Chapter Text
Chrissy splashes water on her face and takes deep breaths in the small girls bathroom near the locker room. School let out a while ago and it always clears out quickly on Friday afternoons, which means this bathroom is almost always empty before games. It’s the perfect place to be – alone , which she needs to be in order to deal with her problem , as she calls it to herself.
She looks at herself in the mirror and practices her smile. It doesn’t meet her eyes – never does, especially not after her post-meal visits to empty bathrooms – but no one ever notices. Not the girls, not Jason, not her parents.
She and Jason have been dating for almost six months, another futile attempt by Chrissy to appease her mother. Jason is…just fine . He’s nice enough to her, although he agrees with her mom too readily about Chrissy’s diet, and he mostly wants to spend time with the guys anyway. He makes a big show of their relationship at school in public, and she barely has to see him on the weekends.
Chrissy knows that Jason is kind of a jerk to anyone unpopular. She doesn’t like that, it makes her feel squeamish, but she’s never really seen it with her own eyes. She just hears the girls whisper about it sometimes, mostly about confrontations between Jason and Eddie Munson. Chrissy doesn’t eat in the cafeteria – doesn’t eat at all, actually – and so she’s never seen the two of them exchange words. According to the girls, Eddie gives as good as he gets, so she tries not to let it bother her too much. He’s not defenseless .
Sighing to herself, exhausted and really not in the mood to cheer at a big game, Chrissy comes out of the bathroom and startles when she sees Jason, Andy, and Chance, holding a younger boy roughly.
“Little freak,” Jason spits venomously. He bangs the boy’s head into the drinking fountain. “Where’s your loser hero now, huh?”
“Hey!” Chrissy shouts, rushing over and dropping her cheer bag. “Jason, what the hell ?”
She grabs him around the shoulders and tugs as hard as she can. She’s weak – the way her mother wants her, the way she needs to be in order to be skinny. Jason shrugs her off roughly, sending her into the lockers with a bang and an oof . Her head snaps back, slamming into the metal of the locker and sending little fireworks off behind her eyes. He whirls around, ready to grab her, when he realizes who she is. His face goes white and he stares at her, shocked.
“Chrissy, babe, what are you doing here?”
Chrissy hates bullies. Hates them. She may be popular at school but she’s bullied every night at home. And sure, she knew Jason was a bit of a jerk, and she’s ignored that trying to keep her own bully happy, but this – this is more than she can ignore.
“What are you doing ?” she asks, horrified.
“Sometimes freaks need to be taught a lesson, Chris,” Jason says patiently, like she’s stupid or something.
“And what lesson were you trying to teach him?” Chrissy spits, shoving Jason back. “That’s unacceptable, Jason.”
Andy and Chance still have the boy by the arms, gripping hard. He’s groaning.
Chrissy storms over to them and yanks on Andy’s hands. “Let go of him right now.”
Jason laughs, uncomfortable, looking back at his friends. “Jeeze, Chrissy, it’s not a big deal. He’s just some freshman loser, okay? No need to get your panties in a twist.”
Her face is red, bright red, not the pretty kind of blush that she should have. She’s so angry, so sick of being treated like an idiot. She’s mad at Jason, mad at herself for putting her head in the sand, mad at her mother, mad at – well, just about everyone. She’s just mad , in a way she never lets herself feel.
And that anger, coursing almost deliciously through her veins, heady and righteous, leads her to draw her hand back and smack Jason across the face, as hard as she can.
“What the fuck?” he yelps, holding his hand to his cheek. “God, are you on your period or something?”
She sticks her finger in his face, voice low. “We are done , Jason.”
“You’re breaking up with me over this little freak?” Jason scoffs, waving toward the younger student dismissively. His little minions chortle, sharing his disbelief.
“I’m breaking up with you because of you. I can’t believe I was ever with you. ”
Chrissy shoves past him to put her arm around the younger boy, who looks dazed. A bruise is forming on his forehead and Chrissy frowns.
“I’m Chrissy,” she tells him softly. “Let’s get out of here.”
He’s small, with curly hair and a hat that’s been knocked askew in the scuffle, wearing a t-shirt that says Hellfire on it. He looks terrified and he nods at her, trembling a little bit under her hand.
“I know. I’m Dustin,” he tells her softly, not quite meeting her eyes.
“Chrissy!” Jason shouts at her down the hall as she leads the boy away. “You’re going to regret this, babe !”
He spits the pet name out like poison after her. She raises one hand and does something she’s never done before – she flips Jason off, tightening her arm around Dustin.
“Yeah,” Chrissy scoffs so only Dustin can hear her, “I’m really missing out on having him shove his tongue down my throat.”
Dustin laughs, surprised, and winces. Chrissy notices his cheek is swelling too and sighs.
“I’m so sorry,” she tells him. “Do you – are your friends around? I don’t have a car so I can’t offer to bring you home, but I might be able to –”
“I have my club meeting,” he tells her. “Uh, Hellfire? It’s a D&D club.”
Ah, right. Hellfire. The supposedly Satanic club Jason has been obsessed with for the last few months. Eddie Munson runs it, Jason’s favorite subject of conversation after…well, himself.
“Eddie’s club, right?” she asks, and Dustin’s eyebrows raise.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Let me walk you there,” she tells him. “I’m worried about your head.”
“Yeah, yeah okay,” he says with a nod. “Although your head got knocked around too. Thanks for – thanks for helping me back there, Chrissy.”
“Of course,” she says immediately.
