Indianapolis, April 24, 1990
Chrissy Cunningham moved through the warm press of bodies in the college bar, side stepping and squeezing by and murmuring 'excuse mes' to the people she passed. The body heat of the crowd was already getting to her, never mind her cropped tank top and fitted mini skirt. Her platform sandals gave her an edge, at least, letting her easily spy Jessica in the crowd.
After an arduous trek across the bar—and not a few stepped on toes—Chrissy made it to her friends and tossed her sweater and purse over the empty chair at the table. "Hey."
"Oh, my God, finally!" Jess shouted over the jukebox music playing in the smoking lounge behind them. "I thought you might miss the band. I'm telling you, one of the guitar players is unbelievably hot."
"Do you even know the name of this band?" Chrissy asked, settling into her seat across from Amanda.
"Uh... I'll get back to you on that one. Here, we got you a lemon drop." A bribe to sweeten the fact that Chrissy thought it was stupid for them to be out on the Tuesday of spring finals week. She had already heard Jess' justification: it's senior year, they would all be graduating in a few weeks, they worked hard for four years, they deserved to celebrate.
Never mind that the finals weren't taken yet and it wasn't guaranteed they all had something to celebrate.
"What's the genre?" Chrissy tried instead, taking a sip of her drink. It was smooth, the vodka only hitting her tastebuds at the end.
"Rock," Sarah supplied for Jess, who was in the middle of her own shot. "You know Jess is on a bad boy kick."
Jess sent Sarah a glare while Chrissy nodded toward the bar. Amanda slid off her seat, both of them approaching the bar to grab rum and Cokes before the show started. While they waited, Chrissy caught sight of an all too familiar band flyer plastered to the wall just behind the bartender's head. Surprise bloomed in her chest, her skin suddenly prickling with gooseflesh despite the muggy warmth of the bar. She touched Amanda's shoulder before pointing to the poster. "Is that the band playing tonight?"
"Yeah! What a name, huh? Oh, can we get two rum and Cokes, please? Thank you so much!" While Amanda was brightly thanking the bartender, Chrissy was tamping down a wild surge of hope and excitement causing her heart to soar.
Surely not, she told herself. But...
How many bands would choose 'Corroded Coffin' as their name?
"What a shame you didn't tell me beforehand," Chrissy told her friend, accepting the drink and taking a heartening swig. She gave Amanda a smirk and hooked their arms together as they walked back to their table. "I have their t-shirt."
"Yeah, okay!" Amanda giggled over the rim of her glass, clearly not believing Chrissy. Never mind. If it was truly the band she was thinking of, she would have her chance to prove herself soon enough. The young women settled back into their seats with their friends, joining the conversation. Sarah and Jess had ended their little squabble and were now emphatically planning the post-grad trip they all planned to take together. Jess was scribbling on a napkin, scribing all the suggestions Sarah was throwing out for their road trip.
"Good, you're back. We need to settle this. Do we want to go Ohio-West Virginia-Virginia-North Carolina? Or Kentucky-Tennessee-North Carolina? Believe it or not, the distance is about the same either way." Their destination was Outer Banks, North Carolina. Chrissy and Amanda shared a look and nodded at one another.
"Ohio. Might as well get more states out of it, you know?" Amanda said, smiling. And avoid Tennessee altogether, Chrissy thought, internally shaking her head at the fact that Jess and Sarah had forgotten Amanda's ex-boyfriend, Jamie, had moved to Tennessee after he graduated last spring. The breakup had been messy, to say the least.
"Valiiiiid," Jess nodded with all the sage conviction of someone about to teeter over the ledge of tipsiness into full drunkenness. Two more shot glasses sat beside the emptied lemon drop shots; Jess had been serious when she asserted they should enjoy the night. "More states it is."
Chrissy giggled at her friends, taking another sip of her rum and Coke and looking around the bar. In one corner was the stage, already equipped with a set of drums. If it was Gareth's set or not, she couldn't say. Chrissy had honestly never spent much time paying attention to the drummer for all the Tuesday nights she had spent watching Corroded Coffin play at The Hideout. That summer after high school felt like a decade ago and yesterday all at once. If it weren't for her chattering friends and the familiarity of The Dive, their favorite college bar, Chrissy might have thought she was in Hawkins again.
"Hey, earth to Chrissy!" Amanda's snapping fingers, mere centimeters from her nose, jerked Chrissy out of her reverie. She turned to find all her friends wearing similar looks of affectionate annoyance. Our little dreamer, they seemed to say. "The weekend after the Fourth of July still good with you?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, of course." All four of the girls lived in Indianapolis fulltime, Chrissy and Amanda together in one apartment and Jess and Sarah in another, but all four in the same apartment complex. "I'll be back from Hawkins by then."
