Chapter Text
chapter one : lullaby
“And softer than shadow and quicker than flies;
his arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes—”
— Lullaby, The Cure, 1989.
There is something lovely about Chrissy Cunningham, and that is that she has always been kind . She’s never been one to pretend that she likes how her school works, or how the social order somehow multiples itself in the lunch cafeteria. That boys like Eddie Munson, for example, forever run dizzying circles around the student body in a manic display of disobedience. He is to the discontents what a rebel yell is to the rioters: something to gather behind, if only because martyrs are always worth their salt when it comes to leading the charge.
Chrissy sometimes thinks he’s got a nerve to pretend he doesn’t like the attention— her boyfriend is one to get riled up at anything, and she watches, often, as Jason’s temper flares at every display of unsupervised leadership on his turf. He doesn’t like it when he’s not the centre of attention— certainly not when the resident freak makes a better show of charming, dishevelled ringmaster. A hop, skip and jump across the lunch tables as he decries the conformities at large, a wild smile— all teeth, bright, shiny eyes— enough to send any heart racing toward the battle.
Chrissy has watched him do this routine many times. A little crowd pleaser for his freshman sheep— a secretly soft display that translates to outfitting the outcasts in their first set of armour.
She also remembers that he was that boy once before: a buzzed head, courtesy of a crueller parentage than he’d ever let on, and a tremor in his shoulders when he’d taken to that middle school talent show stage. Just tall enough to look her straight on before he’d walked up, and blinked at her, a little skittishly, and told her he liked her routine.
Chrissy, in fact, knows that Eddie Munson is lots of things— social pariah, avid stoner, whip smart kid with no motivation to follow it through. He is loud, and distinct— a torchlight shone in anyone’s eyes to piss them off. He stands in that forest with nothing but his reputation to throw in the dirt.
She knows he is kinder than he lets on. More terrified of the world than he pretends.
More than the label they’d stitch into that jacket of his just to rub it in his face. She hates that name, too— Jason’s idea of a joke, no doubt, a way to strip him down to size and keep anyone else from following suit. It doesn’t work, of course, but it doesn’t stop him trying, either.
Insults and trajectory backhands on the lunch trays of the smaller freshmen Eddie dutifully watches over. Chrissy catches the look he gives her boyfriend the first time he does it— a cold, calculated stare that fractures a little when he sees her watching, too. A grimace before he bends to help pick up the food splattered at the boy’s feet.
Chrissy tells Jason off for it later.
He does it once more before he finally stops.
Instead, the class of ‘86 watch as Eddie loses more and more patience with his fellow classmen— more speeches, a defiant club gathering that reaches the outer borders of the middle school. A rattle against every pearl-clutching idea her mother can think of at the dinner table— how of course someone like him , absentee mother and all, is the one to indoctrinate the kids.
Chrissy wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The idea that any of this could be true when he’s so clearly not the hell-devil the town would insist she believe. Not when he’s standing in front of her at the picnic tables, that same giddy tension in his limbs as he breaks open his smile at her laugh.
You do remember!
Yeah, of course! With a name like that how could I forget?!
He is everything she wants Jason to be— deliberate, attentive, a real idiot sometimes if he can make her smile in the end. It’s one of so many reason she goes to him and not Jason.
He’ll listen. He’ll take that outcast under his wing if he senses his hand needs to pull her up.
It’s unfortunate he can’t be there when the first clock chime hits her ears.
♱
Chrissy watches as her cheerleader skirt runs through the punching needle of her mother’s sewing machine— an incessant drill in her right ear as Eddie’s room morphs halfway between hers. It also smells— staunch fabric and the shrill metal of sticking pins, the prick in her fingers no phantom. Every-time her mother shimmies her into a new skirt or blouse, she never removes the pins— to jag her skin as the fabric is pinned closer and closer to a snug fit. It’s a wonder she can cheer in it at all.
You’re going to look absolutely beautiful.
Chrissy’s never believed that in her life— and especially not when that machine crawls its way back into her mother’s hands at the kitchen table, puncturing into the night with every restitched hem, cinched elastic waist and the ironed pleats for a pep rally’s routine.
Her mother’s face is also not her own— but in some ways, she thinks— slamming Eddie’s door shut— there isn’t much of a difference anymore.
