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The wait outside of the haunted house was ridiculously long.
Despite Eddie’s insistence that they get there right before it opened to snag a good spot in line. No one ever bothers listening to him, and Harrington had taken about thirty-seven years to do his fucking hair. An exasperated Robin had to practically drag Steve out of the bathroom, because it was getting dark out and they still had a forty-five minute drive to Fort Wayne’s Haunted Castle.
It was the only haunted house in the area worth a damn – and Eddie could attest, as he had visited them all. He, Gareth, Jeff, and Grant usually tried to hit as many as they could during the brief season of spook, going as far as Bloomington a couple of times to see if the hyped newspaper advertisements were actually as creepy as attested. (They seldom were.)
But this year was different.
This year was Chrissy’s very first haunted house ever, and it needed to be a good one.
Mostly because she’d demanded that it be a good one.
“Don’t treat me like a baby,” she’d said, voice firm as she pushed a finger into his chest. “I want the whole experience, and you’re the resident haunted house expert.”
“Sweetness, you could barely handle A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“I said what I said,” she’d huffed. “Promise me.”
Eddie wasn’t very good at denying her the things she wanted. Especially not when she took on that absolution in her wants – something she never would have considered six months ago. The demure, quiet Chrissy that had stumbled into his clearing behind school wouldn’t have known how to demand something if he’d paid her a thousand dollars.
(That she could demand now was so fucking hot.)
But then, through trial and error, graduating and dumping her shitty laundry ball boyfriend, Chrissy had taken the necessary steps toward recovering all the broken pieces of herself she’d lost beneath her mother’s oppressive thumb. And when Laura Cunningham had kicked her out once she and Eddie went public with their relationship, his uncle Wayne was quick to offer up Eddie’s bedroom as a haven. Chrissy had tearfully hugged a surprised Wayne with every ounce of considerable strength she kept locked away in that tiny form of hers.
She’d even decided to put off going to college as she struggled to navigate this newfound freedom. Eddie had gone so far as to take a bartending gig at the Hideout, and Chrissy was working part-time at this little boutique in downtown Hawkins where she got sales commissions, which she was critically good at because it was downright impossible to say no to her. They were building a decently substantial nest-egg to take to New Jersey with them, whenever Chrissy decided she was ready for the real world.
And, well. Turned out, as much as Edward Middle-Name-Redacted Munson was never considered boyfriend material by the general populace, he did domesticity pretty damn well despite a lack of experience. Chrissy had griped about intruding on him so soon into their relationship – and yeah, maybe living together after barely four months of dating was a little rushed, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. And, despite everything, Eddie fucking loved it.
(He found out, after about a month and because of Harrington’s drunken ramblings, that Nancy Wheeler had offered up her spare bedroom, since she and Elder Byers were away in Boston for college. Karen Wheeler had even agreed, once Nancy explained the situation. And Chrissy, despite the obvious fear she had about him getting tired of her, had declined. And, just. That sure was something, wasn’t it?)
For all the bumps they’d hit learning to coexist and share his full-sized bed, he could admit that having a live-in girlfriend was fucking metal. She taught him the proper way to do normal shit, like clean a toilet or wash laundry without the color fading from his jeans. She rearranged his furniture into something that was more suitable for two people sharing a smallish space. They cooked and cleaned together, as a unit, and Eddie would’ve never guessed that chores could be fun in the right context, with the right person. She even made him buy groceries that had expirations dates within the month, not years down the line.
(Which. Okay. So if his newly-influenced eating habits were improving other aspects of his life, like his energy levels and shit, that was between him and the diary he didn’t write.)
Plus, y’know. They got to have sex pretty much whenever they wanted. Extra metal.
So, yeah, for all the positives she brought into his life, Eddie could acquiesce her desire to experience a proper haunted house. Though he knew he’d probably be too focused on her to really enjoy the actors and the jumpscares.
Steve and Robin were bickering in front of them about whether playing rock music or Halloween sounds outside of the venue was better in setting the proper atmosphere for the throngs of awaiting victims. Steve was pro sounds, but Robin, bless her, was discussing in-depth the reasons that playing devil worship music outside of a house meant to, and Eddie is quoting directly here, “scare you to the point that your pants take on a life of their own and hang themselves out to dry,” would be the superior choice.
