#hellcheer ff

“I’m so glad you're awake,” she murmurs against his mouth before kissing him once more. “It’s been torture .”

 “To have me so close and still not be able to make out with me?” 

 She pulls away, looking down at him with a watery smile, and he doesn’t think before brushing away a rogue tear with his thumb. She looks rough, if he has to be honest about it. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a week, and like she’s been cursed twice by the same murderous demon. She looks like she’s been camped out in a hospital chair for who knows how long, waiting for some freak she goes to school with to wake up from the bullet wound her ex-boyfriend gave him. 

 “Hey,” he muses softly once he can finally get a good look at her. She lets her head fall heavily against his palm and he loves the weight of it. “You okay?” 

 Her bottom lip sticks out in an adorable pout, her eyes getting sadder and waterier, and she shakes her head. “I was worried,” she says softly as her voice breaks. 

 “What, about this?” he asks, playfully gesturing towards the spot that would probably be hurting more if he didn’t get the real good drugs. “I’ve made it out of worse than this. I’m scrappy.” 

 “You could’ve died,” she croaks, sniffling and desperately holding in a forceful sob. Then she shifts slightly, backing away from him so she can push against his right shoulder. “And why didn’t you tell me you’ve had a concussion all this time?” 

 “Have I?” he asks thoughtfully, nodding slowly. “That actually makes a lot of sense.” 

 Hopefully he never has to think about Little Angel Eddie or Little Devil Eddie ever again, then. 

 “You certainly do, Mr. Munson,” he hears from the door, an authoritative looking man with a pot belly and graying hair interrupting his fantasies about nurse-Chrissy. 

 “This is Dr. Owens, Eddie,” she tells him. “He works for the government. They’ve cleared your name for all the murders and stuff.” 

 “Well, the lucky return of Vecna’s victims helped with that,” Dr. Owens explains casually, like it’s some quirky, funny fact he just dropped. 

 “They’re alive?” Eddie asks, wondering how someone who got snapped into pieces in another dimension possibly could have survived. 

 “After Nancy and everyone defeated Vecna in the Upside Down, they found Fred and Patrick trying to find a way home,” Chrissy explains. 

 All in one piece, he assumes. How unfair that Chrissy should have to suffer with a very broken arm for the next few months. 

 “We’ve begun working on your image,” the doctor explains, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “It hasn’t been especially easy– it seems easier to believe that two kids got murdered and then walked back into town a few weeks later– but the town has been given all the facts they can handle, and my people are trying to really drive home the fact that you’re more of a hero than anything. Chrissy too, of course. All of you kids really stepped up, here.” 

 Eddie knows this, and he doesn’t like how this guy is standing here telling him something he thinks he doesn’t already know. But it doesn’t matter all that much, because the next words out of his mouth make the ass-kissing worth it. 

 “We’ve funded a project for you and your uncle, too,” he starts. “New housing, without a hole in the ceiling.” 

 “New trailer?” he asks, and he doesn’t miss the way that Chrissy smiles, leaning forward to rest her head against his shoulder, her hair tickling his nose. All he can do is smile to himself and nuzzle his cheek against the top of her head. 

 “New house . Modest accommodations; it’s not much bigger than what you're used to, but everything works and there aren’t any portals to another world.” 

  Well fuck, he thinks to himself. All he’s ever really wanted was to give back to Wayne after everything he’s done for him, after everything he’s given up to raise Eddie as best he can. He always dreamed of making it big and getting Wayne a real house, but he never thought it would actually happen. Turns out, all he had to do was get involved in a conspiracy theory, be accused of murder and kidnapping, and get shot and almost die. 

 The doctor keeps talking for a while, but he doesn’t want to listen. All he wants to do is lie here with Chrissy’s head on his shoulder, her hair tickling his nose and smelling fruity, her free fingers playing with the collar of his hospital gown. He has no idea how long he’s been unconscious for, even though Owens has probably told him. He doesn’t know how much time they’ve missed together, and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen now that he’s awake. Honestly, he doesn’t even know where they are, other than the weird explanation of them being in some government run hospital. 

 He sighs happily when Owens leaves, having finally gotten the hint that he was seriously harshing Eddie’s vibe, and carefully lifts a hand to brush some rogue hair out of Chrissy’s eyes. “Hey,” he whispers with a smile that she mirrors when she leans up to look at him. 

 “Hi,” she whispers back. It’s so adorable that he can’t stop grinning like an idiot even though he’s starting to notice his gunshot wound. What a weird thing to think. “How are you feeling?” 

 He shrugs. “Like I got shot.”

 She kisses his cheek and says, “Well, you’re gonna have a real sexy scar, at least.”

  “Chrissy,” he chastises playfully. “I can’t believe you would utter a word as scandalized as sexy .” 

 “I’ve been corrupted,” she reasons. She sighs, letting her head fall softly onto his shoulder on his uninjured side once more, her cast clumsy between them but nothing they can’t manage. When she does, he shifts a bit, readjusting them so that he can wrap his arm around her shoulders and hold her as well as he can. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” 

 “You, too,” he says, thinking back to the image of her floating and refusing to come down before she dropped to the floor like dead weight. Not dead, though. “You scared me.” 

  “You scared me,” she argues. “That was really dumb, rushing Jason like that.” 

 “I didn’t want him to shoot you by accident.” At that, she lets her grip on his stupid ugly gown tighten and she nuzzles her nose against his collarbone. “He’s not dead, right?” 

 “No,” she giggles, then sighs. “He’s fine, he’s just… He’s being kind of an ass.”

  “Christine!”  

 “Stop,” she laughs. “He has! Did you know he tried to get people to hunt you down? He’s crazy!”

 Playfully, he pinches her side and says, “You dated crazy, you know.”

 “Well,” she shrugs, somehow pushing herself closer to him and pressing her lips against his skin in a way that lights a fire in his belly even though he should probably be more focused on recovery. “Now I'm dating the Freak.” 

 His heart stops, he thinks. It couldn’t possibly be beating because he couldn’t possibly survive this interaction with Chrissy goddamn Cunningham. But still, he tries to play it cool. “Dating, huh?” 

 She just hums, totally cool and casual, and says, “Yeah. That okay?” 