“It’s not every day you get rescued by the Queen of Hawkins High,” Dustin says with a little smile. Chrissy rolls her eyes.
“I doubt I’m going to be the queen much longer,” Chrissy says with a little huff. “I think the king would love to Ann Boleyn me right about now.”
Dustin snorts, surprised by her dark sense of humor. “You really didn’t need to dump him over this. He does this kind of thing all the time.”
Chrissy goes quiet, staring at the floor. “I didn’t know that.”
“Really?” Dustin asks, a bit disbelieving. “I mean, everyone knows that Jason is an asshole.”
Chrissy doesn’t want to admit how much she lives in her own world, how much time she spends in her own head. She doesn’t ever feel – a part of anything. It’s like she’s not even in the world, just sort of adjacent to it. She’s not ever connected to her body, not fully connected to her mind. Today at the pep rally, when Jason had told the whole school he loved her — for the first time, mind you — it had felt like she was floating outside of herself, just watching the scene play out.
She doesn’t really want to admit any of that to this fourteen-year-old boy, though, so she just shakes her head.
“Well, I didn’t know he was this bad. I never would have gone out with him. I was only doing it for my mom, anyway, which didn’t even –”
Chrissy huffs, shaking her head. She doesn’t need to talk this boy’s ear off over her fraught relationship with her mother.
“Nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s here,” Dustin says, nodding at the door to the theater room. She hadn’t even realized he’d been guiding her, her arm still around his shoulders.
Chrissy thinks she should probably just drop him off, but – well, she doesn’t want to go to the gym and cheer for the basketball team, championship game or not. She’s a little intimidated by the thought of flouncing into Eddie Munson’s club, her arm around one of his little freshmen, but she steels herself and pushes the door open.
A group is chattering around a table, Eddie Munson lounging on – a wooden throne? – in front of them. He’s observing, a little distantly, a smirk on his face. All eyes turn to the door as it shuts loudly behind Chrissy and Dustin. Her fingers dig into his shoulder and she thinks she sees him trying not to laugh at the expressions on the club’s faces.
“Cunningham?” Eddie asks in shock after a long beat of silence.
“With Dustin ?” Nancy Wheeler’s little brother echoes.
The older boys, the seniors, are staring at her open-mouthed. She knows them all, has had classes with them since middle school, and offers them a shaky smile.
“Um, hi,” she says, clearing her throat and forcing herself to speak up. “I’m – I’m Chrissy.”
“Chrissy saved my ass,” Dustin explains quickly, giving her a beaming smile. She smiles back.
Eddie’s eyebrows raise and he stands, walking toward them. The lighting is so dim, no one at the table can see Dustin’s face clearly. When Eddie gets close enough he sucks in a breath through his teeth.
“Shit, Henderson, what happened?”
“Who do you think?”
Eddie’s face darkens, brow furrowed. He looks guilty, and angry, and Chrissy quickly jumps in.
“It wasn’t Dustin’s fault.”
Eddie snorts. “Yeah, sweetheart, kind of figured that much. Your boyfriend is a real dick.”
Chrissy’s heart stutters at the way he says sweetheart , not patronizing the way it should be, and shakes her head. “Jason’s not my boyfriend. Not anymore.”
Eddie finally looks at her, and she’s struck by how brown his eyes are. They’re really nice, warmer than she expects, as he looks at her in confusion, and a little something else she can’t quite place..
Dustin launches into his story – how he was getting something out of his locker when Jason and his friends cornered him and laid into him about Eddie. He said something snarky back, and next thing he knew he was getting punched, until Chrissy came along and put a stop to it.
“Then she dumped him,” Dustin says simply, with a shrug.
“Yep,” Chrissy agrees, mimicking his movements. “Then I dumped him.”
Everyone is still looking at her like she has two heads, except for Dustin, who steps out from under her arm, still smiling at her.
“Thanks for walking me back.”
She nods. “Yeah, of course.”
She bites her lip, trying to find someone to look at who isn’t staring at her with huge wide eyes and a slack jaw.
Eddie it is, then.
He gives her a crooked smile and ruffles Dustin’s hair. “Yeah, Cunningham, thanks for returning the lost sheep.”
Dustin blushes and steps out from under Eddie’s hand. “Good luck with the game, Chrissy. Try not to get beheaded, yeah?”
Eddie does a double take as Chrissy laughs. “What?”
“Inside joke,” Dustin says dismissively, waving his hands like it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to have an inside joke with the head cheerleader.
“Fucking dark , but okay,” Eddie mumbles, clearly confused.
Chrissy hesitates, about to turn around and leave. The thing is, she really doesn’t want to go to the game. Her head hurts from the lockers, and she just knows that Jason has already spun a lie in the gym about Chrissy dumping him. The cheer squad, supposedly under her leadership, is always going to side with Jason.
But she also knows she doesn’t belong here, either, looking at the Hellfire Club. None of them trust her – that much is clear. They look afraid of her, which turns her stomach.
She turns to Dustin and manages a smile. “Ice your forehead when you get home, okay?”
He nods, hat bobbing. “Yeah, you take some tylenol too.”
Eddie frowns, eyes sharp. “You get hurt, Cunningham?”
She shakes her head at the same time that Dustin rats her out.
“Yeah, Jason threw her into the lockers when she grabbed him.”
A muscle in Eddie’s jaw jumps. It makes her flush, for some reason, and she needs to get out from under his gaze. Dustin’s eyes are darting between them and he gives Chrissy a little wave before he walks over to the table, collapsing into a chair next to Nancy Wheeler’s brother.
