The school is buzzing up a storm. Like a bunch of worker bees going crazy after their hive gets shaken up just for shits and giggles. None of them were expecting it. Couldn’t even fathom such horror occurring right under their noses. Now that it’s out in the open, there’s no going back to the way things were. 

‘Suck it the hell up, chumps.’ 

It’s only fourth period. Halfway through the school day. The entire time, eyes have been following him everywhere. Giving all kinds of looks, from confusion, doubt, surprise, outrage, and to his distaste, even admiration from certain dweebs. The rumors have gone off the deep end. It should’ve been simple. Chrissy broke up with Carver, then she showed up with him. That’s what happened. Nope. Some truly wild shit is swirling through the halls of Hawkins High. 

The most prevalent one: Carver dumped Cunningham for a teammate, so Munson used that opportunity to take advantage of the poor girl. 

Reality is taking the backseat, apparently. A huge chunk of the retellings involves Golden Boy kicking her to the curb for a ‘new option’. The guy didn’t even show up today. Someone is spinning things in his favor and dumbasses are buying it. Probably the basketball team.

In this entire mess, Chrissy's being painted in various ways depending on who's asked. A good girl gone bad, secret femme fatale, or as an innocent girl who tragically got left behind by the love of her life and is having a rough time picking up the pieces—hence making the blatant mistake of getting with his weird ass. That last one's the most common. 

Even he’s getting a better deal out of it than anticipated. No one brought out the pitchforks and torches yet. Quite a few are impressed someone like him was able to nab the head cheerleader, despite being a total dirtbag and deadbeat. After all, she’s pretty, popular, and comes from a wealthy family. Plenty of dudes would want to hop into Carver’s empty seat if given the chance. Obviously, he must’ve barged in at her lowest point and worked some cult magic to seduce the sweet ‘Queen of Hawkins High’. 

AO3 & FF Link

Hey, anon! Sorry I haven't been on here much. I guess tumblr support finally let me out of the time-out corner since I can see my posts in tags now. Maybe I won't have to use a new account but here it is just in case. Anyway, here's a preview for chapter 19:

“Girl… Come on. Fill us in on the deets. I’m going crazy over here.”

“Okay, okay! Just give me a second to think.” Two pairs of eyes are trained on her and it’s a little nerve-wracking. Would Eddie mind if she talks to them about it? Some things should clearly stay private—like his monster porn collection—but what about the rest? Does he have similar conversations with his friends? Is she brought up? Are they going to know what happened earlier? 

‘Uh-oh. I feel like I’m going to burst. Can’t think about that… And it’s too late to back out now on this end. They’re both invested already.’

“I’m not really sure what this is. We’re technically not dating. He hasn’t asked me out or anything… Actually, we haven’t even talked about it. Who knows if he’s even into any of that? Relationship stuff, I mean.” She says pensively, ignoring how Charlotte gasps and clutches her chest.

“So, you’re not going out, haven’t talked about going out, and have no clue if he would even want to go out. Maybe you two are just friends?”

“Nat! She said they’re technically not dating. That’s like dating without putting labels on anything. Read between the lines.”

“No, ‘not dating’ means not dating. If there’s no actual date, then it’s just hanging out with someone.”

“That’s the thing…” Chrissy stares at the two and pulls both knees up to wrap her arms around them. Thankfully the rug is extra fluffy with some cushion to it. That spanking from earlier left her backside a little sore, so moving around gives a not-so-subtle reminder that they’re not just friends. “I just don’t know anymore. It’s confusing sometimes. Like, we’re definitely more than that. I’m really nervous about all of this.”

“Hold up! If you’re more than friends, but not going out, does that mean you’re fun buddies?” 

“No!” The captain turns a bright shade of red, waving her hands frantically. Of course this would go in that direction. She’s been pretty vague about what’s going on, so it’s not too hard to see how Charlotte got there. “It’s not like that.”

‘Wait… Are we? I’m not sure what counts.’

“Well, maybe? We’re into each other. That’s obvious. I like him a lot.” There. That little tidbit is finally out in the open. No more dancing around it. Pretending they’re purely platonic friends is silly, especially after today. “I guess you can say we’re just seeing where things go? It’s sort of similar to being in a relationship, minus actual dates or putting a label on it like Charlotte said.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Natalie arches a brow, tilting her head to the side. It’s been pretty clear that she’s not the biggest fan of the recent developments. Particularly because of who it’s with. 

‘I can tell she doesn’t like him. This isn’t going to be easy. It’d be nice if everyone could get along, but that’ll take time.’

“For now, I guess? It’s just… when we hangout, I’m happy and we always have a fun time. He makes me feel good. It’s so different from being with Jason. There’s no rules or pressure or having to worry about making him mad. It’s nice. Since this started, Eddie’s been a great friend. But now things are… changing. Stuff happened and I’m all mixed up about it. I don’t think we can go back to the way it was anymore.” 

Charlotte’s eyes go wide and dart over toward the junior to confirm if she also heard that. “Chris… Did you… Did you guys get it on? Is that what you’re saying?” 

Chrissy grabs onto the strings of her sweatpants to play with. Anything to use as a distraction from the pounding in her chest. She’s overly aware of both girls giving their full attention to this lame attempt at an explanation. “N–No, not yet. It didn’t go that far. I mean, it feels sort of like things could maybe head in that direction? Possibly?” 

“It didn’t go that far? Then how far did it go?” The curiosity laced in the redhead's whisper makes this a bit more tantalizing to drag out. They’re dying to know. Did the ‘prude’ do something scandalous for once? 