This has happened before, of course— the type of jarring reality that barely manages to restrain itself when it gives way to the nightmares. In some subconscious back alley of her head, she can still smell the weed from Eddie’s trailer— a scent from some unknown corner in her peripheral— and the scuffed carpet under her feet feels less primped than her mother would like. This isn’t a nightmare designed to be real— it’s just supposed to scare.
She knows this, but it isn’t enough. This time it’s a feature length film, and she is trapped in her seat to watch.
The figure appears from the hallway, a slight turn of its head in the dark matched by its hunch to fit in the doorway. The flies have converged from the hallway, strangling themselves in her hair and under her fingernails, splinters of wood forcing themselves to the nailbeds.
This is truly hell, she thinks— what else could it be?
“ Chrissy ?!”
The faintness of her name is lost to its much crueler counterpart— the creature stands in wait at the frame, almost seeking permission to enter this nightmare with her.
“Chrissy.” She screams again— a glass shard in her throat, even as she bangs the doors behind her again.
“Somebody help-me — please— !”
She chokes on the last word, only to hear it again— a small, faintly echoing voice from the very back of her head. The distant notion of someone’s hand cupping her cheek, a metallic coldness stinging her skin.
“What do you want from me?!”
It tilts its head in slight confusion to her, almost curious as it watches her heave back another sob. Her fingers still feel jagged by her mother’s pins, a pinprick on every finger, the blood another sharp tang to add to the stench— rotten eggs, putrefying flesh, the high sweetness of molding fruit. The type of pain to come from metallic braces cutting into the tender inside of her lower lip.
“ Chrissy— ” it steps towards her, an agonizing walk. It doesn’t want to hurry this.
It’s just waiting to see if she’ll attempt one last sprint.
“ What do you want ?”
“For your suffering… to end.”
She snorts in strained laughter, tears spilling down her face.
No one is coming to get her, and she supposes that’s fair.
She can barely think to listen to the voice on the other end of the line— a faint telephone call from home.
♱
Eddie promised himself years ago that he would never panic in any situation thrown at him— namely, because a level of dignity was a must for any true outcast of the Hawkins social elite, and he already knows that it does nothing to improve the already impressive shitfest that is his life.
The fact, then, that Chrissy Cunningham comes to him in some moment of desperation— and doesn’t go to the blond dick, actually, who strutted around with her trailing on his arm like a ragdoll— was amusing. Would have been amusing, if he hadn’t seen the fraying panic in her eyes, the fidgety, spiked uncertainty in her face.
He’s known her his whole life, watching the dainty, surprisingly bossy middle schooler shrink herself down for the wider populace at large. He’d hated to see it happen— but it wasn’t his problem. Not really. He had his own demons, and as much as he considered himself their expert, he wasn’t about to involve himself in others.
She’d given him one look— the sheen of tears in her eyelashes, a pent up frustration at herself— and he’d caved.
He caved for her the same way he had at that talent show— bouncing ponytail, crooked teeth, fiercely competitive and the way she shook her pom poms at his incredibly shoddy guitar solo.
Eddie Munson has a soft heart, and doesn’t mind puncturing it again if it’s for her.
That makes the scene in front of him all the more concerning.
Chrissy is standing perfectly still, almost swaying in her place. He doesn’t think it’s anything she could’ve found in his trailer— and she doesn’t strike him as the sort to stick anything she could find up her nose, either.
“Chrissy?”
There’s no response, and the slight jolt of panic in his gut would be almost thrilling, if it weren’t also for the white film he can see glazing her eyes— like spittlebug froth on flower petals, the faint hum of the electric light setting his teeth on edge. She’s too quiet.
“Hello?”
Her eyes stutter, a jump across the eyelids— a roll of film running through the whites, and—
Still nothing.
“Chrissy!”
Eddie’s heart flares in a surge of undiluted panic.
“Kay, Chrissy, time to wake up? You hear me? Chrissy ? Hello ?!”
The lights startle to life again, spasming out of the lightbulbs in orange and teal flashes. He’s known his whole life this trailer’s been shit— no water, leaky ceiling, mysterious patches in the shower tiles’ grouting, but—
The cool sliver of panic that edges its way down his spine is something entirely new, the headiness of her perfume a sharp tang in his mouth.
“ Chrissy, I really don’t like this ! Chrissy, wake up !” The lights have gone haywire— a Christmas tree buzzing like a swarm of mosquitos. The one on his right bursts, sending him back with a collective dictionary of insults, carpet burn ripping into the bare skin of his knees. Another lightbulb bursts— a full circle around the trailer’s main room, making him duck his head as the shards scatter across the room, dicing Chrissy’s cheeks in newly cut ribbons.