“I’m fine,” she tells him, her voice unsteady. He definitely doesn’t believe her. “I’ve um – gotta get to the game. Bye, Eddie.”
“Yeah, okay. See ya, Cunningham.”
***
Hellfire is more subdued than usual, partially because its DM is so distracted. They’re just playing a one-shot anyway, in deference to Sinclair’s stupid little basketball game. He gave Mike and Dustin a lot of shit but when they hadn’t been able to find a sub, he threw something together to send everyone off for Spring Break. They’ll face Vecna when they come back.
He can’t stop thinking about Chrissy Cunningham – the Queen of Hawkins High – showing up with Dustin in tow. He could have sworn her hands were shaking as she pushed the door open to go cheer for the guy who had just thrown her into the lockers.
He should have invited her to stay, offered her a place to hide until Jason leaves campus. He tugs at the roots of his hair, staring at his DM screen. She wouldn’t have wanted to stay here, anyway, not with the freaks and geeks.
Although she just dumped Jason Carver to save one, so maybe he doesn’t have as good of a read on Chrissy as he thought. Sure, he knows she’s nicer than the average popular kid – he’s never seen her make fun of anyone, and he’s heard her tell Jason in her quiet voice to knock it off on the rare occasions Carver has made fun of someone in front of her.
Frankly, if Eddie had known all it was going to take for Chrissy to dump Carver was seeing him punch a freak, he’d have sacrificed his own face six months ago. Not that Carver has ever even tried to get physical with Eddie – he saves that for the kids, the underclassmen that Eddie is always trying to look out for.
Point is, Carver is a prick, and he always has been. Ever since Chrissy started dating him – a huge disappointment to Eddie – she’s been sort of guilty by association, even though Chrissy isn’t ever around when Jason is taunting Eddie.
He feels guilty now, and confused, and also a little bit happier than he probably should. His long-buried middle school crush on Chrissy Cunningham stirs in his chest.
Look, she rescued Dustin Henderson, okay? It’s not his fault.
When the game wraps up, his head is still spinning.
“Hey Eddie, you can still give me a ride, right?” Dustin asks, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He sighs. “My mom is gonna flip when she sees my face.”
“Sure thing, dude,” Eddie tells him, gentler than he’d normally be. He likes giving the kids a hard time, but it’s all in good fun, and if one of them is really going through it he’s always going to be on his best behavior. They know they can count on him.
“Steve is too,” Dustin says with a sigh.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Still don’t really get how Steve Harrington became your babysitter, but –”
“He’s not my babysitter, we’re friends,” Dustin clarifies. “Maybe I should tell him. I bet Carver’s scared of him.”
Eddie feels a pang of jealousy. “Carver’s scared of me too, ya know.”
Dustin sighs and pats his arm. “It’s okay, Eddie, you don’t need to be jealous.”
He’d never admit to Dustin that that’s exactly what he’d been feeling, so he just shoves his shoulder lightly and leads the way out of the school. The post-basketball crowd has mostly dissipated, the parking lot practically empty. So it’s not very hard for them to bump right into Chrissy Cunningham, kneeling on the sidewalk next to the parking lot, sniffling.
He and Dustin both freeze. Chrissy’s wearing nothing but little green spandex shorts and a matching sports bra, and her knees look pretty banged up. She’s crying, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, and before he can think too hard about it Eddie races over to her at a light jog. She looks up and flinches before seeing who it is.
“Woah, hey, hey” he says, dropping to his knees in front of her. He’s taking off his jacket as quickly as he can. It’s March in Indiana, and she must be freezing in the chill of the night. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She smiles, wobbly, as he pulls his jacket around her shoulders. She slowly slips her arms inside, tugging it shut. “Oh, hi Eddie. Um, thank you.”
“What the hell happened here?” he asks, gesturing at her. Her stuff is on the ground all around her.
Chrissy sniffles loudly, brushes angrily at her cheeks. “The squad took my clothes out of my locker while I went to the shower and only left me with this.”
“What happened to your knees?”
She sniffles more loudly, looking away from him. Her voice is thick when she speaks. “When I came out here a couple of the basketball players tripped me.”
His jaw clenches so hard his teeth hurt. Chrissy, the queen, dethroned just for standing up for a defenseless freshman and dumping Jason Carver’s sorry ass. God, he hates this goddamn school.
Eddie stands, helping her up. “Sorry, Chrissy, that’s all really fucked up.”
She laughs, a watery little burst, and nods. He looks at the blood on her knees and cringes.
“Hey, um, would you mind – giving me a ride home?” Chrissy asks, looking away from him and fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket. “I don’t have a car and Jason took me to school this morning.”
Dustin has been standing quietly off to the side, watching them nervously. He offers Chrissy a small smile and a nod.
“Sorry,” he tells her softly. “Kinda – kinda feels like this is my fault.”
Eddie watches as Chrissy furrows her brow, her pink lips in a pout. She shakes her head and grabs Dustin’s shoulders to look him dead in the eye.
“Hey. I’d do it all over again, okay?”
Dustin just nods, looking a little awestruck by the head cheerleader’s fierce protection over him, some kid she doesn’t even know, and Eddie swallows hard.
Yeah, that crush is digging itself out of the grave.
Eddie leads them both to his van and opens the door for Chrissy, giving Dustin a hard look when he complains about Chrissy riding shotgun. Chrissy offers to switch and Eddie shakes his head.
