glittered in the afternoon sun than she'd seen on anyone else in ages.
Except maybe Ms. Kelly. But even Ms. Kelly had told her she just needed to sleep.
Cautiously, Chrissy approached the front window of Eddie's trailer. Listening, searching the fogged distance for any sign of a grandfather clock someone might have accidentally left on their porch.
The toll came again. Louder. The same chime, the same note as the one that had echoed through the woods. When that clock lodged itself into a tree and openly mocked her with its impossibility.
Another booming chime, even louder, and a fourth, and Chrissy yanked the curtains shut.
"Eddie?"
Eddie had been the one to chase away the clock before, hadn't he? As though his very existence was enough to pull her back to reality. To a place where clocks lived inside of homes, not inside of her mind. The screaming sound reverberating between her ears like it could drown out all other noise.
Why wasn't he responding? This boy who was so content to make himself known, whenever he so chose.
"Eddie?" she called again, fighting the instinct to be inconvenient. Forcing one foot in front of the other as she chased Eddie down the short hallway of his home. "Did you find it?"
The sounds of his house had changed. Morphed, the closer she got to his bedroom. A familiar sound, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it, like the clock, was just in her mind, and she'd turn the corner and find Eddie doing something completely innocuous.
She just needed to find Eddie.
She just needed to––
"Just letting this out for you, dear," her mother said. Sitting at that sewing machine, the familiar methodical humming making her skin prick with phantom needles. The sharp stab of her measurements echoing from healed bites on her hips and ribs.
But her mother was at home. Half a town away, completely unaware that Chrissy was breaking every rule, every bar of her gilded cage to be in Eddie's home.
The needles pricked up the length of her spine like spider's legs, spreading fear from her waist to her nape, and Chrissy took an unintentional step back.
"You're going to look absolutely beautiful," her mother continued, turning, and Chrissy didn't want to look because she knew it would be wrong. Yet her eyes refused to see anything else. That fear spread, forcing a sharp scream from her throat as sallow skin and blank, hazy eyes looked at her, creating a monster with her mother's visage.
Slamming the door shut, Chrissy turned, hoping she would find Eddie in the living room of his home. Maybe they had accidentally bypassed each other. Maybe he could make it all go away again.
But it wasn't Eddie's home.
It was her house.
The second-story hallway that led to her mother's sewing room, though it was different. Wrong. The hall was supposed to be longer, without a door at her back.
A door that was suddenly being wrenched open.
"Chrissy!" the thing that wasn't her mother screamed. Her voice and its, mixed together in a vicious cadence that struck her ears like knives. Like pins. She grabbed for the handle, slamming it shut once more, but the force of whatever was behind it pulled and yanked and screamed again in that same harmonic dissonance. Wrenching it open again and again, like whatever was on the other side could break it down completely if it wanted to.
But first, it wanted to play.
Chrissy gave up. With a hoarse cry, she bolted from the door, the heavy eyes of her family's painted portrait following her as she rushed down the stairs.
The top of her father's head was just visible over his normal recliner in the TV room, and Chrissy shouted for him. Some part of her convinced that maybe he could make the visions go away. That he would reassure her it wasn't real, just a nightmare, and she'd wake up in bed at home and find him worriedly looking at her, like when she was little and he was still allowed to care.
But it wasn't her father. Of course it wasn't.
It was a horror wearing his skin. A monster, mouth and eyes sewn shut by the methodic thrum of her mother's machine, and he screamed wordlessly, soundlessly, the terror stuck in his throat because it had no exit. No entrance. Like a puppet.
She screamed again.
She ran.
The dining room was laid out with dishes of food she wasn't allowed to touch. All of it rotting, the smell hitting her nose at the same moment the vision hit her eyes, and it took strength not to gag. Like all that decay had created a wall, and she'd run smack into it, the force making her eyes water with disgust and fear and oh, god, please help me.
She ran again. Bypassing the entire rest of the house, because this house was not safe. This house was a maze of impossible terrors. The only place to go was out, into the safety of night's arms.
But night was gone. Wooden slats boarded across the door held her in, the house's embrace a tension she was afraid would suffocate her whole.
"Help me!" she screamed, though she knew, she knew, what lay beyond that door was nothing more than an abyss. She felt it, just as she'd felt her mother's wrongness searing an imprint like pinprick scars into the flesh of her body. "Please, help me!"
"Chrissy?" someone shouted, and oh, god, oh, god, it was another trick, but he--
"Eddie!" she cried, banging against the slats. "Eddie, please, please, I'm here! I'm here!"
"Chrissy!" he yelled again, closer, and a shadow passed over the thin beams of light coming through the wood. "Holy shit, you're--"
"Chrissy," a voice, deep and wrong, hummed behind her. That voice no longer hiding behind her mother's tone. That voice that sent the spiders skittering back down her spine.
"Eddie, it-- It's coming, it--"
Fingers were scrabbling between the slats, yanking at the boards. Taking initiative, Chrissy pushed from the other side, feeling it give way with a low groan. It dropped with a loud thunk, and familiar rings glinted in that light with no source as they wrapped around the second board.
"Chrissy," that same low rumble said again, followed by wet, horrible footsteps. She couldn't look. She couldn't. But, oh god, it was closer.
"Hang on, Chrissy, I'm coming," Eddie grunted. "Hang on, just-- Get back, okay, get back!"
She did, barely, as a heavy boot suddenly slammed into the wood. Sending splinters flying, the thick wood concaving toward her. Her own hands darted out, grabbing and yanking, as a third board caved inward. Uncaring of the scratches that seared her fingers.
"Can you--?"
A low hum of consideration came from over her shoulder, right there, just as those ringed hands shot through the small opening he'd created. Chrissy didn't hesitate, her hands wrapping around his without care for the splinters she could feel digging into her skin beneath her sweater.
Eddie heaved her through just as something wet and impossibly cold grabbed for her leg. She felt it dig into her flesh, her muscle, like crashing icicles that imbued the very blood in her veins with an arctic chill.
Chrissy screamed as Eddie shouted, and then, all at once, she was in his arms. Together, they hobbled down the porch of a house that was not hers, stepping into the dark like two lighthouses ignited from within.
He was the only thing she could see.
"Oh my god, Eddie," she breathed, throwing her arms around his neck without conscious thought. The anchor she couldn't bear to be another falsehood. But his arms, warm and strong, wrapped around her waist and held her close for a long moment. Breathing her in, like he knew, somehow, that he'd just saved her life.