Letting out a shaky breath, she steels any resolve left to bare part of her soul in front of them. This is going to cause a complete meltdown. “Well, we kind of kind of made out earlier… and he… spanked me.” She bites down on her bottom lip and slowly looks up from the strings, almost afraid of their reactions. 

Natalie sticks a pinky in her ear and twists it around before yanking it out. “Sorry. Didn’t hear that last part. Now what did you say?”

Sure, anon! Just a head up, this is only part of the draft so there might be a few changes after editing and everything. Here's the beginning of chapter 18:

"Have you done this before?”

“Kind of? Most girls at school probably have. Guys run by and do it. I mean, I haven’t had that happen in a while though…” Not since junior year, anyway. They like trying to get away with it during football season in the fall when the cheerleaders are cold and less likely to chase the players down. 

Eddie’s quiet for a moment. All she can hear is his heavy breathing. At least in a different position, it might be easier to see his face. “...That and spanking are not the same.”

“Really?” That doesn’t make much sense to her. Is this like his ‘dark fantasy erotica is not monster porn’ argument from earlier? As far as she’s concerned, there’s really no difference. It’s just a less dirty way of saying the same thing. 

“Hell yeah. One is just some creep tryin’ to get a free feel and the other isn’t. It’s more… Well, you’ll be able to tell. Do you trust me?”

Asking questions like that is making Chrissy more nervous and puzzled at the same time. She thought he’d just go for it again. Maybe it’s normal to do? This isn’t her area of expertise, but it’s apparently his. “...I do.” 

The last time anything like this happened was at a Halloween party. When Jason had one too many beers and gave her a hard slap there after getting off a couch to get him another bottle. It hurt even more because she wasn’t expecting it… Enough to almost make her knees buckle. Not that he remembered it that way later on. And with so people around, she forced herself to laugh it off as a ‘boys will be boys’ moment. 

When other guys have done it, it’s always when the ‘target’ is off guard. It’s just so much more hilarious for them that way. Also causes a delayed reaction out of shock, giving them enough time to run off to their buddies and laugh about it. So of course this is a little nerve-wracking from those experiences. But he said spanking isn’t the same. She does trust him and is willing to give this a chance to prove her wrong. 

“Good. That’s the most important part. If both sides don’t trust each other, things can go to shit real fast. So, I guess we’re using the traffic light system. Seems easiest. You already know ‘red’ means stop. ‘Yellow’ is obviously slow down. Like if it’s a little too hard and you want me to take it down a notch. Saying ‘green’ a million times seems pointless, so… yeah. Cool with that?”

“Mhm.” That’s actually not a bad idea and she’ll have a lot more say in this than anticipated. It’s better than him just whacking the hell out of her with zero regard for comfort. Then again, he doesn’t seem like that type of guy. Well, aside from the initial smack that he already profusely apologized for. 

Chrissy jolts when the tips of his fingers hesitantly graze the spot that was already hit. A soft caress over the tight black fabric as he slowly gets more comfortable and eases both of them into this. It goes from a light touch with his fingers to pressing his splayed hand along her backside, slowly moving it around. Massaging the place that still slightly stings.

‘Wow. Just one of his hands almost covers my entire cheek.’

She lets out a shaky breath, trying to calm herself down. This is insane. Waking up this morning, it was easy to assume the day would be boring and uneventful. Do some reading, cook a little, maybe go hangout with Natalie or something… Getting spanked in Eddie’s trailer after finding his collection of monster porn was never a scenario she could’ve ever imagined. That sounds like a game of mad libs gone terribly wrong. 

Hopefully you like it so far! I'm still working on it, but I'm planning to have it out within the next day or two. Thanks for asking! It excites me to know people are actually interested in my work 🥰

Hello, anon! Chrissy's definitely starting to do better, but she's not completely out of the woods yet. Vecna still has his sights on her and there are ways of pulling her back down. Like trying to re-traumatize her using others. He's pretty nasty in this and is okay with allowing his victims to think they're safe to give them a false sense of security. That just makes him happier when they realize there truly is no escape. Not that she won't give him a hard time. Neither of them wants to give up or lose. The closer Chrissy gets to people (Eddie, her friends, the Hellfire crew, etc.) as she figures herself out, the stronger her will to live and stay with them becomes. And they don't want to lose her either.

Right now, Vecna doesn't have as much influence in the real world as he'd like. It's slowly building up while he essentially spreads his tendrils out across Hawkins.

Thanks for sending this in and I'm sorry if this isn't the answer you were hoping for! Here's happy Chrissy to make things better:

Sorry this has been sitting here for a hot minute! My acc was basically in the time-out corner (none of my posts would show up under tags so it seemed kind of useless) for apparently having a naughty tag and it took over two months of going back and forth with support to get it back to normal. They're a bunch of buffoons...

Anyway, back to what matters. Vecna's curse is similar to the show, but takes longer and has a lot more going on in the meantime. I didn't want the characters to die within 24 hours of seeing hallucinations. This version of Vecna's not really in a rush and takes more enjoyment out of slowly driving his victims insane and tormenting them as he gains more influence in the regular world.

I don't really want to spoil anything, so I can't say what'll happen to Chrissy... Sorry! But if it makes you feel any better, I'm not a fan of completely tragic endings. I really love her too and both deserve to be happy together. Eddie will try to do everything he can to make sure that happens. Thanks for sending this in and I hope you see this even though it's been a few months.