#eddisy fic

[a-babe-without-a-name]

Sister Lovers, Water Brothers

Chapter Two: Crime Scenes and Chicken Parm

Masterlist

Steve wasn't happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader's van to see what he's getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it's a good thing he's so paranoid because it might just save her life.

Or, the one where Chrissy doesn't die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson

Read on A03

Eddie never in a million years thought he’d step foot into Steve “The Hair” Harrington’s house. Yet here he was, leaning against the counter in the house half of Hawkins' High had partied in not that long ago, feeling wildly out of place. He stared down at the glass of water in his hand, swirling it around in the cup. After they arrived, Steve and Robin had played host to the odd pair. Steve insisted his house had enough rooms for both Eddie and Chrissy to have their own, but Chrissy seemed anxious enough at the idea of being secluded that Robin had quickly jumped in, offering the couches in Steve’s living room as an alternative. Robin then whisked Chrissy away to get her into clothes that weren’t her cheer uniform, leaving Eddie and Steve standing awkwardly in the kitchen. In any other situation, Eddie would have just left. But this wasn’t a normal situation. 

When Steve went upstairs to get bedding for the living room, Eddie finally relaxed for a moment, alone for the first time in hours. Part of him wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t some hyper-realistic drug-induced dream, or maybe a very elaborate prank being pulled on him by people he barely knew. But weirdly enough the logical part of his brain knew this wasn’t a fantasy. This was real life. He had felt it in the way Chrissy shuttered thinking about what she went through. 

Eddie was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard Robin and Chrissy come back downstairs. They didn’t notice him standing in the kitchen. He watched for a moment. He had never seen Robin be outwardly kind at school.

“Hey, if you need anything I’m right upstairs, okay?” Robin said, placing a hand on Chrissy’s arm.

“Thank you,” Chrissy responded, fidgeting with her own hands, “for being so nice about this, I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime,” Robin shrugged, almost laughing, “Weird shit is kind of our specialty. You're literally probably in the best hands with me and Steve.”

“That’s reassuring,” Chrissy actually laughed this time, not with the same carelessness as she had earlier when they met up in the woods, but she seemed to be a little less tense.

“I’m glad you think so,” Robin smiled, “I’m gonna head up to get ready for bed, if you or Eddie need anything, really, just yell.”

“Thank you,” Chrissy glanced towards the back yard, “I think I’m gonna go sit outside for a minute actually, try to get some air, you think that’s okay?”

“Oh yeah, of course.” Robin walked towards the sliding back door, hitting a switch that Eddie could just barely see turn on the pool lights.

“Thanks,” Chrissy slid open the door stepping outside as Robin turned to leave.

“Goodnight Chrissy, see you in the morning,” Robin said, more like a promise than a good night.

Eddie watched Chrissy and Robin leave the living room in different directions. He dumped out the water in his glass, leaving it upside down in the sink. He walked out into the middle of the living room, as Chrissy walked towards the pool and then took a seat on the edge of a deck chair.

Steve returned, arms piled with pillows, sheets, and blankets that he threw onto one of the couches with a huff. Then, noticing Eddie’s attention was elsewhere he followed his eyes to where Chrissy was sitting out next to the pool. Seeing her there made him flinch, but she wasn’t too near the water and at least the outside lights were on.

“Don’t… leave her out there, yeah?” he asked Eddie, still watching Chrissy, reminding himself she was alright.

“Sure, man,” Eddie scoffed, and started rifling through the bedding that Steve brought down, only to be interrupted but Steve’s handing him one side of a sheet. Unspeaking, they stretched it out over one of the couches, then Eddie copied Steve’s movements as he tucked it around the cushions.

“I’m sorry,” he said genuinely, if tired. “I’m not trying to boss you around, I just- the world is ending again, and I really, really don’t want to see anyone die.”

“Nothing is going to get her in your backyard,” Eddie tried to brush off his concern.

“That’s where Barbra Holland died,” he replied quickly, knowing there was no kind way to say it. “Sitting by my pool. Where I left her, so yeah, something could get her in my backyard.” Steve could hear Robin calling him bitchy, but he felt it was warranted.

“Fuck man,” Eddie breathed, trying not to let out a nervous laugh. “That's heavy. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Steve shook it off, doing up the second smaller couch on his own. “You didn’t know… but now- I mean, yeah, I was still being a bit of a jerk, but now you get why I’m a bit of a freak about this- the kids being safe.”

“Yeah,” Eddie laughed, “I guess I do.” Their eyes met, and they shared a weak smile in the brevity of the moment amongst the weight of the night. They fell into a brief silence, neither sure of what to do.

“Here,” Steve thrust something into Eddie's hands, “thought you might not want to sleep in chainy jeans.”

“Chainy?” Eddie giggled under his breath but accepted the neatly folded sweatpants. Steve hardly seemed to notice.

“And just ask if you need anything else, you know… I really am sorry, I’m trying not to be a jerk.”

“Nah,” Eddie shrugged, “Just used to herding your sheep.” Steve opened his mouth to say something back but was cut off by Robin hollering down the stairs.

“Steven! We’ve got a big day tomorrow and it is past my bedtime!”

They both laughed at her, hands clasped over their mouths to stifle the sound.

“Guess I should probably go,” Steve said with a final glance outside towards Chrissy.

“Don’t worry, I got her,” Eddie told him with a pat on the shoulder that landed a bit more awkwardly than they both would have liked. “Go get your girl.” Steve cringed at the implication of Robin being his girl, but let it slide,

“Good night, man.”

“Good night.”

Eddie slid open the back door, hoping it made enough noise not to startle her. A surge of panic passed through him when Chrissy didn’t react to the sound, worried she was having another episode.

“Chrissy?” he called, taking a few nervous steps down the stairs.

“Yeah?” she turned over her shoulder, looking up at him in the doorway.

“Hey, fuck ,” Eddie breathed out, relaxing his shoulders, “Sorry I thought we were losing you again.”

“Oh,” Chrissy scoffed, “Yeah, I’m still here, I think.”

“Good,” Eddie fidgeted, suddenly feeling nervous for non-supernatural reasons, “Mind if I join you?”

“Please do,” Chrissy said, “It’s kinda creepy out here alone.”

Eddie took a seat on the edge of the chair next to Chrissy, watching her face as she stared into the pool. The pool lights cast her face in a soft blue glow, the reflections creating gentle movements.

“How’re ya feeling?” Eddie asked, worried about upsetting her, but wanting to check in.

“I’m okay,” Chrissy chewed on her bottom lip, trying to think of the right thigh to say, “I feel better not being alone, but… yeah.”

She trailed off, glancing up at Eddie and then looking away towards the woods. Feeling that there was more she wanted to say, Eddie egged her on.

“Hey, we’ve only really known each other, like, a day,” Eddie offered, “but you can talk to me if you need…want to. About anything.”

“That’s sweet,” She spared a small smile his way, “It’s just that, I can’t tell what's real.”

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked. He thought he understood what she was saying; with all this weird shit going on he too was having a hard time knowing what was actually true, but he also felt like there was something more to what she was saying.

“I mean, when I was…having an episode? It started like everything was normal, I was still in your van, we were driving to your place.” Chrissy explained, “It was… so normal. And then it wasn’t and I’m just so scared that at any second everything that feels normal now is going to turn out to be that again.”

Eddie could tell how scared she was, He wished he could make it stop. No one deserved to be that frightened, especially not her.

“Hey,” He said softly, reaching a hand across the space between them, and waiting. Luckily Chrissy reached back, placing her hand in his. “I know it might be hard to trust this and I wish there was a better way for me to prove it, but I promise you this is real.”

“Thank you, Eddie,” Chrissy held on tight to his hand, she could feel the cool metal of his rings against her skin, “Really, you shouldn’t have to deal with all of this, with me.”

“Are you kidding me?” Eddie asked, not letting go of her, “I get to say that I saved Miss Chrissy Cunningham from a demon or an alien or something? Really I should be thanking you for providing me with the coolest backstory known to man...”

For a moment, Eddie was worried she wouldn’t find him funny, but she laughed, “I’m grateful to have been saved by you.” 

Eddie held onto her hand for a moment, he could feel the tension fall away from her, to a degree, and was grateful she was beginning to relax again.

“Hey,” Eddie said, suddenly remembering the original intentions of them meeting up after the game, “I know you were hoping for something stronger, but would you settle for some nicotine in place of the ketamine?” 

“Oh, uh, I’ve never smoked before. Not even a cigarette.” Chrissy admitted, taking her hand back and fidgeting.

“Really? You really were skipping over all the gateway drugs, huh.” Eddie laughed, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and his lighter.

Chrissy watched as Eddie placed a cigarette between his lips, the lighter glowing against his face as he pulled the flame in.  She couldn’t help but notice the way his dark lashes almost touched his cheek while he looked down at the cigarette in his mouth. Boys always had better eyelashes. He caught her, his eyes flickering over to hers as she watched him. He smiled around the cigarette between his teeth and took a puff before holding it out for her. She stared at the burning cherry, hesitant.

“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to,” Eddie said, still holding it out to her. 

Chrissy thought for a moment. Earlier today she had been prepared to do ketamine; in comparison a few hits of a cigarette was child's play. She took it from him, bringing it up to her lips and looking at him for approval.

“It’ll be hot and you might cough,” Eddie warned, “But just go slow and you’ll be fine. I promise.”

Chrissy nodded, feeling the pressure of doing this right grow. It had been a long time since she had actually cared about looking dumb in front of a boy. She kicked herself for thinking like that; she had a boyfriend, she shouldn’t be worried about looking good in front of anyone else.

She raised the cigarette to her lips, looking over at him one more time before taking a drag. She watched as the cherry flared a deep orange when she breathed in. It tasted better than she expected, rich and earthy, but it was also hotter than she was prepared for. It instantly stung the back of her throat, making her cough.

“Woah, easy,” Eddie said, putting a hand on her back as she coughed into her hand, holding the cigarette out away from her, “Just breath,” She took a deep breath, trying to clear the feeling. “Hey, that wasn’t that bad! I almost threw up the first time I had a cigarette.”

“Ew,” Chrissy laughed, letting out little teary eyed coughs, “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, I mean, I had the excuse of being 14,” Eddie shrugged laughing and taking the cigarette back from her and taking a drag, “I definitely got better at it.”

“14? That’s so young,”

“Yeah, that was what? 5 years ago?” Eddie mused, taking another drag, “Feels like forever ago. Probably shouldn’t have been left unsupervised back then.”

“You're still alive, right?” Chrissy offered, “things could have ended up worse.”

“Well, aren't you a glass half full kind of gal.” Eddie punctuated his words by tapping her on the knee, and then, “Here Little Miss Sunshine, want to try again.”

“Sure,” She took the cigarette back, feeling a little more confident. She held the cigarette and took a short but heavy drag, letting the smoke enter her lungs and doing the best to keep her composure.

“There ya go, good girl!” Eddie congratulated, his words taking Chrissy off guard. She hid her shock with a cough, smoke spilling past her lips and out her nose, “Feel better yet?”

“Mhm,” Chrissy nodded, watching as he got up and moved to the edge of the pool, hopping around like had earlier today at school, “Thank you, for caring enough to make me feel better, I mean.”

“Anytime sunshine,” Eddie watched Chrissy react to the pet name, turned around to hide the smirk on his face as he stalked around the pool, “Anytime.”

“Of all the Hawkins kids I could have ended up in this situation with,” Chrissy took another short drag, “I’m actually really glad it’s you.”

Eddie paused, taken off guard by the weird but genuinely very sweet compliment, “I feel the same way.”

He reached the end of the pool, looking down at the deck end of the diving board and then back up at Chrissy with a raised eyebrow.

“Eddie don’t .” She warned, unable to keep a wide smile from spreading across her face.

He slowly lifted a foot, tilting his head at her as he took a teasing step up onto the board.

“Eddie,” Chrissy gasped, “What if you fall?!”

“Me? Fall?” He asked with exaggerated cockiness, taking confident steps down the board, the end beginning to dip as he got closer,“No way, I’m practically a cat.”

On queue, Eddie began to lose his balance, flailing his arms and rushing back towards stability. Chrissy gasped, standing up and throwing a hand over her mouth, nearly dropping the cigarette. 