 Barely breathing, he kisses the top of her head and nods against it. “Yeah, Sweetheart. I think that’d be perfect.” 

 ~~~~

 “Seventeen.”

  “Eddie, be serious.” 

 “I am! That’s the answer I came up with!” 

 “But I asked you for the chemical formula of glucose! Come on, this is your last exam ever, and I know you know the answer.”

 Well, that’s a good point he supposes, but it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t really care all that much about the chemical formula of glucose. “Fine,” he groans, moving onto his back slowly to rest his head in her lap and gazing up at her with a twinkle in his eyes. He blinks a few times and smiles up at her flirtatiously before saying, “C₆H₁₂O₆.”

 “Very good,” she grins, leaning down and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose, making him blush even though he’s the one who started this whole game. “See? You’re a genius.” 

 “Yeah, yeah. Flattery can only get you so far, Cunningham.” 

 “Right,” she snorts. 

 He can’t help but to play with her fingers, gazing at her perfectly manicured pink nails and smiling at the one she let him paint black, and she smiles more genuinely. “Are you excited?” he asks. “No more clunky plaster that you can use as a weapon in your sleep?”

 “Very excited,” she agrees with a soft giggle, the sound of which makes his heart flutter and his stomach flip. “Although, it’ll be sad not to be able to walk around with Eddie Munson original artwork on my arm.” 

 “I’ll design a tattoo for you,” he suggests casually, making her sigh. 

 “I have to wait until I move far, far away from my mom before I even think about getting any tattoos.” 

 He hums, moving carefully off of her and then shifting them so that she’s lying with her back on the couch cushions and he’s on top of her, the grayish hunk of plaster between them no match for how badly he wants to kiss her. She kisses him back, and honestly, he isn’t sure there’s anything better in the entire world. “One day,” he promises against her mouth. “Soon, right? I mean, you’re gonna be able to move into the your apartment in August.” 

 “The end of August,” she corrects with a pout. “And don’t act like that’s some perfect solution to all my problems.” 

 He kisses her nose, brushing her hair away from her eyes with his left hand while using his right arm to keep himself up. He’s still sore even after almost two months of recovery, and it’s been kind of annoying to not bounce right back from his injury. Chrissy has had to remind him pretty frequently that he got shot, for goodness sake , and that he’s got to take it easy if he expects to make a full recovery. He finally got the stitches removed a few weeks after they released him from that weird hospital, and he’s slowly but surely getting back to normal. 

 “Is your mother not the source of most, if not all of your problems?” he asks, his tone light but serious all at once as he ponders her concerns. 

 “Well, when I move…” she starts slowly, biting her lip anxiously rather than in the cute and sexy way he loves so much. 

 “Yeah?” 

 “Then… I mean… you’ll still be here.” 

  Ah, he thinks. There it is. The very topic they’ve been tiptoeing around for the last two months. 

 Things between them moved quickly, especially in the beginning. They were together so much for that first week, hiding out at Reefer Rick’s after her near death experience, and then they had a realization that maybe all of the trauma they experienced together could have had an impact on the way they felt. Maybe they moved too fast, especially in deciding that they wanted more with one another. For a brief period, just a few hours, they almost thought that they needed to separate if only to prove to themselves that this is what they really wanted. 

 But nothing changed. They survived the unsurvivable, they defeated the undefeatable, they healed from things they shouldn’t have been able to, and then their lives went back to normal. But nothing changed the way they felt about one another. Nothing made him stop thinking about her, and nothing could have stopped her from sneaking out and stealing her brother’s bike and going to his trailer in the middle of the night a few hours after they decided that they should cool things off. 

 These experiences changed them both, and being there for each other did, too. Even though their time together was short lived, and even though their feelings for one another were fueled by the horrors that they went through, it doesn’t make the bond that they have any less meaningful. 

 But still… She's moving to California for school, and they’ve gotten used to seeing each other every day even though her mother is painfully against their relationship. (Chrissy’s made it perfectly clear that she can’t tell her what to do now that she’s eighteen, much to her mother’s dismay.) Going from that to her moving 2000 miles away isn’t going to be easy. 

 “I know,” he murmurs, giving her an uneasy smile that she knows she can read through. “But we’ll be alright. And I’ll be able to visit you once I save up enough to drive there.” 

 “I know, I just–” 

 “Munson, come on, man! We’re late enough as it is!” 

 Jeff’s interruption has him reeling, because it seems like Chrissy really wanted to say something, but he’s right. They’re already late enough as it is, and he supposes he can’t exactly spend all night making out on the couch in the back of the Hideout when he’s supposed to be performing. 

 Being accused of murder and kidnapping and then getting shot and somehow surviving, while also solving a government conspiracy, has been shit for his image at school, but it’s actually done wonders for the band. They actually draw somewhat of a crowd now. 

 But Chrissy’s always right up front, grinning up at him and cheering for him and believing in him, just like she always has. 

 “I promise,” he starts, pressing a soft kiss to her lips as he slowly stands up. “We’ll talk afterwards, okay?”

 “Okay,” she says with a weak smile, and he kisses her again. 

 “Promise.”

 “I know. Go have fun, Eddie.”

 She kind of avoids him after that. Not, like, actually avoiding his presence or anything, but he can tell there’s something on her mind and she never really brings it up. She watches him play with a wide grin on her face, sipping her beer and laughing with Nancy and Robin in a way that makes his heart all warm and fuzzy. 

 And then after the concert, once he and the guys have loaded up their equipment and he goes to the table to meet her and their friends, she cuddles up to him like she usually does, but it feels different somehow. It’s like she’s closer to him, her grip on his bicep a bit tighter, her head a bit heavier on his shoulder. She still smiles and it still reaches her eyes, but it seems to be mixed with a touch of sadness that pulls at his heartstrings. 

 He’ll get to the bottom of it, though. He normally does, is normally pretty good at getting her to open up to him even though it’s not something she’s used to doing. Over the last few short months, she’s made a lot of changes to her life, and she’s grown a lot. He beams with pride each time she does something for herself, something that makes her happy. Hell, every time he’s with her, his stomach flips with excitement for her because her presence means she’s rebelled against her hard-ass mother to see him. Still, though, even though she’s changed for the better, he’ll respect her when her walls go up, and he knows she’ll tell him what’s bothering her eventually. 

 ~~~~

 Having her cast off is life changing. She’d grown so used to having the bulky, heavy material adhered to her for so long that she feels completely weightless without it. Once the doctor removes it, it’s like she can finally take a breath of fresh air. 

 Her mother brought a disposable razor, because heaven forbid she wait until she gets home to shave her underarm. It is kind of gross, she has to admit, but seriously, does it really matter that much? 

 “There we are,” Laura says softly, giving Chrissy a nauseating smile. “Much lighter now, aren’t you? Maybe we can finally get an accurate number on the scale.”

 Of course, she’s referring to the dramatic increase in her weight since her injury. She’s assuming that the cast is the sole reason for the extra poundage. She hasn’t realized that there’s also a correlation between that and what she’s been eating, Eddie having turned her on to Spaghettios and the joys of eating an entire meal three times per day. 

 Her body hasn’t even changed that much, honestly. She’s still petite and thin, she’s just less bony, and she kind of likes it. Screw what Laura Cunningham has to say. 

 “Maybe, maybe not,” she shrugs noncommittally as the doctor returns to the room to check her mobility. He seems pleased with her progress and how she’s healed, and that alone puts a smile on Chrissy’s face and helps her to not worry too much about her mother’s opinions. 

 When they get to the car, all bets are off, of course. It’s easier for her mother to berate her, or at least pick her apart, when they’re in the comfort of their own car or home. 

 “Honestly, Christine,” she starts, disappointed at Chrissy’s plan to study with Eddie after school. She probably didn’t even need to tell her mom that, probably could have just said that she was going to Nancy’s or something, but she’s kind of over the whole lying thing. Why should she be embarrassed about who she’s dating, when he’s one of the only people she’s ever met who makes her feel as good as she’s been feeling? “Do you really need to waste your last few days of school with that… boy? Why wouldn’t you go to the pep rally to support your team?”

 “Because I quit the team,” she deadpans. “And I have an exam tomorrow; my last ever.” 

 “Well, it’s important to surround yourself with your peers, the ones who have a positive influence on you–” 

 “I am doing that.” 

 Her mother sighs as she merges onto the highway, and Chrissy extends her arm in front of her happily to stretch. “I mean, your peers who will be in your life long term. Like Janet; isn’t she going to UCLA just like you are? Why would you waste your time with some trailer trash you’ll never see again once you move?” 

 She’s silent for a moment, anger coursing through her blood like hot lava. She’s angry for a few reasons, mostly because of her mother calling Eddie trailer trash and her stubborn refusal to see him as anything else, even though he doesn’t even live in the trailer anymore. Without going into too much detail, Dr. Owens was very clear about the fact that Eddie had saved Chrissy’s life on more than one occasion. Hell, he took a bullet for her! He almost bled out for her because he was too busy trying to save her to even realize he was hurt. How could her mother just brush that off? 

 But at the same time, a very small part of her wonders if she’s right. She isn’t really sure where she and Eddie stand, especially after she moves. Once she moves on from Hawkins and makes a life in Pasadena, will she ever see him again? Will they fizzle out after a few months when they realize that long distance doesn’t work for them? Of course, that’s the opposite of what she wants. Honestly, she kind of doesn't want to go at all– she’d be happy enough living out the rest of her days in his tiny new house with him. She’d live out the rest of her days in his dilapidated trailer with him, the one with the hole in the ceiling and the gate to another dimension. But she already committed to UCLA months ago, before she fell in love with Eddie Munson. 