Eddie was inclined to agree, though he didn't voice his opinion. Because Chrissy was pressed up against him, her arms around his midsection and half of her body tucked up underneath his jacket and flannel as he rubbed soothing stripes up and down the length of her spine, and why disrupt perfection with some ridiculous disagreement?
“So, anyway.” Robin redirected the conversation back to include Eddie and Chrissy by physically turning toward them. “You excited for your first experience with true terror, Cunningham?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s my first experience,” Chrissy laughed. “I watched Halloween in theaters with my dad, you know.”
“You mean you hid behind your dad for ninety minutes while Halloween played in the background,” Eddie interjected, making Chrissy half-heartedly smack his chest with a beaming smile.
“However,” she continued despite his interruption, “I am very excited to be, um, properly freaked out by real people.”
“As long as Munson doesn’t laugh at you,” Steve snorted.
“Aw, c’mon, Steve, Eddie isn’t gonna laugh at her.” Robin rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, right. I heard what happened when you took all the kids to Indianapolis last year.”
Chrissy blinked up at him, and Eddie had to poorly tuck his chuckle at the reminder into an excruciatingly unconvincing cough. Running the hand he didn’t have wrapped around her waist through his hair, Eddie gave a very nonchalant shrug.
“Henderson and Sinclair wanted to go to a haunted house,” he shrugged, ticking off the explanation on his fingers. “They talked Small Wheeler and Young Byers into the trip. Myself and the rest of Hellfire complied with their request.”
“All four of them showed up at my house at midnight so we could watch The Goonies with every single light on,” Steve filled in. “And they all attested to Eddie’s front row seat to their impromptu comedy show after taking them to a former asylum turned haunted attraction.”
Eddie threw his hand up in supplication. “In my defense, they picked that one.”
“They were fourteen.”
“I was doing way stupider shit at fourteen than going to a haunted house with a merry band of overprotective freaks.”
Steve opened his mouth like he wanted to rebut, then closed it when, Eddie was sure, a plethora of rumors about young teenaged Eddie resurfaced. He’d attended all four of Harrington’s high school years, after all, and Eddie’s reputation would always precede him, no matter how fucking ridiculous the rumors were that spread. Whispers constantly floated through the halls of Hawkins High, anything from satanic cult to virgin sacrifice to just blatant murderer.
Crazy that wearing some rings and chains would be enough to make small-minded assholes clutch their pearls in terror. No haunted house necessary.
Thank whatever god listening that he didn’t have to put up with that shit anymore. Chrissy had even surprised him with his and hers photo frames of their degrees, trying not to make it seem like his six-year desperation was worth more to her than her four-year average.
He knew, of course, that she’d cried when he’d walked across that stage. Had a pretty good vantage point at which to bear witness, just before he made good on his promise to flip the bird at Higgins and snatch that paper like he’d catch fire if he didn’t. And he definitely wasn’t too macho to admit that the pride glimmering in her eyes made his own throat swell up, just a little bit.
“Okay, well, why did you insist upon the Haunted Castle when there’s a literal asylum-turned-horror-fest in Indianapolis?” Robin asked. “Seems like a better use of our hard-earned cash, you know?”
“It’s not,” Eddie waved his hand dismissively. “Overrated, honestly. And dated as fuck. We only went there because Henderson insisted upon the matter, as though his scientific calculations could predict the probability of hung-out-to-dry pants. I did inform him that it wasn’t even in my top five, but he kept going on about witness testimonials.”
Chrissy’s eyes were already on him when he looked down at her, warm and crinkled a bit with her grin.
“He probably thought you were trying to pull a fast one and downplay how scary it was,” she said. “I mean, it’s something you would do.”
Eddie snorted. “That it is. However, I don’t play fast and loose with my feature haunts.”
Steve gave him an exasperated look before seeming to contemplate his next question. With a relenting sigh, he finally asked, “Were they that funny?”
Squeezing Chrissy’s hip, Eddie looked at the other two members of their party, his grin bright and maybe a teeny bit sadistic. “I mean. We’ve all heard Henderson scream, yeah? Combined with Sinclair and Wheeler? It was a fucking delight, absolutely making up for the effects being outrageously lackluster. Hell, even Byers wasn’t immune to the creepy-crawlies of some good ol’ fashioned jumpscares.”
“So you are gonna laugh at me,” Chrissy pouted.
And, here’s the thing. He could disagree. He could reassure her with a litany of, no, of course not, baby, I would never laugh at you.
But he cannot guarantee that he wouldn’t be a dirty, bold-faced liar.