She found herself unable to keep her focus on the planning, though. Again and again her eyes slid to the stage, finding it empty but always with the anxious anticipation of seeing him there.
Surely he was still in the band. Surely he still played guitar like his life depended on it, bracketing Adam and his microphone with Jeff on the other side of the stage playing bass.
Surely.
Her answer came ten minutes later, after Jess had added such things as 'summer fling on the beach', 'take shots up and down the coast', and 'don't get eaten by sharks' to their trip itinerary. Chrissy highly doubted the napkin would make it home with them unabused. It had already been saved more than once from the rainfall of spilled drinks. A hush overtook the crowded bar, and someone had cut the jukebox, leaving the bar in a softly humming quiet as the band took their positions.
And there he was. Eddie Munson. A face she hadn't seen in four years, save for her memories and dreams. They were set far back from the stage, but Chrissy's eyes fixed on his face. Her heart gave a hard squeeze as she watched him turn to Adam to say something, laughing and eyes crinkling. Even in the low lights of the bar she could see the scar that he wore on the right side of his jaw. One of many that littered his body, she knew.
Chrissy had a similar one on her left thigh. Her hand drifted there, tracing the edges of the scar through the fabric of her skirt. "Chrissy found him!" Jess whisper-shouted. "Hot, huh? He's the lead guitarist."
I know, Chrissy answered silently. She gave her friend a smile that felt as substantial as water before turning back to Eddie. It was hard to tell, with a whole room separating them, but she didn't think he looked all that different from the last time she had seen him. His hair was still long, the curls falling to frame his face from the careless bun he was tying his locks into. She thought she spotted a few new tattoos on his arms, wedged between more of the bat bite scars.
Burn scars, she reminded herself. The public story was that both of them had been burned in the catastrophic damage that hit Hawkins in the wake of an earth-splitting quake. And Eddie had suffered so many burns saving herself and Dustin Henderson from the flames… or so they told the police, the hospital staff, and the adults in their then-teenage lives.
How quickly would her friends dissolve into hysterics if they knew that not only did Chrissy know each member of Corroded Coffin, but specifically knew the placement of each and every scar on Eddie's body? The feel of his ringed hands, which were currently filled up with his guitar as he played the opening riff of a song she didn't recognize?
As Eddie and the others played their set, Jess detailed her plans to approach said lead guitarist between songs. Chrissy smiled into what remained of her drink. For half a second, she considered revealing the truth. But Jess had been so adamant that they have a fun night and nothing seemed more entertaining to Chrissy at the moment than watching her friend try to approach this 'bad boy' playing across the bar. She bided her time instead, taking stock of the changes in the young men she had bonded with following the Hawkins Tragedy. Adam had grown both taller and stouter, boasting an impressive barrel-chested stature that dwarfed his bandmates. His voice was deeper now, too, but clear and striking as it had always been. He truly was a talented singer.
Gareth's ropy arms were a flurry around his head as he played, his whole upper body in animation. While Chrissy might not have spent much time watching the drummer, she had always admired the way he threw himself into every performance. And Eddie and Jeff? They were in tune just as they always had been, catching the other's gaze and laughing at some unspoken joke that passed only between the two of them. Jeff was taller now, having grown into his lanky arms and legs.
A warm pride seeped through Chrissy as she watched them play. They had gotten better over the years. Though they still retained their garage-band feel—especially with the ragtag way each of them was dressed—everything was smoother. Polished, but still natural. She found herself bobbing her head to the beat of Gareth's drums as the show went on.
"I think you should," Chrissy said in the brief respite between songs, picking up the disjointed debate they were having about if Jess should be bold and make a move tonight. "Why not? It's all about having fun tonight, right?"
Amanda narrowed her dark eyes in suspicion at Chrissy, but she didn't have time to say anything more. Corroded Coffin was gearing up for their final song of the night, as Gareth had proclaimed it. She was fairly certain that they had played original songs for most of the show, but they were closing with a cover of 'Master of Puppets'.
Chrissy sucked her breath in hard, throwing back what remained of her rum and Coke to cover the gasp. It felt as if the bottom of her stomach had dropped through, the same disorienting feeling she had when she had first passed into the Upside Down through the Watergate. She pressed her palms hard into the stiff wooden seat beneath her.
