#ladygreene13

It took a gentle, skilled hand. Delicate steadiness as the tension wrench held its place; as the pick itself was eased into the mechanism, searching out the correct code that would imitate the teeth of the lock's key.

Eddie had that shit down to a science.

House locks were, of course, significantly easier to pick, which Eddie only knew because he'd practiced on his own, Jeff, and Gareth's houses multiple times. His own because, well, obviously. Jeff and Gareth's houses were hit because they had a running joke on who could get away with stealing his DM screen for a couple weeks over the summer.

The joke was, in fact, on them, as Eddie not only got his screen back all five times, but he also unscrewed all of the lightbulbs in both houses, took every single battery from every device, and hid every left shoe he could find in their respective dryers on the way out. Plus he might've gone free range on the kitchen snacks available.

Still, he'd gotten pretty damn good at picking commercial locks at this point, too.

Which is why he was currently perusing aisles of Starcourt's J. C. Penney in search of a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.

Look, alright, so maybe one of the dumbasses on the closing shift happened to forget to turn on the security alarm after Eddie bribed him with a free quarter-ounce. What was he going to do, not take advantage of someone else's shortcomings to get his beautiful girlfriend something she absolutely deserved?

He'd buy her stuff, too, of course. He wasn't a total asshole. But Grant and Gareth, who had come into the store with the expectation of spending their hard-earned cash on gifts for their mothers, had instead been kicked out by some haughty clerk who thought they were fucking degenerates or something. Getting a little smidge of revenge at the cost of free-ninety-nine was a bonus. Plus, it wasn't like he was stealing from Melvald's or some other mom-and-pop. The CEO of a monopoly like Penney's could afford the tax write-off his little fractions-of-pennies-on-the-dollar excursion would be.

Still. Penney's was pretty old-lady-adjacent, so Eddie didn't have super high hopes that he'd find something worthy of Chrissy Cunningham.

The thought stopped him in his tracks, flashlight pointed up toward the ceiling as he let out the most lovesick fucking sigh known to man. Which, thankfully, no one else was around to hear. He couldn't help it. She was just so--

She was just--

She was Chrissy.

What a fucking rush that was to remember.

They'd been together since Halloween, which was still wild to think about. Tina's Halloween Bash; the continuous catalyst of the goddamn century. The year prior, it had been Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler's end; this year, it was Eddie Munson and Chrissy Cunningham's beginning.

Though, technically, they'd been friends since the second week of school, when they were randomly assigned as partners in biology to do a project on manatees. Which her boyfriend-at-the-time had thrown a goddamn fit about. Very toddler tantrum-adjacent.

Thank whatever god was listening Chrissy considered that the final straw and freed herself from that jerkwad.

Was her kinda-kleptomaniac of a current boyfriend much of an upgrade?

Abso-fucking-lutely, thanks so much for asking.

Eddie paused in front of the perfumes, taking a moment to sniff a few of the testers. While most of them carried a heavy dose of Eau de Grandma, one of the citrusy ones was actually really nice. Eddie took a moment to clear his nostrils, then sniffed it again just to be sure, and, yeah. He could totally see himself burying his face in her shoulder, that scent filling his nostrils as he thrust--

Yep. Going in the bag.

(He was not gonna pop a hard on while looting the local J. C. Penney, actually.)

Alright, onto jewelry.

Of course, most of that stuff was locked away, and while he could easily slip the case open and perform a diamond heist, he wasn't willing to get any of the poor salespeople in trouble when Bitch Manager walked in and saw all the jewelry was missing. Plus, if he kept his findings small, the chance of anyone checking the security footage from the parking lot was nil, so.

He wasn't stupid enough to park in the lot, but he still had to walk out of here.

"Sorry, sweetness," he muttered to the Chrissy phantom living in the back of his mind, fingertips tapping against the case. "No diamonds this year."

Maybe next year.

Snorting, Eddie instead walked along the discounted jewelry still adorning some of the displays. Searching for something that screamed Chrissy Cunningham at him. He knew she liked small, delicate pieces. Pretty and classic, like her. And gold over silver, he was pretty sure. She usually wore thin gold bands on her fingers to match that gold bracelet. She had her share of bangles and shit, too, but those weren't every day wears for her.

He wanted to get her something she'd want to wear all the time.

A claim, of sorts, he knew. Adorning her with something he picked out. Kinda sick, maybe, but she drove him crazy, so. 'Sick' was just another goddamn adjective when it came to his endless depths of feelings for her.

He was on the verge of giving up. The longer he spent in here, the higher his chance of getting caught by one of the night patrol security guards currently walking the mall. Plus, he had the perfume, and a few things he still planned to get her from better, less corporately evil places.

Then, as he turned back toward his unlocked door, he saw it.

And grinned.

~🦇🩷🎄~

"Eddie! What are you doing here?"

She was grinning, though. That whisper-shout of her admonishing belied by the spread of her teeth. Glinting in the muted moonlight, Eddie just shrugged, dramatic enough for her to roll her eyes from her bedroom window.

The window Eddie had just pelted with pebbles.

They'd seen each other at school earlier that day. Had plans the following morning to hang out at his house and drink hot chocolate, which, Chrissy admitted, she hadn't had since she was a small child. Eddie splurged when he went to the Big Buy for their date. He bought milk to heighten the chocolatey endeavors and everything.

Still, it wasn't enough.

He'd never get enough of her.

"What, you want me to leave, baby?" he asked, matching her whisper-shout. "Resign me to the destitution of not getting to see my gorgeous lady in the late hours?"

They were technically on winter break now, so it wasn't like he was interrupting her beauty sleep by showing up after eleven.