He smelled like sweat and lighter fluid, and Chrissy could feel her tears soaking into his neck, but he was real, and he wasn't going to hurt her. He wasn't going to scare her.
"Jesus Christ," Eddie gasped, his own voice wet. "Jesus Christ, Chrissy, you're-- You're here."
He said it like he knew what was going on. Like her nightmare was something he had already faced. It gave Chrissy pause, pulling back just enough to look at him.
And she gasped in a different sort of horror.
"Oh, you're-- Eddie, oh no, you're bleeding."
"It's alright--"
"No, no, oh my god, I'm still dreaming, I'm still stuck--"
"Chrissy," he said, his voice firm as he set his hands on her shoulders, fingers clinging desperately to her. Blood stained his mouth a dark red, matting his hair beneath the black handkerchief he wore. She looked down, seeing crimson spreading along the white of her sweater where it had pressed against his abdomen, and stifled a gasp.
"You're not dreaming," he said, as though that made any sense. "Not really."
She could feel tears, hot and quick, soaking her cheeks, but Eddie remained so, so clear before her.
"Listen to me, okay?" he said. "This is important, and you have to listen. Got it?"
Unable to speak, unable to take her eyes off the blood, Chrissy just barely managed to nod.
"When you wake up, I'm not going to remember this."
"But you said--"
"It's not a dream, but you're not awake," he clarified, as though that made any sense. His eyes were such a deep, rich brown, but he looked so pained. So hurt. They, too, were brimming with tears, one finding escape and cutting through the blood and grime on his cheek. "And I'm there, but not this me, okay? Tell me-- This is important, okay, you gotta remember: Tell me to talk to Dustin about the Upside Down. Tell me to tell him it's a code red, and the lights flickered, and you and Max are being hunted by a thing called Vecna. Tell him it's creating gates, and you were supposed to be one of them. Dustin will explain everything."
"E-Eddie," Chrissy said, her jaw warbling. Eyes still rapt on him, but he grew brighter. Harder to look at. Like he was a star on the verge of eruption.
"What's your favorite song, Chrissy?" he asked suddenly, and Chrissy shook her head.
"I-I don't--"
"You need it, okay?" The hands on her shoulders trembled, shaking her a little, and his voice cracked. "Fuck. You need it, so this doesn't happen again. When you feel yourself start to slip, when the nightmares feel like they're coming back, play that song. Okay?"
"Eddie, please, what's going on?"
Something so terribly lost, so excruciatingly forlorn fell across his expression. He looked over her shoulder, like he could see something she couldn't, and the smallest, saddest smile graced his face.
"I always liked you," he told her, the ache in his voice cutting her down to her core. Past the flesh and bone and into the very depths of her soul. It cleaved her heart right in half. "Always wish I knew what it felt like to kiss you."
"Eddie--"
"Maybe I'll get a chance this time."
With a gasp, Chrissy suddenly opened her eyes.
Eddie shouted, wrenching his hands away from her shoulders as crazed eyes cast about the room. No longer wearing the handkerchief, his hair created a halo around him as he shook with fear.
"Chrissy?" he asked, his voice tentative. "What the-- What the actual fuck was that? What-- The lights, and your eyes--"
"Eddie," she sobbed, unable to keep herself from collapsing into him. He caught her, a shocked noise erupting from his chest, but didn't immediately let her go as she broke down.
He just held her.
He just let her cry.
I always liked you.
"Eddie?" she finally said, her voice hoarse and arms clinging to him like he was the only real thing in an ocean of wrong. He mumbled something, words or sounds, she wasn't sure. She could feel herself trembling, but she couldn't do anything to stop the vibrations of her body. The last leaf, clinging valiantly to the tree of her sanity.
do you still accept request for "soft sentence starters"? If so, can you do: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20? jk.
but seriously, god you're really good. number 1, perchance? love you 🫶
3. "Can I tell you something without you laughing?" (taking liberties 'cause you said 1-20 lmao)
Coincidence was an absolute son-of-a-bitch, in Eddie's professional opinion.
In this specific instance, the coincidence was that Eddie had, as shouted from tabletops many, many times, packed up all his worldly possessions and shot like a bat outta hell from Hawkins, Indiana the moment that high school diploma was in his grasp. And yet - and fucking yet - ten years and two thousand miles later, after settling into a pretty chill life in fucking Portland, Oregon, who would wander into the bar he was tending at six o'clock on a random Friday night?
Chrissy fucking Cunningham.
What a goddamn coincidence.
(Fate? Was fate the right word? Nah, fuck that, no way. Coincidence it shall remain.)
He recognized her immediately. Blinking through the haze of impossibility to meet her shocked gaze. Like she wasn't the one disrupting a routine Eddie established years ago.
"Eddie," she'd breathed, and holy shit Eddie couldn't believe the way recognition made her features fucking blossom. The way she smiled, pleased, as she raked his name across her tongue like some flowering candy she didn't expect to enjoy.
"Well, fuck," Eddie replied, leaning against the bar top and tilting his head to one side. "Doth my eyes deceive me? Is it perchance the queen of Hawkins High, wandered off the street and into my domain?"
She giggled. She actually giggled. And Eddie was pierced by that same sound, unfurled from the depths of her lungs years ago. Standing in a small clearing outside of school when she asked him, for the first time and never again, for a little something to take the edge off. A half ounce for fifteen bucks. A sparkle of sunshine hitting her eyes just enough to make them dance like ocean waves in landlocked Indiana.
In his naivety, Eddie had half-convinced himself that it'd turn into something else. Something more honest than either of them could've possibly handled, given how they were basically children.
It hadn't, of course. Though, in the darkest nights and deepest recesses, Eddie still sometimes wandered down a rabbit hole of what might've been if he hadn't been such a coward back then. If he'd chosen to maybe seek her out instead of waiting for her to come to him again. Even just to get a product review.
Alas. The past was passed.
And now, ten years later, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into his.
Eddie took her order as she climbed onto a barstool, the evening slow enough that he could mix up her cute little cocktail and hold a conversation with her.
"How, um, how long have you lived in Portland, then, Eddie?"
"Basically since I left," Eddie shrugged as he shook the mixer. Maybe raising it a little higher than necessary so his arms were, like, right there. "Just, uh, picked a direction and drove. Van got me all the way to Eugene, to start, and I was there for a couple months couch-surfing with college kids before I had the funds to buy a new van and get here. My buddy Jeff already had a place out here, and a gig at this bar, so he let me stay with him and got me set up with a job."
She smiled again, and Eddie had to smile back. He had to. It was law.