So instead, he held up his thumb and forefinger so they were a miniscule distance apart, playfully wincing as he said, “If I’m laughing, it’s more likely at Harrington, honestly.”
“Hey! I do not get freaked out!”
“Oh yeah? Not even at that?”
Eddie pointed between Steve and Robin, directing their attention toward the actor that had crept up quietly throughout their discussion. Chrissy had actually noticed them first, squeezing Eddie a little tighter and half-burying her face in his chest, and Eddie was thankful their friends were too oblivious to notice her obvious tells. The actor was wearing a wide grin, smeared in fake blood above savagely done clown makeup. Robin nearly tripped over her own feet when she saw them, but Steve jumped so high he could’ve caught a plane flying above, letting out a wheezed, “Jesus Christ!” as his shoes slipped against the gravel.
Even Chrissy giggled. So, really, how could Eddie not?
“You’re such a prick,” Robin groaned, rubbing her temples as Steve laid a hand over his heart and Eddie doubled over. The actor scampered off with a sadistic cackle, scanning the crowd to locate their next victim. “Honestly! The fact that, out of the three of us, you’re the one with a significant other just gives constitution to the old adage that girls are only attracted to assholes.”
There was still something incredibly thrilling about hearing other people refer to Chrissy as his significant other. Like, obviously the two of them were well-aware of what they’d built together, the budding relationship that had blossomed like a moonflower overnight; petals unraveling all at once and highlighting that beautiful, fragile thing for the world to see. But to hear anyone else acknowledge the irrefutable way in which he and Chrissy belonged together was fucking stupendous. Made his heart feel all fluttery and shit; the wings of a hummingbird taking flight.
But. Still. Rude, Buckley.
“I’m honestly more offended for the sake of my girlfriend than I am that you called me a prick.”
“I’m offended that she called you a prick,” Chrissy insisted, her face puffed up in a pout. “Especially when I’ve dated real pricks before.”
Steve had a mind to look a little sheepish on Robin’s behalf, but Robin just shrugged. If there was anything to be said about Robin Buckley, it was that her noncommittal attitude was unchallenged. Even when she said shit that could be stupidly misconstrued or downright crude.
Like when Eddie and Chrissy had first gone public with their relationship and Robin had – very loudly – exclaimed, “What, is all that shit about blood magic real? Did you cast a spell on her or something? Because this makes no goddamn sense otherwise!”
But. That was then, this is now, and Eddie couldn’t help but laugh at how little had changed.
They’d steadily moved forward in line as the conversation slithered on, inching their way to the front as group after group was allowed into the scarefest that was the Haunted Castle. Chrissy progressively grew more agitated as the minutes ticked by, the echoing screams of the house’s patrons reverberating through the dungeon-like maze of rooms and licking up her spine. Eddie pressed a kiss into her crown, murmuring in her ear.
“Remember that none of it’s real, sweetness.”
“I know that consciously,” she stated, leaving the rest of her statement open. That conscious thought and the hammering of her heart did not yet have an open line of communication. She looked up at him, pressing her chin to his chest as they shuffled forward once more – finally at the front of the line. “You’ll protect me. Won’t you, Eddie?”
And, here’s the thing. People would probably call Eddie Munson a lot of things – most of them rather unsavory:
Druggie – which, to be fair, he used to sell (giving it up with graduation), but very little harder than weed, and he barely partook in his own stash. That was just taking money out of his own pocket, y’know?
Atheist – and, honestly, the disdain with which people hissed this one was hilarious.
Devil worshiper – which was even funnier because how the fuck could he be both this and an atheist? Doesn’t compute, or whatever the fuck Henderson would say.
Freak – a point of pride, to be fair. Why hate what they called him when he could wear it as a badge of honor? Take their mean bullshit turns of phrase and display it across his chest like it was a snazzy ass t-shirt? Let your freak flag fly! and all that.
As well as a variety of others. The point being that none of these lovely monikers muttered or scoffed or shouted in his direction were anything equating to heroic. Eddie never had to be that knight in shining armor for someone else – the assumption followed him that, if a person were to fall and skin their knee, people like Harrington would help them back up while Eddie stood in the background laughing.
Which, yeah. So maybe allowing a group of freshmen to coerce him into the asylum in Indianapolis last year without so much as attempting to put his foot down and be firm was an argument against him. Points deducted from Eddie for that (unapologetically funny) affair.
