In A World Alone

By late September, Chrissy had a new place to call home. It wasn't a college dorm like her mother had wanted, but she thought perhaps the little shoebox of an apartment in Meadowview might have been the same size. But she loved the wood flooring and the big bedroom window that flooded the room with soft morning light every dawn. And the way the kitchen and living room melded into each other.

Chrissy loved that it was in a pretty brownstone, on the second floor. Their neighbors directly below grew lilacs in pots outside their windows. The perfume wafted upward on the still-warm days of early fall, making the whole apartment smell lovely.

There was a cat, too, a gray and white tom named Theo that seemed to be communally owned by all the tenants of the apartment. Theo came and went as he pleased, sometimes returning with the victories of hunting, or covered in scratches from a fight. He had a food and water bowl that rested on the front porch steps, both filled by whoever walked by and noticed they were empty.

But her favorite part of her new home was Eddie. They lived in close quarters to others, now, and Chrissy loved when he practiced his guitar unplugged from the amp, strumming as softly as possible while learning new songs. She loved the way he sprawled across the couch to read, flinging his limbs every which way, never quite looking comfortable to her but always entirely absorbed in whatever he was reading. Or finding him smoking a cigarette out an open window because the apartment had a strict policy. They took drives to the stretch of nothing that separated Hawkins from Meadowview when they wanted to smoke weed.

Falling asleep beside him each night was another huge plus in her list of positives. As was waking before him each morning to take in his sleep-slackened features and his long hair splayed over the pillow. They still worked in Hawkins, each of them liking their jobs too much to look for new employment local to Meadowview. This meant Chrissy woke with the dawn most mornings, slipping out of bed with a soft kiss to Eddie's cheek or forehead before she readied for work.

"Good morning, Theo," she would greet the cat with a quick scratch between the ears. "Be good today."

Knowing that this was what she would come home to each afternoon was as thrilling as it was comforting. A world insulated from the unsavory aspects of her hometown.

Leaving Hawkins had been bittersweet for Eddie. Wayne had been his only family for over a decade, the only thing keeping him tethered to a life that could be his own rather than a repeat of his father's. He may be only twenty, but he knew enough of life to know in this one aspect he was luckier than Chrissy.

Wayne would always welcome him with open arms. The same could not be said about Chrissy's mother. She had taken next to nothing from her childhood home save her clothes and other hastily packed items.

It had been a few weeks and Chrissy still couldn't attempt to tell him about the fallout with her mom without dissolving completely into tears and a panic attack. He didn't press her on it. she wanted to tell him, he could tell, but she just couldn't bring herself to.

Without the influence of Mrs. Cunningham, Chrissy's anxiety started taking different forms.

"You don't think we did this too soon?" She might ask as they're brushing their teeth before bed.

"Chrissy, I literally don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, ever." There was a pause in her bedtime preparations, half her hair gathered in one hand and a scrunchy spread across the opposite hand when she looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I give a fuck what one person thinks."

"Wayne?" She asked, expertly twisting and tying her hair with the scrunchie.

"Two people."

"Dustin?"

"Three people." He bent low, picking her up about the waist as she exploded in a fit of giggles, and tossed her over his shoulder. It was only a few steps from the bathroom to their bedroom. He tossed her gently onto the bed—his bed, brought from the trailer when they moved in—and let himself fall on top of her. "Quit making me care about people, little shit."

She wriggled beneath him, giggling all the while. "I can't breathe," she managed breathlessly amidst her laughter.

"Laughing a lot for someone who can't breathe," he shot back. Still, he pushed himself onto his elbows, taking his weight off her. "But I really don't give a shit what anyone thinks about us moving in together, Chris."

She reached up, fiddling with the guitar pick he wore around his neck. Chrissy nearly started in on another attempt to tell him about the blow up with her mom, he could tell. Her mouth tightened and she swallowed, even opened her mouth. But then she snapped it shut and tears sprung to her eyes instead. She blinked them back and this time her laugh had a decidedly nervous edge.

"Hey," he shifted his weight onto one elbow so he could have a hand free to touch her face. Slipping a finger under her chin, he tilted her head up so he could meet her eyes. They were darkened by sadness. He could feel a faint trembling of her jaw. "Fuck 'em."

"Fuck 'em," she weakly repeated back to him.

"All I care about is that you're here with me. That I get to know every night you're okay, and I never have to drop you off to a house where I worry about you until the next time I see you again."

Her smile solidified a little at that. "You know," she said, twirling his necklace around her finger, "I don't know any other drug dealers who would be so concerned about their clientele that they would move into a tiny apartment and thrift or curb surf almost all the furniture for said apartment with them."

"Former drug dealer," Eddie corrected. "I have gainful employment now. But you're right, my customer service is un-freaking-matchable. Red's never gonna fill my shoes."