“ Shit , Chrissy— !” Whatever tempts him to grab it, he can’t remember, but the two dirty pots on the long cooled stovetop slip in his fingers as he grapples for them— hands clammy, neck shivering with sweat— wildly swinging them together, watching them clash spectacularly in the cascading din of the trailer.
Eddie winces at the first bang of their undersides, the tingle in his ears made worse by the shriek of what bulbs are left. The jolt of the impact runs down his arms, fear plummeting when Chrissy barely registers the noise.
“Chrissy, wake UP, COME ON!” He bangs them again, arms straining with the weight; another clash, and Chrissy visibly flinches, eyes rolling back in her head as her feet slip up from the floor.
“ What the— ?!” Eddie careens back, fumbling for the radio dial as he watches her body slowly drift higher above the floor. The radio stutters to life, screeching in protest as he winds it round as far as it’ll go, clapping his hands over his ears. The jitters in his shoulders have moved to his legs, limbs uncoordinated as he watches Chrissy’s head loll back.
As if in ecstasy— the type she’d been looking for here.
Eddie stumbles to the floor again, a choice thought floating in his head about the neighbours' complaints tomorrow morning.
He hopes they like Springsteen.
♱
“ Chrissy, please— !”
Chrissy chokes back another sob as she slides to the floor, Eddie’s voice a small echo in her hair as the creature— her monster, secluded in this encroaching, oozing house— stops at her feet. She idly notes the scuffs on her sneakers, marring the perfect loops of white leather her mother insists upon cleaning every time she comes home.
You always have to look your best, Chrissy!
She sounds so close in this place, curling over her shoulder to wrap the measuring tape around her waist.
“Why are you doing this?” her voice is barely a whisper— a small, trembling hummingbird in the deafening quiet. The creature watches her, hand flexing a little as she holds her shoulders.
“Don’t cry, Chrissy.”
She sniffs in defiance.
“I don’t—” she heaves another sigh, tears choking up her throat, sliding her legs into herself. Her head tilts up, watching lean above her with an almost pitying look in his eyes. The cruel twist of his mouth is the only indicator otherwise.
“You’ve suffered— for so long, Chrissy .” She sniffs again, flinching away from the tendrils of hair that he lets slip through his fingers, grazing her scalp. Her skin grows cold, where he manoeuvers her head to the sputtering light at the end of the hallway, dust beams settling on the looming silhouette of the bathroom stall.
The burning in her throat is evidence enough— a sudden urge to heave her heart up from her chest.
She clasps her hands over her mouth, sobbing so hard her teeth break the skin of her bottom lip.
“Please, no—”
“Oh, but Chrissy— what they will do with you if they ever knew. Where they would put you—” Vecna falls away from her side, shouldering her into the small cardboard box of her hazier nightmares. No air, no light— just one small hole as his eye peeps through— a white film flexing as he blinks.
Chrissy screams—
And then—
“CHRISSY, WAKE UP NOW!”
Eddie’s voice punctures her left ear, and she screams again, a clang of metal in the other.
“Eddie!”
“Ignore him, now, Chrissy. He can’t help you.” The creature threads a finger into the one peep hole above her head, sharpened nail grazing her eye as he lifts the cardboard from over her head.
She’s going to die.
This thing is going to kill her and she’ll have been helpless this time, as well— just like every other time she couldn’t run away. For fear of being rude, or selfish— less of a queen than her court would demand.
Eddie’s voice has disappeared again, and Chrissy briefly wonders why he’s here, in her head. What good is he here to her, when she can barely even tell him what’s really wrong. For all his antics, she still never told him about this—
And now she’s going to die because of it—
I get up in the evenin'
And I ain't got nothin' to say
Chrissy pauses, hands slipping from her ears as she turns to the spot behind her left eye— the small, shivering tear in the house’s walls, casting a stark light on the bathroom stall. It writhes with an undulating pulse, vines breaking the toilet bowl into fragmented ceramic as it pushes up its remains. Limbless, blackened clots that surge from the underside like blood from a wound.