 And that’s when she realizes… shoot. She’s in love with Eddie Munson. 

 He’s everything to her. They’ve been through so much together in such a short amount of time and it’s never been anything short of magical between them. She’s in love with him. How can she just leave him? 

 With that knowledge, and with a determination to be argumentative with her mom, she says, “I'd rather spend all of my time with him than with you. At least he treats me like a human being, like someone he cares about. And whether we see each other after I move doesn’t… it doesn’t change how I feel about him now…”

 Sadness seeps into her voice, cutting through the anger with her mother as she considers the distinct possibility that, after she moves away, she might not see Eddie again. She can’t just ask him to move to California, as much as she’d love to. It wouldn’t be fair to him to put him out like that when she knows that money has been tight for him, although the small stipend from Owens’ team for living expenses has helped him and his uncle a lot. Still, though, it’s not like she has a car and can travel back to Hawkins, and it’s not like he can afford to make the drive to see her all that often. 

 They’ll be fine, though. 

 ~~~~

 Graduation was about as painful as he’d expected, horribly boring and far too hot in that stupid cap and gown. But when all was said and done, Chrissy leapt into his arms and kissed him so hard that it was worth it. 

 ~~~~

 Their summer passes too quickly, the heat and the long sunny days by the pool and the perfect nights by the fire coming to an end as August rounds to a close. He feels himself getting more and more anxious as the days turn into weeks and the pressure continues to surmount. Chrissy isn’t herself, noticeably sadder as the summer flies by, and he knows it has to be because she’s leaving soon. It just kills him that he can’t say anything to her that would make her feel any better. He doesn’t know anything at this point, about whether he’d be able to visit her frequently, or about the next time they’ll see one another once she moves to the coast. 

 And he keeps thinking, wishfully, that she’ll be alright, that she’ll see that the two of them will be fine, but things seem to come to a head the second to last night she spends in Hawkins. They were spending the evening with their friends, around the firepit in the Sinclair’s back yard, and she was cheerful and bright, although still sad as ever, as the night went on. But then, when they get into his van with Max to bring her home, she goes silent. Her arms wrap tightly around her middle and her knees lift up so that her heels are on the seat and she just stares out the front window as she holds herself. 

 She gets out of the van when they pull up to Max’s trailer, hugging her more tightly than he’s ever seen, and he catches both of them wiping their eyes as they whisper their goodbyes. Everyone has promised to keep in touch with her, and she’s promised to return for visits, but still, leaving is hard. 

 And when she gets back into the van, she wipes at her cheeks again, sniffles in a way that makes him blush because of how adorable she is and then kick himself because of how weird of a thought that is, and she sighs. And she drops her head to the window and hugs herself around her waist again and she sniffles once more. 

 “Sweetheart,” he starts, the nickname feeling weird leaving his mouth so he clears his throat. “Chrissy?”

 “Hmm?”

 “Uh… you okay?”

 She doesn’t answer. He sees her shrug out of the corner of his eye as he pulls out of the park and drives not too far down the street to his and Wayne's new place. Instead of pushing her, he just parks the van and shuts off the engine, stepping out into the clear summer air and rounding the front of the van to open her door carefully. 

 She offers him her left hand with a tiny smile, still pleased with the fact that she can actually use it, and he pulls it up to his lips to press them to her knuckles. She stares up at him with those big, sad eyes, glassy and wet with unshed tears, and his heart shatters. Her bottom lip wobbles and she bows her head before dropping it against his chest, right below the golden 86 that rests around his neck. 

 He sighs as he wraps his arms around her, pulling her as close to him as he possibly can and pressing his lips to the top of her head. “Baby,” he whispers into the night, and he’s met with her soft whimper. “Come inside.” 

 She does, and she lets him sit her down on the new-to-him love seat, but her expression remains the same, refusing to shift into anything remotely positive as she stares at her fingers and picks at her cuticles. 

 The moment he sits down beside her and offers her a glass of water, he tells her, “It’ll be alright, Sweetheart,” and she bursts into tears. 

 She shakes her head, face in her palms as she sobs, although she doesn’t turn to lean into him like she normally would. “I don’t wanna go,” she cries into her hands. “I can’t do it. I’m just–” 

 “Of course you can,” he offers tenderly, placing his hand on her back in hopes that it’ll draw her towards him so that he can scoop her into his lap, although she seems hesitant to even get close to him. “Chrissy, you’re the most amazing, brave person I've ever met. You’re gonna kick Pasadena’s ass.”  

 “But I don't want to!” she wails stubbornly, lifting her reddened face from her hands and holding them in front of her in a gesture that says she thinks this should be perfectly obvious to him. “It’s not fair!”

 “What isn’t, baby?” 

 “That– that I–” Her lip wobbles again and she lets out another sob, and for a brief moment, he wonders if Wayne is home. He should have checked. “That I fell in love with you and now I have to just leave.”

 And, well… fuck.  

 Eddie’s known that he’s been in love with Chrissy Cunningham since he was 14. But to hear her say that? To hear her admit, possibly by accident, that she loves him, too? 

 He can’t just sit here and let her suffer, let her think that they’ll hardly ever see one another once she leaves in a day and a half. 

 “Chrissy,” he starts, still shaken by her admission, trying to hide the smile that threatens the corners of his mouth. “Sweetheart… I love you.” 

 And wouldn’t you know, it just makes her cry harder. 

 “What if we never see each other again?” she cries, finally falling towards him and letting her head heavily land on his chest, her mascara likely staining his shirt, not that he cares. “I’m gonna leave and then we’re just gonna fizzle out. Everyone says it’s stupid to stay in a long distance relationship, what if they’re right–” 

 “Chrissy–” 

 “I can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again–”

  “Chrissy,” he interrupts, perhaps a little too harshly as he takes hold of her shoulders and pulls her from his chest so that he can brush her tears from her cheeks and look seriously into her eyes. “I didn't want to tell you this until I was sure, but…” 

 She shakes her head, starting to cry again and staring down with the most tragic look on her face. “I can’t ask you to visit me; it’s too expensive.” 

 “I’m not gonna visit, Sweetheart–” She sobs again. “I’m trying to work it out so that I can move out there.” 

 She cuts herself off, sniffling hard and choking over a sob and looking up into his eyes. “You're… huh?” 

 He gives her a small, tender smile, cradling her cheek in one of his hands and brushing her hair away from her eyes with the other, unable to stop himself from leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her damp nose. “I really didn’t want to say anything unless I was completely sure, but… Corroded Coffin might be moving up in the world.” 

 “What do you mean?” she asks weakly, finally leaning against his palm. 

 “I mean, after everything that happened, we caught a lot of traction from a more… metal-type crowd, especially out west. I mean, lead guitarist gets accused of demonic possession, murder, and kidnapping, then gets shot… it’s pretty metal.” She laughs, very lightly, and it warms him from the inside out. “And now… We’re working on a deal that would possibly take us to LA. Which is, like, a mile or two outside of Pasadena.” 

 He watches her with curious eyes, taking in her face as she takes in his words, and just when he thinks all might be well, her lip wobbles again and he cringes internally. It’s probably too much, he tells himself. But she throws herself at him, lifting herself into his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck as she lets out another sob. “Eddie,” she cries into his skin. But she can’t get any more words out around her crying. 

 “Sweetheart, please don’t cry. It’ll be alright, I promise. Even if this doesn’t work out, if this deal falls through, we’ll still–” 

 “It won’t,” she insists through her tears, stubborn as ever. “It won’t fall through. Eddie, you just made my entire life.” 