"She's not...?" Chrissy's brow furrowed with concern, the corners of her mouth dipping into a frown.

"No," Eddie shook his head, the ends of his hair tickling her cheeks. "Sinclair said she told Troy, and I quote, to 'fuck off into the next millennium before asking her again'."

He finally achieved his goal of getting a signature Chrissy Cunningham nose-scrunch smile out of her. Only then did he kiss her, knowing she was well and truly away from the brink of another meltdown. "Feeling better?" He asked anyway, tilting his forehead to hers once they broke apart. Chrissy nodded and he pushed himself off the bed, flicking off the bedroom light before they both crawled under the covers.

'Fuck 'em' had become a mantra of sorts for Chrissy. When she suddenly felt overwhelmed walking into Faye's Florals and the fear of seeing someone she didn't want to nearly crippled her on the sidewalk? Fuck 'em.

Her anxiety took a different, more irrational route and she felt like every person she passed on the street in Meadowview somehow knew her secrets and were judging her for them? Fuck 'em.

Jason's old teammates were at The Hideout—of course they were, because The Hideout didn't ID anyone, which was why Dustin became a regular fixture at Corroded Coffin shows—and Chrissy wanted to throw up right then and there? Eddie managed to catch her eye from the stage and mouth it to her. Fuck 'em.

To be fair, Dr. Chambers had suggested that a mantra would be a good strategy to add to the grounding techniques Ms. Kelly had taught her. Chrissy doubted that her therapist would have expected the rather crass mantra Eddie had inadvertently imparted on her.

But she liked it. And she was slowly learning that what she liked was one of the most important considerations of her life.

Nights could be hard for both of them. Eddie leaned toward insomnia some nights, laying awake with Chrissy in his arms. He tried to never give much thought to his parents but that didn't always stop them from haunting his sleepless mind.

Well, Mom mostly. Eddie knew where his dad was. Highly suspected it, at least. He wasn't quite sure he believed in the fire and brimstone Hell taught to him on the spurts of Sunday school lessons he was made to attend every time his folks got it into their heads to attempt to clean up their acts. Still, he was a firm believer his father deserved purgatory. Maybe reincarnation as a cockroach.

Mom, though. She liked to occupy his mind. What was worse, he mused, to be left or to be forced into a mold that you don't fit? He looked down at Chrissy's face, pale in the moonlight. Eddie rolled onto his side and studied her features. Unlike him, Chrissy was sleeping soundly, her breaths even and deep. To be left or to have to be the one to do the leaving.

Sometimes the questions wouldn't stop coming. Where did Mom go? Did she get married again? Did she even know Dad died? Did she ever wonder about Eddie? Does he have siblings out there that he doesn't know about?

Beside him, Chrissy sighed in her sleep, eyelids fluttering open. "You're a very loud thinker," she mumbled, reaching for him. Her hands slid over his ribs and around his back, her head nestling under his chin as she hugged herself to him.

"You're the world's lightest sleeper if me thinking can wake you up." He kissed the crown of her head, trailing his fingertips along the swathe of her back left exposed by her tank top. Chrissy giggled at that, returning Eddie's kiss to the hollow of his throat.

"I told you, you're loud." Chrissy tipped her head back and waited to be kissed. Eddie happily obliged her, kissing her slowly until all thoughts of his mother faded from his mind. She sighed against his lips when he pulled away from her for air. "Feel better?"

"A little." He ran a hand down her back and over the curve of her hip, finding he had remembered right. Chrissy had gone to bed in only her tank top and underwear, her legs entirely bare. Eddie trailed his fingers down the back of her thigh, smiling when she giggled.

"Stop it." A fun thing about Chrissy was that she was ticklish. He in fact did not stop, tickling the hollow at the back of Chrissy's knee so that she wiggled about and pushed at him. "Eddie!"

"Yes?" He jerked himself away, mistaking Chrissy's erratic legs as an attempt to kick him. This gave her the opening she was apparently looking for, though. She threw her leg over his hip, throwing her weight so that Eddie rolled, laughing, onto his back and Chrissy landed with her legs straddled over his hips. Not at all upset with this new arrangement, Eddie hooked his hands behind her knees, this time to hold her in place. "Does your plan to make me stop include seduction? Because I wouldn't mind one bit if it did."

It was too dark to tell, but he was fairly certain she rolled her eyes at him. He was entirely certain that she shivered in anticipation when he ran his hands up over her thighs and hips, rucking up her tank top as he did so. "You're incorrigible," Chrissy murmured, stretching to kiss him in the same way he had kissed her: slow and sensual.

She paused only to let him pull the tank top over her head. Eddie made a move to roll Chrissy under him, but she pushed him back into the pillow with a solid hand on his shoulder. "I'm seducing you, remember?" She lowered her mouth to his skin again, pressing kisses along his jaw and down his neck before tracking ever lower.

