Indianapolis, April 25, 1990
They got takeout for dinner so they could talk openly in the relative privacy of Chrissy's car while they ate. A shared container stuffed with various appetizers sat balanced on the console between them. Chrissy had drove to just outside Indianapolis, to an overlook where they could see the city lights begin to twinkle as the day faded.
Only the dashboard illuminated the interior of the car. Eddie watched the greenish glow play over Chrissy's cheeks as she took a bite of spinach artichoke dip piled high on a chip. It was obvious that she was happy here in Indianapolis, and Eddie was happy—thrilled—to have spent an entire day with her.
"You know," Chrissy said between bites, "I really thought I'd never see you again."
"You wound me, Chrissy." He placed a hand on his heart in mock offense, eliciting a giggle from her. God, he had missed the way she scrunched up her nose when she smiled. "But I get it. In Hawkins every holiday but we somehow never ran into each other."
"Exactly. I just figured fate was done with you and me, you know?"
"You figured wrong, Miss Psychologist." Eddie dipped a mozzarella stick in marinara, demolishing it in two bites. "Here we are. When do you graduate?"
"If I pass my exams… next Saturday." A nervous smile stretched across her face. "I was supposed to be studying all day today."
"Oh, so it's gonna be my fault if you don't end up with a diploma in your hand, huh?" He teased. "I'll remember that."
Chrissy rolled her eyes, but a smile was still playing at her lips. There had been no gameplan for the day; it had all been played by ear. With the closing of day, though, came the weight of expectation. How would this end? In separation? In togetherness? Eddie could only hope to be so lucky. He pushed those thoughts resolutely from his mind.
"It's good to see you so happy here, Chris."
"It's been easier, here, away from… well, everything. I was gonna say my mom, but it's more than that. I'm sorry, by the way, for never trying to get in touch when I was in town for the holidays. I just…" Her words trailed off and she shrugged. "I don't know. Everything about Hawkins just makes me feel heavy."
"Don't apologize. You being in a good place is more important than my fragile little feelings." Another eye roll. Riling her up always had been too easy.
"Thank you, though. For understanding. You've always been good at that, you know." Only for you. He was fairly certain if anyone else in the world had put him through half as much as Chrissy had, he would have lost it on that person long ago. Not that Chrissy had ever intentionally put him through the ringer; he had definitely intentionally followed her of his own volition, though.
"You make it easy," he said instead. "What teenage boy wouldn't have tripped all over himself to come to the rescue of the hot cheerleader?" Eddie reached over and plucked the clip from her hair so that the strands fell loose around her shoulders. He'd been fighting the urge to do that all day, but now that it was dark and all he could smell was her floral perfume? All self-restraint was quickly leaving him.
"We were quite the cliché, huh?" Her smile was conspiratorial. "Good girl cheerleader and a bad boy, garage band guitarist?"
"Didn't you all but call me a nerd earlier?" Eddie closed their shared takeout container and stretched over the console to deposit the food in the back seat. The barrier the food presented between him and Chrissy was suddenly annoying to him.
"You were a nerd then, too," she reassured him. "But you also sold drugs."
"Not to you," he pointed out. "You just had exclusive access to my personal stash of weed from the get-go." Leaning an elbow on the console, Eddie couldn't help but draw nearer to her. Chrissy responded in kind, turning to face him fully and tucking her legs under her in the driver's seat. She mirrored him a bit, placing an elbow on the console and pillowing her chin in the palm of her hand.
"To other people, though. You can't deny that."
"Why would I? I made good money off the Hawkins High student body. Probably would have made a killing off college idiots if I could've passed high school without a cataclysmic event helping me out." Eddie laid his hand out between them, palm up. Another invitation, like when he had bumped her hand that morning. To the detriment of his heart—it gave a flutter he would never admit to—Chrissy accepted immediately, twining her fingers through his.
"You know I don't like when you talk down on yourself," she said softly. "Being good at school isn't the only way to measure intelligence."
"You've always been a benevolent queen," he told her in answer. "Do the commonfolk of BU even realize what a privilege it is to walk in the same halls as you?"