Back on the cement deck of the pool Eddie stared at Chrissy for a moment, cheeks red. Chrissy couldn’t help the giggle that spilled past her lips, then the full on laughing just moments later. Eddie joined her, laughing heavy as he walked back over to her. 

“Yeah, very cat-like,” Chrissy said as their laughter died down, both now standing next to each other next to the glowing pool. The urge to jump in and take Eddie with her was gnawing at her shoulders. Another night, she told herself. 

“Hey, cat’s aren't perfect.” Eddie shrugged, looking down at her, unable to take his eyes away from the soft lines of her face.  A pretty hand, the one not holding the cigarette, came up to her mouth as she yawned, “Ready for bed?”

“Definitely,” She said at the end of the yawn, and then lifted her other hand, holding the quarter of the cigarette that was left up towards Eddie, “Want the rest?”

“Oh, sure,” He hesitated and then instead of taking the cigarette from her, leaned down to where she was holding it up to him. Looking at her, he placed the end of it in his mouth, her thin fingers nearly touching his lips as he took a long drag. He pulled back, gently taking the cigarette with him before blowing the smoke out of his nose. He pretended not to notice the way she paused and looked at him. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pushed into the ashtray on the table. 

“Uh, it’s…it’s late, we should get some sleep,” Chrissy said, trying to sound casual.

Eddie nodded, turning towards the house. He resisted the urge to grab Chrissy’s hand as they walked inside.

**

From Steve’s bedroom window, he and Robin can see the two newest members of their highly exclusive club sitting beside the pool. This is not how he intended for any of this to have gone.

Honestly he didn’t know what he thought would come of throwing himself into the back of Eddie’s van, interrupting what was apparently a drug deal. Which, maybe that’s what he expected given Eddie's reputation, but it didn’t really matter. All he could think about now was the way Chrissy had clung to him, the fear in her eyes as she fell out of her nightmare, but also the waver in her voice as she’d talked to Steve. He knew she hadn’t wanted him there, but she'd been paranoid enough and he’d scared her further. He had shoved his way into her and Eddie’s space where she, evidently, felt comfortable. Down next to the pool they sat together on a lounge chair, calmly, then Eddie searched for something in his jacket.

“Talk to me, dingus,” Robin called, spread out like a starfish on Steve’s bed. Her eyes were closed but he didn’t doubt she was giving her full attention. Steve let out a sigh and fell onto his bed beside her, feet dangling off the side.

“It’s happening again,” he said it, even as he couldn’t believe it, “and this time instead of gaining a Robin, I’ve got The Freak, who hates my guts at the moment, and Hawkins High royalty, who- oh thats right- also hates my guts!” He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I did that thing again, where I don’t ask and just help when I’m not wanted,” he admitted.

“Well it worked in your favor this time,” Robin scoffed, “or at least in Chrissy’s.” Steve shook his head, 

“I don’t think I did anything to save her.” 

“Well you at least knew what was going on,” she reasoned. “Plus, they don’t hate your guts, well Eddie might, but not your guts. He hates your reputation’s guts. Sure, you’re overly protective and pushy, but you make up for it in other ways.”

“Like how?” He asked, disbelieving.

“Well, you’re a total push over, for one.”

“Wow, thanks,” he said flatly.

“No really,” she insisted, “and sometimes you cook.”

“So you’re saying my best qualities are my willingness to drive you and brats around and cook you meals?” He rolled over to look at Robin, face resting in his elbow, and she mirrored him to answer,

“Sorry, I don’t feel like getting all sappy right now but yes, those are some of the things I like about you,” she rolled her eyes but watched as his attention drifted back to the open window and the pool lights shining up at them. “Why do you care so much what they think of you?”

“I don’t really, it’s mostly… I think they like each other,” He frowned, unsure of why the thought bothered him so much, “I mean it makes sense, Chrissy is… perfect, and Eddie’s got that whole,” he waggled his fingers in Robin's face, “edgy guy in a band thing going on. They’ve got opposites attracting going for them, so maybe I’m just jealous that they make sense, and they're like… falling for each other as we watch.” They both sat up, Robin pulling a pillow to her chest and clutching it as they looked out the window together. As if trying to prove Steve’s point, Eddie placed a comforting hand on her back and let it rest there as they continued to take turns pulling drags from the same cigarette.

“How was your date with… what’s her name, Lin-”

“Brenda,” Steve sighed, “It was fine I guess. Honestly, I cared more about the game, plus she’s not looking for anything serious, mostly interested in seeing what Steve Harrington has gotten up to since graduating.”

“So you’re jealous because last time it was you saving Nancy, but now-”

“It’s not about Nancy,” he insisted, a little too harshly. Nancy was still a sore spot, and he could only deny having feelings for her so much. “It’s about… how easy it looks, but here I am going on date after date with nothing to show for it, and after one failed drug deal, Eddie Munson, of all people, has a girl laughing like her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes an hour ago.”

“If only we could… combine,” Robin said, still watching out the window.

“Combine?” Steve repeated, finally pulling his gaze away, and turning back to Robin.

“Yeah, I’ve found the girl of my dreams, but can’t find the courage to ask her out, while you go on a million dates just looking for anyone!” She threw up her arms in frustration.

“Not anyone,” Steve grumbled.

“No not anyone,” Robin corrected, “but someone worth your time.”

They trailed off into comfortable quiet, and when Robin’s eyes began to drift Steve ushered her into the bathroom to get ready for bed. 

After they’ve both brushed their teeth they settle under the covers back to back, as they tend to whenever they can convince Robin’s parents to let her stay over at her friend Melissa’s (Stevie seemed to obvious for how often he picked her up, or was forced to stay for dinner, but Melissa would have been his name had he been born a girl). It was usually easier to sleep with Robin close to him, but that night he tossed and turned unable to keep his eyes closed. His restless night typically started after he had woken from a nightmare, but it wasn’t visions of  monstrous mouths, or fleshy mall destroying monsters that kept him up.

“Hey, Robin?” He whispered, “You awake?”

“Yeah,” she groaned.

“Isn’t Eddie… gay? I mean, that’s what people say right?” he asked, unsure of the words even as he said them.

“Steven,” she warned, sounding more awake, “you know better than to assume-”

“No, I know, I just- it would be cool for you to have a gay friend, right?” he said, almost too quickly for her to understand, “but he’s got a thing for Chrissy anyway, so never mind.” He pushed himself back against his pillow, pointedly, and pretended to be drifting off to sleep.

“Woah, that was a lot, but yeah maybe it would,” she shrugged, “as for the Chrissy thing, people can like both, but still you shouldn’t-”

“Assume,” he finished for her, his eyes now wide open but gazing distantly. “Or even guess, I know. I won’t.”

“Good,” Robin said into her pillow before leaving Steve alone in the world of the waking, as her words played over and over in his head.

People can like both.

*

The morning after the game, Max woke up gasping for air, holding back a scream as the image of Billy faded from her mind. The horrible images were quickly replaced with a pulsing headache that forced her from her room in search of Advil. She shoved them in her mouth, followed it with a handful of water, and hoped they might buy her another hour of sleep.

Those hopes were dashed when the sound of police sirens whooped outside of her house, growing closer. Human curiosity getting the best of her, Max made her way to the front door. Stepping out onto the porch, she watched as three police cruisers and an unmarked car speed their way down the gravel road of the trailer park, all skidding to a stop in front of Eddie Munson’s trailer. His uncle was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette.

“Looks like that Munson boy’s up to no good again,” Her mother’s voice made Max jump, not expecting her to come out behind her.

Without saying anything Max stepped off the porch, walking across the gravel road and towards the scene in front of her. Cops were pulling yellow rolls of barrier tape from the trunks of their cruisers, officials already rushing about as Chief Powell spoke to Eddie’s Uncle.

Max continued creeping closer, watching as Powell and Officer Callahan walked towards the hitch end of the trailer. When she couldn’t get any closer, she craned her neck to see around the cars and people. What she saw made her sick.

It was what used to be a person, a girl from what she could tell. But she was… crumpled. Her limbs were lying at odd angles in the grass, broken in unnatural places as well as at the joints. She looked the way a dead spider did, dried and caved in on herself. With horror, Max realized it was Anne Carver. Max recognized the windbreaker she was wearing, she had seen her in it last night. Anne was only a sophomore, only a year older than Max, and Jason’s Carver’s little sister. Max had never seen her even breath in the direction of the trailer park, but last night while feeding her neighbor's neglected mutt Max saw her here. She was getting out of a car with a boy around their age Max had never seen before. He had been wearing what she had learned by proxy was the opposing team's colors. Anne was giggling with him, hanging off his arm as he smoked a cigarette before they went in. 

Max tried to piece together some understanding of what had happened, there was no way that boy killed Anne. Anne was tall for her age, almost the same height as the boy she was with, and Max was sure she remembered him to be a twig of a boy, scrawnier than Wheeler. There was no way he had the physical strength to do this to her, not alone at least. And even then, a group would have a hard time committing something this awful without anyone noticing until the next morning. Max couldn’t help but connect the strangeness of the body with the way the lights had flickered violently through the park last night. She had tried to convince herself it was shitty infrastructure and nothing else, but she was having a hard time sticking to that sentiment now.

Before Max could take another step forward, an officer landed a heavy hand on her shoulder. Making her jump as he turned her around, demanding she go back inside. With another quick glance back, Max ran across the road to her mother. The idea of getting any more sleep this morning was lost from her mind.

*

Dustin was sitting next to his mother, taking in yet another death. It never seemed to end, the death that filled Hawkins. Though it was still tragic, he couldn’t help but be relieved that this time he hadn’t seen it and wouldn’t have to take on any more grief.

That’s what he was hoping for, at least. Then Max showed up at his doorstep after barely acknowledging him and the party at school for weeks. She hadn’t been looking herself recently. Her clothes had all somehow turned to drab, muted shades, and even when Dustin managed to talk to her, she usually kept her headphones on and ignored half of what he said.

Now she was here, heavily breathing from the bike ride over and looking frightened in a way that could only mean one thing. 

Max confirmed as much with her story about the lights, and the body she shuddered to even think about. Given the confirmed murder and with the rest of the party MIA, Dustin knew he didn’t want to deal with this alone- he needed to get to Steve.

They couldn’t speak over the whirring of their tires or their labored breaths, but Max and Dustin kept careful watch over each other. As they both frantically pedaled across town, Dustin tried to stop from thinking of the demon dogs chasing them down in the junkyard, or the demogorgons following them through the school. At least the adrenalin made him pedal faster.

The sign for the arcade was in sight, and Dustin couldn’t help the childish thought that told him Steve and Robin would be taking over soon, that they would make it alright. He knew he was older now, had dealt with this plenty before but he was barely managing to keep his friend group together. With Max drifting from them in her grief, and Lucas now ditching out on Hellfire, it felt almost good that he could still rely on them in crisis.

Just as Family video came into view, Steve’s voice crackled through the Walkie in the side pocket of Dustin's back-pack,

“Henderson, we’ve got a code red.” The buzz cut off as Steve waited for a response. “Can you hear me? Code Red. we have a code red,” he continued to ramble through the radio as Dustin and Max both slammed on their brakes, swerving to stop themselves from crashing into each other.

“Steve!” Dustin yelled back into the walkie, waiting for a chance to interject between his friend's repetition of “Code red. We have a code red.” Eventually, he got through, “Steve! I know, I’ve got Max with me. We’re almost to Family Video. Over.” Max leaned in closer, awkwardly walking her bike next to Dustin’s so she could better hear Steve.

“Why would you- oh, Rob and I called off, you need to get to my house stat.”

“Okay,” Dustin accepted, mapping the route to Steve’s in his head. “You have a phone, right? We need to find Eddie. And don’t forget to say over. Over.”

“Eddies here?” Steve told him, confused as to how Dustin would know he was involved. “Wait, how did you know it was a code red?”

Dustin lets Steve’s abysmal Walkie-Talkie etiquette slide in the face of Eddie being found.

“You have him!? Is he okay? Over.”

“Why wouldn’t he be okay, Dustin?”

“Steve!” Dustin reprimanded, but Max had grown tired of his screeching and yanked the walkie out of his hand.

“Turn on the news dipshit,” she ordered, “we’ll be there soon.” Then after a pointed look from Dustin she added. “Over and out.”