Man, I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there, baby, I could use just a little help
She knows that song— has done every day since her Dad played his old records for her when she ten, and danced with her around the living room floor. When they played every record he had after each other, to take away the sting of having lost her first cheerleading championship— the hell her mother had brought down on her for losing the trophy she’d seen her holding. Maybe seen for herself, too, she supposes now— the triumph a mother like her could claim from a ten year old.
And this one especially— sixteen years old, and her ruined birthday after breaking her ankle on a much too ambitious routine, a shrill telling off when she came home limping. But her dad, as always, left to dress the wounds, bringing his records up to try and smooth over the wreckage.
Her dad was always one to bow to her mother’s pressure— but that had been his small defiance. Music, and laughter, and something of himself to take the edge off her tears.
Something to hold onto when she continued to lose, no matter what she did—
You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancin' in the dark—
The dark recesses of the nightmare are shredding in the corners, Chrissy scrambling to her feet as she ducks under the monster’s distracted eyes— grimacing at the crumbling staircase, the consumed bathroom stall, and the lingering pulse of Springsteen making Chrissy’s head pound— like amp speakers thrumming with the pace. The first shards of the house narrowly miss her, fumbling to grab the doorknob to force her way out— and when that fails, running for the bathroom stall, skirting on the debris and reaching for the huge tear behind the cubicle that’s blaring whatever’s left of the song—
The sudden pain in her arm catches her back, a scream pulling from her throat as she watches the ceiling collapse in on itself around her, hair snagging loose from her ponytail. The hand gripping her arm leaves black sludge on her pristine hoodie sleeve— nails digging past the cotton to her skin, the creature’s face sneering in return, eyes a white spot in the encroaching darkness.
“You can’t escape so easily, Chrissy—” it leans in, pulling her arm into its chest as it tilts her head back, a small glisten of light in its eyes.
It casts the milky haze into a bright glare, but she sees the small globe of a human eye narrowing behind it.
“I will be here— to keep you in this place. Your horrors—” it pauses, a slight press of its cheek to hers— cool, wet skin writhing with every breath— “belong to me .”
A flick of its wrist punctures her arm, snapping it in half like a small twig in its fist. The searing whip crack of pain shoots up her arm as the creature throws her to the ground, shoulder hitting the remaining tiles and splintering on impact. The creature looms for another second more as Chrissy falls through the floor, the last notes of her song cleaving the house into a million pieces.
Her scream dies, and the darkness rushes to catch her.
♱
Eddie screams when Chrissy’s arm snaps itself at the elbow, Springsteen a shrieking, tone deaf soundtrack. His hip aches from hitting the ground, throat dry with fear, and—
Chrissy Cunningham is going to die in his trailer. That’s it.
That little dance from earlier— shooting himself up on her open-mouthed smile, her gasps of laughter—
Mean and scary?
Yeah.
That whole thing is going to be left with only him to mourn, and there is a hysteria tucked away inside it that he can’t trap anywhere. That she might have survived this long to die here— in this shitty trailer, with a coward for company—
No one like that— no one like her — deserves to die like that.
Her arm strains against itself, body tensed, as she lets out a soundless scream—
But—
Eddie’s scream dies as he watches Chrissy’s eyes clear, the song abruptly cutting out as she drops from the ceiling in one flurry, shoulder hitting the trailer floor with a thwack and a yell of pain cutting through the silence. She rolls onto her front, a small whimper of distress muttered into the carpet.
Eddie tries to breathe, and finds he’s forgotten the function.
Her shoulders shake a little, forearms pressed into her chest as she cradles her arm. He can’t see any blood, but the laboured breath he takes in makes her freeze, flinching at the twinge of pain.
“Ow,” it’s the barest whisper after her scream, still ringing between his ears with the drum beats of the radio. Its absence notes the painful, shrill silence of the trailer— of the park itself—, the lone bark of Mrs Denny’s dog the only sense that the world beyond these four walls continues.
Eddie swallows nervously, ignoring the needles running up and down his legs, the sweat drying against his spine. Chrissy struggles to lift her head, a thin trail of blood leaking from her temple, smearing into her hairline. He can’t quite decide whether to scream again, or ask her if she’s ok.
That’s a stupid question, but it might bear asking if it stops him from running.
“Chri— Chrissy?” his voice sounds weak to him, breaking an octave when she finally looks at him. Her face is gaunt, eyes glassy with fear.
“ What the fuck just happened ?”
♱
“Eddie?”