"What about you?" he asked.
"Um, just a few months, actually," she admitted, sipping from the straw of her water glass. Her lips were painted this beautiful pink, glossy and ripe like a summer peach, and--- yeah, no, Jesus, he felt like a creep, staring like that. "I went to school in Chicago for my degree, then found a great job working as an editor for a publishing company. They decided to open up a sister branch out here to expand into other areas of editing and asked me to help spearhead the new nonfiction department."
Eddie blinked. Pushed her drink toward her and used it as an excuse to lean way closer than necessary.
"So, what, you read manuscripts about other people's lives all day? Do you enjoy that?"
"Well, I help supervise a team that reads manuscripts about other people's lives." She took a sip of her cocktail, eyes lighting up as the flavor washed across her tongue. Yeah, Eddie couldn't claim much, but he made a mean goddamn drink. "But, yes, I enjoy it very much. Actually, um, delving into nonfiction biographies was my idea."
"Yeah?"
"It's so interesting," she explained, and Eddie was probably being the worst bartender on the planet, but he was hooked on every goddamn word she gifted him. A blast from the past so strong he was plunged headfirst into a crush he hadn't harbored in almost a decade. Pretending, maybe, that it hadn't ever really gone away in the first place. "Like, these experiences, these feelings, they're completely specific to the person. No one else has ever lived that life. So, to read all of these stories - especially autobiographies - is fascinating to me. The person's own hand recollecting these moments through time, and how they felt and reacted, is like seeing someone's story through their own eyes. I love it."
Eddie blew out a breath, taking her in for a long, assessing moment. Instead of shying away from his scrutiny, Eddie would swear she fucking embraced it. Leaned into it. Reveled in it.
Conversation flowed like a fucking river after a rainstorm. Quick and engulfing, it swallowed them whole and dragged them downstream, one topic bleeding into the next and the next and the next until Eddie couldn't remember how they got on any one subject.
"I actually own this place," he laughed, cleaning a glass someone had dropped off on the bar top. Having slipped away for a couple of minutes to actually assist his assistant in making drinks, Chrissy had a whole slew of questions waiting for him when he got back. Including, of course, how he got away with doing nothing. "So, y'know, kinda get to do whatever I want."
"You own the bar?" she asked, absolutely delighted.
"Well, co-own. With Jeff. We bought it when the original geezer decided to sell a couple years after I got here. It worked out great, actually. I lived in one of the apartments upstairs for a while, but once we got the ball rolling, we ended up converting the entire second and third floors into a recording studio. Scratches the itch to play music, since we never got the band off the ground, and we've gotten pretty popular recently, 'cause Jeff is a genius when it comes to mixing and I can play backup instrumentals most of the time."
"Wow," Chrissy breathed, playing with the straw of her second drink. "That's amazing, Eddie."
Just then, a group of people that had been hanging out most of the evening got up. Weaving their way through the thickening crowd and grabbing Chrissy's attention. They all said goodbye to her, and Eddie watched in fascination as her expression morphed into one of shock and embarrassment. She looked at her watch, then looked at Eddie, as the group departed.
Eddie slipped away to help his other bartender again with more and more people coming in for the night. It was just after eight, and they had live music going to stage in an hour, so groups of excited patrons were milling about in wait.
It also meant he and Chrissy had been talking nonstop for damn near two hours.
"So, admittedly, I was supposed to be here for a work outing," Chrissy confessed when Eddie finally returned to her. "We, um, hit all of our goals for our first quarter, so we were celebrating with drinks."
Leaning onto his elbows, Eddie cocked a brow and smirked.
"Did I distract you, princess?"
"Clearly," she laughed, rolling her eyes at herself. "I just, um, didn't expect to--- Like, I had no idea, obviously, that this was your bar."
"Should we rename it? 'Eddie Munson's Pub, by Eddie Munson? And Also Jeff Is There Too Sometimes'?"
Giving the most delicate little snort, Chrissy shrugged. She dug through her purse, pulling out her wallet, and Eddie waved off her insistence that she pay. Drinks on the house for a fellow Hawkins alumni. At least, one that wasn't a total dickweed to him through school.
After trying to give him a handful of bills no less than three times, Chrissy finally groaned. "Fine," she grunted, grabbing a napkin from the dispenser and writing something down on it before shoving it toward him. "I was trying for mystique, but I guess you won't let me."
Eddie stood, starstruck, as Chrissy grabbed her things and practically ran for the door. No longer, for whatever reason, able to look him in the eye.
When he finally read what she wrote on the napkin, he understood why.
It was her phone number.
And if little fucking hearts danced around his head the rest of the night, that was between him and the hundred people he served who, thankfully, didn't seem to see them. Or at least had the courtesy not to acknowledge them.
He called her the next day. None of that wait-three-days bullshit, 'cause it was bullshit. He was thirty. Fuck that. He called her at noon, they made plans to go to dinner, and Eddie picked her up from her cute little apartment looking like a goddamn dream. Wearing this pretty little long-sleeved pink dress that fell down to her thighs, hugging her curves in the most magnificent way known to man. It looked soft, and Eddie didn't even try to resist reaching out and rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger as he walked her back to his car.
They went to a fancy little bistro Eddie heard about on the radio, then walked around downtown Portland before stumbling into a late-night ice cream parlor with homemade waffle cones. Eddie would swear he blinked and it was one in the goddamn morning.
He took her home. Walked her to the door. Chrissy smiled, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth and looking up at him through her lashes, and Eddie knew an invitation when he saw one.
Usually, anyway.
Still, he gently rested his thumb against her chin. Tilting her head up to give her time to refuse, should she be so inclined. When her lashes fluttered over closed eyes, Eddie went all in.
Kissing her.
Kissing Chrissy Cunningham.
Jesus Christ, she tasted good. Like fucking rosewater and honeysuckle and the ripe summer peaches he compared her lips to. He fell fully into her, wrapping her in his arms and holding her like nothing else on the goddamn planet could ever make as much sense as having Chrissy Cunningham in his embrace.
They tumbled into her apartment, then into her bed, and Eddie lost himself in the expanse of her flesh.
The following morning, he stumbled out of her bedroom and found her dancing around her kitchen, Blondie singing softly from the little boombox she had on the counter. He pulled her into his arms again, because he could, and kissed her until she pulled away with a laugh. Because she had eggs on the stove and she didn't want them to burn.
They spent the whole goddamn day together. Hanging out, talking, going for a walk in the park, then grabbing lunch to-go at his favorite Chinese spot and watching a movie on her couch.