Dully, Eddie realized the sun was rising. By the time Chrissy reached the waistband of his boxers and paused to give him a wicked grin, the rising sun was glinting golden off her hair and skin. Then she did away with the pesky boxers entirely and her mouth was working over him once more.

Fuck.

That was Eddie's only coherent thought before finding himself well and duly seduced.

But other nights weren't so easily resolved. Where Eddie leaned toward insomnia, Chrissy's night troubles took the form of nightmares. Sometimes the nightmares woke them both and Eddie would have time to wrap her tightly in his arms, to whisper soothingly to her until Chrissy woke up in the safety of his embrace. Other times the nightmares were more insidious, keeping Chrissy in its hold until the resolution of the dream. On those nights, Chrissy would wake alone, and very carefully slip from the bed in degrees so as not to wake Eddie.

She would tiptoe out of the room and hide herself in the bathroom, carefully plugging a towel in the gap beneath the door before flicking the light on. Taking a deep breath, she would place herself in front of the mirror and raise her eyes to her reflection. Chrissy would take catalog of her sleep mussed hair, her pale face, the dark smudges under her eyes. The nightmares always left her feeling like a shade of herself.

They took her back to a place a few years ago, before Eddie Munson. Before Ms. Kelly. Before confidence and self-advocacy. To a time when Jason's meanness was cloaked in apology bouquets and her mom's was passed off as maternal affection. To a time when Chrissy didn't know better. That was the Chrissy that looked back at her from the mirror, the Chrissy with a deep sadness hidden in the blue of her eyes.

Some nights she could wash the former Chrissy away with cold water, scrubbing at her cheeks until they were pink and slightly raw. Those were the good nights, the ones where she could climb back into bed and snuggle up to Eddie's warmth. The ones where she could honestly say yes, she was okay, when he would roll into her, collect her in his arms, place a sloppy, sleepy kiss to her head, and ask if she was alright.

Other nights, neither the cold water in the sink nor the shower was enough to cleanse Chrissy of the dark memories of her past. Those nights were few and far between, thankfully. Still, Chrissy had to sit with the feeling of defeat after purging, marinating in the failure until she found the strength to push herself up and brush her teeth. On those nights, the minty scent of toothpaste on her breath was a giveaway. Eddie always truly woke on those nights, holding her tight and murmuring softly things to her while she cried out the remnants of her pain.

"Do you like it?"

The question came from Robin. Chrissy thought that Robin might love her living in Meadowview even more so than Chrissy loved it. Robin took the bus to Meadowview on Sundays, her days off, for a 'Hawkins reset' as she called it.

"Hmm?" Chrissy hummed, looking up from the shirt she was inspecting. Their Sundays were running out; Robin would be leaving for college soon. They were spending one of their last Sundays shopping for Robin's college wardrobe. "The shirt? I thought it might be a bit much for you." Chrissy held up the long-sleeved shirt. The shade of dark orange was nice with Robin's coloring, but Chrissy saw the way her friend wrinkled her nose at the shoulder ruffles on the sweater.

Chrissy laughed at Robin's theatrics and placed the shirt back on its rack.

"No, you dork. Living on your own, away from your parents." The clarification gave Chrissy pause. She had told Robin only the barebones of her homelife. Chrissy considered for a moment, pulling a hunter green sweater off the rack and passing it behind her to Robin.

"You have to do all the chores when you live on your own," she told her. "And the cooking. Well, I don't cook. Eddie's teaching me, but he says I'm not trustworthy enough yet to be left alone in the kitchen." This proclamation had come after Chrissy had managed to burn spaghetti noodles.

Robin laughed out loud at that, drawing the snide attention of not a few older ladies milling around the department store. "That still doesn't give me an answer." She had taken the green sweater and added it to the row of hangers dangling from her forearm.

"You get to have whatever you want for dinner?" Chrissy tried instead. "And you get to do whatever you want. No curfew, no one to aske permission to do things. But… your mom stays home, right?"

"Yeah, traditional nuclear family minus the two-point-five kids part because my parents recognized I'm the peak of perfection and never felt the need to give me a sibling." Chrissy gave her a playfully withering look at that before adding a pair of patchwork jeans to Robin's growing pile.

"Then you know what it's like, to be used to someone always being there. I get off earlier than Eddie and its still weird coming back to an empty place. I haven't gotten used to that yet."

Robin took in this information, seeming to turn it over in her mind while she blew a big bubble with her gum. She went cross-eyed as she watched it expand before her face, making Chrissy giggle. "I hope to have that problem, honestly. Like, if me and my roommate don't gel, y'know? A conflicting schedule will be my favorite thing if that's the case. But how do you like living with Eddie, specifically?"