Plus, her light had still been on, so.

"Oh, my god," Chrissy groaned, still smiling. "Get up here, then!"

Eddie scaled the wall with a practiced ease. Chrissy's bedroom faced the backyard, with a trellis that climbed up to the first-floor awning covering the back porch. It took a few seconds for him to get a good grip, considering the soft flurries of snow currently floating down from the sky and wetting her windowsill, but he tumbled into her warm room maybe a minute after her beckon.

"Brrrr," he said, pretending to shiver as Chrissy slid her window shut. Shaking a few droplets of wetness from his hair, he dove at her. "Hold me, sweetness, I'm freezing."

"Oh my-- Eddie!" she hissed when his cold hands found purchase beneath the Metallica t-shirt of his she was apparently wearing to bed. A t-shirt he'd left unintentionally the last time he stayed over and had to jump out the window with unzipped pants and a bare chest so her mother didn't catch them.

Shivering herself at the cold, Chrissy grumbled half-heartedly as she pushed on Eddie's jacket, trying to get him to strip. Eddie pulled back just far enough to waggle his eyebrows down at her.

"Damn, Cunningham, you want me that bad already?" Leaning close, he caught the lobe of her ear before whispering, "What, this afternoon wasn't enough?"

"Eddie--"

"I thought I got you there at least twice before I fu--"

The shiver she gave him this time was entirely unrelated to the cold, he was pretty sure, but she still shoved against his chest with an embarrassed squeak, which made Eddie laugh. Grabbing the straps of his backpack, she stepped around him to pull that and his jacket off.

"The leather is cold," she explained, carefully hanging it on the back of her desk chair. "I don't want it touching me!"

"I dunno if you noticed, but it's snowing out there."

"Yeah, which is why I think you need a proper coat," she huffed, though entirely without malice. She knew what his battle jacket meant to him.

"Aw," Eddie cooed, pulling his backpack off the shoulders of his jacket and setting it next to her bed before grabbing her hips and yanking her against him. "My pretty girl cares about my health and well-being?"

Those gorgeous blue eyes rolled back so far, Eddie was pretty sure she was looking at her own brain stem.

"Of course I do," she mumbled petulantly. "One of us has to."

Jesus Christ. Barely two months and she had his heart in a fucking sieve, ready to pulverize it into mush. Maybe she'd make a smoothie out of it. Drink him down so he could find space to live inside of her, his heart right next to hers.

He never needed it, anyway. Goddamn him if it could go to a worthier recipient.

"I know Christmas isn't until next week," he murmured, brushing a lock of her hair back over one ear, "but I got you something."

At that, her eyes lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.

"You did?" she asked, disbelief coloring her tone. "You didn't have to do that."

"Well, I did it anyway," he shrugged. "Actually, I got you a few different somethings, but I wanna give you this one first. The rest are under the tree back home."

It was the first time he and Wayne put up a tree in years, and it was entirely because Chrissy had mentioned in passing that she'd never gotten to decorate one, even as a kid. Her mother always did it, with designer bulbs and perfect white lights. Not a lick of character to be found.

They'd even made new ornaments last weekend. With construction paper and glitter, with popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, and with hollow bulbs and paint. All of Hellfire, plus Max and Jane, had piled into Eddie's tiny trailer with supplies and snacks, and they'd made a night of it. It was a fucking great time.

Chrissy cried in his arms once everyone was gone because she had been so insanely happy, and the heart in his chest that was already hers had constricted and expanded like it was gonna burst. Full Grinch style.

They sat on her bed together, Eddie toeing at the backpack for a second until he could drag it close enough with his foot to get it open.

The jewelry box from J. C. Penney's sat on top of a spare change of clothes and his toothbrush. It was just a paper and cardboard thing with a bow, not at all the velvet box of anything fancy, but Chrissy's eyes were still wide and a little wet as she plucked it carefully from his hands. Looking up at him for a long moment, like she was waiting for him to yank it back and psyche her out of her gift.

When he made no move to give her a stipulation, which was a thing he'd hopefully eventually work out of her, she slowly eased the top of the box open and gasped in delight.

"Oh," she breathed, one small, delicate finger gently tracing the golden curve of the charm. "Oh, gosh, Eddie, it's beautiful."

A gold-plated necklace with a simple '86' charm sat atop a cottony pillow. Discounted, probably because it had been a gift for new students to the class of '86. Now that school was well and truly underway, the drop in sales had been enough for it to hit the rack with a slight price decrease.

Or, in Eddie's case, a very lofty price decrease.

Eddie gently took the box from her, plucking the charm from its pillow and twisting the chain until he could find the clasp.

"Turn around."

She did, lifting her hair for good measure as Eddie slid the chain around her delicate neck and clasped it. He leaned down, letting his lips trail against the elegant slope of her throat.

"Gorgeous," he murmured into the soft spot just below her ear. Making her gasp and squirm a little, her hips twitching against her bed. "Gonna be our year, baby. Isn't that right?"

Breath hitched, Chrissy just nodded. Leaning back until she was reclined against his chest, giving Eddie unfettered access to her neck. Trailing lazy kisses up and down the expanse, Eddie paused again, nibbling her lobe before asking,

"You know what would make it even prettier?"

"What?" She was already breathless, and Eddie grinned against her flesh.

"If it was the only thing you were wearing."

Chrissy sat up again, turning fully to look at him. Her eyes were wide, full of unabashed heat, and a half-second later, her shirt - his shirt - was hitting the ground.

Eddie groaned. Pouncing, swallowing her giggle for himself.

'86.

Our year.