Chrissy's smile was bashful, her gaze downturned. When they parked, Chrissy had turned the car off. The radio and dashboard chose that moment to power down, plunging them into a soft almost-darkness. There was no moon and the stars struggled against the brightness of Indianapolis at night. Eddie thought she was insanely beautiful, limned in that fragile starlight.
That morning, she had touched his jaw where one of the demobat bites showed. He did the same now, touching her jaw lightly to turn her face upward. Now she lifted her eyes, blue meeting brown squarely on. He ran his thumb lightly over her lips, feeling them part slightly under his touch. This simple act was very nearly his undoing. Eddie managed to keep himself together, shifting his hand so that he was cupping the back of her neck. "Chris…"
She was the one to start the kiss, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his. Tentative at first but that didn't last long. Eddie drew her closer with the hand at her neck, his mouth working over hers. Chrissy responded immediately, her hands reaching for him. He felt one tangle in his hair, the other sliding beneath his jacket to rest over his heart.
The fact they were in her car, and there was a console between them, was suddenly very annoying to Eddie. He was tempted to haul Chrissy over top of it and settle her in his lap as the kiss wore on, but then Chrissy, bless her, pulled back just enough to murmur against his mouth, "It's only, like, ten minutes back to my apartment."
"Gonna be the longest ten minutes of my life." Chrissy gave a shaky laugh as she started the car. Emboldened by the way she had just kissed him Eddie kept a hand on the exposed skin of her thigh while she drove. Though he had better things to focus on—like the little surprised inhale Chrissy gave when he gave her thigh a squeeze—he was fairly certain an entire eternity had passed by the time Chrissy parked at the apartments. Eddie jumped from the passenger seat once the car was parked, all but sprinting to the driver's side to open the door and draw her out of the car and into his arms.
He took her by the hips, pressing her back to the car. Chrissy giggled but didn't protest, stretching onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck and bring his mouth down to hers again. Spanning a hand up over the ridge of her hip, the valley of her waist, he pressed a hand firmly into her back to bring her flush against him. She responded in kind, untangling a hand from his hair only to trail it under the hem of his t-shirt, charting a salacious course just above the waistband of his jeans.
Eddie couldn't stop the groan that fell from his lips to hers. He pulled back, burying his face in her shoulder as the little brat in his arms giggled again. "Goddammit, Chrissy, that's not fair. We're in a parking lot."
"Not for long." She wiggled free from beneath him and took firm hold of his hand. Eddie hoped it truly wouldn't take long; he hated the idea of her entire apartment compliment seeing the evidence of just how much Chrissy's little trick had affected him. She did him one kindness, at least, in leading him into an elevator rather than the stairwell.
They were at each other again for the short ride from the ground floor to the fourth. Eddie lamented over the necessity of parting once more to walk down the hallway to said apartment. While Chrissy fumbled with the key, a thought struck him. "What about your roommate? Amanda, right?"
Chrissy threw a conspiratorial grin over her shoulder as she opened the door. "Mandy's staying over at Jess and Sarah's tonight."
"Little shit." Eddie pulled the door shut behind them, finally securing their privacy within the shadowy apartment. Chrissy tossed her jacket over a chair before reaching for Eddie's. He stood still, letting her take it off his shoulders and discard it just as she had her own. "You planned this."
"Hoped for it, at least," Chrissy amended, toeing off her shoes to leave them in the doorway. "I meant it when I said I missed you."
He was barely out of his own boots before he was reaching for Chrissy again. Tugging at her shirt, he untucked it from her skirt so he could slip his hands beneath. Her skin was warm and soft under his palm. Chrissy was quick to take his shirt clean off, reminding him that he had said she could see all the other tattoos he'd gotten since they saw each other last. He kindly didn't point out she wasn't going to be able to see anything in the dark living room they were working their way through.
"Fair's fair," he muttered against her neck, relieving Chrissy of her own shirt before they made it into her bedroom. It was a good thing Amanda wouldn't be home that night to see the trail of clothing strewn through the apartment. Wasting no time, Chrissy led Eddie directly to her bed. They fell laughing and tangled together onto the mattress. Eddie managed to get a hold of her waist and rolled her beneath him. "Hoped for, huh?"