He asked her when she wanted him to go home. She asked if she could go with him.
That night, curled up together in his bed after dinner and more mind-melting sex, Chrissy cleared her throat and pressed a kiss to his chest.
"Can I, um. Can I tell you something without you laughing at me?"
Fingertips making yet another circuit up the length of her spine, Eddie chuckled. "I dunno. Maybe. Tell me anyway."
"When the publishers were first talking about expanding, I, um. I kind of pushed for Portland, I guess? The company hadn't decided where they wanted to go, as there are a number of untapped markets. I really wanted to come here, though. Because I heard you had come here. And that you hadn't left."
That... pulled Eddie up short. He paused, turning enough that he could look at her.
"You stalked me?" Equal parts delighted and terrified of this prospect, Eddie couldn't help but grin.
"No! No," she said firmly. Then, blinking, she backpedaled. "Well, no, but maybe a little?"
"If you wanted to get in touch, you could've just written, baby. You didn't have to chase me across the country."
"It's not like that!" she cried, though a smile had crept across her face, as well. "I just... I'd heard that you moved out here, right? From a few people back home I still talk to. Grapevines and all that. And you, um, you hadn't left. That made me think there must be something really special about Portland."
"How the hell did you conclude that?"
"Because you're still here," she explained, like that made all the sense in the world. "I don't like to think about being a teenager most of the time, but I remember you. I remember how kind you were to me that day in the woods. And, I think, because of that, I remember how adamant you were that you'd never live in a place like Hawkins ever again. So to know that you came here? And that you stayed?" She shrugged, dragging her pointer finger down his chest. "That was enough of an argument for me. I, um. I never expected to run into you, not really. Portland is huge, you know?"
Catching her hand with his, Eddie brought that pointer finger up to his lips and kissed it. Gently running it along his bottom lip before nipping at it. Chrissy giggled, pressing her fingertip into his teeth for a moment before retreating.
"And?" he asked. "Is it everything you expected out here?"
Using that same hand, Chrissy pressed against his shoulder. Pushing until he rolled onto his back, then stretching her leg across his lap and pulling herself atop him. Her hair was a mess, and there were bruises on her chest, and Eddie didn't believe divinity existed before Chrissy Cunningham straddled him looking like a fucking goddess.
Kissing his smile away, Chrissy caressed his jaw so tenderly it made tears spring into his eyes.
11 for the soft sentence starter for hellcheer, if you’re so inclined. 😘
I got multiple asks for this one, so I hope it's good!
11. "You make me want things I didn't think I deserved."
Ten years ago, grinning as best as she could at her high school graduation, there were about a million things Chrissy never would have thought she'd have to do by twenty-eight years old.
The biggest thing, of course, was picking up the pieces of her shattered life and starting over from scratch. Yet, at twenty-five, she had to do just that.
The haphazard marriage she'd jumped into with her high school boyfriend had been fractured for some time. Two people who were barely compatible as teenagers couldn't, unfortunately, continue faking their way through the rest of their lives. But it all came crumbling down when Chrissy found him in bed with his assistant.
She had said nothing. Done nothing in the moment, even as Jason cried and begged and the girl scrambled to shield herself. She'd just left, gone back to their house the next day while he was at work, packed up her car with everything that would fit, and had the divorce papers sent to him from the guest bedroom of her friend Abby's house across town.
Jason, at least, didn't throw a fit or attempt to fight, which honestly surprised her. Instead, he gave her everything she asked for in the divorce decree, bought her out of her half of the house, and only attempted to reach her a half-dozen times through their lawyers before letting it lie.
With the slight monetary cushion from the house, plus Chrissy's savings account, she picked a destination at random and drove.
From Indianapolis all the way to Philadelphia. Her tears dotting the pavement beneath her tires in drips of dark gray that left her feeling hollowed-out and exhausted. Like her skin was too small for her bones, let alone the organs tucked beneath.
Once there, she rented the smallest one-bedroom apartment she could find and found a lovely job at a little used bookstore working morning shifts. Slowly, carefully picking up all those broken pieces of herself and reaffixing them to the stained-glass puzzle of her soul, mindful of the sharp edges.
It took work, but slowly, ever so slowly, she started to find joy in small mundanity again.
The next thing she never considered as a possibility at eighteen years old just happened to walk through the front door of that same bookstore about six months after she started working there.
She was shelving a cart of books in the science-fiction section, double-checking the names of each author, when the check-out clerk at the front gave an enthusiastic, "Well hey! Don't normally see you in this time of day!"
"Yeah," the voice answered, deep and obviously smiling. It made Chrissy stop, her ears straining, though she had absolutely no idea why. "Got a late one tonight, so I figured I'd stop in before the studio and see if you got any new King."
The check-out clerk, the wife of the owner of the store, hummed thoughtfully.
"Not sure about any new King," she answered. "But, oh, we did get a few copies from Tanith Lee over in sci-fi. Rare finds."
"Sweet. Thanks, Madge. Hey, Stan still treating you right? You let me know, yeah? I would love to steal you away."
"Gosh, Eddie, don't make an old woman blush!"
Chrissy, staring down at the book in her hands without comprehending the title or author, suddenly had the strangest thought.
It can't be---?
"Oh, shit, sorry, didn't mean to scare---" The voice, that had just rounded the corner and made her jump, suddenly broke off as Chrissy's gaze whipped up. Brown eyes, widened with shock and framed in thick lashes, looked back at her.
Familiar brown eyes.
"Chrissy Cunningham?" Eddie Munson asked, his voice seventeen different layers of disbelief. Calling her by a name she hardly recognized anymore. Mouth parting with her own surprise, Chrissy just stared. Uncomprehending. Impossible.
What is he doing here, of all places?
"Uh---"
"Sorry," she said, tossing the books back onto the cart and turning around.
"Hey---"
She was already gone. Shoving her way through the doorway into the back room and slamming it behind her. Taking a few slow, deep breaths to quell the rapid pounding of her heart.
She knew - because everyone back in Hawkins knew - that Eddie had left Hawkins the night of graduation. As she cheesed her way through a thousand photos with Jason and friends she, by and large, no longer spoke to, Eddie took maybe three pictures for the benefit of his uncle and strung his graduation gown, spray painted with the words 'Fuck You, Higgins', up on the flagpole before taking off.
Chrissy, out of her own curiosity, had asked around where Eddie was heading, but no one knew.
Now, apparently, she did. He'd been in Pennsylvania all this time.