Chrissy’s voice is small, a tremor tucked into her shoulder as she catches Eddie’s frantic eyes. A glance to the ceiling proves everything— it has turned a molten black, scorched beyond reason, an oozing, tar-like substance dropping to a spot near Chrissy’s leg.
This can’t be real. It just can’t be.
Chrissy shifts to her side, hauling herself up to lie back against the foot of his armchair— a visible wince on her face when Eddie scrambles back a little more, hand outstretched as he waves at her, panicking to stay back.
The death grip she has on her limp arm tightens.
He doesn’t want to scare her— his first urge is to go over and take her arm, patch up the cut on her head, ask her what the hell just happened, but—
She was fucking levitating five seconds ago, so—
She breathes out, curling her legs into herself, a rattled shakiness in her voice.
“Are— are you ok?” she whimpers at the pain again, peeling away her hands to look at the inside of her elbow, and Eddie stares at her, grappling at the kitchen countertop for something real to steel himself to.
“Pretty, uh— far from ok, Chrissy.”
The small, indefinite nod of her head almost makes him regret saying it.
There’s an anxious, almost pantomime jingle to his laugh when he pulls himself up with the counter, hands fisting into his hair as he brushes out the tangles— Chrissy’s gaze is a desperate, pleading thing on the side of his face, the corner so small that she sinks into its edges.
“This is— this is crazy, this is crazy —”
“Eddie—”
“Cunningham, don’t, I—” He scrubs a hand across his face, shaking as he looks at her over the arm he throws over his face, nose pressed to his jacket sleeve.
She looks terrified. Legitimately terrified. The decaying crack in his ceiling looms over her head, watchful of its first victim, and she’s fighting back more tears, shrinking down into the floor.
“Eddie?” There is a quiet, dissonant crack in her voice as she watches him across the blueing darkness of the trailer, shifting to move her arm so she can try to get up. The panic on her face is something he’s seen before— back out in the woods, when she’d barely been able to speak past the glistening tears in her eyes, wringing her hands into her lap. A general touchiness that verged on terror— either at what might happen or what she’d seen.
He’s sure it has to do with the— portal? doorway? fucking asscrack — he now has cleaved into the ceiling of his uncle’s trailer. Otherwise— Chrissy Cunningham is a witch or some shit, and he’s not entirely sure he can deal with much more today.
Eddie lets his arm drop to his side, clutching the countertop behind him as Chrissy gets to her feet, shaky and unsteady as she inches away from the ceiling with a barely swapped glance to her right.
“I still think you’re terrifying, Cunningham, but. Jesus Christ.” He lets out a small hiccup of laughter again, eyes casting to the arm she’s cradling at the elbow. The puncture marks in her bottom lip give him pause, watching the half joking remark flutter to the ground, unremarked.
Eddie tries to swallow past his own tongue, trailer park lights flickering out briefly. Chrissy’s face is in complete shadow.
“Is your, uh— your arm? Is it—”
He sees it in his head again— the resounding crack as her bone had snapped upward like a poppet doll. His throat goes dry at the thought.
“Oh,” she gingerly takes her hand away, but the arm sits still, unwilling to move beyond her command. The lights flicker back on again, shattered glass shifting across the floor as Chrissy toes it gently. Her sneakers are pristine white, but there is something decidedly unsettling about her, shrouded in the trailer’s cool, damp insides. Although Eddie won’t mention it, she no longer looks like herself.
She is corpse-like, skin a fragile china, all colour and hope wiped from her eyes. A victorian girl’s beloved porcelain doll, limbs snapped from too rough a playtime.
Chrissy wiggles the fingers of her right hand experimentally, a small flicker of movement shuddering down each one. She breathes in sharply.
Eddie leans forward from his outpost at the kitchen cupboards, the small tick of the boiler in the background.
“Cunningham?” His voice breaks on the last syllable.
Chrissy startles at his voice, eyes jumping to the ceiling again in anticipation. Her eyes are shining with fresh tears, gripping the underside of her arm in alarm.
Eddie pushes himself into the angles of the cupboards, hands gripping the countertop behind him. She doesn’t fail to notice the fear blooming again in his face— planed in dark shadows, dark eyes wide with concern. She’s always known Eddie to be something of a theatrical distraction— a monologue in dissonance; all wild hair, prancing nonconformity and that devil face he pulls for the fun and ire of his popular competitors. She knows he spends his time quietly accepting the grave that’s been dug for him— a social pariah rather content to be the sacrificial lamb if he gets to decide the rules for himself.