The walkie clicked off again, and Steve knew it would be futile to try and get them back on the line or explain what the hell they were up to. He knocked his forehead against the walkie a few times before letting it clatter to the kitchen counter.

“Robin!” He called towards the living room, “Turn on the news.”

“What?” She called back.

“Deaf bitch,” Steve groaned to himself, walking out of the kitchen and towards the living room where the others were, “Turn on the news, local probably.”

Robin leaned forward from where she was on the couch, sitting with Chrissy between her and Eddie. Steve couldn't help but notice how close they were to each other, the sleeve on Eddie's right arm was pulled up past his elbow, rolled tight on his bicep. He was showing Chrissy his tattoos. Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Robin grabbed the remote off the table, flicked the TV on, and flipped through the channels until she landed on the local news. 

Steve sat on the arm of the couch next to Robin while the group took in the story on the news. 

“What the fuck…” Eddie trailed off, voicing what both Chrissy and Steve were also feeling.

The reporter was standing almost directly outside of Eddie’s trailer, a crowd of people and police cruisers filling the background behind her.

“We’re at Forest Hills Trailer Park in east Roane County,” The reporter began, addressing the viewers, “We don’t have a lot of details now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning.”

“What?” Chrissy said to herself, almost like she was worried she was a ghost watching her own murder on TV.

“Police have not released the name, though we are told they are currently in the process of notifying the family.”

Eddie looked down at Chrissy next to him, placing a hand on her knee and squeezing. Steve didn’t try to understand the pointed look he gave her.

“That was supposed to be me,” Chrissy said out of the blue, looking down at her hands in horror, “I was supposed to die there, not them.”

“No way,” Robin said, shaking her head in disbelief, “This has to be a coincidence, there’s just no way.”

“How could it be?” Tears started to well in Chrissy’s eyes, guilt heavy in her chest, “This is my fault!”

“Don’t feel bad about surviving, Chrissy,” Steve tried to reassure, “Whoever it was could have died even if you did too, we don’t know.”

“Steve’s right, Chrissy,” Eddie said, pulling her attention to him, “You can’t blame yourself for this.”

“And we’re gonna figure this out as soon as we can,” Steve added, “Don’t ever tell them I said this, but the two of the smartest brats I have ever known are on their way over to help, it’s gonna be okay.”

*

Lucas hated this. If he had known how bad everything would hurt this morning, he would have skipped more than half the drinks he had last night. He was sure that the cold bathroom tiles against his knees were the only thing keeping him alive at the moment. Another heave wracked his body as more alcohol made its way back up.

A knock on the door made him jump as he spit into the toilet.

“You alright in there, Sinclair?” It was Jason on the other side of the bathroom door.

“I’m good,” Lucas grimaced, giving a thumbs up no one else could see.

“First hangover feels like you're gonna split in two, but you’ll live,” Jason advised through the door, trying to catch his breath Lucas was sure he was lying.

Lucas waited another moment more, sitting back on his heels and waiting for himself to gag again. When the danger of nausea seemed to have subsided, he stood, kicking the lever on the toilet to flush it, and went to the sink. Lucas looked at himself in the mirror, he was sweaty and his face hung in a way that made him look older than he was. He bent over, careful to not move so fast that he sent himself back to praying in front of the toilet, and splashed cold water on his face, rubbing it around his eyes, trying to wash away the grime from last night. He snatched a few paper towels from the roll someone had thought to leave in there and dried his face and neck.

Making his way to the kitchen, Lucas grabbed a solo cup from the stack of unused ones to fill with cold water and slowly sipped on it at the sink.

From where Lucas stood at the unused serving window, he could see Jason, Andy, Patrick, and Chance all in front of the TV. The volume was just loud enough for Lucas to hear it from where he was. 

“Hawkins’ student got murdered,” Patrick told Jason.

Lucas slowly made his way out of the kitchen and towards the TV to try and get a better view.

“As you can see behind me, Chief Powell and the Hawkins Police Department are actively investigating the scene,” The familiar news reporter turned and gestured to an even more familiar trailer behind her. Lucas almost dropped his water when he recognized Eddie's home behind her. 

He had only been to Eddie’s place specifically a few times, but back before Max broke up with him he had spent almost all of his time at Forest Hills Trailer Park. He had spent long nights on the outdoor couch in the background of the news broadcast talking to Eddie, mostly about Max. 

Lucas couldn’t help the thoughts racing through his mind. Was it Eddie? He could really only push his luck so far, one of these days his mouth was bound to get him in trouble. But, as awful as it sounded, Lucas didn’t think Eddie’s murder would end up on the news. Most of the town treated him as either a pest or as a dead man already. 

What if it was Max? Lucas stopped himself there. He couldn’t think about that. He’d call her when he got home just to check. She was probably fine, though, he told himself. She was the toughest person he knew, she had to be fine.

The sound of sirens tuned Lucas back into the real world. Patrick was getting on Andy about some joke he made and Jason was walking up to the window, watching the approach of police cruisers.  In a moment of panic, Lucas ran back into the bathroom, deadbolting the lock behind him to wait out whatever was happening.

Lucas felt like he had been hiding in the bathroom forever, but he was glad he did instead of running. Luckily when the door knob to the bathroom had rattled Jason was quick to lie about it being broken and locked up, saving Lucas’s cover. Lucas had stood with his ear to the door as soon as he heard Chief Powell asking Jason to sit. 

Powell began asking Jason about the party last night, lukewarm threats of arrest for trespassing and underage drinking thrown around. This had to be about the murder, there’s no way it wasn’t. Patrick told him that in all the years that they had partied here, not once had the cops shown up.

“What about your girlfriend?” Powell asked, “Did you see her last night?”

“Chrissy?” Jason asked softly, no longer pushing back at their questions. “No.”

Lucas had to push closer against the door to hear as the conversation took on a somber tone.

“That’s odd with her being your girlfriend and all,” the other officer prodded.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” Powell asked calmly.

“After the game,” Jason answered shortly, even as the chief stared at him down, clearly wanting to hear more. “Look, this… this doesn’t have to do with that dead student, does it?” Lucas could hear the shake in Jason’s voice through the door. Powell ignored his question and continued to push,

“What did Chrissy say when you talked to her?” 

“Well- she… she said she was going to go home, get changed, something like that.” Jason stuttered, getting agitated.

“Did she mention anything about buying drugs for the party?” Chief Powell’s tone remained flat, trying to seem unthreatening now, even as he made the accusation.

“Drugs?!” Jason blanched, “No. No way. Chrissy doesn’t mess with that crap.”

“Maybe someone talked her into it,” He suggested, “Maybe your sister was interested, asked her to tag along?”

“No, wait, Anne?” Jason looked between the two officers, fear building in his voice, but neither offered him any information. “What does Anne have to do with this?”

“Do you know of any connection your sister or girlfriend would have to Eddie Munson? Ever seen them talking to him?”

“That freak? No! No way,” Jason spat. At a loss the policemen looked at each other as if deciding to believe him or not. “What- what does Eddie have to do with all this? Did that freak hurt her?” He was desperate now, and shouting, demanding answers even as he dreaded what they could be. “Is my sister all right? Is- is Chrissy- Tell me what he did!”

Lucas could barely breathe. He leaned all his weight against the door to the bathroom, ear pressed close so he could hear the two police officers explain that Annes body had been found in the trailer park. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but there’d been a party and she’d found herself in Forest Hills. For a brief moment he wondered if Max had been there, but quickly assured himself that she wouldn’t have been interested. Still he hoped she was okay, it sounded like it might not be safe where she lived if there was someone killing people running around the trailer park.

Chrissy was missing, they explained to Jason, their words heavy with implications that she might also be dead. Eddie was also missing, but that meant something entirely different to them. They tried to ask Jason if there was anywhere she’d have run to, but he was quickly overwhelmed by an angry confusion and wasn’t even trying to answer their questions any more.

A drug dealer and two missing girls, one already dead? Lucas knew that didn’t look good for his friend.

Jason ran outside, the cops taking the opportunity to make a quick exit, and the rest of the boys could hear his cries of anguish. To Lucas, it sounded like rage, like the roars of monsters he’d seen tear grown men to shreds. 

*

Max and Dustin threw their bikes recklessly on the lawn and sprinted up the steps, where Dustin proceeded to pound on the door. Needlessly waking the whole neighborhood, as Steve almost immediately opened the door, and waved them in.

“Eddie!” Dustin cried happily, despite expecting him to be there, “Thank god you’re alright.” The two briefly hugged, and Eddie ruffled his hair as they pulled apart.

“I’m perfectly fine, pipsqueak,” He teased with an easy smile. “And now I know all your secrets, and am beginning to understand why Steve Harrington feels like he’s your guy's mother.”

“He already told you?” Dustin gasped, “I wanted to get to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, you snooze you lose,” Steve shrugged, locking the door behind Max and sliding the deadbolt into place. “Plus, we need to fill you in on what’s happening now.”

Dustin finally managed to look past Eddie, where Robin was sitting on the couch with Chrissy fucking Cunningham.

“What the hell is she doing here?!” He exclaimed, gesturing toward the cheerleader as if she even managed to rank top ten weirdest things he’d ever seen.

“That’s rude,” Steve said under his breath slapping his hand down the same time that Max shoved past him to introduce herself.

“Ignore the loud mouth, he just doesn’t know how to cool it. I’m Max.” She plopped herself down next to Chrissy and looked to her for explanation. “So they filled you in? What’s happening?”

“Someone… died,” Chrissy started, her eyes darting around the room, never landing on anyone and instead looking off unfocused. “But I think it was supposed to be me. I- I- can’t.” She cut herself off with a choked-off sob and looked to Eddie as she leaned into Robin’s hand rubbing soothingly up and down her arm. “Could you…” Eddie jumped into action, with a literal little hop,

“Yeah, yeah of course,” He assured, doing his best to stop himself from replacing Robin on the couch, pulling Chrissy’s hands into his own. Instead he paced as he recounted the previous night, glancing over at Steve and Chrissy for confirmation whenever he lost the thread. As he finished, he managed to stand in one place, elbowing Steve in the side, “Then Steve here kidnapped us both and forced us to spend the night on his fancy ass couches.”

Max looked around their assembled group, ignoring the way Steve was practically glaring at Eddie, and trying not to antagonize the already upset Chrissy.

“If it’s back again we need to know,” She pushed, “Did you see anything? Dark particles maybe.”

“It would almost look like dust, swirling dust,” Dustin interjected from where he had slumped over in a large lazy boy during Eddie’s tale.

“No, no, man there was nothing you could see or…touch,” Eddie recounted with a haunted look in his eyes before they darted up to Chrissy as if to check she was still there.

“We tried to wake her,” he explained, nodding toward Steve, letting the motion take him further into his space, “but she couldn't move. It was like she was in a trance or something.” Noticing Eddie's distress, Steve’s hand came up to grab lightly at his elbow and rested there when it didn’t get shaken off.

“Or under a spell.” Dustin wondered aloud.

“A curse,” Eddie agreed, the seriousness of his voice growing even as they brought in their nerdy nature.

“Vecna's curse!” the kid confirmed, as if that made sense to anyone else around them.

“Who’s Venca?” Steve asked at the same time Chrissy spat, “I’m cursed?!”

“He’s an undead creature of great power,” Dustin plowed on, unbothered by their questions as he and Eddie pieced together their newest enemy.

“A spell caster,” the DM leaned in closer, a comfortable mindset falling over him as he put words to the indescribable, spoke fantasy into reality. “A dark wizard.”

“Yeah, that's great,” Chrissy cut them off, “Can we circle back to where I’m cursed.”

*

Wayne was trying to gather himself, maybe work his way through a pack of cigarettes, and not worry his head off about his missing boy. It was going alright, minus the not worrying part, until a girl, looking around Eddie's age came up and introduced herself. They were only feet away from the crime scene that had once been his front yard, so he didn’t feel that bad when he told her to take her little notepad and leave him alone.

“Look, let me level with you, Mr. Munson,” Nancy, she had said her name was, continued, taking a seat next to him on the picnic table. “The paper that I write for is... small. We don't have the staff to keep up with the big guys. And I'm just... looking for something, anything really, about what happened last night.” 