 Part of him, a very small part, is worried and almost wishes he hadn’t told her. What if it does fall through, and he’s put this glimmer of hope into her heart only to rip it out? But then, she lies on top of him for so long, crying through her range of emotions and thanking him for even considering moving to California, that he knows this is the right thing to do. And he’ll do anything in his power to make sure it happens. 

 ~~~~

 A week after she’s moved away, she still hasn’t heard from him about his deal. She thought for sure that this would work out, that it was written in the stars and that everything would work out between them because they’re meant to be, but now… 

 Don’t they deserve to be happy, after everything they’ve been through? 

 She hates to doubt them or the strength of their relationship and how much they love one another. After she had calmed down the night before she had to pack up and go, they reiterated to one another how they felt, admitting that they love each other, and he told her that he’s known it since he was 14. And then she cried again. 

 She didn’t mean to tell him like that, but she couldn’t help it. The thought of never seeing him again was far too all-consuming, and it made her so crazy and anxious that she couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

 She’s just put the finishing touches on her small apartment, the one that she shares with another girl her age who’s also starting at UCLA come Monday. It feels odd being here, trying to call this place her home when in reality she just had to leave it. It isn’t the home that she grew up in that she misses, either- it’s Eddie. 

 Eddie’s her home, and he has been for a few months now. Ever since he rescued her from that curse and dragged her back to reality, she knew she could never regard another person as highly as she does him. Even with the way their town treated him while everything was going on around them, even with the stares and whispers he received once it was all over, she knows that there’s no one in the world as good a person as Eddie Munson. 

 And even though she loves him more than anything or anyone, and even though she doesn’t want to feel this way, she can’t help the feelings of dread that flood through her whenever she thinks of him. Her fear that this won’t work simply won’t go away. 

 She’s just wiping away another tear, finding herself doing this far too often, when she hears a knock on the door. Lindsay must have forgotten her key, she thinks. She’s done it a few times since they moved in, and she’s trying not to let it get to her. Can’t she just remember?  

 The door swings open and she gives Lindsay a look that she hopes conveys how irritated she is by having to do this once again, but then she stills immediately. 

 Lindsay did forget her key, or else she could have let herself in. But behind her, with his leather jacket and his denim vest with the Dio patch and his perfect, springy curls, stands the one person who could wipe the look of disgust right off her face. 

 “Hi,” he greets happily from behind her new roommate, and she knows she’s being rude, but she pushes right past Lindsay to throw herself into his arms. 

 She cries again, like she has been for a week now, only this time it’s for another reason. The fact that he’s here with a beaming smile across his face must mean what she hopes it means, that he got the deal he was hoping for and that he’s moving to LA with his band. That he’s going to make it big, that he’ll be a successful musician just like he’s always wanted, that his dreams are coming true. 

 And that he’s here. His arms are around her waist, holding her off the ground and against his chest as he spins her happily, laughing with her as she hugs tightly around his neck. “You’re here,” she whimpers into his collarbone. 

 “I’m here, Sweetheart,” he promises. At some point, Lindsay makes her way inside and they just stay in the hall of her apartment building, not caring that they’re locked out or that any of her neighbors could walk into the hall at any moment and catch them like this. “We signed a two year contract with a recording studio. With the condition that I get to remix Somebody To Love .”

 “I love you,” she promises, not even able to respond to his joke, kissing his cheek and then finding his lips with hers, locking him in a kiss that makes her heart stop. “I love you so much.” 

 “I told you,” he whispers against her mouth, his forehead on hers. “I’m not leaving you again. You’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of me.”

 She never held it against him, the way that he had to flee that night all those months ago. She never felt animosity towards him for the fact that he had to protect himself when the alternative would have been far, far worse for him. But still, he’s always held it against himself, the guilt of not staying with her when she’d asked him to in a traumatized, painful haze eating away at him little by little. His devotion to her will always make her heart soar, and the fact that he’s made this promise to her and has never once broken it since that night sets her soul on fire. 

 She loves him. What happened with Vecna will leave a scar on her heart and in her thoughts for the rest of her life, haunting her dreams and leaving a dull ache in her left arm from the trauma of what she shouldn’t have survived. And even though their relationship started on rocky, horrifying grounds, even though their closeness was forged from trauma and terror, she wouldn’t trade her experiences for anything as long as she’s by his side. Because if there’s one thing he’s taught her, it’s that she doesn’t want somebody to love. She just wants him. 

~~~~

He listens, hands shaking in the air, mind racing at the fact that he can no longer see Chrissy, can no longer ensure that she’s alright and alive and not floating to the ceiling. He breathes too quickly as the panic settles, the thought of her bones snapping flooding his memories again. He drops the flashlight and empties his pockets, just as Jason commands.

 “Who else is in the house?” Jason asks too calmly, but Eddie can hear the hardware of the gun rattling in his shaky hands. 

 “No one,” he mutters. 

 “Alright. I’m gonna back away while you wake her up, and then she and I are gonna leave, and you’re gonna spend the rest of your miserable life in prison for whatever the hell you’re doing to her.” 

 Even if he could wake her up, he shouldn’t. Even with how badly he wants to wake her up, he can’t. Chrissy, his strong, perfect, brave Chrissy, has insisted that she serve as the distraction, as the bait for Vecna so that the others can defeat him. She promised him that she could do this, and made him promise that he would help her. And as much as he hates it, he would never break a promise to her. So he shakes her head. “I can’t do that, man,” he says as he starts to turn around. “If I wake her too soon, we’re all gonna die.” 

 “Well,” he says with a crazed smile, his thumb cocking the gun shakily. “If you don’t wake her up right now, you die, freak. Just you.” 

 He tries, really. He tries to explain to Jason what’s going on, tries to tell him the truth about the demon who lives just below them and murdered his friend. He tells him that’s how Patrick McKinney died, how Fred Benson died, how Chrissy almost died. He tells him that the music is what saved her, even though she insists that that isn’t totally true. He tells him that she’s there now, being brave and strong and trying to hold the monster off while their friends try to defeat him. But as much as Jason can believe part of the story, after he saw Patrick dragged into the sky to have his bones snapped, he can’t get past one tiny detail. 

 “Then why the hell was she at your trailer? You corrupted her! You possessed her!” 

 “She wanted to buy drugs, dude,” he tries desperately, feeling his throat close in fear as Jason keeps the gun shakily pointed at him. 

 “Liar!” He can shoot Eddie, for all he cares, but Jason’s aim is shit, and all he can picture is his shaky grip loosening and the bullet flying right for Chrissy as she sits between the two of them. 

 “She was seeing horrible things,” he tries to explain. “Vecna forced her to see these terrible things and she was scared. She just needed help.”

 He laughs again, the sound making Eddie shiver. “That’s how I know you’re lying. If Chrissy was really scared, if she really wanted help, she would’ve come to me! Not you, freak!”

 “You’re wrong about her,” he says more softly. He’s not upset about Jason calling him a freak. And he’s not upset about his total disbelief that he could be remotely good for Chrissy. He’s angry. He’s angry that Jason knows so little about the girl he’s been seeing for all this time. He’s angry that he stands here with a loaded gun and chooses to put her in danger because of his own screwed up problems. “She’s not like you; she’s not what you think she is.”

 “You have five seconds to wake her up.” 

 He starts counting from five, the gun still aimed and loaded. And Eddie considers his options as time seems to slow to a halt. He can run, listen to Jason and wake Chrissy up with the understanding that the others probably won’t be able to kill Vecna if he does. Maybe he can even get the two of them away from Jason, or maybe he can go back for her after Jason’s taken her with him and they can run far away and never look back. 

 But then, he doesn’t do that running and hiding thing anymore. 

 So he doesn’t think. When Jason says four, Eddie shuts his eyes and adjusts his center of gravity and rushes the shit out of him, trying his hardest to go at him from as far from Chrissy as he can. He tackles him even after he hears the gun going off, so full of adrenaline and anger and just generally so fucking done with this guy that he uses everything he has as he crashes into him. Jason knees him in the stomach and he doubles over, the two of them struggling against one another, and Jason elbows him right in the jaw. 