And, worse than that, he looked good. Comfortable. Happy. Like he'd never known how it felt to have skin too small for his bones. For whatever insane reason, this only made her feel more wrung out. A prime example of graceless aging. Every time she looked in the mirror, all she saw were dark circles and fine lines.
It took indeterminable strength to get up that following morning and go to work.
As the first hours of her shift passed quietly, Chrissy thought maybe she was in the clear. From what, exactly, she couldn't say, but her shoulders gradually began to fall as the repetitive tasks of her job kept her hands busy.
Then, around two o'clock in the afternoon, another customer rang the bell when they entered the front door. Chrissy, posted at the counter, turned to greet them.
And stopped.
Because of course. Of course it was Eddie. Cool, casual, easy Eddie, strutting around like he'd never known even a moment of social discomfort.
"Hey, Cunningham," he said, not even attempting to pretend he hadn't returned explicitly for her. Using the name she'd shed almost four years prior. "What, uh. What's up?"
Chrissy blinked. Tried to force a smile that felt like she was stretching her cheeks around drying concrete, lips firmly sealed to prevent it from dripping inside her mouth.
"Oh, not much," she replied, ash and debris slipping past her teeth with every word. "Just, um. Working. H-How are you, Eddie?"
"Y'know, I figured you remembered me by the way you, uh, bolted, like I'd killed your cat or something. Nice to hear you say my name, though. I didn't, right?"
"Didn't what?"
"Kill your cat?" He shrugged, leaning against the counter. "Like, I'm a fan of animals, but Jesus. You ran so fast. Or I thought maybe I'd died and you saw my ghost or something."
Chrissy snorted. And, just like that, the awkwardness in the air cleared. Becoming something tangible, something honest between them.
They talked through most of the rest of her shift. He asked how long she'd been in Philly, how she was liking it, how she'd ended up there. Which. Yeah. She'd expected Eddie to apologize for her broken heart, but instead, he had laughed.
Loudly. Openly. Easily. Dramatically rolling his eyes so hard it made his head whip back, hair becoming a crazy halo around his head, Eddie groaned.
"I knew Carver was a dumbass, but holy shit. Cannot believe he'd do that to you, of all people. Motherfucker doesn't know what he had, clearly."
Chrissy blushed.
After work, they wandered through a nearby park together. Eddie literally kicking stones off the sidewalk as they continued their conversation, where Chrissy got to ask the questions that plagued her mind.
He'd been in Philly since graduation. The band thing hadn't worked out, he admitted, but he had a great job at a recording studio playing guitar in a booth and helping bands write their albums. On the side, he writes. Just for magazines right now, he said, but he was working on his first novel.
"And you actually enjoy that?" she asked, disbelief coloring her tone in strange hues. Eddie looked at her, brow furrowed, as she elaborated. "I just mean, like. You were, um. You were so intent on being a big star, right? That was your dream?"
"I mean, yeah, it was," he stressed. "But, y'know, we're older now. Or, well, I am. You, uh, look exactly the same. If we weren't walking around during the day I'd accuse you of vampirism. But, no, it was my dream. And then things changed. And now this is my dream."
Clearly, Chrissy didn't seem convinced, because Eddie galloped a few steps ahead of her and stopped her trek with his body.
"Dreams are allowed to change, y'know? I mean, you don't have the same dreams now you did when you were eighteen, do you?"
That pulled her up short. Making her blink down at the cracked pavement beneath the soles of her tennis shoes as she racked her brain.
"I, um. I'm not sure. I can't--- I can barely even remember what my dreams were. I was so wrapped up in Jason's for so long, I just..."
"Well," Eddie began in the wake of Chrissy trailing off. Smacking his lips together, he shrugged and bowed at the waist. "What if that's your dream? Figuring out what your dreams are?"
"Sounds a little silly."
"Well c'mon, Chrissy, you gotta embrace silliness if you're gonna survive this life! Everything's fucked up." He winked at her, and Chrissy felt an entire swarm of butterflies suddenly spring to life in her stomach. "What's this world without a little fuckin' whimsy, y'know?"
He came by during her shifts every day that week. When he finally, finally asked her to dinner, entirely unafraid of her edges, Chrissy couldn't help but smile when she said yes.
Eddie was incredible. Kind and funny and handsome and talented. All those little things she'd sort of assumed, way back when he was the mean-and-scary metalhead in school that she was warned to stay away from. Now, she was able to traverse all the alleyways of his personality without fear of being judged or ridiculed for her interest. Unapologetically, she took Eddie's hand and marveled over the fact that her bones and his seemed to fit so well together. That skin and skin could touch without feeling hollow or stretched thin. That she no longer looked in the mirror and saw all of her flaws, but instead all the beautiful things Eddie traced with soft, careful fingertips at all hours of the night.
She loved him. She loved him so much, she couldn't even lament over the time they'd wasted not being together. Because dreams change, as Eddie had said, and Chrissy wasn't sure she could have appreciated him as she did now back in high school.
What if you're my dream?
The last thing Chrissy ever expected herself to be doing at twenty-eight years old was getting ready to walk back into Hawkins High for a ten-year reunion she hadn't actually planned to attend. Not until Eddie picked up the invitation off her pile of mail and laughed so hard he had tears streaming down his cheeks.
"We gotta go," he'd insisted. "C'mon, sweetness, we gotta."
They'd flown to Indianapolis, rented a car, and driven up into Hawkins the night before. Staying with Eddie's uncle, a lovely man Chrissy had met a few times in their two years together.
Then, hand in hand, they stood outside of the gymnasium doors as Chrissy took deep, intentional breaths. Knowing all those people she hadn't spoken to in years would be past the threshold, dancing along to the top 40 playlist from their graduation year as it pumped through the speakers.
"Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," Chrissy agreed, squeezing Eddie's hand tightly. Unable to keep the grin from her lips when he squeezed back, groaning like she'd hurt him with her strength.
Of course, everyone stared. Everyone started whispering. Chrissy the cheerleader and Eddie the Freak? like they were stuck in this world where they were reduced to who they'd been in high school.
Five years ago, it might've grated on Chrissy. To be reduced to something so elementary.
Now, she just laughed. And maybe that was part of her dream, too.
Eddie didn't let her get caught up in the awkward stares or gossipy whispers. He didn't let her look at her ex-husband across the room, his arm around his new wife as Jason openly gawked at the pair of them. He grabbed her by the waist and practically hauled her onto the dance floor; a place for which he was wholly unequipped. As rhythmic and exponential as his guitar playing was, Eddie couldn't dance for anything.