However. C’mon. It was Chrissy.
“Of course, baby,” he smiled, giving her another quick kiss. “You remember the rules?”
Resolution contorted her features as Chrissy nodded.
“If it seems like something’s gonna jump out, something probably is,” she listed off on her fingers as the bored guy sitting on a stool took their tickets. “Stay in front of you, but behind Steve and Robin – second person always gets the most attention. If it’s quieter than normal, anticipate a loud sound.”
“And?”
“And…” When she was lost in thought, she did this adorable thing where she tucked her tongue into her cheek, eyes darting back and forth like the answer would solidify in text against the ground for her viewing pleasure. Eddie noticed that a long time ago, because of course he noticed. He was fucking obsessed with her, leave him alone. “It’s not real?”
“We established that.”
Eddie wanted to live inside that little contemplative wrinkle between her brows.
“They can’t touch you,” he reminded her, leaning down close as they ushered their group through the main doors. He pushed her fully in front of him, making her a Chrissy sandwich between himself and Robin.
The first room never changed at this place – an axe-wielding man in coveralls explained the story of the house’s (factually true but a little exacerbated) unsolved quadruple-homicide by axe, wildly swinging his heavy metal and wood tool with the precision of a guy who’d been doing this for a few decades too long. (He always attested that that was the axe that had been used in the murders, but Eddie doubted it.) It made loud, jump-worthy banging noises against the hollow wood paneling, making three-quarters of their group hiccup with fear. When the thing embedded itself precisely above Harrington’s head, Eddie thought Steve was gonna go full pants-out-to-dry.
“Now, scurry along, children,” the actor preened. “The house demands sacrifices, and all of you look––” he got right in Chrissy’s face, her eyes white all the way around, “––ripe for the taking.”
A half-decayed bookcase opened with a gentle tug, Steve damn near sprinting into the darkness to get away from the madman in a fucking henley. Eddie galloped at the back, his hands firmly on Chrissy’s shoulders as they walked into a maze of black.
It had been a few years since Eddie’s last visit, and they’d changed things. Last time they’d entered, it had been into this wicked type of demonic church, but maybe they decided that that was in poor taste or something. Their group instead stumbled into a room that looked kinda like an old prison, complete with plaster bricks that appeared to be leaking condensation. An eerie fog coiled like serpents around their feet as they carefully walked through a mess of metal jail cells and hanging chains.
Eddie leaned close to Chrissy, counting down from three in her ear. After one, he pointed just to Steve’s left, where a door that blended in with the wall suddenly screeched open, an actor in a straight jacket screaming and rushing Steve. With his thumb pressed lightly against her neck, he could feel the way Chrissy’s pulse thundered, even despite the forewarning. Still, she let out a nervous little chuckle as Steve and Robin screamed and threw themselves back.
“Get out!” the actor bellowed, ramming their shoulder over and over again into the door they’d popped through. Talk about fucking committment, ow, man. “Get out, get out! Get out before he sees you!”
The screaming continued as Steve and Robin ran off, Chrissy hurrying her steps to catch up and Eddie saluting the asylum patient. As often as he could, he gave Chrissy a squeeze or a quiet note to let her know when something was likely going to be popping up, though there were a few that were unexpected even for him. The putrescent prison gave way to a morgue, complete with buzzing fluorescents and scattered body parts that could maybe have passed for real to a person who had never seen human limbs before.
“Around this corner,” he muttered into her hair, keeping her back a half-step so Harrington and Robin could peer like the Scooby-Doo gang. “I’m not sure what, but––”
A doctor, it seemed, was working on a patient as they crept by. The lights were dim, but not low enough that four additional bodies weren’t obvious behind blood-smeared glass. As soon as the end of their train was fully in the room, the doctor suddenly grabbed something beneath the hospital cloth, and the woman on the table – that Eddie had been convinced was a mannequin – opened her eyes and fucking screeched.
“Help!” she shouted with a raw throat, thrashing, arms and legs bound by safety straps on the gurney. “Help me!”
The doctor suddenly rushed them, banging a bloody hand against the glass. In his other fist, he held something that looked like a––
“Give me your heart!” he beseeched, the woman continuing to scream in the background. Green surgical gloves hammered against the glass as Steve cried out, half-falling into the showcase of body parts behind him. A chorus of Help me! and Give me your heart! I want your heart! followed them as Steve nearly sprinted for the exit.