“Why?” He scoffed, flicking the ashes off his smoke. “S’far as I can tell, you all have it figured out already. My nephew's a freak.” He spat the word, even though it was a kinder term than Eddie usually had thrown his way. “He killed that girl. Ain't that about right?” 

“Let me guess,” She smiled, trying to seem relatable. “You've been speaking to the Hawkins Post? Chuck Bailey?” Well, she wasn’t wrong about that. He watched her for a moment. She did look quite young, but he knew better than to think that meant she was incapable. Wayne nodded in confirmation. “ Yeah, I used to work with him. I mean, that guy doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Let me tell your side of the story.” 

Maybe she convinced him, maybe Wayne just needed to tell someone who would at least pretend to listen, but he opened his mouth and defended his nephew,

“Eddie, he may look dangerous, but he didn't do this. It just... ain't in his nature. No matter what anyone says, and they will say things, believe you me. But... This... wasn't Eddie,” Wayne thought back to the scene he’d arrived home to, then shut his eyes as if to block it out. It wasn’t something that Eddie could have done. Forget the demons on his shirts and the ear-splitting volume he likes his music, the kid was still just that, a kid.” The man who did this,” He continued, “Who killed that poor girl, he's... pure evil.”

"Man?” Nancy questioned, “You think you know who might've done this?” 

“You ever hear the name Victor Creel?” he asked, and when she shook her head he felt almost bad for feeding her nightmares, but she asked for his opinion. So he told her about the boogieman that had haunted his youth, the one that never really went away, while keeping to himself images of Eddie lost and running with some monster of a man after him.

When the young reporter excused herself, Wayne nodded her off and, though he wouldn’t admit to it, sent a prayer more like a threat up to a God he knew didn’t care if Eddie lived or died. He did. He cared, and maybe that could be enough.

*

At a loss for what to do next, everyone at Steve’s house… floundered. 

 Max and Dustin were posted at the phone calling around to the Wheelers, Byers, and Sinclair's but no one was home, and their parents were getting sick of the ringing. Robin had found a notebook somewhere and had taken to writing down every detail Eddie, Chrissy, and Steve could give her. The three of them were hesitant to go anywhere while they were still unsure of what exactly was after them, or at least Chrissy.

Steve had basically force fed everyone lunch right after the kids arrived, and had thrown himself into putting together something good for dinner. He didn’t know if it was the unreasonable over protective voice in his head again, or if it really made sense, but something told him this could be their last good meal. So there he was, slaving away in his kitchen while Eddie and Chrissy tried to pretend not to cuddle on the couch, and Robin flipped frantically through her notes, rambling at him from her seat on the counter next to his cutting board,

“Max is pretty sure the body was Anne Carver, so we’ve got two Hawkins High seniors who were…cursed or whatever. The only other thing connecting them is Jason and the location, the trailer park. But nothing has ever happened there before?” She ran through the same issue a couple dozen times by now, trying to think of any other angle that might reveal the solution.  Steve was half listening and nodding along as he began dunking the chicken breast in the egg mixture, then rolling it around in the breading. The methodic task calmed him at least a little bit.

“I’m going to talk to Eddie again, maybe he knows more about what this…wizard…Vecna could be,” Robin let out a frustrated sigh and hopped off the counter. “How the hell are you just cooking right now?”

“I need something to do,” he shrugged, “Plus it seems you’ve got the whole investigation thing under control.”

“Yeah, sure, it seems like it,” She scoffed, and moved to leave but he barred the way with his arm, careful to keep from touching her with his hands as they were practically breaded themselves.

“Rob,” he scolded gently, “you’re doing everything you can. You’re doing more than me, but- I mean, everyone is safe right now and that's the most we can ask for.”

“Yeah, okay,” she relented, with a half-hearted smile and a squeeze of his wrist.

Alone in the quiet kitchen, Steve was able to convince himself that it was just a normal night, he was prepping some dinner for the week, that he wasn’t scared. His refuge was interrupted by Chrissy, leaning up on the counter next to him as he washed off his hands. When he shut off the water she asked timidly,

“You need any help?”

“Sure!” he said a bit too eagerly, surprised by her offer, “You want to uh… shred the cheese, I’m just doing chicken parm.”

“Just,” she laughed, picking up the task given to her and getting to work. “There is a magic murderer after us and your first instinct is to put together an entire meal for the… host of people that have invaded your home.”

“Maybe not my first instinct,” he joked, “but yeah, someone has to take care of all of you.” 

Conversation broke off as they set to work, Chrissy pulled the chicken from the oven and began layering the cheese over it, while Steve pulled a huge pot out of the cabinets and set to filling it. 

“I’m sorry, by the way,” he offered up, earning a confused look from Chrissy. “Robin said I should apologize,” he explained, “not that that’s the only reason I’m saying it. I am, sorry I mean. I…scared you and that isn’t at all what I wanted to do, but I’m glad I was there, and that you’re alright.” Chrissy tried not to think of how the previous night could have ended, how Anne’s night had gone but managed to respond casually.

“I am too.” Surprisingly, she found she meant it. “Thanks for having us by the way, for… explaining all of this to us- Eddie and I.” Steve hummed at that but only spoke when Chrissy asked, “What?”

“Just… Eddie and you?”

“I’m- Jason,” she argued, and Steve let it go easily, sliding a cutting board with some broccoli on it in front of her. The two continued in companionable silence, passing ingredients to the other as needed but not feeling the need to speak much.

Eddie roped Max in to help him find the stuff the set the table and the kids took their usual seats across from each other, while Robin took one of the chairs crammed together on the short side of the table. This left Chrissy and Eddie also looking across at each other when Dustin dragged Eddie into the chair next to him.

Everyone was waiting there in their seats when Steve brought out the last dish. Eddie had his fork and knife in hand as if he was about to start banging them on the table, but was restraining himself. Max and Dustin squabbled over the serving spoons, batting each other's hands away trying to get to the food first and Steve couldn't be bothered to stop them as he took his chair at the head of the table alongside Robin.

“Children!” Eddie interrupted, letting his silverware clatter back down on his place mat. The flurry of sound got them to stop bickering for at least a moment so he continued while he had their attention, “Did you forget grace?”

“Screw off,” Dustin deadpanned, used to Eddie's antics, and served himself a scoop of pasta with a wet slap.

“Well, you could at least thank your mother for cooking this delicious meal,” Eddie said with a wave of the broccoli tongs, piling vegetables onto Max and Dustin's plates then after a pointed look from Steve, his own.

Dustin mumbled his thanks under his breath, and just to outdo him Max looked at Steve and clearly said, “Thank you, Steve.” 

Even though she made a joke of it, Steve could tell a part of it was genuine.

“Of course Max, and thank you Chrissy for helping,” Steve returned, slipping into a strange sort of contentedness. For all that lead to this moment he was happy here, with his closest friends and possibly some new ones safe under his roof, and cared for.

They all ate peacefully, for the most part. Of course a couple times Dustin and Max started going at it but Eddie easily got between them and was able to break it up. If Steve was being honest with himself, seeing Eddie with the kids made him a bit jealous. They listened to him easily, whereas Steve telling them to do anything was met with at least a little bitching, if not outright refusal. Dustin loved the guy. He raved about what an amazing dungeon master Eddie was constantly, and he knew so much about all the books the kids loved. What did Steve have?

It didn’t matter, he told himself. He knew the kids cared, and that they trusted him. Steve reached back out for that happy feeling.

Everyone was still enjoying their dinner, pushing impending doom from their mind, and Steve's eyes wandered back to Eddie. Sure he chewed with his mouth half open most of the time, but it was because he couldn’t keep the smirk off his face as he continually added food to the kids' plates, kicked Robin under the table, or shot Chrissy a wink.

He was checking in on everyone, Steve realized. Constantly gauging their mood and redirecting them if they seemed to fall out of the conversation, in a way it was familiar to Steve. He constantly wanted to know the kids were alright. It’s why Robin stayed over whenever she could, and why he’d set up a phone in his room so they could call him anytime. Eddie did it differently, but Steve found himself…admiring the ease with which they accepted his help. Steve had not learned that sort of subtlety, and certainly couldn’t claim to have the sort of charm that radiated off of him. 

When he’d been King Steve that charm had come from a big house, being decent at sports, and a reputation he’d done very little to earn. Eddie on the other hand built his charm from scratch. It came from the constant movement of his hands, highlighted by the chunky rings he apparently never took off, and the way his fingers flew, always grasping or clawing or curling away from some invisible force. Not only did any gesture take his whole body, but his mess of hair added to the chaos, billowing out in an extension of his mood.

Chrissy was enthralled by it. She ignored the scraps left on her plate and leaned towards Eddie. Her hair was back up in a ponytail, giving Steve a chance to take her in unobstructed. She was pretty, he admitted to himself, though it felt confusingly bitter. Her smile was bright and her laughter made the whole room feel lighter. He could see how she’s taken Hawkins High by storm- with her dedication to her sport, naturally good looks, sweet demeanor, and the way she ducked her head down to hide her giggles but looked up through her lashes. It wasn’t fake like the girls Steve let walk their way into his bed. No, Chrissy felt real.

Realizing he had been staring a bit too long, Steve forced his gaze back towards Eddie, recounting some story about a princess. Steve pictured Chrissy as the princess.

Eddie played with his hair a lot, Steve noticed. He pulled it in front of his face when he wanted to hide a taunting smile, shook it out whenever he laughed, and twirled it around his fingers unthinkingly. Steve wanted to run his hands through it.

That made Steve choke on his pasta, and as much as Robin thought slapping his back was helping, it was not.

“Okay, Stevie?” Robin asked as he washed down his shame with some water, hoping they attributed his redness to the choking and not the blush he knew it was.

“Yeah, Stevie,” Eddie smirked at the nickname, “You alright?” He most certainly was not alright.

“Yeah,” He wheezed, shooting Robin a desperate look, “all good.” 

The rest of their meal went by without note, and afterward, Eddie corralled the kids into doing the cleanup. 

Eddie had begun to insist that, since Chrissy helped with the cooking, she didn’t need to do any of the cleaning up. But Max interjected, asking Chrissy to find the Tupperware in Steve's kitchen to store the leftover food. Chrissy agreed, hearing Ms. Kelly’s advice about distracting herself after eating in her head. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she shuffled around Steve’s kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers to find what she needed. 

“You okay?” Eddie asked, asked as he began soaking the plates in the sink, Chrissy looking through the cabinet next to him.

“Oh, yeah, I’m good.” Chrissy nodded trying to reassure him, finally finding the containers, “I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Eddie trailed off, looking at her, not fully convinced, “Let me know if you’re not, yeah?”

Chrissy nodded in agreement as she headed to the other counter where Max brought in the dishes of leftover chicken and pasta. Chrissy carefully arranged the food, taking her time.

“Steve is a good cook, right?” Max said to Chrissy, bring another dish over.

“Yeah,” Chrissy nodded, “I’m surprised he did so much for tonight.”

Max nodded, “Yeah, he cooks when he’s stressed, gives him time to think. Last summer we all came over to swim and I broke my wrist. He blamed himself and spent a whole day making chicken noodle soup from scratch for me.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.” Chrissy snapped the lids onto the containers.

“Yeah, it’s how he shows he cares, I guess.” Max shrugged, “Food seems to be like that for a lot of people, it's its own love language.”

“Hm,” Chrissy thought for a moment, “That’s true, I guess I’ve never thought about that before.”

“Yeah, even the bad stuff, like cauliflower or mushrooms ,” She made a face at the idea of them, “feel worth it to eat when someone else cooks for you.”

“That’s a nice way to think about it,” Chrissy said, realizing that the pointed words from this girl she didn’t know were more than just chatter to fill the silence.

Max leaned in close, lowering her voice so only Chrissy could hear in the large kitchen, “By the way, Munson has been staring you down all night,”

Chrissy glanced over her shoulder, meeting Eddie’s eyes for a moment before he quickly looked away, suddenly very interested in the design of the plate he was drying.

“Seriously?” Dustin grimaced, looking back over his shoulder where the girls were packing away their leftovers. Steve had made too much as usual.

“What?” Eddie feigned ignorance, even as he could feel Chrissy’s gaze boring into the back of his skull.

“You’ve been making eyes at Chrissy Cunningham all day,” Dustin stated, point of fact, “What happened to balls in the laundry basket, down with the popular crowd? I mean Chrissy Cun-”

“Dude,” Eddie hissed, snapping the towel he was using to dry with at the kid, “stop saying her full name like that you freak.”