That made it so much more fun.
A few songs later, after she dragged Eddie around and proudly introduced him as her boyfriend to anyone who attempted to speak to them, Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper slowed down the entire party, and Chrissy once more pulled Eddie onto the dance floor.
He held her close. Leaning over her until he could intentionally make his hair tickle her cheeks. Chrissy wrinkled her nose, shaking his hair out of her face and staring up at him.
"Having a good time, sweetness?" he asked, his voice soft. Something reserved for the two of them.
"More fun than I thought," she admitted. "It's been the silliest day, hasn't it?"
"What did I say? Life ain't shit without a bit of whimsy."
"I just..." Sighing, Chrissy leaned into his chest. Letting him guide her through a slow sway that was still somehow uncoordinated. "After everything that's happened the past few years, I just... You make me want things I didn't think I deserved, Eddie. You, um. You make me so happy."
"Yeah?" She nodded, resting her chin on his sternum and looking up at him. Eddie tilted his face down, resting his forehead against hers as they held each other. "Aw, shucks, baby. You know how to make a guy blush, don't you?"
Giggling, Chrissy shrugged.
"Only the guy that's made himself into my new dream, I think."
"Please. You'd have half the guys in here blushing if you gave 'em the time of day." Stealing a kiss from her lips, Eddie looked at her for a long moment. "Don't, uh, do that, though. I don't, y'know, have much of a jealous streak, but. Let's not test those limits."
Chrissy laughed, letting Eddie guide her off the dance floor.
"You ready to blow this popsicle stand?" he asked as they wandered back toward the table where they'd left her purse and his jacket. Chrissy nodded, taking his hand. They'd hardly been there an hour, but it was just long enough for Chrissy to get her fill of Hawkins for the rest of forever.
They didn't say goodbye to anyone. Even after Jason called her name on their way out.
As they rushed down the steps outside, Chrissy suddenly had a thought. Pulling Eddie to a stop, she gave him a curious look.
"Why did you want to come to this so bad? You hate Hawkins."
"Yeah, but," he said, clicking his tongue. "Maybe I just wanted to say I got to dance with Chrissy Cunningham in the high school gym, finally. Don't knock a guy's dreams, sweetness."
"Cunningham isn't even my name anymore."
"Nah," Eddie said, stepping toward her. "Could, uh, be 'Munson', though. If, y'know, you wanted."
"It--- What?"
"If you were so inclined."
"Eddie---"
"As a possibility."
"Oh, my God, shut up for a second," she laughed, pressing both of her hands over his mouth to quell the incessant chatter that spilled from his lips. Staring at him, at the utter sincerity in his gaze, before slowly pulling her hands away. "Are you, um. A-Are you serious?"
"About you?" Eddie pulled her into him. "Serious as a necromancing lich with unlimited access to the underdark." Before she could answer him, Eddie swept her up in yet another kiss that stole her breath. "You make me want things I never thought I'd deserve, too, y'know. Not alone in all that pining, baby, I swear it."
A slow grin bloomed across her cheeks, like a sunflower waking for those first rays of morning. Eddie mirrored it, highlighting the laugh lines around his eyes that Chrissy traced with her thumbs.
"'Chrissy Munson', huh?" she asked. Eddie's grin brightened, eyes brimming with affection as he looked at her.
"Did you end up canceling your reservation then, Nance?"
"No," Nancy groaned before sucking up the last few dredges of her drink. She rolled her neck back, covering her face with both hands. "I've had these reservations for three months, and I was praying Jonathan would be better in time. Instead, he's hacking up new ecosystems into our entire life savings' worth of Kleenex."
"Bummer," Robin sighed, stirring her own drink absent-mindedly. "Vickie and I are having a cozy night in that she's really looking forward to."
"I'd take that over spraying Jonathan with Lysol every three minutes," Nancy grumbled.
"He's probably overreacting anyway," Barb interjected with a loose wave of her hand. "Men always think a little baby cold is the coming of Death."
Heather, Robin, and Chrissy all nodded in agreement.
"Jason was like that," Chrissy lamented, rolling her eyes. "I swear, he'd gripe and moan like his organs were failing."
"Was Jason your last Valentine, Chrissy?" Heather asked, pulling the attention of the entire table. Chrissy looked at each of them individually, sinking into her chair a little. Four pairs of scrutinizing eyes sized her up like hungry predators.
"I-I mean," she said, her voice small. "I've–– I've dated other guys, obviously, but––"
"None for long enough to have a Valentine," Heather finished.
"Have you ever had a Valentine?" Chrissy shot back, trying to yank the blanket of attention off her head.
"Nah." Heather flapped her wrist as she pulled from her straw. "But I don't want one, babe. I'm the free spirit. Every girl group has one."
"What does that make me?" Robin asked curiously.
"The comedic relief," Heather said with a shrug. Robin nodded appreciatively. Pointing toward Nancy, she continued, "The brains-slash-getaway driver." With Barb, "The sensible one." And, back to Chrissy, "The romantic."
Murmurs of agreement made Chrissy bristle.
"I am not the romantic," she argued, immediately regretting her decision when everyone's attention fell once again to her. "I–– I've basically been single for, like, four years now! How does that make me the romantic?"
"Because you believe in true love," Heather sighed dreamily. "C'mon, Chrissy, you can't lie and say you aren't holding out for that spark."
Blinking, Chrissy shrank even further into her chair. Staring at her own colorful drink and ruminating. Because Heather was right, and that was mildly infuriating. Chrissy was perpetually single, though not because guys hadn't expressed an interest.
It was because that instant jolt of connection hadn't run through her. Because the Hollywood drama of love-at-first-sight hadn't hit her, a strike of pink lightning igniting her inside and out. She'd settled for adequacy for years with Jason, and once the shiny newness of first puppy love had rubbed off, Chrissy was left trapped in a relationship of cooling embers and strange, unnamable guilt.
It took her a lot longer than she cared to admit to finally leave him.
"Y'know, I've got this friend," Robin started, glancing from Chrissy to Nancy. "I mean, he's a bit of a weirdo, but pretty much exactly what I picture for you. A romantic at heart. Single."
"And I do still have those reservations..." Nancy hedged, connecting the obvious dots Robin was spooning out.
"No," Chrissy stated, slashing her arms through the air in an X. "Absolutely not. I am not letting you guys set me up on a blind date on Valentine's Day."
The other four girls at the table all smiled, broad and a little maniacal.
🖤🖤🖤 .