“What the fuck!” Steve shouted as they pushed on into the next room. An old toy room, by the look of it. “What the fuck, Munson!”
“Aren’t you happy I took the kids to Indianapolis, Dad?”
Robin snorted. Chrissy’s hands fell atop Eddie’s, still resting on her shoulders, and squeezed tight enough that his rings ground together. She was looking to the right, at a pile of dirty stuffed animals and decapitated dolls, though Eddie saw nothing else amiss.
Still creepy, honestly.
“Yeah, Dad,” a voice sang from nowhere. “Aren’t you happy?”
They all waited a beat, expecting something to pop out, and it was even fucking scarier when nothing did. Steve stood at the front, eyes cast up toward the half-demolished ceiling like it held a speaker or something, but there was just nothing. Eddie looked back, half-expecting someone to be trailing them like the fifth member they’d never wanted, but the void behind him remained empty.
They all turned around to move forward again, and there was a fucking kid on the path, right behind Steve, wearing a dirty dress and with a black bow in her hair. He screamed, jumping back with his hands in the air, fists tucked like they were gonna fly. Robin screamed, too, something along the lines of, “Fucking goblin child!”
Even Eddie jumped, making a noise in the back of his throat that he… He was not proud of it.
But Chrissy––
Shit, what the fuck?
As the little girl ducked away with a tittering giggle, Eddie spun Chrissy around, looking at her with wide eyes.
“Sweetness, are you… laughing at us?”
The hands around her mouth fell, uncovering the bright smile on her face as she guffawed.
“I’m sorry!” she said, the crescents of her eyes fucking alight with the sunshine of her glee. “It’s just–– I saw her, in the toys, and I saw her crawl out and–– Oh God, Eddie, you were right! It is funny!”
Color him fucking surprised, becoming the butt of his own joke. But then again, why should he be?
This was the girl of his dreams, after all.
“Damn, Cunningham. That’s stone cold!”
“Eddie––”
“Maybe you should be in the back instead of me.”
“No, no, absolutely not––”
“Save me, o valiant princess! Save me from the wretched evil of the Castle of Haunts!”
She laughed their way into the next room, until a clown popped up out of a jack-in-the-box and she screeched her way back into Eddie’s good graces.
It was fucking perfect.
“So, uh.”
The drive back to Hawkins had, thus far, been relatively quiet. Chrissy was curled up beneath his arm, her head pressed against his chest in the backseat of Steve’s car. There was no guarantee the van would get them there, or Eddie never would’ve subjected himself to Harrington’s grandma-style abiding of the speed limit.
Robin had fiddled with the radio as they all clambered into Steve’s vehicle once they found their way back into fresh, haunted-house-less air. She’d settled on some station that seemed to only play songs from the sixties, just because it was the one thing none of them could argue about. Eddie was not afraid to voice his opinions about the Hair’s abhorrent musical taste, after all.
They’d be home in about fifteen minutes. Eddie was honestly shocked no one had, like, suggested the diner for milkshakes or something yet. But the air in the car was heavy, tense with the fading adrenaline of a truly excellent creepshow experience.
“All in favor of never letting the Freak pick our family outings?” Robin asked.
“Aye,” Steve piped up immediately as Eddie scoffed.
“Hey, you’re the assholes that suggested panty-wetting terror! Why is it my fault that I delivered beyond your expectations?”
“There’s a vast difference between delivering and overachieving, Edward,” Robin sighed. “You performed the latter, and thus are banned from any future party planning, child-present or otherwise.”
“Damn. And I thought Chrissy was stone cold.” He sniffed. “And here I was gonna offer to buy a round of milkshakes for the lot of you being such big boys and girls back there.”
“Oooh, milkshakes?” Chrissy said, finally lifting her head to contribute to the conversation – and no, sir, it was absolutely not lost on him that his valiant princess had yet to come to his defense. Though seeing her fucking light up at the mention of a creamy bovine delicacy she wouldn’t have considered indulging in prior to Eddie was fucking amazing.
“Can’t,” he shrugged. “I’m no longer a voting member of the party. My status of outing suggestion has been revoked.”
“You can’t just buy your way back into respectable society with milkshakes, anyway, Munson.”
“Hey, now, let’s not be too rash,” Robin argued with Steve before Eddie could acquiesce – saved him money, anyway, fuck you both very much. “Okay, so maybe he was a bit antithetical with his decision in what a good haunted house entailed, but!”