“You’re the freak,” Dustin snapped back, before drifting into a more somber mood as he scrubbed at the casserole dish. “Do you really think you have a chance? I mean you really are a freak and she's…”

“Okay dude,” Eddie shut him down, “So you get to have a girlfriend who’s hotter than Phoebe Cates and crazy smart but what, the rest of us have to suffer? Shut the fuck up and finish the dishes.” Thankfully, he relented, leaving Eddie to wonder after his own desirability.

He knew that Chrissy was dating Jason, so he’d been avoiding thinking about how every interaction he had with Chrissy was slowly wrapping him around her finger, but of course, Henderson went and messed that up. The thing was the kid wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t what any normal person would consider good boyfriend material, at least not in a town as small as Hawkins. Eddie was a freak, and he liked it that way, but Chrissy didn’t seem entirely put off by his strange nature. He didn’t know if whatever affection she appeared to have for him would stick around once the world went back to normal, or if she really thought about the fact that he was a super senior with no real plans. 

Then there was also the whole, queer thing to contend with. Sure guys thought it was hot when two girls made out at parties, but Eddie didn’t think it went the other way. Plus that was just for show, and he didn’t want his hard earned self accepted off his gayer side to be played off as some joke. Eddie’s identity was a carefully constructed mosaic, and he wasn’t about to put down his bisexuality.

Then he remembered this was all futile. Chrissy was with Jason. It didn’t matter, and yet he found himself hoping she could at least be an accepting friend.

*

When the rest of the group peeled away to clean up, Steve grabbed Robin by the hand and dragged her into his bathroom, doing his best to look normal, and sane, not like everything he’d ever known to be true had been blown to bits by Eddie Munson.

Unlike the star court bathroom, this was a particular safe haven for Steve.

The counters were full of bottles. Some hair products that he had tried and never touched again. Some were completely empty, their labels a reminder for him to buy more, and a majority were part-way used. When Robin had started staying over, she tried to claim some of the counter space for herself, figuring it would be fine to move some of the abundance of bottles under the sink since Steve had cleaned out half his dresser for her, but that had been a mistake. He had simply steered her into the guest bathroom next door and rushed back to put everything where it belonged.

Steve would make room for Robin almost everywhere in his life, but not here. 

This bathroom was where he’d put on that mask of the perfect high school heartthrob, day after day. It had become a sort of ritual somewhere along the way, the intensity with which he looked over his appearance, every hair in place, every muscle trained into a date-winning smile. In recent years the ritual has changed. He still found comfort in his hair, his best feature, but instead of putting on the mask, Robin had slowly talked him into looking through it. ‘Finding himself’ she called it.

Right now he didn’t want to look at the mirror, so he sank to the floor leaning against the cupboards under the sink, and dragged Robin down next to him.

“What’s going on Steve-o? You’re scaring me a little,” She laughed, easily going down next to him.

“I think I’ve found my Steve Harrington,” He said, eyes staring blankly ahead.

“You...” Robin tried to puzzle out his meaning but couldn’t. “What?”

“I think…” he took a deep breath to settle himself, and did his best to speak slowly, knowing he wouldn’t be able to repeat himself. “I found my own Tammy Thompson, and he’s come with his own Steve Harrington.” Robin choked, and tried to read Steve expression, to make sure he was saying what she thought he was saying, but he’d turned away, biting his knuckles between his teeth.

“Steve,” She tried, but he shook his head and let out a cry muffled by his hand, breaking her heart. “Steve, please.” With careful hands, she pulled his hand down, wincing at the red marks already left on his hand, and turned him back to face her. “Steve,” She treaded carefully. “Are you saying-”

“I think Eddie Munson is really pretty,” he started, and if they were clenched around Robins she would have said he was ticking revelations off on his fingers, “I’m sick of dating when none of it’s real, I want someone for real, you said I could like both, and I really want to wash his hair.”

Robin stared at his aghast, trying to process everything. Steve barreled right on, “I mean it’s like the guy goes through all that effort of growing out that hair, but he doesn't take care of it. What the hell's that about? But then I was thinking maybe no one showed him how, and that made me think-”

“Steve,” Robin cut him off, her tone serious but quickly dissolved into giggles. “You’re telling me you never looked twice at a guy, but in the face of 'the freak's' greasy ass hair you decided that what you really wanted- in the middle of the world ending, I might add- was that you want to wash it.”

“Yes,” Steve blurted, then slapped both hands back over his mouth trying to contain the crazed laughter now spilling out of him even as the tears he'd been holding back lingered in the corners of his eyes.

Without a second thought, they both fell into each other, laughing so hard it brought on another wave of tears, and left them clutching their sore stomachs.

“I love you, dingus,” Robin said gently as they helped each other off the floor.

“I know, I know, you too,’ Steve mockingly brushed her off, but still wrapped an arm around her and dropped a kiss on top of her head as they went to get ready for bed.

[hellishchrissy]

Hey could you write a prompt that some guy is trying to hit on Chrissy and she is getting uncomfortable and eddie sees it and steps in.

Thank you!

It wasn't a Friday night worth mentioning, really. Another grey night in Hawkins, the kind where the fog settled over the entire town like a suffocating blanket. The air was crisp with the promise of spring, and Eddie found himself shivering each time the door of The Hideout opened with a sad little creak.

The band on the stage wasn't great, either. Though he sounded like a dipshit even in his own head when he thought it, Eddie knew Corroded Coffin could've beat them any day of the week. Tuedays or Fridays.

Even if they looked like a sad little bunch sitting at their regular corner table, nursing their second beers of the night. Eddie grimaced at the bitter tone of his thoughts.

Fuck, he needed to get out of this fucking town. And this fucking bar, preferably. ´86, baby — the real world was so close, he could almost feel it in his ring-cladded fingers.

Eddie found himself drifting in and out of focus as Gareth and Jeff argued whether they should get on the road and see Black Sabbath in Chicago the next month. Their voices blended into a indistinct humming in his ears, and Eddie was glad his input wasn't requested.

So he sat there, sipping his beer as to present some signs of intelligent life to his friends. His brown eyes fixed on the worn down posters on the paneled walls, those shitty ones from the 60s so badly tattered that it was nearly impossible to make out the names and dates anymore.

It wasn't until 15 minutes or so later that Eddie snapped out of his laconic state as a large group entered the bar, the door opening with the familiar creak that quickly got lost in the loud, drunken hollering of Jason Carver and his posse of douchebag variants.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Garreth mumbled into his beer, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers

Jeff shook his head, his eyes meeting Eddie's. "Think they finally managed to burn down Benny's?"

Eddie shook his head, downing the last of his beer. "Don't think they're that advanced yet. Fire scary. Fire big. Carver no understand fire."

The rowdy group of guys made their way through the bar, and Eddie let his gaze gloss over them with little interest as they started drifting toward the counter, their loud voices competing with the band playing on stage. And as the guys finally started to scatter and drift toward a table with drinks in their hands, Eddie caught a glimpse of a familiar figure still at the counter.

Chrissy was leaning against the counter, her slender fingers tapping on the wooden surface. She looked out of place in her white dress, her hair tied back with a green ribbon that entangled into her loose curls. Her frame was somewhat covered with the letterman jacket that someone — undoubtedly Carver — had placed over her shoulders.

Eddie found himself almost annoyed at the sight of that fucking jacket. As if he needed another reminder.

Jason moved closer to Chrissy at the bar, clutching a beer in his hand. He draped his free arm over Chrissy's shoulder, leaned in closer and said something to her. Whatever it was, Eddie was certain he could see the girl lean back slightly, answering with a dry smile and a few words that he couldn't make out.

Chrissy shook off the letterman jacket and handed it to Jason, her words once again lost in the noise of their surroundings. Jason grabbed the jacket after a momen of hesitation, but there was something oddly stiff in his shoulders as he walked to the table where his friends were seated. He clutched the jacket in his fist as he sat down.

The tense exchange almost made Eddie snicker with a laugh his mother would've called "vindictive", but he stiffed it into a cough that was a bit too loud to be convincing.

Jeff glanced at him with a weird look in his eyes, but said nothing. And alas, the argument about whether Garreth's car was too shitty to make it to Chicago continued, and Eddie found himself getting lost in his thoughts once more.

A few minutes passed in boredom, and Eddie listened on. Chicago was fine, but would Columbus be closer? Maybe they could take Eddie's truck. No, that thing will blow up on the fucking interstate. Well, what about Jeff's brother's van, that thing's brand new—

Eddie's gaze glossed over the bar again, and this time he couldn't help himself from staring at the sight of Chrissy Cunningham in conversation with one of the town drunks.

And by the looks of it, there was nothing pleasant about it. To her, at least.

Eddie glanced at the table where Jason and his friends were sitting but was not shocked to see that Carver was paying no attention to the situation at the bar. Figures. The guy could've beat Narcissus himself in the battle of self-absorbed assholes.

"I'm gonna get another beer," Eddie informed his friends, pushing himself away from the table.

He made his way to the bar, making sure to leave some distance between himself and Chrissy at the bar. Who knows, maybe Bob the Boozer was a dear relative of the girl. A happy family reunion at The Hideout, wouldn't that be nice?

And yet, there was nothing familial about the way the guy started grabbing Chrissy’s ass at that very moment, inciting a loud protest from the girl’s lips. Her words got lost in the noise, but Eddie knew it wasn’t good, and so he took a step closer as Chrissy took a step back and bumped right into his chest.

Chrissy jumped at the sudden contact, her ponytail swinging as she whipped her head back to look up at Eddie. Green eyes met brown ones, and Eddie could’ve sworn he saw a moment of relief in her gaze.

He didn’t stop to take her in for that much longer, and instead stepped past Chrissy and closer to the guy that still had his hand outstretched from his previous attempt at molestation. He could feel Chrissy stepping aside, her body brushing against his side for the briefest moment that passed far too quickly. Shivers.

Eddie’s ring-clad fingers closed around his wrist, and he pulled the guy slightly closer to his face, albeit at the cost of having to smell the stale booze on the guy’s breath. He was almost taken a back at the fire in his chest, the anger burning his veins.

"I might not be the smartest guy around, but even I was taught to keep my hands to myself when I was in first grade,” Eddie stated to the man, his grip tightening on his wrist as he yanked him even closer, their noses nearly colliding.

Burning, burning. Anger burning in his veins, intense enough to ignite his entire body.

He continued: “What’s the case with you, then? Got the memory of a goldfish or never had an education past kindergarten? My money’s on the second one, but you guys never cease to surprise me.”

As always, any form of intelligent conversation was a near impossibility with the guys who frequented The Hideout, and the guy was no exception. Eddie could barely a catch a word from his slurring, and he knew it’d be a waste to rile him up. Worst scenario he’d just get get a sucker punch to the back of the head with a beer bottle.

So he pushed the guy away and tremendously enjoyed the way he nearly stumbled to the dirty floor in his attempt to gain back his balance. “Get the fuck out of here, will you?”

And after a few seconds and a few more incoherent answers, he did. The door shut closed behind him with a creaky bang, and Eddie noticed himself exhaling with relief. He turned around to face Chrissy who was still standing there by the counter, hugging herself like she had caught a chill. Her cheeks were red — with anger? Or embarrassment? — and her green eyes sharp as they landed on Eddie.

"You okay?" Eddie asked with an intensity that went through his body like a physical being, startling him.

“Why’d you do that?” Chrissy blurted out like an accusation, though there was a moment of softness in her eyes that indicated she hadn’t meant it to come out as rudely.

“Personally, as much I enjoy getting my ass grabbed by town drunks, I know it might not be everyone’s thing,” Eddie answered with a sheepish grin. And though his joke was nothing if not limping, he was glad to see a smile tugging at Chrissy’s lips.

There was a small twinkle in the green of her eyes. “So that’s why you guys love this place so much, right? Guys like that making you feel pretty?”

Eddie couldn’t stop a laugh from falling off his lips, and he nodded a few times. “Exactly. Nothing better than a pervy 60-year-old to make you feel like a man.”

Chrissy glanced over her own shoulder at the loud table where her friends — or Jason and his friends — were sitting, perhaps suddenly far too conscious of her current company. Eddie followed her gaze, leaning against the wooden counter. The guys were paying Chrissy nor Eddie any attention, which was a first; Jason was usually always at the girl’s side, like a little rodent marking his territory.

