“I cut my hair and it’s…not good. I know you can fix it. I should have gone to you first. I was just feeling annoyed and frustrated and suddenly tired of my hair, of all the expectations of looking like this…”
He could almost see Chrissy waving her hands at herself, even over the phone. She would make it look cute. He smiled at the mental image.
“Eddie, I need you.”
on to the second @strangerthingsreversebigbang! this one was an absolute blast and i’m thrilled to have put more platonic hellcheer content out in the world. make sure to check out the fic!<3
You have no idea how tempted I was to write a 90s AU for this one with Chrissy listening to the Spice Girls. I hope this is a better alternative! Unbetaed, so as to surprise you. 💗
~*~
What a Girl Wants
"Okay, Cunningham," Eddie called from the hallway, "how do you wanna--?"
The question died as he halted in his tracks just inside the open bedroom door. One hand fumbled for the door frame because he suddenly felt weak in the knees, like the muscles and tendons and bones and shit had turned to goo, unable to support his weight. He couldn't breathe, his heart slamming around too fast in his chest for his lungs to work. His face felt really hot, too. Jesus Christ, was he about to fucking swoon?
Well I do declare, could somebody please pass the smelling salts? Because Chrissy Cunningham was in his bedroom, perched at the end of his bed, wearing a nightgown.
Nightshirt? It was more like a really huge blue t-shirt that fell to her knees. Each of the elbow length sleeves was encircled with broad white stripes--like a football jersey. (Unfortunately, Eddie knew more than he wanted to about football; Wayne didn't allow the TV to be set to anything else on Sunday afternoons, even though he mostly napped through games.) A big, white number 7 was screen printed across the front of Chrissy's nightshirt, between the two perky humps of her boobs.
She, uh, wasn't wearing a bra. Eddie didn't need a high school diploma to know that. Those nips didn't lie.
His face was so. hot. It was all he could do not to fan himself with his free hand. But that would freak her out, right? He dropped his gaze to her feet. The thick, slouchy tube socks made her strong, slender legs look even shaplier. Shit, this was not helping.
"Eddie?"
His eyes snapped back up to Chrissy's face. Her skin was pink and glowing from her shower, makeup scrubbed off, and her hair, still a little damp, fell over her shoulders in waves that glowed sunset gold in the lamplight. Holy hell, she was gorgeous. And alive. And staying with him. Because, apparently, she felt safer and happier in a dumpy Forest Hills trailer than in her parents' big swanky house in Loch Nora.
Apparently, she liked him.
Eddie swallowed and croaked, like he'd slipped back in time to puberty, "Uh, yeah, Chrissy?"
"What were you saying?"
What was he saying? Hell if he knew. He'd be lucky to remember his own goddamn name with those big blue-gray eyes of her gazing up at him from his bed.
(Eddie. His name was Eddie. Short for Edward James Munson.)
And he also remembered what he'd come in here to say.
"Oh. Yeah." He slapped the door frame and stepped fully into the bedroom. "I was just gonna ask about, you know, uh…" His hand went up to scrunch his hair in back. "...sleeping arrangements."
Chrissy's eyes got even bigger. "Sleeping arrangements?" she squeaked.
"Yeah, like…" Eddie jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I can take the couch."
"I can take the couch!" Chrissy hopped to her feet, more eagerly than Eddie would've hoped for--but this was, after all, why he'd brought it up.
Trying not to sound as crestfallen as he felt, he asked, "Uh, what kind of shitty host do you think I am, making a guest sleep on the couch?"
Not that he hadn't made guests sleep on the couch--on the rare occasion he had them. But usually that was just the guys crashing after too many beers and too much weed. No one who required red carpet treatment.
"And what kind of crappy guest do you think I am, making the host give up his bed?" Chrissy retorted. "You're taller than me, Eddie, you'll get a sore neck if you sleep on the couch."
"The lady is as benevolent as she is beautiful, but I won't allow it." He went on, over Chrissy's protest, "Uncle Wayne gets home, at like, three a.m. You'd only get a couple hours' sleep."
"Oh." Chrissy's brow furrowed, and her full lips pursed. Just when Eddie thought she was going to concede, she said, "But that means you won't get enough sleep, either."
"Well." He wracked his brain for an argument, but he had nothing. "That's true."
For a moment they stared at each other, Chrissy's eyes wide and imploring, lips parted as if words were about to leap off her tongue, then she huffed out a sigh and glanced toward the closet door.
"Do you have any extra blankets?" she asked. "I can make a little pallet on the floor here, and you can sleep on the bed."
"Or I can sleep on the floor, while you take the bed.
Eddie pictured himself curled up against the end of the mattress--a loyal pooch at his mistress' feet. Or a guard dog. Yeah, that seemed about right. But Chrissy's face looked like she disagreed.