 They scurry across the floor, forcing one another this way and that, and he thinks of Chrissy. He thinks of how unfair her life has been, how poorly she’s been treated by everyone she should be able to count on, how she needed to come to the freak for help in the first place because she couldn’t trust anyone else, and he fights harder. 

 He never thought he would be able to overpower him, not even when he saw those bruises on Chrissy’s wrists, but as he thinks of the yellowing, purplish marks in her perfect skin, he grabs Jason again, forcing him to the ground, and he pins his wrists over his head, squeezing hard and praying that he leaves a matching bruise on each of his arms. And then he takes the gun out of his grip somehow, not even thinking about the fact that it’s loaded and pretty much pointed directly at himself, and he hits him in the head with the butt of it and watches the lights go out in his eyes as he passes out. 

 He’s probably not breathing. He stares down as the unconscious Jason Carver for a second too long, eyes wide and startled as he tries to take in what the hell he just did. Did he really just rush a guy who was pointing a gun at him? 

 Then he remembers hearing the shot and he turns quickly, grabbing the gun and tossing it so it slides across the floor, well out of Jason’s reach. He takes a quick scan of the room, rushing to Chrissy and thanking whatever the hell is out there because at least she isn’t bleeding. But she’s rocking more quickly, her cloudy eyes darting from left to right with wild abandon and her breathing even faster before he feels a pull against his hands, gravity fighting against his hold on her until she’s lifting from the floor. 

 But then he looks down to find the Walkman, to grab the headphones and start the tape and bring her back down to him, and he freezes, panics again. Because the fucking thing is in pieces. It’s shattered, broken in the scuffle that he started, and he realizes he’s no better than anyone else. He can’t even keep her Walkman alive long enough to save her. 

 “Fuck!” he screams, loud and unhindered and pissed. “Fuck, Chrissy, come on!” he begs. He stands up and crouches so he can put his hands on her cheeks and pulls her forehead to his, but it doesn’t stop her from lifting higher and higher. His hands are shaking, his brain resembling the Spaghettios they shared just a few short nights ago, and he curses again. 

 “Chrissy, wake up,” he sobs. “Please, Sweetheart, please wake up. Please come back to me.” 

 But she goes higher and higher until she’s almost as tall as he is, her arm straight and her legs falling weak beneath her, and nothing holds her up but Vecna. 

 He doesn't think before he just starts singing like a maniac, crying through the lyrics that don’t seem to get through to her. Why would they? He sounds like a freak, sobbing out pleas and lyrics that barely make sense. He shakes her shoulders, knowing his desperate and pathetic attempts at even coming close to mimicking her favorite song are foolish. She climbs higher into the air until he can barely reach her, and all he can do is try to force her back down to the ground. He pushes on her shoulders, and then, without thinking, he kisses her frozen lips and hopes for some romantic fairytale miracle, but it’s no use. 

 Just as she gets high enough to leave his grip, though, she falls again. 

 She collapses to the floor in a heap, bones in one piece, and so does he. 

 ~~~~

 It’s so easy to fall into his arms. At first, it takes her a moment to even comprehend where she is, and then when she realizes that she escaped again, that she ran again and that he helped her to set herself free, she’s sprinting towards him until she can feel his lips on hers. 

 As she was running, something changed. The world was crashing around her and the gap in the Upside Down that was like a window to Eddie got bigger and bigger until she leapt through it, but something made her believe that she would’ve made it here anyway. And when she wakes up, she knows it’s because they won. 

 “Eddie,” she says, feeling a lot calmer this time than she was the last. None of her bones are broken, at least based on her quick scan of herself. And at least this time, she knew what she was walking into when she got cursed. She opens her eyes and is pleased to find that she can see, that they haven’t popped inside of her skull. “Eddie?” 

 He doesn’t answer. He lies beside her, eyes shut and face tense, body rigid. “Eddie!” she calls, moving quickly to get as close to him as she can and shaking his shoulders. She hears a groan, but it comes from behind her so she shakes Eddie’s shoulders again, not concerned with whoever is behind them. 

 Eddie groans this time, his breath sharp as he inhales and opens his eyes wide. He’s gasping for air as he looks around frantically, and he only settles a little bit when their gazes meet. “Chris–” he starts, cutting himself off with another gasp. And then he smiles and her heart stops. “Fuck. Hey.”

 His hand is on his waist, on the left side of his stomach, clutching firmly as his eyes droop in pain. “What happened?” she begs frantically, and when she moves his hand, she sees his damp, red palm and she wants to turn around and be sick right on the floor. 

 “Jason,” he breathes weakly, tilting his chin to gesture to the groaning body behind her and making her turn around. Her blood runs cold. Too much is happening all at once, with her curse by Vecna breaking and her waking in this old, chilly attic, with Eddie on the floor bleeding, and then to find Jason in a similar state. She can’t see any blood, though, and he appears to be unconscious, so he’s the least of her worries. 

 But then when she moves to be close to him, to check on him and to comfort him, she sees the gun and freezes. “Did he…” she starts, but she can’t finish her thought. “Eddie?” 

 “‘M okay,” he chokes out. He’s still panting, though, and he’s got a tiny bit of blood in his mouth. 

 “He shot you?” she whispers. He doesn’t really answer, his eyes fluttering open and shut, but when he opens them once more, he smiles up at her. 

 “I’m fine,” he says more clearly. “Can’t keep this old freak down.” 

 “You need to go to the hospital,” she reasons, but he’s gazing at her, his eyes far away but his smile soft and happy. She knows he’s in shock, but she can’t keep herself from panicking. 

 “You did it.” 

 His hand moves away from his wound while the other stays put, and he lets it gently graze along the skin of her cheek, his smile still in place but his teeth turning red. “Eddie,” she whispers, “we should try to get you downstairs.” 

 “Knew you could,” he murmurs. “You’re perfect. Knew you could do it.” 

 “Erica!” she screams, turning her head towards the stairs and trying not to think about how the way he’s talking makes it seem like he’s stopped fighting. “Erica, help!” 

 She turns back to him, figuring the best way to keep him with her is to talk to him. “Steve, Nancy, and Robin killed him, Eddie,” she tells him with pride in her voice and tears on her cheeks. “It’s all over. You just need to stay with me, okay?”

 “So brave,” he muses. “You’re my hero, Chr–” He cuts himself off with another gasping breath.

 “Eddie,” she whispers desperately, leaning down and letting a tear fall onto his cheek. “It’s okay. I know it hurts, but you have to stay with me, okay? Just stay with me. Don’t… don’t go, okay?”

 “Doesn’t hurt,” he says, and she cries harder. 

 He’s moaning and groaning, obviously in pain as he gasps for air, and help can’t come quickly enough. She doesn’t care that Jason’s still lying still behind her, and she doesn’t care if he wakes up, either. She doesn’t care that Eddie’s bleeding onto her jeans and that she should probably never wear them again. All she cares about is screaming out Erica’s name, crying out Eddie’s, holding him as he goes limp in her arms. 

~~~~

He wishes more than anything that he could be the one to climb to her window once the light goes on, but it makes sense for Max to do it. Along with her Kate Bush tape, she lithely climbs to the roof beneath Chrissy’s bedroom window and knocks, somehow convincing her to come to the car with a bag of clothes in far less time than he expected. 

 He can’t really see much of her, the blanket obscuring his vision, but still, he can see the giant, heavy plaster covering her arm from her knuckles up to her underarm. It’s held close to her with a black sling which he assumes assists in keeping her shattered arm immobile and safe. 

 She lets out a tiny giggle, one that he wouldn’t expect from her after everything she’s been through, and he can feel her leaning forward towards him, the dainty fingers of her right hand lifting the blanket from over his head and exposing his eyes. Her smile beams down at him, and although it’s smaller and sadder than it has been, it’s genuine. 

 “Hi,” she whispers, her fingers playing with the hem of the blanket just by his chin. “Max said you were gonna be down there.” 

“Hey,” he laughs breathlessly. “I, uh, yeah. Hiding.”