“Nah, the queen rides shotgun,” Eddie insists, shutting the door softly and walking to the driver’s side. He hauls himself into the van and starts it, wincing at the volume of his music when Chrissy startles with a little “oh!”
“Eddie’s really into music,” Dustin supplies rather unhelpfully from the back seat.
“You’re in a band, right?” Chrissy asks as Eddie backs the van out of his spot. His heart nearly stops.
“Uh, yeah.”
She’s thinking, her mouth pursed and a little sideways, painfully cute, actually — before she gasps and points at him.
“Corroded Coffin!”
Eddie practically chokes. Dustin cackles delightedly and Eddie really wishes he and Chrissy were alone right now.
“How do you —“
“With a name like that, how could I forget?” shs laughs. “You played in the middle school talent show. You played guitar.”
“Still do, still do,” he says, drumming on the steering wheel and trying really hard to play it cool.
“He plays at the Hideout on Tuesdays,” Dustin chimes in again. “He won’t let us come.”
Eddie scoffs. “You’re too young for the Hideout.”
“You started playing there when you were my age!”
Eddie rolls his eyes at Chrissy, exasperated, and she giggles. It’s the first time he’s heard her really laugh this close, and it sounds different than the little bits he’s heard in the hallways.
When they pull up to Dustin’s house, Chrissy starts fawning over him.
“Please try to stay awake for at least four more hours,” Chrissy tells him, so earnest and sweet hanging out of Eddie’s front seat window. “And make sure to ice your cheek.”
“I will,” Dustin says, his cheeks coloring. He’s clearly loving this attention from the head cheerleader which, hey, Eddie can’t blame him.
They watch him walk inside and then Eddie starts backing out of the driveway.
“You live in Loch Nora, yeah?”
Chrissy sighs heavily, shutting her eyes with her head back. “Yep.”
Eddie bites his lip, stops at the stop sign at the end of Dustin’s street. “So uh, I don’t want to be presumptious or whatever but — you seem like you don’t really want to go home.”
Chrissy snorts, totally undignified, which makes him laugh as she gasps, covering her mouth. “Wow, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m amazed someone your size can make that sound.”
She laughs again, like bells, and he stamps out the butterflies in his stomach like a burning cigarette.
“I definitely do not want to go home,” she tells him. “My mom thought I’d be staying out tonight anyway and if I come home looking like this…”
She gestures at herself. Smeared makeup, messy hair, nothing but spandex and a sports bra and Eddie the Freak’s leather jacket, with bloody knees and scratched palms.
“Would you…wanna hang out?” Eddie asks, practically holding his breath.
Chrissy answers him so quickly, so relieved, he almost misses her answer. “Yes.”
He tries desperately to hide the fully stupid giant grin on his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she confirms, nodding. “What do you normally do on a Friday?”
“Honestly? Not much. I was planning to just go home and listen to music and…hang out.”
“That sounds perfect,” she practically breathes, sinking comfortably into the front seat.
“If you say so,” Eddie replies with a shrug. He rolls the van past the stop sign and heads for the trailer, heart in the vicinity of his throat.
***
When they get to Eddie’s trailer, Chrissy is nervous, but not in the way she would have expected. He gestures at it with a little bow.
“So, this is my castle…”
She giggles, tugging on his jacket wrapped around her, taking a calming breath of the woodsy tobacco smell lingering on it. She follows him inside and immediately likes it. It’s small, sure, and definitely kind of messy, but it’s homey, lived-in, comfortable.
Eddie holds up a finger. “Hang on. Be right back.”
He moves quickly down the hall into his room and she hears him clattering around. He emerges with a t-shirt and a red flannel, holding them out as an offering.
“Here, you can wear these if you want.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” she says, shrugging out of his jacket and placing it gently on the couch.
He’s staring at her, but quickly looks away when she looks at him. She’s sure she must be beet red as she takes the tee shirt and flannel, pulling them on over her bra and shorts. The shirt and flannel both come down longer than her shorts. They’re soft, worn-in and comfy. They smell like him, too, and she wraps her arms around herself to hold in the feeling.
“No problem,” he says, his eyes locked on his clothes on her body. He shakes himself. “Want anything to drink?”
“God yes,” she says with a roll of her neck.
Eddie smirks. “Like water or like a drink-drink?”
Chrissy licks her lips. “A drink-drink, please. It’s been a long day.”
“Coming right up,” Eddie says, slapping a dish towel over his shoulder like a bar tender. He makes a big show out of mixing whiskey with coke in a red plastic cup before handing it to her.
She sits on the couch and he follows, but not without grabbing a blue plastic box out of a cabinet and bringing it with him. Eddie sits on the coffee table in front of her, ignoring the way it creaks, and opens the first aid kid.
“We should clean your knees up,” he says quietly, so gently that it makes her want to cry. He doesn’t even know her and he’s been kinder to her needs than Jason ever was.
Chrissy hisses as he puts an alcohol-soaked pad over the cuts on her knees. Eddie holds out his left hand, covered in rings.
“Here, squeeze me.”
His hands are dry, calloused from guitar she imagines. She squeezes his hand tight, but he doesn’t even flinch. His breath is shallow but even as he cleans up her cuts and puts large sticky bandaids over them.
“Thanks, doctor,” she teases. Her voice feels too loud in the quiet space and she flinches. He gives her that crooked smile from the Hellfire room and she smiles back.