She’s watched him across the cafeteria— that little game he’s played with Jason any number of times. He’s not scared of him; he’s not scared of anyone.
But he’s scared of her. Eddie Munson is terrified of her.
“It’s… fine.” She mumbles it mostly to herself, shifting up the sleeve to inspect the damage. She already knows it isn’t broken the way it probably should be— that creature, whatever it was, had made a pretty severe show of breaking her in half. The prickles in her legs still remind of the spiders crawling up her body every night, emerging from underneath her bedcovers and spinning into her mouth.
He is here, somewhere inside her, and she can barely contain the whimper of distress when she rolls back the sleeve to her elbow.
Five distinct bruise marks, indented to her skin like every too tight piece of clothing she’s ever worn. They are a rising, almost beetroot purple, dark crimson pools of congealed blood delicate and raised across the soft inside.. An investigative press of her fingertips— french tips still perfect, she could nearly sicken herself over it— makes the blood disperse to the outer edges, and reform when the pressure subsides.
Chrissy pulls her sleeve back down, looking back to see Eddie’s concerned frown, a deep intake of breath as his eyes flick between her arm and the tears he can see catching in her lashes.
“You ok?”
“Yeah.” She sniffs in once, scrubbing under her nose.
A faint voice in her head whispers her name— a slight tension in her arm, a phantom grip squeezing for all of two seconds.
“Can I— can I stay here? Tonight?”
Eddie blinks once to himself, casting a glance around the trailer.
“Stay— here?” Chrissy nods hurriedly, pulling her shoulders in as she holds herself together in one piece, chin tucked to her shoulder.
“Uh— won’t your parents—”
“They think I’m with Jason.” That response is too quick for Eddie to think it’s anywhere close to being true, but he’s not about to argue with her.
Eddie looks around the trailer, searching for an invisible audience to play this back to.
“I mean—” he lets out a small huff of constrained laughter, a wide, panicked sheen in his eyes— “Don’t get me wrong, I’d be— ecstatic, really, to put you up, it’s just—” he tilts his head back to the crack in the ceiling, to Chrissy standing expectantly across from him. She cuts a pale and uncertain figure, something fidgety in her gaze. A rabbit startled by the gaze of a fox.
“That is some— weird shit, you know?”
She nods. The movement itself is frayed.
Eddie clasps his hands behind his neck, taking a step towards her. Another when she doesn’t immediately flinch back.
“You promise you’re ok?”
The question is loaded in itself— and Eddie thinks he already knows it’s a futile one to ask of her. Something about Chrissy Cunningham would suggest she hasn’t been ok for a while. The divine veneer of a high school’s mascot sweetheart is never as clean as they promise.
“Yeah.” It’s a whisper— something hollow when she says it— but he’ll take it.
Eddie nods to himself once, ducking past her to his bedroom. She follows lightly, keeping to the wall— almost as if she’s too vulnerable anywhere else— and stands at his door as he rifles helplessly through his drawers. The lingering, acrid burn of smoked out weed makes his eyes sting, an eternal haze in the room that makes it almost dream-like. Her perfume drifts past him as she settles on his bed, making the springs shriek in protest. It’s soft, a brush on his cheek, and he chokes back the scream he might still have left in him.
He wants to find the strongest drug in this godforsaken trailer and knock it back a s quick as he finds it— anything to try and make this seem more plausible.
“Uh, it’s not—” he grimaces, pulling out the cleanest t-shirt he can find in his drawers. He tries to resist the urge to shove all his worldly possessions under the bed, away from her line of sight. It’s embarrassing to think his dirty laundry is a hair’s breadth from her ankle, at least ten cigarette butts lingering in the dish on his bedside. She shouldn’t be sitting here. It’s just not right—
Chrissy looks unconcerned, a small, quizzical look in her eyes as she takes in each poster, the guitar hanging above his head across the mirror. Her fingers are tucked into the recesses of her skirt, nails digging to her thighs as she scrunches and un-scrunches the material— something he chooses to ignore.
She looks almost content— comfortable— perching on the bed like she might run at any moment. He wouldn’t blame her.
“You can use this, if you want—” he folds it in his hands, offering the small package of fabric. He’s careful to avoid leaning towards her too much, a definitive space between them. She accepts, nails grazing the back of his hand as she carefully unfolds it, spread across her lap.