She wiggled under him, angling her hips up to press into his. "You gonna tell me you didn't?"
Eddie knew damn well that she could feel the answer to that question. He didn't bother answering with words, instead reaching behind her back to undo the closure of her bra one-handed. "Show off."
"Nah, I'm just getting started," he told her before dipping his head to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She sighed beneath the touch of his lips. Her hands wove themselves into his hair as he trekked ever lower with his mouth. A thumb caressed his cheek, making him smile to himself as he came back to kiss her lips. He remembered this from the first time he had made love to her. Chrissy was nothing if not a tender lover.
Those tender hands fluttered over his neck and shoulders, down his back and over his torso. They lighted on his scars, fingertips running over the webbing of them and causing him to shiver more than once. She still knew the placement of each one. He was sure they were both remembering a time when they were much newer, painful red splotches that marred his skin. Eventually her hands made it back down to his jeans, grappling for and finding his belt.
"I have a lot of compliments for this Indianapolis welcoming," he told her, stilling to give her time to work his belt loose of its buckle.
"Shut up and kiss me some more," she told him, laughing. He did just that, slipping off her skirt as he did so. Then he helped her relieve him of his jeans, tossing them off the bed just as she had tossed his jacket earlier. Only the barest of clothing separated them now, but he intended to take his time. He rather enjoyed the feel of her mouth on his neck, of her hands skimming closer to his boxers. Impatient. His own hand slipped beneath her panties, and he took more than a little pride in the way she gasped at his touch. "You're a tease."
"Not for long," he promised, hooking her panties with a nimble finger. She was all too eager to aid him in taking them off. In truth, there was no shortage of things Eddie would like to do with Chrissy in her bed, but the most important was pressing into her and hearing that little, pleasured gasp again.
He gathered her in his arms, loving the way her breath washed over his shoulder, his name woven into it. After sheathing himself fully within her, he paused for a moment, reveling in the feel of her.
"Fuck, Chrissy, I missed you," he told her, the words falling from his mouth in a rush. He needed to kiss her again, the way he needed air.
"Missed you," she murmured against his mouth between their sloppy, fervent kisses. "So much." Eddie hooked a hand beneath her thigh, pulling her impossibly closer. It took no time at all for them to find a rhythm together. "So much."
There was nothing else in the world beside this. Chrissy's lips pressing kisses over his neck and shoulders. Her body warm and pliant beneath his own, hips rising to meet his every stroke, keeping them so close, so close.
"Chrissy." He found himself unable to find any other words besides her name. Eddie said it over and over, peppering it over her skin along with his kisses. Into her hair, over her cheeks, in the crook of her neck. Unlike him, Chrissy still retained some of her vocabulary.
"God, Eddie, yes," she whispered in his ear. "Don't stop."
He didn't. Instead, he twined a hand with hers, the other cupping her cheek as he kissed her, hard, striving to keep his composure so he could make sure she finished first. Eddie nearly lost it all when she wrapped her legs around his waist. He was fairly certain it was only the little, panting sounds of pleasure falling from Chrissy's mouth that kept him going until those pants became a cry of his own name.
Only then, with Chrissy's hands gripping his shoulders tight and catching her breath and still whispering his name, did he let himself go. They were both breathing heavily by the time Eddie withdrew from her, falling back into her pillows and pulling her into his arms. "Holy fucking shit, Chris." Words had returned to him.
"I know." She wrapped an arm around him, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. "Worth the four year wait since the last time?"
"Yeah," he laughed breathlessly, pressing an errant kiss to her forehead. It landed more so on her eyebrow. "Yeah."
"Welcome to Indianapolis," she told him softly, making him laugh again. His body was buzzing and his mind swimming, the whole day culminating in this. More than Eddie ever dared to have hoped for. Sleepiness was coming for both of them, Chrissy trailing her fingertips idly over his chest and Eddie breathing in the scent of her hair. They traded kisses and caresses until the both of them fell into easy, blissful sleep.