“This day is so goddamn weird,” Eddie says as he stands up and walks around a little, swinging his arms around.
“You’re telling me.”
“How’s your head?”
Chrissy shrugs.
“Okay. Honestly my head always kind of hurts.”
She gestures at her signature high-and-tight ponytail.
“Take it down,” he says simply.
She flushes a little. Jason had told her months ago she looked “a lot prettier” with her hair up and she’s hardly worn it down since. Now, in Eddie Munson’s trailer, she reaches up and undoes her scrunchie, carding her hands through it to try to smooth out the line left by her ponytail.
It does feel a bit better, the back of her head smarting a little at the movement of her hands.
Eddie is looking at her kind of funny, in a way she can’t quite place, but when she catches his eye he smiles.
“Your hair is nice,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “ Anyway, I guess I should formally welcome you to the Dustin Henderson Protection Squad.”
Chrissy giggles, her cheeks still pink from the compliment. “Do we have t-shirts?”
“Not yet, but I designed these babies so I’m sure I can whip up something else,” he says, tugging at his Hellfire Club shirt.
“I actually think the shirts are really cool,” she tells him, and now it’s his turn to flush. “Are we the only two members of the DHPS?”
“Shockingly no,” he drawls, taking a gulp of his own drink. He seems nervous, flinging himself onto the couch. It’s small so there’s not that much space between them and she can feel every one of his antsy movements. “Steve Harrington is sort of the founding member.”
“Steve Harrington ?”
“I was just as surprised as you are. Dustin is obsessed with him.”
Chrissy laughs into her cup. Eddie looks jealous that one of his little Hellfire kids is looking up to someone else and it’s very sweet. They sit in silence for a minute, Chrissy staring at the bubbles in her drink.
“Do you ever feel like you’re losing your mind?” she asks him suddenly. He does a bit of a double take but flashes a crooked smile.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind right now,” he says, “hanging out in my trailer with Chrissy Cunningham, the queen of Hawkins High.”
“Not anymore,” she says, and she tilts her plastic cup in his direction to hit it against his. “To falling from the pedestal.”
He hits his cup against hers. “Cheers.”
They each take a big sip and he considers her carefully over the rim of his drink.
“I think you’re gonna get up just fine,” he tells her, and she can tell her really means it. “You were really – well, you didn’t have to do what you did tonight. It was metal as hell.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Honestly, I’m dreading going back to school after spring break. Jason doesn’t really give up on stuff.”
“Not that you’d want to,” Eddie says, almost apologetic for speaking, “but you’ve always got a spot at the Hellfire table. And I can – I can walk you to class and stuff, if you’re nervous.”
He looks like he expects her to reject him outright, not meeting her eyes and fiddling with his hair. She’s heard how her fellow cheerleaders talk about him and sometimes even to him. She hates that he might think she’d ever do the same.
“I’d really like that,” she says, swinging her feet up onto the couch between them and poking at him with her toes. “I would hate for you to get caught in the crossfire. Jason doesn’t really need another reason to be obsessed with you.”
Eddie chokes with a laugh. “Obsessed with me, huh?”
“Oh my gosh,” she tells him with an eye roll. “He talks about you all the time. It’s super annoying, actually. Whenever he’d catch me looking at you in the cafeteria he’d start flipping out about how you might be possessing me –”
Now he’s smirking and she realizes her mistake right as he grins at her, all teeth and bright brown eyes. “You look at me?”
She looks away with a little shrug, trying to be casual. Sure, she looks at him. It’s not like he’s ever trying to blend in. But she’s always found something really – nice, about looking at him, about the way he’s always in motion and totally confident. He seems to feel joy in a way no one else she knows does, and she likes his laugh, likes to watch it from across the room as he flings his whole body into enjoying himself.
“You’re loud.”
“If I’d known I was attracting your attention, I’d have been even louder.”
They trade smiles that she thinks might actually be shy – she didn’t know he was capable of being shy – and then he leaps up to put on some music and everything feels so much more relaxed.
“I am nervous,” she tells him after a beat. “I’m kind of scared of Jason.”
He looks at her like she just broke his heart and she flinches, but he sits beside her and reaches out, touching her arm with callused fingertips.
“Hey, I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? I’m kind of good at protecting the lost sheep. It’s my whole thing.”
“Is that what I am now?” she asks, head tilted to the side. “A lost sheep?”
He smiles, soft and sweet, sweeter than she thought he could look.
“Nah, you’re not lost, Cunningham. I think you mighta been found today.”
“I think you could be right.”
She wiggles her toes against his thigh and thinks she might catch him shiver at the feeling. But this is Eddie Munson, who does whatever he wants, who plays metal in a dive bar on Tuesdays. He probably likes girls with dyed black hair and thick eyeliner, not blondes in cheer skirts.
“What time do I need to get you home?”
Chrissy sighs, thinking of her mother, how she’ll explain her missing cheer uniform and her skinned knees and her breakup with Jason. Undoubtedly her only breakfast for Spring Break will be black coffee and water.
“My mom thinks I’m sleeping at Jessica’s with some of the other girls,” Chrissy says with her head back, looking at a water stain on the ceiling. “Which I was going to, but I’d imagine I’m not really welcome at sleepovers anymore.”
She gestures to herself — her missing clothes, replaced by Eddie’s comfortable cotton. Eddie taps his fingers nervously on his cup.
“If you want you could stay here,” he offers quickly, the same way he offered her a place to sit at lunch, like he expects her to laugh in his face. “I can take the couch.”