“What are you guys doing here anyway? I thought Benny’s was the designated asshole jock spot,” Eddie said, smirking at the offended look on Chrissy’s features as her head whipped back to face him.

“Hey! That is so rude!”

“I didn’t mean you, per say. Though you are asshole-adjacent with Carver, I guess.”

“I am?"

“I don’t make the rules, Cunningham.” Eddie defended himself with a grin.

“Yes you do.”

“Sad day for you to be a rule-follower then.”

Chrissy’s shook her head, a real smile now lighting up her features. “You think I’m a goody two shoes?”

“I think you’re the goody two shoes,” Eddie stated, snickering with laughter as the girl stared at him with an exaggerated look of shock and hurt.

For a moment they stood there staring, their words still hanging in the air between them. And as Chrissy's invasive green eyes met his own, Eddie swore he felt a jolt of electricity traveling all the way up his spine. The silence between stretched on, and it was clear the girl was not going to be one giving up, and Eddie was far too aware of the very little distance between their bodies.

He glanced at Jason again, nervous.

Chrissy was still looking up at him, her fingers fidgeting with her hair as she did. There was something odd about her face as she noticed Eddie glancing past her, knowing that he was looking at Jason. Knowing, that Jason wouldn't be looking at her.

He never really did, anymore. Not really.

Maybe that's why it was such an intense, burning feeling when Eddie looked at her just now. Intense and unforgiving, like he could read her mind right then and there. He always had that weird quality to him, ever since they were kids; like he could see through people while no one could really see him.

Chrissy's hands were shaking.

"I think I should go. Jason's probably waiting for me," she eventually said, knowing her words were a lie just as well as she knew that she had no desire to join the guys at the table.

Eddie shrugged, a poor attempt at hiding his disappointment. "That's probably a good idea then. Can't keep the King of Hawkins High waiting."

There was a brief flash of genuine hurt in Chrissy's eyes, but it was gone as fast as it had appeared as the girl seemingly reorganized her features to form a somewhat neutral expression. "Right."

A beat of hesitation. Another.

"Thanks for... Dealing with that guy." Chrissy's voice was warm, genuine. Even if there was a note of sadness in it, one to match the look in her big green eyes.

Eddie had trouble looking away from her. It felt forced to tear his gaze away from her as he cleared his throat, turning his attention to his shoes. And though he wanted to say so much more, all that came out was: "Don't mention it, Cunningham."

The sadness in the green persisted as Chrissy gave him one last smile before walking away.

[dreamingofmaidensandmonsters]

A bit more of the cute stalker Chrissy AU. Again, a draft so the final version might not look exactly like this. Pretty excited about this one, I'm having so much fun with my two latest wips!! I just love hellcheer 🥰

You can see the other sneak peek I posted of this fic here.

[gunmetal-ring]

There is something that eddie would say to chrissy. it's a pun about how he's a cunning linguist, how he likes cunnilingus, and how her last name is cunningham. And for the fucking life of me i cannot figure out how to word it.

If anyone can think of a pun involving all 3 (followed by eddies lascivious smile ofc) that i can use in my fic, i will love you 5ever and reward you somehow i promise

[munninghams]

RAMBLE ON UPDATED LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[dadsbongos]

the geekification of chrissy cunningham (3)

phase one / phase two / phase three - obligatory and unabashed epilogue (and smut)

3.3K words

warnings - threesome, oral (m + f receiving (Chrissy Cunnilingus)), slight overstimulation (chrissy), p in v sex, fem reader, ball suckin lmao, no condom sex but pills mentioned, eddie munson is a giver, almost blue balling eddie lmao

~~

There’s something in talking about this situation that requires delicacy. Not necessarily with each other, but when describing it to your closest friends.

While you all understand where every factor of the relationship stands, Dustin looked as though he’d been told his parents were getting divorced (poor kid already had that trauma). Max nearly ripped Eddie’s head off until you and Chrissy made it completely clear that it was all of you dating each other. It wasn’t about Eddie, it was about all of you. Robin tilted her head and tossed out a half-baked jab, “So, he’s got a new girlfriend or…?”

You of all people knew Robin wasn’t an idiot (and she was far from the ignorance of believing women couldn’t love each other), but it wasn’t something commonly seen. Three people dating each other.

Some people could think it’s exploitative of him. Some could assume that he’s a pervert. Some could be sickened at the idea that he’s cheating on you and forcing you to stick around.

Something about a third person being added to a previous couple seemed to change other people’s idea of the dynamic. That somehow you were now a victim and Chrissy was a coin toss away from being the manipulator or the manipulated and Eddie was now an asshole. 

But that’s why you kept it to close friends and took as long as they needed when explaining it.

This was new, and no matter how frustrating it was to get a pitying glance from Mike fucking Wheeler, you three would sit there for hours if that’s what it took.

Because you weren’t going to hide from the people you trusted with your life, especially if Chrissy was going to become part of your daily life - which she was. So you sat through the explanation until everyone at least understood enough to not be weirded out by it.

You and Eddie and Chrissy were all dating. And you three understood that perfectly well. You’re in love with Eddie and while you haven’t quite said it yet, you know that the two of you love Chrissy.

You’re sure this is intimidating for the poor girl. To join a strong relationship that’d been running for just under two years and be the one to play catch up - it must be doubts and questions and anxieties that you and Eddie got to experience together in the beginning. But she’s been absent from class for the novel and now everyone else is in the middle and she has no time to go back and read the previous chapters.

So you’re both patient and easy and loving. Affection and praise and honey-tongued kisses when she accidentally forgets something. Reassurance and gentle holds and kind reminders anytime she asks.

You want Chrissy to enjoy herself as much as you and Eddie enjoy yourselves - both when it was only you two and when you’re with her - and no matter how much time it takes, it’s more than worth it.

And when there’s moments like this - all three of you huddled on Eddie’s bed while his stereo is blasting a mixtape you made for his birthday just engaging in sweet pillow talk - where everything clicks, it’s more than worth it.

When you’re all practically swimming in Eddie’s oversized hoodies and sharing kisses between planning dates and promising to show the other two a movie or song that one is horrified at them for missing, everything is easy.

Easy is all of you taking turns caring for the garden Chrissy had planted in front of Eddie’s trailer. Coral bells and daisies and coneflowers were what she had so far. Easy is when Eddie comes home from Hellfire and you three eat together in the living room. Kisses shared and bodies lumped together on the hard, uncomfortable couch. Easy is when you three go to bed together, Eddie in the middle and you and Chrissy hold hands and kiss over his chest. 

Things are easy. Things are fun.

When everyone takes care of each other and makes sure Chrissy eats well and Eddie studies and you take care of yourself for once.

When you and Eddie are writing an original song for Corroded Coffin and Chrissy brings in food and drinks and massaging hands.

When Chrissy is having trouble with the other girls on the team for her new affiliation as a ‘loser’ so you and Eddie show up to practice and cheer louder than they can jeer.

When you and Chrissy are clothes shopping and Eddie happily volunteers his arms to hold hangers.

Sometimes Eddie teaches Chrissy guitar. Sometimes you teach her bass. Sometimes she teaches you two her routines. Sometimes you all go stargazing and see who can come up with the most convincing lie about what constellation is which.

Wayne had questions at first, and you think he figured it out when he’d spot you and Chrissy both sporting Eddie’s clothes and holding hands (poorly hiding them when he was around). But that’s the glorious thing that you’ve always liked about Wayne, he doesn’t pry and he doesn’t judge.

Not even when Eddie’s radio is playing at a much higher volume and for much longer than usual. The most you’ve heard from him is utterances to his nephew about staying safe.

And you all did - pills and whatnot. Condoms when the room wasn’t boiling and your skin wasn’t itching to get Chrissy’s and Eddie’s hands all over it. 

Almost like now.

No, no, exactly like now.

Chrissy’s arms wrapped around your legs, one hand pressing on your lower belly and the other thumb rubbing swift, tight circles into your clit. Your hand cards through her messy, tangled hair while Eddie presses kisses to her shoulder. Every moan that slips from her lips as Eddie thrusts from behind is felt in vibrations against your cunt.

She’s new to eating pussy but she was never lying when she said she was a fast learner.

“So good, baby,” your fingers wind tight in Chrissy’s hair when she replaces the thumb on your clit with her lips, “Doing so fucking well for us.”

She keens at the praise, cheeks flushing as she wraps her cherry lips around your bud. Eddie comes up from sucking bruises into her shoulder and slows his fucking to a grind. Chrissy whines around you and you gasp, her hips pushing back to slide against Eddie’s.

“Patience, pretty baby,” he soothes, leaning down to where you’re holding yourself up by the elbows. 

His pick necklace drags across Chrissy’s back as he kisses you.

Chrissy unwraps her right arm and prods her middle finger against your drooling hole. She releases your clit with a pop and lathes her tongue over it apologetically, slowly sliding in her finger until it’s knuckle deep. Your hips snap down and her tongue traces shapes into your bud while her finger crooks up into your sweet spot.

You gasp into Eddie’s mouth and you can feel when his fucking quickens. Chrissy’s body rocks into yours and you don’t know what she’s tracing with her tongue but God, it feels good - someday she might tell you that she’s searing the letters of her name into your cunt.

Your fingers hitch tighter in her hair, nails skimming across her scalp as she presses that delicious spot inside you like a button. Her moans vibrate through you and your hips can’t help their bucking when she adds a second finger. 

“Stop moving…” she spits pitifully through moans, “wanna taste you…”

She licks a stripe up your cunt from where her fingers are knuckle deep fucking you to your clit.

You feel one of Eddie’s hands help Chrissy in holding your hips down to the mattress and Chrissy’s moans pitch up as the angle of his thrusts change to something deeper. Her brows pinch and you know she’s close and when her fingers coax a burning knot in the hull of your belly, you know you’re close.

Your thighs wind tighter around Chrissy’s head and your hands tug her hair and she just moans and takes it and turns it back into sucking tenderly on your clit. Eddie swallows your gasps and moans and presses his lips to yours.

It’s heat and sweat and lust and you can hardly tell where you end and another person begins. It’s disorienting enough to get you drunk on pleasure without being overwhelming.

The knot in your gut builds and builds, tighter and tighter, your hips bucking against your partners’ hands. Chrissy’s fingers suddenly snap tighter around your hip and she lets out a downright debauched moan against you - her fingers press just a little deeper inside you and the knot snaps.

Occam's fucking razor. 

Eddie pulls away to watch you and Chrissy writhe as you both come undone, “My girls - my fucking gorgeous girls.”

Your back arches as Chrissy licks away the mess you release and gently works her fingers out of you. Those blue eyes peel open and she fucking whines as Eddie pulls out.

“Good girl,” you’re pulling Chrissy up your body and atop of you, lips coaxing her own open so you can kiss her like she deserves, “You did so well, baby. So good for us.”

Eddie hums in agreement, kissing over the hickies he previously laid, “Always so good for us.”

Chrissy practically preens at your words. Then she pushes herself up and looks back at Eddie, tilting her head, “You didn’t cum.”

You slide onto your knees and force Eddie to lay where you previously were, “We gotta fix that, don’t we, princess?”

She bites her lip, grinning as her eyes cloud with want, “We do.”

You brush the hair that’s sweat-slicked to Eddie’s forehead back and kiss one cheek while Chrissy kisses the other. She kneels at his side while you straddle his hips, working his cock between your legs and positioning him right where you feel the fire at its hottest.

Eddie sucks in a breath when you begin sliding yourself down his cock, your hands splay over his chest. He looks up at Chrissy with blown pupils and begging doe eyes, lips red and kiss-bitten as he reaches towards her.

You’re almost stunned at how low and hoarse his voice is as he says, “Sit on my face, Chris.”

“Should I?” she teases, leaning down to innocently peck his lips, pulling away just as he cranes his neck for more.

His hips thrust up sharply in desperation and you can’t help the way you moan sharply - your hips grind down against his in slow circles, trying to save yourself and Eddie from heating up before Chrissy joins.

“Please…” he grabs her by the hips, “let me take care of you, baby - just wanna take care of you - good care, I’ll treat you so right, baby.”

His hips snap up against and you whine lowly.