 “Smooth,” he hears from the front seat, and if he could reach Robin with his elbow, he’d send it into her ribs. 

 “Thanks for coming to get me,” she says softly, voice sweet and tender in a way that makes him want to pull her into his arms and hold her there for as long as he can. 

 “Of course,” he whispers back, and in a moment of boldness, he moves his hidden hand and brushes her fingers with his. He wants to tell her, I'll always be here for you, or maybe, I'll never leave you again, but they both feel too… intimate, he supposes. At least for the full car. So he settles again for, “Of course.” 

 Reefer Rick’s been in jail for a couple months, and he’s expected to stay there for a few months more, so his place is empty. At first, he was too nervous to break into the house, settling for the boathouse, but then he spent the night throwing up in there, and Steve shoved an oar into his ribs a couple of times, after he witnessed the almost-death of his… friend… and he decided that he could use a little comfort. He deserves to sleep on a couch instead of a damp, smelly dock. 

 So when they get to the main house, he lets himself take a deep breath, lets himself settle just a bit as he searches through the kitchen for something to eat. “You like Spaghettios?” he calls into the living room where Chrissy stands stiffly, staring at Rick’s bookshelf with her right hand extended towards the spines. 

 “I don’t know,” she calls back, and he gasps dramatically.

 “Chrissy Cunningham!” he shouts. “I’m about to rock your world.” 

 Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. But she giggles again. 

 ~~~~

 Her mother doesn’t think she should be listening to loud music that can rot her brain. She hated the Walkman when she saw it, cringing and asking what she could possibly want with something that would play the horrid music directly into her ear drums, wondering where she even got it, but Chrissy only supplied a soft smile accompanied by a shrug as she pulled the headphones onto her ears. 

 The tape he made her has been playing constantly for a week now. She never thought she would get sick of this song, but it is getting a bit old by this point. Still, though, as she pokes through Reefer Rick’s house while Eddie makes some kind of canned catastrophe, she comes across his small collection of things lying on the checkered couch. And she noticed his own Walkman. And she opens it up and–

 QUEEN – Somebody to Love. 

 “Dinner!” he calls theatrically, making her jump and anxiously force the top shut again. “You okay?”

 He looks her up and down as he holds two white bowls with spoons sticking out, his hen-covered apron making her smile, and it’s reminiscent of that time a few weeks ago in the woods, the first time she saw those spiders crawling out of the clock face. She kind of likes the way he approaches her so playfully and immediately shifts into this serious, concerned demeanor when he sees her startling. 

 “Sorry,” she says quietly, offering him a small, disingenuous smile. “I didn’t–” 

 “Hey, you’re okay,” he tells her, and it feels different somehow. He didn’t just tell her that it’s okay, that it’s okay that she was touching his private stuff, that it’s okay that she’s so jumpy and annoying. He tells her that she’s okay. She’s here, she’s welcome, she’s alive and in one piece, technically, she’s safe. 

 She’s safe. She’s safe with him. 

 And because she knows she’s safe, she figures it’s also safe to lighten up and seek a little clarification as she gestures down to the Walkman. “Is this a backup? In case mine gets wrecked or something?” 

 His wide smile falters for a second before he plasters it back on, more forced this time, and walks to the couch adjacent to the one she stands by. “Sure,” he says, his voice enthusiastic but hesitant, somehow. “Come sit? I know Spaghettios probably isn’t the gourmet you’re used to at the Cunningham estate, but it’s gotta be better than the green Jell-o the hospital was giving you.” 

 That’s probably true, she thinks, so she obliges and sits beside him, not too close, but close enough so that it’s safe for her to take the hot bowl with her unbroken arm and rest it on her lap. “Thanks,” she murmurs softly. 

 “Hang on a second,” he encourages quietly, suddenly deep in thought as he stands, removing the apron and then walking towards the bookshelf she was just near. He takes a large hardcover book off the shelf, reads the cover– “Animal Farm,” he cringes– and walks it back over to her, lifting her bowl and placing the book down on her lap. “There ya go. Your own little TV Dinner table.” 

 With a soft giggle, she thanks him again, reaching for the spoon with a tiny smile as she watches him do the same. The spaghetti and tiny meatballs are surprisingly good, and she finds herself scarfing the dinner down without even thinking about the calories that have to be involved with something that doesn’t taste like paper.

 She jumps again when the tape runs out, moving to reset it, but Eddie’s hand stops her so she meets his eyes. They’re deep and dark, wide and curious and caring as they gaze into her own, and she can’t help but to let her lips turn up slightly, her head tilting to the side in curiosity. “Do I finally get a break?”

 “I thought you liked that song?” he asks with a soft laugh as he takes the headphones from around her neck. 

 “It’s my favorite. But I've heard it, like, two thousand times this week alone.” 

 “Right,” he chuckles as he stands up. “That’s why I figured we could try something else. We don’t know if you’re allowed to listen to other songs so we won't risk that,” he explains, walking back towards the shelf and fiddling with the old looking record player that sits one shelf up from the floor. “And I’m not gonna be one of those asshole douchebags who insists that you need to listen to the music the way it was meant to be heard,” he continues, his voice changing to a cloying, annoying mimicking tone that makes her laugh. “But I feel like it’ll sound different coming from the record through the speakers.” 

 With a giggle, she says, “Okay, let’s try it.” 

 It does sound a bit different, more crisp, or something, and she smiles as she sits down and notes the way that he closes his eyes passionately and dramatically, making a fist as he silently sings along into a fake microphone. “You’re crazy,” she laughs, and he looks at her with false incredulity, pretending his feelings are hurt by her claim. 

 “How dare you?” he asks during an instrumental break, careful not to interrupt his lip syncing. 

 “You’re not even singing!” 

 “I can hit these notes, Cunningham. I just didn’t want to make you jealous.”

 With a hearty laugh, she assures him, “I wouldn’t get jealous; I'd give you a round of applause.” 

 As if just on time, he joins in with his own vocals, almost expertly meeting Freddie Mercury note for note with just as much charisma. He takes her bowl as he continues on with the second verse, placing it on the coffee table before them and taking her hand as he carefully lifts her into a standing position. 

 With laughter in her lungs and her throat and her heart, spilling from her mouth and from her eyes as happy tears poke against them, genuine joy hitting her for the first time since she can remember, she isn’t even embarrassed as she joins in with the backup vocals, accompanying his dramatic performance with ease and earning an excited grin from him. 

 He dances with her carefully yet playfully, still loudly singing along but missing a few notes as his laughter interrupts. He spins her, he holds her unbroken hand as he jumps up onto the couch, dropping it to mime the guitar solo. He starts jumping on the couch as the melody builds up, and she almost cries with laughter, her stomach hurting from the use of a group of muscles she hasn’t worked in such a long time. His voice squeaks out, almost hitting the highest note but missing as he cuts himself off and doubles over laughing, jumping down from the couch and taking her hand again as the melodic flow of the song settles her heart. His other hand wipes away a tear and then, before either of them know what’s happening, she’s leaning against his chest with her cast between them and her other arm around his waist, both of his arms holding her closely, his chin resting on the top of her head as they sway together.

 And it's the most romantic thing she’s ever experienced. 

 He’s humming still, as the song starts to come to a close, his throat vibrating against her nose, and she wants to press her lips against his chest. She knows he was only kidding, making a scene to make her laugh, and even though he couldn’t hit all the notes, his voice was stunning. Her heart is calm for the first time in a long time, her fingers have stopped shaking, her eyes are closed as the song plays through. 

 “You’re a regular groupie, Christina Cunningham.” 

 She smiles wholeheartedly, letting out a soft, contented sigh. “You’re a regular rockstar, Edward Munson.”

 “I’m a metalhead,” he defends, and she shrugs. With a chuckle, he says, “And my name isn’t Edward.”

 “What is it?” she asks softly. Although the song has started again, she still doesn’t want to interrupt this. 

 “Edmund,” he tells her, almost shy.

 “Edmund,” she repeats gently. “Well, Edmund, my name isn’t Christina.” 

 “Agh,” he curses, moving his hand from her back to snap in disappointment before placing it right back where it was, much to her satisfaction. “What is it?” 

 “Christine.” 

 “I had a 50/50 shot.” 

 “Maybe you shouldn’t be gambling,” she jokes, and he tickles her ribs softly and she swears she feels his lips doing something when she giggles and squirms before settling against him again. 

 He holds her, swaying with her as the song runs through again, and then once more. He sings quietly about wanting to get out of this prison cell and she’s never felt more understood in her life. He sings that he takes a look in the mirror and cries and she almost cries, too. And his voice is so soft and gentle and it rumbles in her ear as he sings over and over and over about finding somebody to love. And that’s all she’s ever wanted, really. Somebody who wants to love her. 

 Overcome with emotions that she can’t quite identify, she finds herself squeezing his waist as she whispers, “Thank you.” 

 His lips do that thing again– whatever it is she isn’t sure, maybe a smile or maybe even a kiss, but she doesn’t want to let herself believe that too firmly– and he whispers back, “For gracing you with my flawlessly stunning musical talent?” 

 She laughs again and finds herself nuzzling her nose against his collarbone. “For everything. You saved my life.” 

 She feels him stiffen and worries that that must’ve been the wrong thing to say. Eddie hasn’t been in her life for very long at all, at least not significantly, and she was unconscious for half the time anyway. They haven’t seen each other for two weeks. This is only the third time they’ve hung out– fourth, if she counts the talent show in sixth grade. But still, something has shifted with her. Maybe having a near death, monster fueled experience with someone is a good way to form a connection with them. But every thought she has of Eddie is accompanied by a longing deep in the chambers of her heart and a fluttering deep in the pit of her stomach that has nothing to do with her need to purge her dinner. In fact, she doesn't need to purge her dinner, and she hasn’t felt like that in years. 

 The differences in her life can be pinpointed to Eddie Munson. His presence in the woods had to have been the thing that stopped the visions of those spiders in her head. He pulled her out of the curse she was under just by being there for her. Vecna was going to attack her anyway, whether she was at his trailer or a game or Jason’s house; Eddie’s the reason she’s still alive. She’d be gone if he wasn’t there when it happened. He’s the thing that gave her the strength to end things with Jason. He’s the reason she chose to run from her parents’ house, to flee the oppressive way that her mother would have monitored each bite she took of her dinner. And it was his idea to get her out of the house anyway, to avoid another Vecna attack. 

 He’s changed everything for her. And she wants him to know that she knows that, that she appreciates it. She wants him to know that, although she probably shouldn’t, she’s having feelings she’s never had before, ones that are undeniable and strong and don’t scare her even though they should. 

 But he stiffens, and maybe that’s not something he wants to hear from her. 

 “I left you,” he croaks out, his voice breaking and almost inaudible over the shredding guitar solo still blaring behind them. “I didn’t save you, Chrissy. I told you I would stay with you and I ran the second I got a chance. I’m a coward.” 

 “No,” she insists, shaking her head as she lifts it to look up at him. She moves her good hand from his back, using it without thinking to brush a long strand of hair back into place. “No, Eddie, if you weren’t there, I’d be–” 

 “Don’t,” he begs. His eyes are sadder than she’s ever seen, big and round and tearful. “Please. Don’t say it.” She doesn’t. She just stares at him, just as sadly, and nods. “I can’t– every time I think about–”

 His breathing is faster, his hold on her tighter although she doesn’t mind. Tears are in his eyes and she notices the way his jaw starts trembling, panic setting in as he must recall the sight of her bones breaking and her body suspended. She can’t let him feel this way, especially not when he’s been so adamant about making her feel better, so even though she isn’t sure how he feels about her or what’s passing between them, she cups the back of his neck beneath his hair and pulls him close enough to touch her forehead to his. He hunches over to reach her, and something about it makes her smile. 

 “I’m here,” she tells him, recalling the way he’d done the exact thing for her. The way his words made her feel just a tiny bit better after the worst experience of her life. “I’m right here, and I'm here because of you. After you turned on Freddie,” she starts, earning a watery laugh against her lips which she mirrors, “it was like it broke through the spell, you know? And then all I saw was you. And I heard you calling out for me and I just… I just ran. I ran to you because I knew that if I could make it to your arms, I'd be safe. And I was. I still am.” 

 She feels him taking a deep breath, in through his mouth and out through his nose. He nods, his nose bumping against hers in a motion so intimate that her heart nearly stops. The song starts again, and even though she could be driven crazy at any moment hearing the same notes over and over, he keeps her sane. “I wish I stayed with you. I’m so sorry.”

 “You couldn’t. You were right; you probably would’ve been arrested. Hawkins already started a manhunt; it’s not safe for you out there.” 

 “The Satanic Freak,” he muses, and she’s unable to decide if he’s being humorous or not.

 “No,” she whispers. “The really nice guy who saved my life.” 

 That brings a small laugh from his lips, and it makes her smile. “Are you sure you don’t mean your true love saved you?” he asks, and she gives him a questioning look. “Freddie?” 

 Her smirk grows across her lips as his sense of humor returns. “No,” she says casually. “I’m more partial to Roger.” 

 “Roger?!” he balks, pulling away from her slightly but keeping his strong hands on the small of her back.

 “Don’t act so surprised!”

 “The drummer, Chrissy? You wound me.” 

 In a moment of boldness, she grins and shrugs. “I like his curls,” she says, flicking her fingers through his bangs.

 For someone so cool and confident, the speed at which his eyes grow wide and his face turns beet red is surprising.