Chrissy considers this offer. She should say no. She’s inconvenienced him enough, surely, commandeered his Friday night and made herself his responsibility.
But she’s so comfortable here on this old lumpy sofa, surrounded by the smell of boy coming off of his clothes, and so she just smiles, grateful, and lets herself say yes to something she wants for once in her life.
“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.”
Eddie beams.
***
Eddie wakes to his uncle shaking his shoulder.
“Fall asleep in the living room again?” Wayne asks gruffly. “Get to bed, boy. Gonna hurt your neck like this.”
Eddie yawns, sitting up and rubbing at his face. He’s half-asleep, stumbling into his bedroom like a lumbering bear. It’s dark in there — he’d taped black trash bags inside of the blinds to keep it nearly pitch black in the mornings — and he wriggles out of his jeans and t shirt in the dark to collapse in his bed facedown.
But he lands on something soft, which squeals and startles awake.
Oh, shit. He just laid right on top of Chrissy Cunningham after taking his goddamn clothes off.
“Sorry!” he exclaims. “Fuck, sorry!”
But he’s still laying on top of her , and when she speaks her voice is a little strangled.
“It’s okay. Just — scared me to death, but I’m fine.”
She’s laughing quietly, and he can feel it, literally, in his chest. She’s warm under the flannel sheets and he could really get used to this.
But he’s gotta get off of her, he realizes quickly, rolling toward the wall. She takes a deep breath and he wonders if he well and truly squished her.
“Are you a pancake over there? Loony Tunes style?”
She giggles again in the dark and he smiles at the sound.
“No, I’m fine,” she tells him. He hears her roll over. “Forgot I was here, huh?”
“Sure did, sure did. My uncle got home and woke me up and I didn’t even think about it.”
“What time is it?”
“About 6:30.”
She sighs and it sounds like she’s burrowing deeper in the sheets. “Wake me up at a normal human time.”
He laughs and goes to climb out of the bed but she stops him with a warm little hand on his chest.
“You can stay?” she tells him, and it comes out like a question. “It’s your bed after all.”
“Uh, okay. If you’re — good with that.”
“I am,” she says with a little yawn. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
He lays beside her, feeling the heat radiating from her bare legs, and stares into the darkness at his ceiling. Her breathing evens out quickly, a little twitch of her foot indicating she’s asleep.
How is he supposed to sleep in these conditions? The head cheerleader is in his bed, wearing his t-shirt and the tiniest little shorts he’s ever seen in his miserable life, and he’s in his boxers and nothing else.
They’d stayed up late, though, sharing another drink and talking about everything and nothing, those deep kinds of conversations he’s only ever had with the Corroded Coffin guys in the middle of the night.
His crush on her isn’t just alive, it’s growing rapidly, like a monster he can’t contain.
Because Chrissy isn’t just the cute cheerleader who sometimes smiles at him in the hallway anymore. She’s funny, and kind of weird, and sweet, and brave. She broke up with Jason Carver, the King Prick of Hawkins, because he bullied Dustin Henderson, a nerdy kid she doesn’t even know.
He’s already half in love with her after spending one night in her intoxicating presence and now she’s sleeping in his bed.
His thought spiral makes him tired enough to shut his eyes and fall asleep, leaning as close to Chrissy’s warmth as he dares.
When he wakes up again, there’s something squeezing him. He burrows his face deeper into his pillow, chasing sleep once more, but finds himself spluttering sweet smelling hair out of his mouth.
Chrissy is laying half on top of him, legs tangled in his, her head right next to his on the pillow. She’s tucked under his chin by his neck like she belongs there.
One of his arms is pinned beneath her so he couldn’t move even if he tried. He struggles to control his breathing and heart rate, his chest nearly aching with the pace of his heartbeat. She groans and wriggles closer, her breath dancing on his throat.
“Eddie?” she whispers softly. “Are you awake?”
He clears his throat. “Yup. Yeah. I’m up.”
He expects her to scramble out of bed, to roll away from him as quickly as possible, maybe even to accuse him of something untoward, but instead she just stays put.
“Is this okay? Sorry.”
“Totally okay,” he tells her quickly. The hand of his pinned arm comes up to her hip and gives her a little reassuring squeeze. She’s soft under his touch but he can feel the bone in a way that doesn’t feel normal.
“Good,” she breathes, a breathy little sigh. “Cause I’m really comfy.”
“Glad I make a good pillow,” he teases, doing his level best to keep his voice steady and his tone light. His arm is falling asleep but he’s rather die than tell her that.
“You do,” she mumbles, lips so close to his neck she nearly brushes them against his skin.
It’s just — ya know? Shit.
Before he can think too much about it, he turns over to fully face her, his free arm wrapping around her. She hums and wriggles closer, tightening her grip on him like she wants to be here with him.
“You’re a good cuddler,” she tells him softly, making him chuckle under his breath.
“Not a whole lot of experience so I’m glad to hear it.”
“Me either,” she says. “I’ve never snuggled with someone like this. It’s really nice.”
She thinks he’s snuggly. The scary mean metal head, the supposed satanic cult leader, the town drug dealer is snuggly to the head cheerleader.
And alright, yeah, he’s all goddamn soft for this girl anyway, wouldn’t be able to say a mean thing about her with a gun to his head, and maybe she even knows that, maybe she feels safer with him than she did with the leader of the jocks, and if that doesn’t just make him feel fifteen feet tall…
He almost asks her about Jason again, surprised they never hunkered down in a bed together when they were dating, but frankly Carver is the last thing he wants to talk about or think about right now, so he keeps his mouth shut.