Why the fuck would he still play that song?
The question repeated itself over and over in her mind as she watched Eddie shred his way through the guitar solo. It was the same solo he had used to draw the bats' attention in the Upside Down. The very reason he was marred by the scars littering his body. But Eddie didn't seem as adversely affected by the song as she was. While it was true that his face wore a dreamy look through the most of it, his triumphant smile at the end let her know exactly why he continued to play that song: because he had survived.
"Thank you, good night!" Adam shouted into the microphone, his voice just barely managing to cut through the raucous applause that filled the bar.
"Now's your chance," Sarah egged Jess on, giving the blonde-haired girl a little shove out of her seat. Jess landed a little wobbly on her heels, grabbing hold of the table and taking a moment to right her skirt over her fishnet tights.
"You're all coming with me?" Chrissy was fairly certain she meant it as a demand, but the end lifted as if in question. The other three obligingly slid from their own seats. On complete autopilot, Chrissy followed Amanda's swinging, black ponytail as Jess confidently parted the seas of people in the bar and charted a course toward a band she knew all too well.
The press of bodies barely registered to Chrissy. All of her focus was trained on Eddie and the others. They had all descended the stage and were accepting bottles of beer from a bartender. Eddie wore his guitar still, the strap cutting across his chest and the instrument slung across his back. He was laughing at something Jeff had said when her group of friends made it close enough to draw their attention.
All the young men turned toward their group, faces open and curious. Obviously, this wasn't the first time they had been approached by a group of college girls. But this was the first time a familiar face was in the approaching group. Eddie flicked his familiar brown gaze on each of their faces, landing on Chrissy's last, and immediately widening in surprised recognition. His jaw fell open, making Chrissy giggle despite herself.
"Holy fuck, Chrissy!" Eddie pressed his beer bottle into the first available hand, Jess's, and pushed through the little gaggle of friends. In the next moment, Chrissy found herself wrapped up tightly in Eddie's warm, solid embrace. She inhaled the familiar scent of him after a show: cologne and cigarettes, sweat and beer on his breath. Chrissy was all too happy to return his hug, wrapping her arms about his waist and burying her face in his chest for just a moment. "What're you doing here?!"
"I live here!" Too soon, he let her go. A hand lingered at her waist, though, his thumb burning where it grazed the exposed skin of her midriff. Even with her platform heels, she still needed to tilt her head back a little to meet his wide smile with one of her own. "In Indianapolis. Butler University, remember?"
"My little college girl, that's right." Chrissy was aware of the intensely baffled gazes of her friends. She would need to make proper introductions, but Adam, Jeff, and Gareth had gathered close. They each gave her hugs as well, though admittedly more casually than Eddie had. Once all her old friends had been greeted, she waved the girls forward.
"You really do know them?" Amanda asked, residual shock still coloring her cheeks as she inspected each of the guys. "You weren't joking?"
Chrissy only shook her head, still smiling. She took a second to point out and name each of the guys before introducing her friends in turn. "Amanda Cho, Sarah York, Jessica Ortega. Believe it or not, the whole band is from little ol' Hawkins."
She kindly didn't divulge that the band members Jess had been salivating over all night had a mutual love of Dungeon and Dragons and Star Wars films. Best not to shatter their rockstar image, she thought. Instead, she took a small step closer to Eddie. Chrissy allowed herself some small satisfaction in the way his hand settled on the small of her back. It had been years since she felt his touch, yet it still felt natural to have his skin on hers. She ignored the betrayed glare Jess sent her way. Her friend wasn't one to hold grudges, she knew.
The newly expanded group converged back at the table, pulling in extra chairs and crowding in together. It felt entirely surreal to be sitting beside Eddie in a bar again with the smiles of Jeff, Gareth, and Adam just across the table. She hadn't fully realized how much had changed between eighteen and twenty-two until she was looking her past in the face.
"So you all know Chrissy?" Jess asked, speaking for the first time. The shock must have been leaving her. "Like, for real?"
"We all went to Hawkins High together, like she said," Gareth said mildly. That was putting it rather lightly in Chrissy's opinion, but then, she had never divulged much of her high school years to her friends. They knew about the 'earthquake' and that Chrissy's boyfriend at the time, Jason Carver, had died in it. But that was all they knew.
Of course, Gareth, Adam, and Jeff didn't know anything about the Upside Down. However, they knew quite a bit about the summer of '86 that followed.