As the bickering began, Eddie gently brushed his fingertips against Chrissy’s jaw. Drawing her attention from the delight of watching their friends argue like an old married couple and pressing his forehead to hers.
“What did you think, sweetness?” he asked, tracing the shape of her bottom lip with his thumb. “Did your resident haunted house expert do well? Yours is the only opinion I actually give a shit about, anyway.”
Chrissy rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling, face twisting cheekily as she pretended to think through his question like a differential equation.
“I dunno, it was pretty scary,” she sang, making Eddie dramatically sigh and throw himself back against the seat with a hand over his heart.
“You wound me, Cunningham,” he cried. “Your wish became my command, and yet you act as though I am the betrayer of your confidence!”
“Eddie!” she squealed. “Come back here, I wasn’t done with you!”
“Hey!” Steve snapped. “No hanky panky in my backseat! If I’m not getting any action in this baby, no one is!”
Robin laughed. “Good way of admitting that you’re an unsexed dingus, dingus.”
“I have sex, Robin!”
“Yes, I know, sorry. You have two steady partners, don’t you?”
“... I do?”
“Yeah, of course! The Hand sisters, Lefty and Righty.”
“Buckley, you pig.”
Eddie righted himself in the backseat, allowing Chrissy to curl up against him once more and bridge their interrupted moment. A breath that crawled warmly across his chest, and she snuggled closer, practically folding herself into his lap. Which was–– most assuredly illegal, he had to assume.
Whatever. Traffic violations were useless pebbles in the wake of having his favorite person in his arms.
“I loved it,” she finally mumbled into his chest, her distracted fingers playing with one of the buttons on his flannel. “It was, um. It was terrifying, but the adrenaline felt really good, you know?”
“Hold on,” Eddie said, leaning back again so he could get a good look at her. “I’m not turning you into an adrenaline junkie, am I? Are you gonna ask me to go skydiving next?”
“Oh, God, definitely not.”
“Because I refuse to jump out of a plane, sweetness, I am not equipped for that.”
“Neither am I,” she shuddered, pulling him closer like she was gonna siphon the heat of his life force straight from his body. Which, honestly, she didn’t even have to – he’d give it to her willingly, if only to keep her warm.
The quiet between them stretched, listening in on Robin and Steve’s new topic argument of boobies, which sounded weirdly rehashed. Chrissy drummed against his chest, taking a deep, slow breath.
“It made some of the bigger stuff feel… less scary, I think.” Shrugging, she pulled back far enough to really look at him.
Something in her eyes had shifted, it seemed. Cleared the haze of clouds out of her blue irises, set in with a confidence he’d seen grow oh so steadily over the past few months. She tucked her tongue into her cheek, eyes darting away to trace the letters of his Iron Maiden shirt again, before she nodded to herself and caught his eye again.
“Eddie, I think I’m ready.”
A breath sucked in through his teeth, because Eddie knew what she was talking about. He knew what they’d slowly been working toward – scrimping and saving and learning to navigate this life so that they’d know how to handle the next step together, as a unit. The doors of Rutgers were open, whenever Chrissy decided to reapply for admittance and her scholarships.
But, well. How could he not take the opportunity to fuck with her?
“Uh, sweetness. I’m flattered, but…”
He leaned in conspiratorially, drinking down the confusion in her expression like a fucking milkshake.
“We’ve already had sex,” he whispered.
Chrissy fucking whined, this adorable little siren sound in the back of her throat as she lightly smacked his chest. Doubling over and feigning real pain only made her whine more, though it was absolutely fake, the laughter nearly overtaking the upset.
“Eddie, be serious!”
“I am serious! We’ve actually done it, like, a bunch of times!”
She huffed, and Eddie grinned, kissing the pout of her lips.
“If you roll your eyes any harder, they’re gonna cave into your skull,” he said, trying to be stern and failing miserably because, hello, it was Chrissy and she always made him laugh.
The retort on the tip of her tongue was swallowed when Steve bellowed, “Alright, we’re home! Get out of my car, you two disgust me!”
Chrissy climbed out first, Eddie making sure to shout, “Alright, Cunningham, did you want Dairy Queen then?” as he slammed the door shut behind him.
“No, Steve, my milkshake!” Robin’s muffled shout rose up from inside the car, making Eddie cackle as he jogged to his van outside of the Harrington residence.