It’s really nice to be held by Chrissy. He doesn’t get touched a lot, not like this. Wayne claps him on the shoulder when he heads out for work and sometimes Henderson will get too excited and fling himself at Eddie in a fast hug, but mostly no one touches him at all.
Her little hand is moving up and down Eddie’s spine and it reminds him of being a kid before his mom left. It almost makes him want to cry, actually, which feels like one of the worst things he can do right now.
“D’you wanna get breakfast?” Eddie offers, letting his fingers play with the tips of her hair between her shoulder blades.
She hesitates and he wants to kick himself. Of course she doesn’t want to go to a diner with him on the first Saturday of spring break after a big game. The jocks and the medium-popular kids will be out in force, big groups of them crammed into diners stuffing their faces to ease their hangovers.
But when she speaks it’s with a shaky breath. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. But could you take me home first? I’d like to wear pants if we’re going in public.”
He laughs again and nods against the top of her head. They slowly untangle themselves and Eddie wonders what will happen now, how awkward things will be, and he makes sure to pull on his jeans before he flicks the light on. She blinks rapidly, hair mussed with a line from his pillow case embedded on her cheek, and she’s practically otherworldly to him.
He thinks it must be in his head when he catches her staring at the tattoos on his chest, head a little tilted with her mouth slightly open. She can’t possibly be looking at him like that. She’s just tired, and spaced out.
They get ready quietly and head out to his van, the sun bright and unwelcome as she squints in the front seat.
He pulls out some cheap aviators from the side of the door and hands them to her. She takes his offering with a polite little thanks Eddie and puts them on. They’re way too big on her face and it’s so cute he wants to bite her cheek, for some reason, and thank god he doesn’t because she’d probably leap out of his moving car.
She directs him to her house and declines his offer to have him park down the street. Instead she takes a steeling breath and squares her shoulders, hopping down from the van and dashing up to her house looking like a nervous rabbit.
He drums the steering wheel, waiting for her to come back out. She said she’d be just a minute and the minutes start to tick by, one song turning into another.
Chrissy comes flying out, a woman he assumes to be her mom trailing after her. Her mom is yelling, but Chrissy doesn’t respond. She flings the door open and hops in, slamming it behind her.
“Let’s go.”
She’s in light jeans and a really soft looking orange sweater, her hair still down. She’s more casual than he’s ever seen her at school and he thinks it suits her.
“I assume the shrieking banshee is your mom?” he asks as the van rumbles away. She groans with a hand over her face.
“Yes. My mom is…really difficult. She didn’t believe me about Jason since he’s such a nice boy. She accused me of being on drugs!”
Eddie snorts. “In fairness you are hanging out with a drug dealer.”
Chrissy frowns and stares at him, which is definitely more unsettling than he expects.
“You’re more than that.”
He tries to ignore the stutter of his heart and smiles at her instead. “Right. I’m also your friendly neighborhood cult leader.”
That gets her laughing again, that serious tension in her brow loosening.
“Start the witch hunt.”
He pulls up to Greta’s, the little diner on Main Street, and hustles around the front of the van to open Chrissy’s door for her. She laughs and lets him help her out of the car, sneakers smacking the pavement loudly as she lands.
“First rule of satanism,” Eddie tells her in a low voice near her ear as she walks in front of him to the door. “Chivalry ain’t dead.”
He opens the door for her, again, and follows her inside. The bored hostess, smacking her gum, doesn’t look twice at them, just tosses some menus on a nearby booth and goes back to her stand.
Eddie was right. The place is packed with Hawkins High students, and it doesn’t take long to realize that Chrissy’s friends — former friends — are among them.
“Did you hear what happened? Jason dumped Chrissy because he caught her cheating with the Freak.”
Eddie grimaces with his whole body. “We can go, if you want.”
Chrissy looks him dead in the eye. “Absolutely not. I’m not letting them win. I don’t care what they say about me. I’m just sorry you’re getting dragged into my mess.”
Eddie scoffs. “Chrissy. This is literally the nicest rumor anyone has ever spread about me. Your rep is in danger, but mine just skyrocketed.”
Chrissy shakes her head and thanks their waitress for pouring them coffee before turning back to him. “He’s putting a target on your back.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve had a target on my damn forehead since I was twelve. I’m good. Promise.”
She looks down at her menu and worries her lip between her teeth. It’s incredibly distracting, so Eddie gives up on his menu in favor of dumping as much sugar as possible into his coffee.
When their waitress comes back, he orders what he always does — a stack of pancakes with eggs and bacon — and Chrissy orders scrambled egg whites with a side of hash browns.
“I haven’t had hash browns in years,” she confesses, like she’s doing something naughty by ordering fried potatoes. “I can’t wait!”
It is simultaneously the cutest and saddest thing he’s ever seen in his life. He thinks of how bony her hip felt and tries not to frown at her.
“You’re missing out, Cunningham. Stick with me and there’ll be more where that came from.”
The door to the diner slams open and a raucous group of basketball players floods in. Eddie spots Sinclair among them, who catches his eyes with a panicked glance.
Leading the pack, as always, is Jason Carver. He locks cold blue eyes on Chrissy immediately and straightens up, trying to make himself look as big as possible.
“Well,” Jason says with a cool smile, approaching their table and standing right in front of it. “I’m surprised you’re not embarrassed to be having breakfast on your walk of shame, Chris.”