"We weren't really Chrissy's crowd at the time," Eddie said, casually draping an arm on the back of Chrissy's chair. He wore his old denim vest over a sleeveless AC/DC t-shirt. Yes, both his scars and his tattoos were quite fully on display. Chrissy saw each of her friends sneaking glances at the scars and at her. They knew she had a similar one. The gears were practically turning in their heads as they pieced the clues together.
"Nah, it took Eddie here saving her life for her to hang out with us." That came from Jeff, causing Eddie to shrug with false modesty and Chrissy's cheeks to flush hotly. With a growing sense of dread at the questions she knew were coming, Chrissy watched her friends' eyes widen in surprise.
"In that earthquake your senior year?" Amanda prompted. She kindly left out any mention of Jason.
"Um, yeah." Chrissy was out of her own drink, but Eddie readily passed her his beer when she motioned toward it. She took a fortifying drink of the bitter liquid, trying not to screw her face up as she did so. She never had liked beer. "It's really not so dramatic as Jeff makes it sound…"
"It was nothing," Eddie backed her. "But let me tell you, for future reference? You tell Chrissy to run from a fire? She's gonna run right back in the flames when she realizes you didn't come with her. Really puts a damper on your attempts to be a tragic hero."
Chrissy blushed anew at Eddie's edited version of events. Swap the flames for creepy, otherworldly bats…
"Is that where you got the scars from?" Jess asked, earning her a smack on the arm from Sarah. "What? Chrissy has the same kind, on her leg. She said it happened in the earthquake, so why wouldn't his?"
"You can't just ask people things like that!" Sarah chastised, throwing an apology in Eddie's direction before returning to the squabble between her and Jess. Eddie only laughed and so did the other guys. They all turned in a little, leaving Sarah and Jess to their argument to pepper Chrissy and Amanda with questions instead.
"I take it they're like this a lot?" Eddie asked, a smirk tugging at his lips. Chrissy rolled her eyes.
"You have no idea." It was starting to really settle on her that he was here beside her. Warm and solid and real. Before she could think better of it, she laid a hand on his knee beneath the table. "What're you guys doing here?" She asked, turning his earlier question back on him.
It was Eddie's turn to be sheepish. His smile widened and he ducked his head, errant curls hiding his eyes. "We're taking a little self-funded, self-booked tour. We thought it would be fun, so we spent a few years saving up for it."
"So this is a tour stop, then?" Chrissy asked, trying not to let the disappointment show through her voice. She hadn't realized she was hopeful until said hopes fell.
"Yeah, but for like another week," he admitted. "We thought we should try out Indianapolis for a stint first before we spread our wings a little." He smirked again, nodding across the table to Jess, who was still going back and forth with Sarah. "I recognized your friend there from a show last weekend."
"A week?" Chrissy parroted, that hope beginning to rise again. "Where are you staying?"
Eddie chuckled, "Adam's cousin's place. He's letting us crash in the guest room and living room."
"And you're playing shows every night?" She watched the twinkle of humor in his dark eyes, watched them crinkle as he smiled.
"Why, you gonna ask me out, Chris?" No one had called her that in years. Her heart gave another squeeze at the nickname and his question alike.
"Only for sentimentality's sake," she reassured him. "Don't go getting a big head over it." Eddie smiled wider at that. His free hand joined hers beneath the table, loosely twining their fingers together atop his knee.
"We're taking a few nights off," he told her. "We just like to play on Tuesdays… for sentimentality's sake."
"I have a few finals on Thursday and Friday, but besides that, I'm free."
While Eddie and Chrissy made plans, huddled together in a bubble of privacy despite their friends crammed around a too-small bar table, the others threw them glances every now and then. The routine was old hat to Jeff, Adam, and Gareth; they smiled ruefully and shook their heads, but otherwise didn't comment. Amanda, Jess, and Sarah—the latter two of which had finally ended their badgering—wore perplexed expressions as they watched the two.
"Ignore them," Adam advised. "They used to ditch us all the time to go off together."
"She's never mentioned him," Jess couldn't help saying. That made the three members of Corroded Coffin laugh.
"God, they're annoying. Eddie wouldn't so much as say her name for years. Now look at them, like four years haven't passed." Jeff shook his head at the pair. If they thought they were slick, they weren't. "Wait, she's not seeing anybody else, is she?"
"No, no. Chrissy wouldn't cheat, anyway. Eddie's not…?" Jeff immediately waved Amanda's concern away.
"Not spoken for. Think they would notice if we left to play pool?" They took bets on that, ranging from five minutes to over an hour, and quietly slipped away across the bar.
Neither Eddie nor Chrissy took any notice.