Chrissy gives in and straddles Eddie’s face - she’s facing you and you can see how nervous she actually is about sitting on your collective boyfriend’s face. You lean forward, setting a slow initial pace when you drag your hips up and down Eddie’s cock, and mouth tenderly at the corner of her lips.

“C’mon, princess, trust big Eddie, yeah?” you murmur into her ear, “He’ll be okay, he’ll do you right.”

Chrissy’s bottom lip is sucked between her teeth as Eddie’s hands lower her until she’s hovering over his mouth. She looks at you with those sweet eyes and you quicken your pace.

Eddie adjusts his legs and plants his feet against the mattress so he can match your bounces. Chrissy leans forward and tenderly cups her hands over yours on Eddie’s chest and meets your lips with hers.

You can still taste yourself on her lips and something about that makes fire run up your spine as Eddie’s cock hits each delicious spot inside you. Eddie knocks that spongy spot inside you and your hands dart to Chrissy’s cheeks, pulling her somehow closer.

She gasps into your mouth and seizes along to Eddie’s tongue. Her hands wind up on your face, desperately in their cling to you. 

“How’re you hanging, pretty baby?” you murmur against her plush lips.

She nods loosely, releasing a guttural moan, “‘s good - so, so, so good.”

You hear Eddie groan against your girlfriend’s cunt and your walls can’t help the way they flutter around your boyfriend’s cock. 

Eddie’s hips snap up faster and you can feel the meat of your ass jiggle as skin slapping skin grows in the background - Chrissy’s nails gently snag on your jaw and she’s growing louder as the lewd noises of Eddie indulging between her thighs become more apparent.

And just as you go to tease her for cumming again, the knot in your tummy suddenly ruptures and your own hands clutch tighter to Chrissy. One hand comes down to Eddie’s chest for balance and your bouncing slows back to grinding as you ride out your orgasm.

Whines leak through Chrissy’s throat when Eddie doesn’t shy away from kissing her cunt.

But she pops off of his mouth with a, “Sorry, sorry!”

She swings herself off his face, panting and flushed red.

You and Eddie turn to her, you pull yourself off Eddie and slowly reach out to the girl, “What happened, baby?”

“Just…” she gestures vaguely and there’s tears clinging to her pretty lashes, “overstimulated. I’m sorry.”

Eddie sits up and grins despite his (honestly, painful at this point) erection, “Don’t apologize, if you wanna stop then we stop.”

“I don’t wanna stop…” she sounds breathless and it’s got you down horrendous, “You haven’t- “

“Sweetheart, don’t stay in it just for me.”

“No, I wanna,” Chrissy moves back onto her knees and looks over her shoulder at you.

You grin and lean over to whisper in Chrissy’s ear. She giggles and nods and Eddie’s earnestly as turned on as he is intimidated when you two crawl between his spread legs.

You press your hands into the meat at the tops of his thighs and make your way to his knees, “Just relax, big Eddie. We’ll take good care of you.”

Chrissy nods and grins impishly, pressing a deceptively wholesome kiss to his jaw, “Let us take care of you after you treated us so well.”

Eddie’s chest heaves and his cheeks are tinted red; his bambi eyes watching you and Chrissy. Lower, lower, lower till you’re both right where he needs you. 

Your lips mouth at the side of his cock while Chrissy licks along the underside, leaving gentle kisses on the flushed head. You abandon your post to trail your tongue with Chrissy’s, pulling her into a kiss that brushes tongue and lips against Eddie’s twitching, weepy cock.

His hands lay against your heads, not pushing or pulling, just needy to hold onto something - anything. You part and bring yourself to his tip while Chrissy tongues one of his balls into her wanting mouth, humming softly at his whines. 

In an eager effort to finally free your poor boyfriend from your joint teasing, you waste no time stuffing his thick cock down your throat. Your eyes fall closed, brows pinching and you feel a lithe hand work its way into your hair from behind - Chrissy gathering what she can to hold away from your face with Eddie still burrowing his fingers into your hair.

Eddie’s hips buck upward and his dick hits the back of your throat, you breathe through your nose as you gag and Chrissy hums again. 

His hand moves from your hair to the side of your face, he’s breathless and on the verge of breaking when he speaks, “Open your eyes, baby… please, please- wanna see your eyes. Such pretty little things,” he babbles, hips twitching, “Please, sweetheart, lemme see you.”

You follow his pleas and he moans, bottom lip tugging between his teeth and pulling up Chrissy’s hair in a messy ponytail. You can tell he’s close by how he’s murmuring helplessly to himself, lips red and shining with Chrissy’s cum and his saliva. His dick is twitching and Chrissy pulls back to suck and bite hickies into Eddie’s jerking hips. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, his fingers tighten and he holds you at the base of his cock, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Chrissy climbs up the bed hurriedly and holds Eddie’s face to hers, kissing him as he cums down your throat. You swallow best you can as it comes, some still finding a way to leak from your lips and paint his pale skin. 

Eddie pants, releasing his tight grasp on your hair and petting over your head in apology. You swallow what cum is left in your mouth and clamber up Eddie’s body, tiredly kiss at his neck as Chrissy giggles into his mouth. She pulls back and brushes Eddie’s sweat-ridden hair away from his face, she then leans over to press kisses to the side of your face.

“I’ll clean you two up,” she says quietly and you tilt your head so she can lay a proper kiss on your lips.

“No,” Eddie bats his hand out to catch Chrissy’s wrist, “just cuddle with us…”

“Then we’ll all be gross,” she’s crawling onto the bed beside you despite her protests.

“We can all shower later,” you grin as Chrissy lays her head on the swell of your breast, “And clean the sheets.”

Eddie turns on his side to match Chrissy’s position.

There’s something crawling in your chest. I love you two. And it’s desperate to claw its way out, but you don’t say it. What kind of asshole says I love you for the first time after sex?

“I love you two,” Chrissy purses her lips and buries herself closer into your body, “Sorry - I know, I know, ‘what kind of asshole says that for the first time after sex?’ but- “

“No, no,” you kiss her forehead and rejoice at the way her lips now stretch upwards and lids fall closed in content, “I love you, too.”

“I love you, too,” Eddie pushes himself up and kisses Chrissy’s cheek with a loud schmack.

She giggles and reaches across your tummy to hold Eddie’s hand. 

“We should go up to California…” Chrissy mumbles into the heat of your skin.

“Yeah?” your eyes drift closed and Eddie’s hand tightens on your waist. He adjusts his position to see Chrissy better.

“Yeah,” Chrissy nods sluggishly, “I think it’d be fun.”

“Why’s that?” Eddie teases, “My weed not good enough, Cunningham?”

“Stop,” she whines, “You know it is… ‘s just. I dunno. You hear about California being the dream. Why don’t we visit it? Just once.”

“When we graduate,” Eddie presses a soft kiss to the tender skin of your collarbone, “When I graduate.”

“You’ll get it this year, Eds,” your fingers tread through his wild curls.

“Totally,” Chrissy would lean up and kiss away the doubts clogging her boyfriend’s mind if her body didn’t feel like jelly.

“Totally,” you copy, threading your other hand through Chrissy’s tousled hair. You lean into Chrissy and murmur into her ear, “Piss break, freak.”

Chrissy makes a show of groaning, but stands from the bed all the same. She takes your hand and pulls you into a tender kiss.

Life feels more complete now that Chrissy’s fitted into yours. It was something that hadn’t made itself apparent immediately, but now it feels absolutely undeniable. A complete serenade. 

Chrissy has fallen closer into step with the Hellfire kids than her previous cheerleader friends and she tells you and Eddie that she’s never been happier.

And you both can’t help but believe her - her eyes shine brighter and her smiles reach wider and she’s nowhere near as shy about affection as she was with Jason. You and Eddie relish in that and you absorb her love and give it back in full. Now she finally has the relationship she dreamed about since she first saw you two holding hands under the lunch table.

And you find yourself bizarrely glad that Mike Wheeler opened his stupid mouth that morning.

~~

taglist

@nanamunath @aceofspades190 @jellycolors

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Chrissy sees Eddie as a funky little man that treats her like an actual person and not a doll or thing to be perfect. So hell yeah, she takes a sip of Mountain Dew--it's all she can stomach--and belches like a grown man and Eddie beams at her and tries his damnedest to respond with a burp of his own and she fucking giggles nose scrunching up with the action because it's partially in disgust and partially in the joy that's filling her chest.

When she reaches for Eddie's fries--only a handful because the voice of her mother still lingers--Eddie will look away on purpose and let her get away it it. And if she goes back for one more at the end of their meal, Eddie tells her the only way to properly share it is drenched in ketchup like Lady and the Tramp. And it's a MESS because unlike the spaghetti string it does not hold up and it's so short, but goddamn, is Eddie happy to see her smiling as he wipe the ketchup off her face.

Eddie still doesn't get sports and he'd refute to his dying breath how much he is conforming but how much he spits vile about the basketball team, but he goes for Chrissy. And he cheers off the side in time with the rest of them, hips swaying and Chrissy has not NOT look in his direction or her resolve will break and she will break into a fit of giggles. Eddie's only ever at games for the start--because Chrissy cheers--half time--because Chrissy cheers--and the end to hoist her up and dote on her about how proud he is of her.

Chrissy does not understand a single word of D+D and doesn't really want to understand, but she just likes watching Eddie as he walks the length of the living room in the trailer animate as he speaks of the characters and stories. She gets it on a basic level. Story line, players who take actions based on their skills, roll dice to see if they're successful or not and to what degrees of success or failure, and repeat. But Chrissy doesn't get how someone can sink hours. It sounds like it would sort of get boring, to which Eddie defends the right DM makes or breaks a game. He offers to show her sometime if she cares, invites her to sit in on a session but practice, and homework, don't do themselves. But Chrissy does get how the people that do play with Eddie can find themselves enraptured because he gets so into it.

When Eddie notices Chrissy tugging at her clothes more than usual, he offfers something of his--jacket, vest, flannel--and Chrissy loves wearing his clothes. She wears them most often over the weekend but he will and has offered her at lunch or between classes when he can see it's a bad day if she wants something more comfortable. He never tells her her body is already perfect. He never tells her she's crazy. He never belittles those moments just offers a solution. Don't want pizza for their movie night--we can pop popcorn. Don't want the salad because it haunts Chrissy with her mother's voice, then toss it, dump it. shred the pieces of lettuce with bare hands and get the thing she does want.

Eddie lets her man the radio in his video when she rides now. She starts out with whatever's on Top 40 and then the longer she spends with Eddie in the van, the more curious she gets. "Got any new music? Anything from Iron-Iron Maiden, is that right?" she asks.

"Yeah, yeah, that's their name. Nothing new from them, but uh, W.A.S.P has something new," Eddie returns. They're supposed to be sitting out on Lover's Lake but in reality, they spend every second in the back of the van with the backdoors open as Eddie shows her the cassettes he keeps in the van and overhead Dio plays softly so Chrissy can hear and Eddie's not shouting though he does get loud with his excitement.

And when Chrissy shows up a couple weeks later with a tiny bag of cassettes, the words, "These-these are my favorites," fall from her lips quietly Eddie takes the tapes like they're glass. She offers them because Eddie asked on the lake what were her favorite musicians and artists and Chrissy didn't know how to answer so she told him she'd got back to him.

Eddie spends the entire night walkman on his head listening to each tape play over and over and over. It's not what he goes for, but he listens beyond the bubblegum pop sounds and deeply into the lyrics. It's all about yearning, about getting away, all the things that Eddie's felt and that his music echoes. They just sound differently. Eddie finds her between classes the next day and tells her that his favorite from her favorite and Chrissy's whole face lights up.

"You really like it?" she asks.

"Yeah, yeah I do. The songs--they all tell me more about you, about what you want and about what you're afraid to say to others. I cherish knowing you like that."

Chrissy swears she can and will melt into the floor of the Science hallway by the way Eddie's big brown eyes are staring at her, gaze pouring with adoration.

Chrissy, asks, on a weekend as they stare down at the arcade contemplating if they want to deal with the sneers and comments, why Eddie feels like he hasn't graduated yet. She doesn't want to assume anything. Eddie shrugs, but she pries. "You're smart. I think it might be something else that's in your way. What's-what's it like when you try and do the work?"