Now it was Eddie who sighed, holding out his hands, palms up. "Please, Princess, I'm trying to be a gentleman here. Can you just let--Wait." He shook his head as his brain stumbled backward to the last thing she'd said, then blinked at her, comprehension dawning. "You mean you're cool with me sleeping in the same room as you?"
Was that a blush creeping across her cheeks as she nodded, not quite meeting his eye and catching her bottom lip between her teeth? (He wished those were his teeth sinking into that sweet, supple flesh.)
"I didn't think you wanted to sleep in the same room as me," Chrissy said, in the surprised hush that had gotten under his skin that day in the woods where all this began. "You were so insistent about the couch."
Well who'd a thunk chivalry would bite Eddie in the ass? "I only meant I would if you wanted me to."
"I don't want you to."
"And you don't want to sleep on the couch."
Chrissy looked down. Eddie could see the curl of her long golden lashes against the delicate, faintly purplish skin below her eyes. "Not really. No."
"Do you want to sleep on the floor?"
Chrissy's fingers picked at the fabric of her nightshirt. "Well…no."
"That's two votes in favor of Chrissy not sleeping on this cesspit of a floor."
Her gaze darted up to his, before immediately dropping back to her hands. "I don't want you to either."
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and Eddie once again felt hot and mushy, like he was boiling from the inside and would just melt at Chrissy's feet. But while he thought he might have an idea of what she was trying to say, it was just too absofuckinglutely bananas to believe. It was probably just what he hoped she was trying to say. He didn't want to jump to any conclusions and make this more awkward than it already was.
Still, they were getting nowhere by beating around the bush. (He should not think about bushes.)
Eddie blurted out, "Well, where do you want me to sleep?"
Now there was no denying that Chrissy was blushing as she stared steadfastly down at her feet, which were curling into the carpet.
"Chrissy. Tell me what you want."
This time, when she raised her eyes to meet his, her gaze held. She rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and said in the steady tone that had won her the position of Head Cheerleader--and that had told Vecna to go to hell, "I want you to sleep in the bed. With me. But…" Here, she faltered a little. "But only if…you want to sleep in the bed. With me."
Eddie basically did swoon then, flopping backward onto the bed. Over Chrissy's laughter, he said, "Sweetheart! That's what I've wanted this whole freaking time! But I didn't, uh, want to make assumptions. I make a big enough ass of myself without their help."
He reached out, and Chrissy placed her hand in his as she knelt beside him on the mattress. "I didn't want you to think I'm…I don't know…fast?"
"Hmm…" Eddie rolled onto his side and drew her hand to his lips, pressing a smacking kiss to the back of it. "We've been hanging out for less than a week, and here you are asking me to sleep with you. There are those who might call that fast."
Although Chrissy's cheeks flushed again, her grip tightened on his hand as she lowered herself onto her side facing him.
"Last week felt awfully long to me," she said.
Eddie scuffed his thumb across the ridges of her knuckles. "Yeah. It sure as fuck did."
Yet it had brought them to now. He wasn't sure how much time passed with them lying hand-in-hand, face-to-face in his bed, but it was long enough that Chrissy started to yawn. Eddie leaned in to kiss her drooping eyelids.
"I swear, I'll be a gentleman," he murmured, still conscious that there were still aspects of their sleeping arrangement that they hadn't worked out. Such as, what did she want him to wear to bed? And was she okay with cuddling? Big spoon or little spoon? "I don't expect you to…You know."
It was Eddie who bit down on his lower lip. Chrissy tilted her head and pressed her lips to it.
"What if I expect you to…You know?" she asked.
Eddie's heart was beating so hard he was pretty sure it had collapsed a lung. His head swam. This was like being high. Better. "You wouldn't happen to have any smelling salts on you, would you, Miss?"
Chrissy giggled. 'What?"
"It's a good thing I'm already lying down, is all I'm saying." Eddie shifted on his pillow to meet her eye. "Just tell me what you want, Chrissy, and I'll do it. Anything."
"Right now," Chrissy said, pressing herself against his chest and tucking her head under his chin, "I want you to put your arms around me."
Summary: Sixteen years after he got his diploma and ran like hell out of Hawkins, Eddie returns home and crosses paths with Chrissy again. They may be older, but that doesn't mean they are wiser, and it's going to take a lot of heartaches before they can find happiness together.
Warnings: angst, some mentions of drug use and drinking, some violence, emotional abuse, some smut (non-explicit)
Total word count: 26.3k
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Same Street, New Memories (6.5k): One-shot
Headlights on Dark Roads (10.9k): Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Epilogue
Signal Fire (8.9k): Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Epilogue
And of course, the song that inspired the first fic:
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