Here, Chrissy smiled immediately. Robin raised a hand before any details could be given. "Wait, I retract that question. Based on that dopey look on your face, I think I'm better off not knowing. I don't want to end up being a lovesick idiot like Steve. I don't have the stamina to run through g—dates the way Steve does."

Chrissy laughed again, oblivious to her friend's close call with a verbal slip. She gave Robin a little shove toward the dressing room. "I want to see that sweater I gave you with those plaid pants you found."

"Your wish is my command," Robin told her, happily hiding behind the dressing room door to gather her wits for a moment. She had been hanging out with Chrissy consistently since the daisies. Steve was the only one who knew, explicitly, about her sexuality, but more and more Robin had been thinking that Chrissy would be a safe person to tell. Hanging out with Chrissy was reminiscent of hanging out with Steve. They were both genuinely caring people.

Which was why she nearly slipped. Robin kicked herself over it as she changed into the outfit Chrissy had requested. It was very collegiate, which she supposed was what they were going for.

"Well, do I look like I spend all my time steeped in the infinite knowledge of academia afforded to us by higher education?" Robin asked, performing a little runway twirl for Chrissy after stepping out of the dressing room.

"Okay, good, those greens do match. I couldn't decide if I was remembering right. And, yes, you look like a very studious and learned woman."

"Thank God, because I don't feel like one. Maybe I can fool the professors as easily as I did you. Now can we go get the burgers you promised me for letting you boss me around in various clothing stores for the entire day? I'm starving."

They both loved a little shack of a restaurant that exclusively sold burgers and fries. If, by chance, Chrissy did ever notice Robin's verbal slips from time to time, she never mentioned it. Just like Robin never questioned why Chrissy insisted on eating her burgers without the top bun. Or only the toppings off her pizza. Or her habit of ordering the child-sized meals.

But she did wonder if, perhaps, Chrissy Cunningham hid a secret just like she did.

"You had a good day, then?" Eddie wasn't sure who called the apartment more, Wayne or Dustin. On the first day of his sophomore year of school at Hawkins High, the phone line was dominated by the latter. "Hell yeah, man. How're Max and Sinclair and Wheeler?"

"Lucas actually gets to start this year now that Jason and all his cronies have graduated. Mike's going all in on recruiting new Hellfire members. Don't tell Gareth I told you, but he said Lucas can skip out as much as he needs to for basketball."

"Fucking traitor," Eddie said with a laugh. "Sullying the Hellfire name."

"You have Mike determined to keep it going, at least. We played some really fun campaigns over the summer when Will was here. Mike wants to tweak them and play them through again with the guys." Dustin rambled on about his day and Eddie tried to ignore the pang of nostalgia in his chest. After three senior years, the last thing Eddie expected was to miss Hawkins High.

Only the last year had been any good. And the reason for that was walking through the door, her cheeks flushed from the fall evening outside.

"Hey, man, I gotta go. Chris is home from the—the store," he amended. "I'll be waiting for the day two synopsis tomorrow."

After hanging up with Dustin, Eddie strode across the few feet that separated the tiny kitchen from the living room. He caught Chrissy by the hand, twirling her his direction after she hung up her jacket. "Hey, did you know losers who haven't graduated high school yet had to go back to school today?"

"So, we're celebrating our freedom?" She asked, catching onto the playful smirk on his face. Chrissy bounced onto her toes to kiss him in greeting. "Could've told me before I took my jacket off."

"Henderson was busy regaling me with the tiny details of sophomore year," Eddie defended himself, already reaching for both of their jackets. "Let's go see if the corner store has caught on to my fake ID yet."

He held her jacket out for her, helping her into it before slipping into his own. They walked hand in hand down the sidewalk. "How was therapy?"

"It was good. I didn't have a lot to talk about this week… well, not, like, therapy things, you know? I told her about my week, but there wasn't anything to give me homework on. I know that's a good thing but I kind of feel like I'm wasting her time when I have a good week."

Eddie laughed out loud at that. "Chris, you're the only person I know who would worry about making their therapist's job too easy."

He was happy to hear it, though. Beyond happy. Happy enough that he didn't complain when she grabbed a bottle of White Zin for their celebratory drinks. His fake ID worked flawlessly, as it always did.

"Are you gonna be sad when you have a valid ID next year?"

"I'm gonna give up drinking entirely," Eddie told her. "The illegality of it is half the fun."

Chrissy laughed and shook her head as they made their way home. Their home.

That fact alone was enough for the both of them.

A/N: Thank you all for reading, leaving comments, and favoriting this story! It was a fun little thing to write. I definitely don't think I'm done with writing Eddie/Chrissy, they're just too much fun! But for this sweet little fic, I'll leave it here on a happy note.