And it's the first time someone outside of Wayne and his middle or elementary school teachers have taken the moment to understand what's going on in Eddie's brain. And he can't really explain it. When things click, drive, understanding, interest, Eddie has no problem doing the work. But when his interest or drive aren't there he can't seem to get more than a few minutes of focus. And if he doesn't understand something, it kills his drive if he has it. And behind the difficulty of just getting the work done is a fear. Eddie doesn't want anything else to change. He's dealt with enough as it is.

This all falls out in mutters and grand hand gestures and pacing. But Chrissy nods and nods, and nods. When Eddie paces too far, she reaches her hand out and like magnets Eddie snaps back closer to her. "I'm scared of actually having to grow up too, you know," Eddie concludes. "Shit sucks."

Chrissy nods. "Shit does suck indeed." Her hand comes up to tuck a few strands of Eddie's hair behind his ear. "But perhaps, it can suck less when you're not alone."

She doesn't sit here and think she can fix everything. But when Eddie has his bursts when he can get work done, she literally blocks out all other distractions. If the phone rings, she'll answer it. If someone knocks on the door--sometimes Max, or another neighbor--she answers the door. She doesn't deal for him and Eddie wouldn't want her too. He literally blocks out specific times in his schedule for it now. [Chrissy teasingly buys him an appointment book--no receipts and no records, but it's still funny when Eddie opened it.] But whatever she can do to keep him focused she does.

When she asks about his tattoos and where he got them done, Eddie talks about getting most of them from friends in their homes. But if she wanted one, he'd want her to get it done properly. A shop, professional, gloves, the whole deal. He doesn't tell her not too. He doesn't tell her she doesn't need to. He doesn't even play up the pain.

"It's going to hurt. Like, just a little bit depending on where, but pain's pain," Eddie states.

"I can take pain."

Eddie nods. "Yeah, yeah you can. Will you let me hold your hand so I don't lose my shit?"

"You wouldn't even be getting tattooed?"

"I'd be so worried!" he counters. "What if it did hurt really bad for you? What if you cried? My heart--it couldn't take it!"

Chrissy laughs again, nose scrunching up as always, "You're silly. Of course I'll let you hold my hand."

And god damn does it feel good to be seen as a human, a full being. Because that's all she's ever wanted and the more Eddie pours into her, the more she pours back into him.

Growing up does suck--Chrissy's deciding on college; Eddie's so fucking relieve to have graduated that he knows if he doesn't find work locally he's going to wind up deeper in the dealing game that he actually wants--but they're not doing it alone.

[nicky-olives]

Nick's list of hellcheer ficrecs

I adore reading fics and these are some of my favourites. Go give them some love.

• "The killing moon" by @drownmyselfinwh1skey

[Ongoing] [explicit] Werewolf!AU

There weren’t many things Chrissy Cunningham could say with absolute certainty. But here, in the Hawkins forest on Halloween in the year 1985, she could say with crystal-clear, blood-freezing certainty that she was facing a werewolf.

This fic's mystery has me grabbed by the throat. The author is absolutely great at creating suspense and leaving just enough hints to wonder WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. Also, the steamy scenes are absolutely excellent. Unfortunately, the author updates once a fortnight, which has me crawling up my walls. Just know that if you start this fic, you'll be absolutely holding your breath for every single update.

"Pom poms and metal music" by @i-used-to-wear-the-fedora

[Ongoing] [Teen and up] Cheerleader! Eddie AU.

Eddie is failing his P. E. class spectacularly so in order to save his year he needs to join the cheerleading team. Chrissy, of course, adopts him with open arms and the chemistry starts making sparks flying between them. This AU is also canon compliant, and things starts to go to shit when Vecna shows up.

Chapters are short and light, excellent for people who want something easy to read and quickly to digest. Found myself reading this one a lot late at night to help me wind down.

• "You took the words right out of my mouth" by @immortalecstasy-blog

[Ongoing] [Explicit] Mute! Chrissy

Shifting tones a bit, this fic is about the difficulty of the healing process after severe physical and mental trauma. This is an AU in which both Chrissy and Eddie survive but just... barely. They are both recovering but the healing process is long and hard. When Chrissy wakes up she discovers she's mute. This is a fic about her journey into finding her voice again.

Not gonna lie, this fic is a bit heavier to read. It's less of a fun ride and more of an exploration of the recovery process. One thing I really adored was the nuanced and interesting portrayal of Laura Cunningham. I also appreaciated that the author didn't gloss over Eddie's trauma. Chrissy's trauma is a given, but I haven't seen authors delve into Eddie's scars, had he survived the upside down.

Also, not everything is sadness, there's a dnd scene so good and so fun that it made me want to play dnd! (for the record i have no idea of how to play).

"Have you seen her dressed in blue?" by @empress-of-snark

[Finished] [Mature] Nice! Jason

Now hear me out. I know you read the words "Jason" and "nice" and said nope but just HEAR ME OUT. Eddie and Jason are childhood best friends in this AU, and that makes everything EXTRA angsty when Eddie finds himself in love with his best friend's girlfriend. The DRAMA of this fic is chef's kiss. Cue the worst pining you've read in your life, FROM BOTH PARTS. Truly worth of telenovela standards, and my latinamerican ass ate that shit right up.

Also, himbo Jason is a gift that keeps giving. He's so nice and so stupid and basically a human shaped golden retriever. You'll finish this fic and actually feel sorry for him. Good thing the author is planning on making it a series, because i NEED some poetic justice for him, or at least some closure. My boy deserves it.

[tallulaballula]

Don’t talk to me, I’m picturing Julie and Luke dressing up as Eddie and Chrissy for Halloween.

[rollforhellfire]

unremarkable things

written by @preludeinz || AO3 || curated by @anxiousgirl

prologue - chapter one - chapter two - chapter three - chapter four - chapter five - chapter six - chapter seven

summary: Normal!Things AU where nothing supernatural happens in Hawkins, except for some minor role reversals on the parts of our protagonists. What if Eddie had gotten more of a backstory? What if Chrissy hadn't been killed off in the first episode? What if I didn't have to put up with Eleven and all of her associated bullshit, or pretend like I give even a fraction of a good goddamn about Mike "If Mediocrity Could Talk" Wheeler?Eddie/Chrissy, slow burn, drug deal to lovers. Angst, H/C, general anguish and peril, detailed trigger warnings below the cut.

cw: mentions of past child abuse/neglect, attempted sexual assault, gaslighting, underage drinking, Lots of Murder. Fic contains nothing worse or more fucked up than what is present in the source material.

[little-scribblers-heart]

I haven’t been posting on tumblr about this much, but folks keep messaging me about it, so I will!

Chapter 16 is up! This is a big one! Literally! Longest chapter so far, I think

[hellishchrissy]

a new chapter is up on ao3, click here to check it out!

June, 1987

June gloom. That's the term Chrissy's college friends had used to describe the odd, suffocating fog that had seemingly taken over the entire coast in California, looming over the promise of the summer in Los Angeles.

It was a strange sight, the wall of fog like a physical being in the horizon; suffocating her, pulling her in. Sometimes it felt the same that it had felt back home in Hawkins. Suffocating, alienating. And the fog never failed to invite back the nightmares that haunted her. Of her mother, of Hawkins, of red, vengeful skies filled with creatures her father would've called "demon-like". 

Chrissy had left Hawkins for good in June of 1986 - she had often dreamed of getting away from her mother and the crushing weight of what could be considered the "high society" of Hawkins. In other words, an endless parade of church potlucks, charity auctions and dinners at their local country club. A painfully artificial smile plastered on Chrissy's glossed lips, her mother's reproachful voice in her ear if she accidentally spilled something on her dress. Endless greetings and hands she shook time after time, the perfect daughter with the golden cross dangling between her collarbones.

California and the freedom of college had been a breath of fresh air after eighteen years of suffocation. Chrissy had felt free for the first time since she was a child, free of judgement, free of the red skies. And occasionally, she almost believed that she was free of the knowledge of what lied below their own dimension.

And then her mother died on June 9th 1987, and Chrissy jumped on the first plane that flew out of Los Angeles in the early hours of the morning.

That first night back in Hawkins Chrissy woke up screaming, flashes of red skies and golden crosses in her mind. Her clammy hands clawed at her bare throat, almost confused that her fingers weren't entangling with the dainty, gold chains of neither her cross necklace or the ´86´ necklace that Jason had once gifted her.

She had left both necklaces in the drawer of her desk in Hawkins when she had skipped town, eager to let go of the chains that still tethered her to her mother and the memory of Jason.

That June, Chrissy felt like she was watching herself from somewhere else, hovering over her own body. Making promises to her father, swearing she'd stay until the end of summer to take care of her brother and to help with the funeral, the documents, all the miserable shit that Chrissy's father was dreading to do alone.

And so she stayed. Even with the nightmares, she stayed. It was easy enough to forget, to force herself not to feel real. The numbness was her salvation the days she had to go through her mother's things, the scent of her perfume still clinging to the clothes making her gag. The numbness helped her during the funeral, her thumb drawing absent-minded trails on the back of her brother's palm as he clutched onto hers.

Nothing felt real, and Chrissy was so, very grateful for it.

Until the day a pair of all too familiar brown eyes met hers across the vegetable isle of the supermarket; that's all it took for Chrissy's facade to crumble, and she was no longer numb.

// follow this fic on ao3!

[smileygoth]

Contents Page!

Stranger Things

Chrissy Wakes Up - a 'what if' story about how that scene in the trailer might have gone differently for Eddie and Chrissy.

The Outlaw Torn - the return of Eddie if the Kas Theory is correct, and how they might set him up for season 5. Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Undeath by Stereo - a slightly dumb mash-up of Stranger Things and Lost Boys! Vampire Eddie comes to Dustin seeking shelter from the sun.

Breathing - a 'what if' story theorising about what might have happened to Max at the end of season 4. Heavy spoilers!

Hellcheer at Redwood - a Stranger Things / AHS 1984 mash-up where Eddie and Chrissy are among the counsellors at Camp Redwood! Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six

Til I Hear It From You - a Stranger Things / Empire Records mash-up where about ten years after the destruction of Hawkins, a familiar metalhead takes a job at a record store in Delaware. Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

DnD

Tiberius Is A Problem - a story about a repressed Drow assassin struggling with her feelings for her latest mark.

Vampire: the Masquerade

Violent Delights - (Masterlist) written for Vamptober 2022

Dissociation - (Masterlist) written for WODtober 2023

Keeping Secrets - (Masterlist) written for Month of Darkness 2024

Original Writing

Children of the Tithe - published with SmashBear Publishing and available now on Amazon!

WIPs: Book 2 and 3 for Children of the Tithe (OW) and Month of Darkness 2024!

NOTE: I will always try to use official images or artwork from the fandom in question, if I use something fanmade I will credit or own up if I don't know the artist (and in that case I'm happy to be informed). I try to think of any Content Warnings that might be necessary but if you think there's one I need to add please comment and let me know.

[huntathalarstits]

Current hellcheer/eddissy fic ideas that i will write as soon as i actually sit down to watch the rest of this damn show:

Modern au DND game where chrissy and eddie are already dating, (modern au bc i am simply not in posession of enough spoons to research first or second edition) theyre playing a game, chrissy is playing a cleric and in the process of making her character, discovered the idea of healslutting in dnd, and not refuses to heal the other party members but flirts relentlessly through healing and dnd characters with eddies DM NPC or character. They fuck in character.

Pop star x rock star au. Chrissy and eddie make out without knowing who each other are, next day eddies record label says they have to do a colab with a new up and coming pop star, turns out its chrissy! This would be like. An actual fic. I would love to challenge myself to actually write a 5-6 chapter fic but we shall see. Maybe itll end up being a two shot. Either way they fall in love and realize that their different styles arent all that bad.

If anyone has an recommendations for shorter ficlets or drabbles my inbox is always open.

[thesweetescapism]

Is A03 unsubscribing me from fics?

[olpie]

Chapters: 15/15 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Chrissy Cunningham/Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson Characters: Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie Munson, Jason Carver, Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Tension, Song fic, Teenage Rebellion, Drug Use, Chrissy is trying to find herself, Bucket List, No Eating Disorder, i just want these two to be HAPPY, Slow Romance, Stranger Things 4, Eddissy, hellcheer - Freeform Summary:

Final chapter is up now.