The bird-like giggle she lets out, hands smoothing over the design, breaks his heart twice over, hair falling into her face as she settles a little on the bed.
“Metallica?”
Eddie shrugs, pulling his jacket around himself in defence.
“Take it or leave it.”
She lets out another small, fluttering laugh, pulling it to sit in a bundle at her stomach, burying her fingers into the cotton.
She looks pointedly at the floor, a small sniff hitting the silence as uncrosses her ankles, toes the carpet where a cigarette has burned a sizable hole near his bed.
Eddie runs another shaky hand through his hair— the movement makes her head snap up, eyes running over the rings clinking off each other, curls getting caught in the tusks of the pig face— and he smiles at her once, letting his hand drop. She forgot how much his face changes when he does that— suddenly bright, and something a little unguarded when he ducks his head away from her gaze.
“I’ll, uh— let you get— changed.” He waves a hand at the general bed, and seems to regret the motion almost immediately.
Only when he’s at the door, hand on the frame, does she think to say it.
“Eddie?”
He pauses, a small tilt of his head over his shoulder. Like this, his hair is a mask over his face, eyes a soft, watery light on hers.
“I’m sorry for scaring you.”
Eddie stops, turning to face her in confusion. She watches his brow knot, opening his mouth to say something and thinking better of it immediately.
His fingers find the haphazard chain laced through his jacket sleeve, pulling it through to tighten at the cuff. His rings clink over each other, eyelashes curling on his face.
Chrissy breathes out once before he looks at her again.
“Takes a lot more’n that to scare me, Cunningham.”
He dips out of the room before she can reply, the faint musk of cigarette smoke circling where he stood.
♱
Chrissy knows he’s lying.
She also doesn’t care that he is, because there is too much rattling around inside her head to make the truth worth telling.
Her neatly folded cheer uniform on the worn vinyl of his foldable desk chair is a little hilarious— his room is veritable tip, everything spilling out onto the floor with little care for where it lands. Her own room is white and mint green, everything in its place, bed always made before she leaves for school.
Eddie’s looks like he held a metal concert in here, and never bothered to tidy it up either before or after the insanity. There are magazines scattered across the carpet, open closet with half the clothes on the floor— the only thing hanging on the wardrobe is a heavier leather jacket than he had on tonight, red tartan a crimson tongue for the lining. Scattered coffee cups, bowls and, curiously, one saucepan with the remains of his dinner from the other night makes her crinkle her nose. The only thing she can really find fault with is the lack of light; he has draped a blood red curtain over the one window, blinded curtain broken on one end, casting a hazy red glow across the bedroom. There’s little space to put anything, a museum with no coordination for its exhibits.
The t-shirt is a little worn against her skin— soft and oversized, drowning her frame but still somehow too short to cover her thighs. He hasn’t come back into his bedroom since he ducked out with that last remark, and she’s somewhat grateful. The small glimpse she caught of herself— the mirror across his bed overhung by a crimson guitar— offered one sliver of her reflection, and the girl that had stared back was too gaunt, too pale. She looks dead; bloodshot eyes and the blooming, purple map of contusions on her right arm.
The Metallica tee hangs limply on her shoulders, but it feels scarily comforting.
Crawling under the sheets, Chrissy eyes the lightbulb flickering a little dimly in the shade beside his bed. The scattered objects on his nightstand give her pause— an empty bullet, a bottle of Old Spice cologne (that’s what she’d caught in the neckline of his t-shirt), and—
She ducks her head when she sees the small blue packet, unopened by the ashtray.
His sheets itch— but they’re warm. A grounding annoyance across her bare legs, as she pulls them up over her head.
From the room beyond the open door, the smallest notes of Eddie’s voice sing fumbling lines from her favourite song; the one lucky enough to blast into the trailer and puncture her nightmare like scissors through a jar lid. Being held under scrutiny by whatever monster— bigger than her, more cunning than it pretends— put her under the magnifying glass.
Eddie’s sheets warm a little the longer she lies there, watching the shadows dance across the poster right across from his bed— a yellow skull, two red eyes bugged out with madness, a manic smile ripping it jawbone. His voice is a breathy, half anxious mumble, but it’s enough to settle the thrum in her chest. A frantic heartbeat that ignores the darker corners of his room.
She keeps the lights on, the radio a spindle wheel in the silence.