Chrissy glares at him, hands flat on the table. “You know that’s not true.”
Eddie, desperate to take the heat off of her, smiles. “Plus, ya know, wouldn’t really be a walk of shame if I’m buying her breakfast. Don’t worry, someone will explain it to you when you’re older, big guy.”
Jason scowls at him. “Stay out of this, freak.”
“Just leave us alone, Jason,” Chrissy tells him, voice low and angry. “I have nothing to say to you.”
Jason puts his fists on the table, leaning over them to speak close to Chrissy’s face. She flinches away from him and hot anger kicks up in Eddie’s gut.
“I knew you had a thing for the Freak. How long have you been hooking up behind my back?”
While he’d certainly love to explore why Jason apparently thinks Chrissy is interested in him, Eddie’s had enough. He slides himself out of the booth and stands next to Jason, arms crossed.
“Frankly I’m impressed with the amount of delusion it takes to fall for a rumor you started,” Eddie drawls, “but you’re also boring me, so — get out of here, Carver.”
Carver straightens up to face him, still shorter as Eddie looks down at him. “Or what, Munson?”
Eddie raises his eyebrows. “I am looking for my next human sacrifice but I’d also settle for kicking your ass.”
He knows Jason won’t do anything, especially not here. It’s too public, and while Carver is perfectly happy to be an arrogant ass in front of the masses he saves his violent side for empty hallways and backyards at parties. Besides, Jason is scared of him, just like he’d told Dustin last night. Guys like Carver know better than to get in a fight with the trailer park dwelling drug dealer.
Eddie’s dad, for all of his flaws, of which there were many, had started teaching him how to fight right around the time he taught him how to pick a lock and hot wire a car. Randy Munson was like Eddie, back then, not the biggest guy but lanky muscle, and he’d imparted Eddie with a little knowledge.
“Every fight comes down to who wants it more.”
And Eddie wants, all the time. He’s full of want and need and also anger because his mom walked out and his dad’s in jail and he’s on his third go at graduating high school.
Jason Carver has never been told no in his life, never been the underdog, never wanted anything bad enough to fight tooth and nail for it.
So if Carver wants to fight him, especially over Chrissy, warm sweet soft gentle Chrissy — Eddie’s gonna want it a hell of a lot more than Carver can prepare for.
“Whatever, freak,” Jason says through gritted teeth. He slams his shoulder into Eddie’s as he walks away and Eddie sits back down, looking at Chrissy with concern.
“You okay?”
She nods, a little glassy eyed but also pink-cheeked. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
She’s looking at him funny but he shakes it off and is saved by the waitress dropping their food. Chrissy practically vibrates with excitement in her seat as she stares at the hash browns.
“Whatcha waiting for?” he asks. “Dig in, Princess.”
She takes a small bite and her eyes roll back, head tilting as she makes a little noise of happiness. Now that’s an image he’s gonna burn in his brain.
“Wow, oh my gosh.”
He can’t help but grin at her. Despite the tense confrontation with Jason she looks relaxed again, a healthy color in her cheeks as she carefully tucks in to the hashbrowns. He wants to tease her – it’s seriously like watching someone who’s never been to a standard American diner eat for the first time – but he gets the feeling there might be more to the story here, so he settles on taking a sip of his coffee and enjoying how content she is.
“Glad you like it,” he tells her, before trying his absolute hardest not to eat like an animal in front of her. Normally the speed with which he eats is legendary – Wayne has told him more than once he could probably win some sort of contest. He’s never sat down for a meal with a girl by himself before and he’s extra self-aware as he starts eating.
“My mom is gonna kill me,” Chrissy says, pointing her fork at him, “but honestly? Totally worth it.”
He frowns around a bite of pancakes, reminds himself to swallow before speaking. Ya know, like a gentleman.
“She’s gonna kill you for what? Being out with me?”
Chrissy crinkles her nose and shakes her head. “Well, actually. Maybe. But I meant because of the hashbrowns.”
He clears his throat and tries to sound casual. “What’s her deal, anyway?”
“She wants me to be perfect, and that means being very careful about what I eat.”
Eddie scoffs. “Please, you’re like 80 pounds soaking wet.”
“According to her, I’m only this way because of her. And it’s still not good enough.”
He instinctively reaches across the table to touch her hand, in public, and tries to draw back once he realizes what he’s done. Chrissy flips her hand over and snatches his, though, a challenge in her eyes.
“You’re like, the prettiest girl in Hawkins, Chrissy.”
When she looks like she’s going to protest, he continues.
“I’m serious. And even if you were heavier, that wouldn’t change.”
He watches her swallow, hard, and sees her eyes dart toward his lips. He had to have imagined that. Maybe he has syrup stuck to his face. It would not be the first time.
“I – I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Just take the compliment,” he grins, giving her hand a little squeeze and letting go. “Trust me, I don’t say stuff I don’t mean.”
“Huh,” she muses. “That’s – well, that seems true.”
“Mhm. Ergo, you can probably trust that I really mean it when I compliment you.”
She smiles, kind of cautious but kind of bright, and nods. “Okay. Yeah. Thank you, then.”
“Sure thing,” he shrugs. “Ya know, Cunningham, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Her smile turns into something blinding then, and for the first time he understands the phrase megawatt smile . He almost has to look away from her, she’s so pretty and bright.
Instead, he returns it, and he forgets all about the Hawkins basketball team eying them from across the restaurant