Against her will, and with Nancy's extremely persuasive bullying nipping at her heels, Chrissy found herself rushing through her makeup routine the following evening. Nuggets, she was already running late, jumping into her heels and wrenching the front door of her apartment open just as the phone rang.
"Let the machine get it," she mumbled to herself, slamming her door shut and locking it. "Not a big deal. Not important. Nancy would kill me if me and this guy were both late and they gave away the table."
Not that she expected him to be late. But, in her experience, guys were always late to things like this. If they bothered showing up at all.
Her watch indicated that it was eight minutes past when Chrissy finally burst through the main door of the little French bistro Nancy had given her the address to. The Maitre'd was nowhere to be found, probably helping another couple among the sea of couples, and Chrissy took a cursory glance around the restaurant.
In all her detailing, Robin hadn't given Chrissy much of a descriptor.
"He's, I dunno, handsome, I guess? For a guy?" Robin had shrugged. "Brown eyes, I think? Shaggy brown hair? Probably in jeans?"
There.
In the middle of the restaurant, a guy sat alone at a table for two. Eyes obstructed by messy bangs, he thumbed absently at the petals of a bouquet. Shaggy hair (maybe a little longer than shaggy, actually) – check. Jeans – check, though he had a nice black button-up tucked into them. He looked a little bit more like a rocker than Chrissy was expecting, but it wasn't as though Robin described anything about his aesthetic. Just that she thought they'd look good together.
Chrissy didn't question why. Maybe she should have?
Taking in a deep, slow breath, Chrissy waded her way through the tables before she could lose her nerve. Swallowing something thick and anxious in her throat.
"Hi," she said, breathless despite centering herself. The guy glanced up, eyes widening in shock. "I am so, so sorry I'm late. Initially, it was my own fault, and then it was the bus's fault, and normally I'm early, I swear, but everything just fell apart today."
The guy blinked, lips parted, as he took her in. Eyes raking over the curl of her hair, the fit of her dress. Staring in obvious wonderment, making Chrissy suddenly feel entirely self-conscious.
"Shit," the guy breathed, bringing his gaze back up to her face. "You're gorgeous."
"Oh, um. Thank–– Thank you––"
Oh, God. Oh God, she couldn't remember his name.
"Aw, fuck, sorry, sorry," he said, jumping to his feet. Holding out the bouquet, he said, "These, uh, are for you."
Carefully taking the flowers, Chrissy blinked in surprise. She sort of expected roses, because that was the norm. Instead, in her hands was a beautiful bouquet of red carnations.
"Thank you," she said again, much more softly as the man once more jumped into action, helping her out of her coat and pulling her chair out for her. "Did, um. Did Robin tell you my favorite flower?"
Her question was soft enough that he didn't seem to hear her as he took his own seat again. Tucking a finger into the collar of his shirt, he stretched it a little against his neck as he cleared his throat.
"Sorry," he said. "Sorry, uh, just–– You're not exactly what I imagined when you got described to me."
Chrissy smiled a little, pursing her lips. He still had that awestruck look in his eye, so the small part of her that thought she should be offended was easily wiped away.
"Did I live up to your expectations?"
"Exceeded them," he admitted easily. Making a sound like a bomb exploding, he wiggled his fingers in an arc to emphasize his shattered expectations. "Entirely. Which, I know, I know, makes me sound like a total asshole. Just–– Fuck, this is gonna sound so much worse than I mean it, but, uh, you aren't exactly the type of girl people think to try and set me up with."
In spite of herself, Chrissy giggled. And the guy's eyes brightened, lips parting around a broad, beautiful grin.
Oh, he had dimples. This was dangerous.
"I understand," she admitted. "Honestly, I was expecting you to be different, too."
"By that, I'm sure you mean you're floored by my dashing good looks," the guy said, tucking his fist under his chin and batting his lashes at her. Chrissy laughed again, hiding the sound behind her carnations, as the waiter approached.
"Lovely of you to actually join us this evening," he said with a halting smile. Chrissy tucked her lip between her teeth, chastised, though that certainly wasn't how the waiter meant it. She was barely late. "May I get you started with something to drink?"
The waiter left after taking their drink orders, promising to return with the first course of their meal.
"Can I admit something without judgement?" Chrissy asked.
"This is a judgement-free zone," the guy promised, gesturing to himself. "Obviously."
"I, um. I'm so sorry, but I completely forgot your name."
He laughed. This big, broad sound that filled the candlelight between them, spilling joy across the fancy linen tablecloth with sound that Chrissy couldn't help but mirror.
"Eddie," he said, reaching across the table with an outstretched hand. For some reason, that didn't sound exactly right. Too simple of a name for such an interesting man, maybe.
"Eddie," she repeated, letting his name sit on her tongue for a long second as she reached out and put her hand in his. Something electric rushed up her arm, and Chrissy gasped a little as she looked at their clasped hands.
A moment, a breath, and she finally found the wherewithal to say, "I'm Chrissy. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Eddie gave her a curious look, head tilted to one side as though letting her name roll through his skull, but his eyes kept gliding back to their clasped hands.
Did he feel it, too?
"Trust me when I say," he began, "that the pleasure is all mine, Chrissy."
Conversation flowed like water between them. Picking up little snapshots of their lives like flower petals and rushing them downstream. Each one a little piece of the bouquet she had sitting on the table between them, smiling its gorgeous, red-toothed smile with every new modicum of information.
She found out that he was a writer, and that he was in a band, which made sense. Robin was always finding the artsy types to pull into her circle. He grew up in a small town, just as she had, and they bonded over the absolute shock of discovering how much bigger the world was when they finally left home for good.
In turn, she told him about the studio she was hoping to open someday.
"Music or art?" he asked.
"Yoga," she admitted, and Eddie laughed again.
"Do guys ever take yoga classes?"
"Sometimes."
"And, uh, do the pretty instructors ever give discounts to, y'know, guys they went on a really fantastic first date with?"
Pretending to think it over, Chrissy tapped her bottom lip with her finger. Searching the ceiling for the answer she already had waiting on the tip of her tongue.
"Not normally first dates," she said with a shrug. "But, you know, fantastic fourth, fifth, and sixth dates? Then we might be able to work out a deal."
Eddie's responding grin was so bright, it lit up the entire restaurant.
The food was probably really good, everything a preset menu that the couples around them seemed to genuinely enjoy.
Chrissy didn't taste a morsel of it. Far too wrapped up in the existence of Eddie, she ate blindly and quickly, ready for the conversation to continue before she finished whatever part of the meal was in front of her.