~~~~

It takes her a second, like she has to get her bearings before she can absolutely lose her shit. She lies on the floor almost lifelessly for almost a full minute before her hand rises up to her face and she stares at her palm. He watches it all fall apart for her, her eyes growing wide, her face turning panicked, realization striking her much too hard as she sorts out the fact that she can only move one. Her hand shakes so violently as she holds it in her view, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. She stares at it in horror, she brings it up to her head and pokes around at her face and to the back of her head, eyes still saucers. And then she glances down at the other, and she starts to whimper, and her breathing gets really fast, and she chokes out a sob. He doesn’t think, doesn’t turn down the music, doesn’t let himself be scared anymore as he rushes towards her, avoiding her very broken arm and scooping her into chest as she starts to shriek. 

 It hurts his ears. It hurts his heart. It’s terrifying, reflective of the pain she’s in and of something deeper. He can’t do a damn thing but hold her as tightly as he can as she flails in pain, screaming and sobbing and clinging to him like her life depends on it. 

 Then, when she starts to speak, starts to ramble, his heart hurts some more. “Are you real?” she asks him desperately, shaking as she tightly grips the collar of his shirt. Her eyes are finally open again and she stares at him with such terror swimming through them that he feels it, too.

 “I’m real,” he assures her, without even thinking about how odd the question is. He unhooks her fingers from his shirt and presses her hand to his own face, desperate to prove to her that he’s telling the truth. “I’m real, sweetheart; I'm right here.”

 It’s like her question opens the floodgates for him, the words tumbling from his lips like an avalanche as he promises her that he’s here, that he’s real, that she’s safe. He knows it doesn’t make it any better, because at the end of the day, her arm is in pieces. But still, he can’t stop. “I’m right here, angel. I’m not going anywhere. You’re here, I’m real, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.” 