Chrissy was buckling into the passenger seat, her hands in her lap and the smile wiped from her cheeks. Like the two-point-seven seconds it took them to get from Steve’s car to his had hit her with a wallop to the jaw, wiping the mirth from Eddie’s light teasing. Resisting the urge to berate himself, Eddie allowed her a second of silence to compose her thoughts.
“I just…” She groaned, fingers tightening in the hem of her sweater. And, yeah, sometimes Eddie understood that thoughts were incomposable. Even when they weren’t scary anymore.
Reaching across the center console, he took one of her hands in his, lacing their fingers together and squeezing.
“I’ve told you from the beginning, haven’t I?” he asked softly, waiting for her to catch his eye again before he continued. “I’m gonna follow you to the ends of the earth, Chris, so long as you keep making this crazy decision of wanting me to. If you’re ready for New Jersey, we’ll load up the van tomorrow, yeah?”
He cringed, seeming to remember the unfortunate news he’d received from Wayne about his vehicle. The very reason he hadn’t driven to Fort Wayne.
“Or, uh. I’ll switch out those parts in the transmission. But next week, alright? We can be on the road, just say the word.”
She sniffled, giggling and bringing his hand up to her mouth. Her lips fell across his knuckles in light, chaste kisses that wrapped his heart in a fist and squeezed until it felt too big to contain.
“Maybe not next week,” she said, twiddling with the ring on his middle finger. “I don’t want to leave Wayne alone for the holidays. But maybe… Maybe after the new year? Before next semester’s classes start up? Gives me time to apply and all that, too.”
Eddie nodded, giving her his best supportive smile.
“Plus, Nancy and Jonathan will be home for the holidays, right?” He encouraged her musings with some of his own. “We can spend their entire break annoying them and the rest of our minions. A big ‘until next time’ hurrah, yeah?”
Her jaw warbled a little bit, and she nodded with a watery smile that closed a vice around his throat. “‘Until next time’ hurrah. I really like that, Eddie.”
Turning the ignition over, Eddie turned down the music in his tape deck to a regular decibel, because he knew Chrissy would want to say more once she found the words.
About halfway home, she finally spoke again.
“You wanna know how everything kinda… fell into perspective, in the haunted house?”
“Lay it on me, sweetness.”
“I realized, when we were in that Night of the Living Dead room, that… I don’t really have anything to be afraid of.” From his periphery, he watched as a small, wistful smile decorated her lips. “Because tonight, I’m gonna get to go home, to our home, and I get to curl up in our bed with you. And you’re gonna hold me, and kiss me, and be there, right where I need you, whether I’m afraid or not. And suddenly, this… this dread that I had about moving away from Hawkins and starting over felt so… It just felt so silly. Because I’m starting over, yeah, but I’m starting over with you, Eddie, and I––”
A deep breath, like she wasn’t fucking tearing apart his world and rebuilding it anew with her little monologue. His throat was tight, the stop sign they’d just rumbled up to a little blurred around the edges.
“I can’t think of a better person I want to write a new story with,” she finally finished.
The rearview mirror boasted no incoming traffic, and headlights weren’t shining from any other direction. Eddie took the opportunity to lean across the seat, cupping her jaw in his hand and pulling Chrissy in for a kiss that he could only hope conveyed every mushy, lovey-dovey, earth-shattering feeling currently having a fucking swim meet in his chest. She melted against him, fingers gripping his flannel like she was ready to yank him across the seat and crawl inside of him.
He’d let her. Fuck, he’d let this girl do anything she wanted to him, and he’d probably thank her after.
“I fucking love you,” he muttered against her lips, and he could taste the smile that brought about when he kissed her again.
“I love you,” she replied when she let him up for air again. Her palm was pressed against his chest, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she looked up at him through her lashes. “We should, um. We should go home.”
“Yeah,” Eddie blinked, not for a second misconstruing the heat in her gaze. “Fuck, yeah, we should.”
He pressed on the gas, ready to destroy the fucking concrete of the street with the speeding he was about to pull, when a small hand landed on his forearm.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can we get milkshakes first?”
“Oh, you’re fucking killing me, Cunningham! I share a bed with a murderess!”
The music of her laughter filtered through the van as he pulled a reluctant u-turn, grumbling and heading for the downtown Dairy Queen.
But, y’know, the soft sigh of happiness she gave when she took her first sip of that chocolate milkshake made it abso-fucking-lutely worth it.
Haunted houses could be life-changing. Who knew?