"You took the bus here, yeah?" he asked after paying for their meal. Chrissy nodded, and Eddie helped her into her coat. "Can I drive you home? And I swear, I have no ulterior motive except to, y'know, spend more time with you."
Grinning, Chrissy popped up onto her toes and pressed a kiss to his jaw. Watching in fascination the way color suddenly pooled in his cheeks, staring down at her with that same unmitigated awe.
"I'd like that," she agreed.
Though Eddie turned the radio off completely when they got in the car, the drive was never silent. The brook of their conversation widening into a creek, then a stream, flowing faster and easier and pooling more and more petals of conversation in the basin.
She directed him to her apartment, and Eddie turned off the car entirely to walk her to her door.
"This was really great," he admitted. "I, uh. I'm really glad I took the chance, Chrissy. You're kinda amazing, you know?"
Chrissy grinned, tongue caught between her teeth as she shrugged. Feigning nonchalance.
"You're pretty fantastic yourself, Eddie," she said.
"Thanks," he chuckled, hazarding a step closer to her. "And, uh. Is it–– Is it cool if I, like, call you in the morning? Maybe we can get breakfast."
Still smiling, Chrissy took her own step closer. Having to crane her neck back to keep looking at him.
"That would be perfect."
"Nowhere near that fancy, though," he pleaded. "Like, I'm a fan of being pampered as much as the next guy, but those wine prices? Yeesh."
"Maybe we just don't get wine with breakfast, then."
"I like the way you think, sweetness," he murmured, still grinning. Chrissy, too, couldn't stop smiling, even as she leaned in. Their teeth clacked, a laugh escaping them both at the awkward angle, before Eddie's hands came up to cup her jaw and guide her into a proper kiss.
Incredible.
Sparks ignited up the entire length of her spine. Sitting, warm and bright and real, in the base of her skull as Eddie kissed her softly. Meaningfully. Pulling her close when her arms wrapped around his shoulders and holding her tight.
Holding her like maybe he didn't want the night to end.
And maybe she didn't, either.
"You know," she said, brushing her fingertips against his jaw, "you could always come upstairs. I have wine. And eggs. For breakfast."
"Yeah?" he breathed, tucking a strand of her hair back behind one ear. "You have enough breakfast for two, you think?"
"Definitely."
Chrissy's machine was blinking red when they found their way through her front door, but that was at the bottom of her list of cares as she led Eddie back to her bedroom. Bypassing the wine entirely.
Not that either of them seemed to notice.
The next morning, after waking up with Eddie in her arms, then spending an entire morning rolling around in bed, Chrissy finally donned a robe and made her way into the kitchen to pull breakfast provisions from her fridge as Eddie found his way into the bathroom. Pressing the little red button of her machine out of habit.
"Chrissy!" Robin shouted through the speaker of her phone. "Oh, my God, I hope you haven't left yet. But you probably have, because you're notoriously early. Ugh! Okay, okay, whatever, you'll listen to this when you get back, but please, please don't be mad at Steve. He didn't stand you up, I swear. He came down with whatever baby cold ailment Jonathan has, so he's, like, having a full-on crisis. The world is ending and whatnot. I'm sacrificing my own evening with my girlfriend to take care of this full-grown man, but he definitely wants to reschedule! Just, um, call me, or whatever, when you get home. Sorry. Sorry! He sucks!"
The message ended. Chrissy stared at her machine, confused, just as Eddie emerged from the bathroom.
"What have you got?" Eddie asked, grabbing her hip and smacking a wet kiss to her cheek. "Not to, uh, toot my own horn, but I am the fucking greatest at making a mediocre omelet."
Waggling his eyebrows for effect made Chrissy giggle, rolling her eyes, before she remembered Robin's message again.
"Hey, Eddie?"
"Hmm?" He'd slunk out of the kitchen, making his way over to her tape collection and digging through the music.
"Who set you up last night?"
"Uhh?" He popped a tape into the player, shimmying his hips a little as the music started. "Billy did. Of course. Which, honestly, I'm surprised he wasn't just being an ass. That'd be exactly the kind of bullshit he'd pull to make me make a fool of myself. He did tell me your name was Kristen, though." Rolling his eyes, Eddie took her hand in his and spun her across the kitchen floor. Pulling her back against his chest with a sultry grin as they began dancing off-tempo to her Fleetwood Mac tape. "Whatever. He's an ass, and you turned out to be fucking perfect. I'll have to thank him." Snorting, Eddie shook his head. "Never thought I'd say that out loud."
"How late was I?" she asked. "Last night."
He blinked down at her, eyes narrowing in confusion.
"Did he give you the wrong time or something?" Eddie asked. "He told me to be there at six-thirty."
Chrissy looked over at the carnations on her counter. They were so beautiful. Her favorite flower. She'd just barely managed to get them into a vase last night before she was practically attacking Eddie to get his shirt off.
He was still gorgeously, beautifully shirtless, in fact. She let her fingertips trail against his sternum, swallowing heavily.
"Eddie," she breathed, a tiny bit of anxiety taking root in her lungs. Those carnations weren't for her. "I don't know anyone named Billy."
Eddie pulled their impromptu dancing to a sudden stop.
"What?"
"I was supposed to be meeting up last night with a guy named Steve, I guess," she said, nodding toward her answering machine. "My friend Robin set up my date for seven, but Steve got sick and didn't show. She called me as I was on my way out. I, um. I think maybe we highjacked each other after we both got stood up."
For a long, long moment, there was only the sounds of Stevie Nicks's vocals in her apartment.
Then, all at once, Eddie was throwing his head back and cackling.
"Wait," he said, pulling back far enough that he could look down at her. "Wait, wait, wait, baby, please, please tell me you're joking."
"I-I'm not," she stuttered, looking down at Eddie's bare feet. "I'm–– Nuggets, Eddie, I'm so sorry. That... I really thought––"
"Whoa, hey, babycakes, are you–– Wait, do you think I'm upset?" Putting his hands on her shoulders, Eddie swooped down to catch her eye. She looked at him, something wrapping around the anxiety in her throat. The utter happiness in his eyes had it slowly bleeding away. Dripping down her esophagus and choking whatever response she attempted. "Chrissy. C'mon. How fucking funny is that? We both managed to end up at the same place, at the same time, and neither of our dates show? But we don't even notice because we're having too much goddamn fun? That's incredible, if you ask me."
"Yeah?"
He leaned down, kissing her senseless all over again.
"Yeah," he chuckled, spinning her across the kitchen again. "Sounds an awful lot like fate, if you ask me."