 He doesn’t know if he’s lying to her. 

 ~~~~

 The lights of the ambulance blind him, disorient him, because he’s not really sure that he’s totally conscious when it arrives. He didn’t call them, that’s for sure, but he realizes that Chrissy Cunningham’s arm broke in half on the ceiling of his trailer, and the sounds she was making probably alerted his neighbors that something was very wrong. 

 The paramedics easily burst through the rickety old door, immediately taking her from him, her body weak and shaky as it leaves his arms, and he hears her protest. He hears her sobbing out his name, arm reaching for him as she’s hoisted onto the gurnee. He meets her there, taking hold of her hand and pressing his forehead to hers without thinking, but her hand clasps tightly around his and he knows that she needs this, too. 

 One of his hands cups her neck, thumb running along her jaw, and he keeps up his whispers to her, a promise that she’ll be taken care of, that she’ll be with her family soon, that she’ll be getting help. The pain will end. If he was in his right mind, he’d make a joke about her getting the good stuff. 

 The pain will end. As for the terror… he isn’t so sure. 

 “Stay w-with me,” she pleads through another sob as he wipes away some of her running mascara. “D-don’t leave m-me.”

 “I won’t, Chrissy,” he vows. “I’m right here. I’ll be here the whole time; I won’t leave you.” 

 Her jaw is chattering as they wrap a shiny blanket over her, her lips pale and her eyes almost hollow. If he was in his right mind, he would know that her quieting sobs, the lessening of her screams, means that she’s in shock. But for now, as he seems to be in a similar state, he lets himself believe that she’s feeling better. So when they move to wheel her towards the ambulance, he doesn’t fight hard enough to stay by her side. 

 He watches her eyes fall shut as the pain and the horror finally overtake her. Her hand slips from his when she loses consciousness, and he turns to a paramedic in a panic. “What happened?” he begs, but they keep moving and he’s forced still against a solid hand to his chest. “What–”

 “She’s going to the hospital,” someone says. “You need to stay here and answer a few questions.” 

 “No!” he argues, fighting to surge forward as the ambulance doors close. 

 “Here or the station, you pick.” 

 It dawns on him that whoever is keeping him from her means the police station and he freezes. Fight or flight has always resonated with him, and he usually finds himself leaning more in the direction of flight. When he’s threatened, he runs. He hides. He retreats. He sits back and he lets whatever’s going on around him settle down until it’s safe to come out again. 

 And then he realizes that his neighbors, all of them, are outside, their faces illuminated by the bright red and blue lights as the ambulance peels away from Eddie Munson’s trailer with Chrissy Cunningham in the back, screaming and crying and begging him to stay with her. He realizes someone wants to talk to him at the station. He realizes that he just watched the Queen of Hawkins High levitate against his ceiling and have her arm snapped into several pieces by absolutely nothing. 

 So he goes back into his trailer. And he goes to his room. And he climbs out the window. And he flees. 

 ~~~~

 Max doesn’t jump at the sight of the lights flickering. She doesn’t just get scared every time there's static on the TV. She’s not scared like that, not really, not usually. 

 But this was different. This wasn’t just a little flicker or a little static. This was… it was familiar. 

 The air was cold and thick and damp, and the closer she got to the sound of the screams, the colder she became. It felt sticky, muggy, but still freezing somehow, like she was transported to some kind of… 

 No. Not that. Not again. 

 But then, why did she come to Henderson’s place? There's always commotion coming from the Munson trailer, or, at least, there’s always noise. Eddie’s always practicing his guitar or blasting his shit music. The power goes off at her place all the time. There’s always static on the TV. 

 That doesn’t change Dustin’s mind, though. It doesn’t change hers, either. So they bike to the video store and they start searching. 

 And they hear about another kid who goes to Hawkins High. The news reports that Fred Benson is found in the middle of the street by Lovers Lake, legs and arms snapped, skull crushed, eyes practically popped, and Max thinks about what she saw last night. How she watched Eddie holding Chrissy Cunningham’s face, how the angle of her arm beneath the blanket was so disgustingly off that she felt nauseous. 

 And when the news reports that police are looking for a one Eddie Munson, present at the scene of Chrissy’s attack, missing during Fred’s murder, they freak. And Robin finds out where Reefer Rick lives, and it’s the only lead they have. For a second she wonders why she even cares, but she reminds herself of that feeling and the fear she saw on Eddie’s face, and she just knows. Eddie Munson didn’t do this, but something did.

  They have a head start and they take it. 

 ~~~~

 He’s shaking so violently that his teeth hurt. He reminds himself of Chrissy, of the way she was shaking, and he almost throws up again. He hasn’t really stopped crying since he got here. 

 She begged him to stay and he ran. Like a coward, he fled. He knows he didn’t hurt her, but it’s not like he has a good explanation that the police would believe. He already hears it in the news, suspicions of satanic rituals and murder and cults and–

 The other kid is dead. Chrissy… her condition is unknown. 

 And he left her.

 ~~~~

 Maybe he doesn’t have to hold a broken bottle to Steve Harrington’s neck. It could be an overreaction, one born from fear and adrenaline that hasn’t stopped coursing through his veins since the night before. But the sounds of them rustling through the boat house, whispering about needing to find him and discovering clues and everyone in this room nearly dying about a hundred times and– 

 It’s panic again. It’s fight or flight, and this time, he chooses fight. And then, when Henderson finally talks him off the ledge, he collapses in on himself and wonders why the hell he couldn’t fight for Chrissy. 

 “I tried to wake her, man,” he says desperately, remembering the way her eyes clouded over, flicking and blinking and blind, and the way her body went limp and rigid all at once as she levitated above him. He remembers the way he shook her shoulders, clapped in her face, tapped her cheeks, called out for her so desperately and was still left with nothing. “It was like she was under some kind of spell.” 

 “What got her out of it?” 

 He shrugs, trying to cover up the way that Dustin’s question makes him jump. He didn’t think of it like that. He doesn’t really remember much beyond the way that he crashed to the floor, and the way she did. She landed hard, her body colliding with the floor, broken and crumpled. And then he remembers the way that her eyes fluttered shut, the blue lids falling and her pained face finally relaxing, and he wonders. Did she hit her head? Was that a head injury?

 Is she dead?

 “Eddie,” Dustin says again. “What got her out of the curse? Do you remember?” 

 “Curse?” he asks weakly, and the pathetic whimper that is his voice fits well. He’s weak, isn’t he? He ran; he left her. And now… 

 “Vecna’s curse,” Dustin clarifies. “Remember? I know you’re not totally… Do you guys think he could have a concussion or something?” 

 “Maybe that would explain the look in his eyes,” Robin offers softly, and he looks at her in confusion. 

 “Robin,” he hears, Mike Wheeler’s older sister Nancy standing before him now, crouching down and looking him right in his eyes, her hand on his knee. “Eddie, we want to help you. Max saw you, with Chrissy.” He meets her eyes with the mention of her name, desperation back again. “We know you didn’t do this. There’s something bigger at play, here.” 

 “Is she okay?” he finally asks, throat dry and voice croaking. All this time, he’s almost been too scared to know, but he can’t take it anymore. 

 “She’s still unconscious. I’ve heard around that the doctors don’t expect her to wake up for a while; they had to operate on her arm.” 

 “But she’s–” She’s alive?

 “She’s alive. But we don’t know if Venca will try to get her again. We need to know what happened so that we can protect her. If we know what brought her out of the curse the first time, maybe we can prevent another attack. 

 He stares off for a moment, eyes probably as glazed as Robin claimed, and remembers. He recalls the way she shot up forcefully against the ceiling, the way her bones struggled and fought before they were snapped, and he tries to look through the window of his memories at what else happened. He fell, he crashed into the stereo, the music started. 

 He lifts his hand to the back of his head, realizing the dull throbbing has been bothering him since last night, and pulls it away to find his fingers red with crusted specks of dried blood. Concussion, then, he thinks to himself, nodding. 

 “Yeah,” he says finally. He looks up, feeling as though the realization that his head hurts makes it hurt more. He racks his memory, trying to get past the screaming and the noise of the lights and the too-loud melody slamming against his consciousness. He pushes past the overwhelming sensations, past the fear, past the sound of her bones cracking, past the way the whole trailer shook with how forcefully she landed back on the floor, and he remembers. The crooning melody plays in his mind once more and he looks to Dustin with a small smile. “Queen.” 

~~~~