Chapter Text
Chrissy Cunningham is dead.
That’s that.
She died in agony and fucking terror and it’s all Eddie’s fault. He knows that. It’s not easy to live with -- in fact, he’s pretty sure he should’ve died with it, but life’s not fucking fair.
He’s a screwy loser and she was...pure and kind and scared. Chrissy never hurt anyone and she died horribly. Eddie’s hopeless and hapless and destined to be a trailer trash drug dealer for life, so.
Yeah.
He defeated the monsters for Chrissy. Dedicated his victory to the sweet girl with her big, sad eyes, the girl he abandoned like a fucking coward.
Chrissy, this is for you.
It didn’t bring her back.
Life...yeah, life pretty much sucks.
Eddie thought there might be something with Steve there for a minute. Coming together in tragedy or whatever. Trauma boyfriends. There was some flirting and smiling and an almost-kiss.
Then Steve dropped it on him -- Uh...just wanted to let you know, man...I...we -- I mean, me and Nancy, we’re...back. Together. Um. We’re trying it out.
Eddie had been surprised. Stunned, almost. The sorta-heartbreak was put on hold for a minute. Seriously? I thought she and Jon were, like, all forever-epic-love-story.
Yeah... Steve had scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck. They are. They’re still together.
He raised his eyebrows. They’re still together? But you’re with her? Is she -- dude, is she cheating with you?
That was weird. Seemed out of character for Nancy, all earnest and obsessed with “journalistic integrity.” Then again, she did cheat on Steve with Jon, so maybe...
No! he’d said, sorta offended. No! Of course not. I’m not-- I don’t do that shit.
So then...?
We’re...all of us.
What?
All of us, Steve had repeated. He refused to look at Eddie, just sorta stared into the middle distance. We’re trying something. It’s all three of us.
It took Eddie a second to figure it out. All three of you? Like...threesomes and shit?
Steve went red. Like, tomato-brick-lobster-firetruck red. He ran a hand through his stupid perfect hair and shifted around awkwardly, as unsure as Eddie had ever seen the former King of Hawkins High. I mean, yeah. But it’s also, like, romance. We’re dating. Like...boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.
Yeah, OK. So Steve was doing some weird polygamous thing with his ex-girlfriend and the dude she cheated with. Weird shit. Not his business, but...yeesh. Not like Eddie’s a homophobe or anything -- he likes dick just as much as he likes pussy. But it hurt, the whole will-they-won’t-they thing shuttered just like that. Cool of Steve to give him a heads up -- I guess -- but it stung. He didn’t seem to give a shit that he was kinda breaking Eddie’s heart.
That sucked.
Maybe it’s for the best, though. He was in love with Chrissy for literally seven years and he let her die. Did he really deserve Steve? Does he really deserve Steve?
No. Fuck no.
Eddie deserves to be rotting underground. They should’ve let those fucking bats eat him.
They should’ve let him die.
~~~
There’s a knock at his door, a soft rapping.
Eddie’s been sitting in Uncle Wayne’s easy chair just sorta staring at the wall. His uncle is asleep -- still working the night shift, still supporting Eddie’s deadweight. Funny thing, the plant wasn’t destroyed in the “earthquake” that rocked Hawkins. Forest Hills was untouched too. Good thing you can still live below the poverty line in Hawkins luxury!!
Eddie thinks about just staying there, maybe cracking a beer. If he ignores the knocker long enough, they’ll go away. Hopefully. Hell, with his luck, it’s probably one of Carver’s buddies waiting for him to open the door so they can shoot him in the face.
The knocks get harder.
The door starts rattling in the frame.
“Munson!!” someone hollers. “Answer the damn door! I know you’re home!!”
Shit.
“You’re van’s in the friggin’ lot! I know you’re here!!” It’s a female voice -- familiar, but he can’t quite place it. “Open up!!”
Just go AWAY, he thinks, kinda anguished.
But she won’t. She’s still yelling and yelling outside the door and Wayne’s gonna wake up soon, heavy sleeper or not, and that’s not fair. Eddie’s already a burden. Anything he can do for the old bear’s comfort, anything he can take off his plate... Wayne deserves his sleep.
Eddie stands up, his joints creaking.
He shuffles over the door and rips it open, some kinda poisonous remark on his lips--
“Buckley?”
There’s Robin with her dumb boy haircut and weird-ass outfit (cordory pants, a wifebeater, and a tie, seriously??) standing on his rickety front steps. She looks exhausted and furious.
“Why didn’t you answer the door?” she demands. “I’ve been here for, like, ten minutes!!”
It’s definitely been no more than two.
He just raises his eyebrows. “Why are you here?”
Robin rolls her eyes. “Whaddaya mean, why am I here? We’re friends. Friends hang out.”
“Friends usually call first,” he says dryly. Huh. Eddie didn’t know Robin considered him a friend. It’s...sorta nice.
He takes her in. Her eyes are all big and determined and -- yanno, he never noticed, but she’s got a sprinkling of freckles right across her nose. She’s pretty and kind of obnoxious. He likes that. In another life, Eddie might’ve asked her out or something.
If he didn’t strike out with her best friend. If he wasn’t a monster. If he didn’t still love Chrissy.
“Are you gonna let me in or not?” she snaps.
“OK, fine,” Eddie sighs. He’s pretty sure she wouldn’t leave if he asked. “Just be quiet. My uncle’s asleep.”
“Uncle?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you lived here alone.”
Eddie tries not to flinch. It’s so similar to what Chrissy said when she was over here, all jumpy and scared, but still trying to make polite conversation.
“Eddie...?”
He shakes himself back into his body. “Uh. Yeah, no. He’s my dad’s brother. He works nights.”
“OK.”
They just stand there.
Robin nods towards his living room. “You were letting me in...?”
“Uh, sure. Yeah. Sorry.”
He finally moves out of the way, feeling like a weird lumbering Sasquatch or something. Robin breezes in like she owns the place. She takes an appraising look around at the mugs and hats, the peeling linoleum in the kitchen, the dirty brown carpet, the ratty couch.
“I like it,” she says, kinda impressed, kinda imperious. (Learned that word in the English class he shared with Chrissy two years back. God, when will everything stop reminding him of her?)
“...thanks.”
“Alright.” Robin sits down right in Uncle Wayne’s easy chair. He’s not sure if it’s annoying or endearing. “Eddie, sit down.”
“Is this an intervention?” he only half-jokes.
“Not...really.” Robin wobbles her hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “It’s just a conversation we need to have. You and me.”
“Ohh-kay?” He takes a seat on the couch, faded from pink and yellow to gray and gray after twenty years.
God. He’s never so aware of his shit-fuck home and his shit-fuck van and his shit-fuck life as he is when people with normal lives come into his house. It was bad with Chrissy, really bad. It’s a little better with Robin, but still.
“What do you wanna talk about?” he asks after a short silence.
Robin takes a looooong, long moment. She rolls her shoulders, sighs gustily. Her eyes dart around the room. “Is your uncle a deep sleeper?” she asks abruptly.
“Usually. Are you...alright, Buckley?” She looks really, really nervous alluva sudden. It took a heartbeat, but she went from confident to freaked out. What’s going on?
“I’m fine,” she says, waving him off. “Actually, do you think we could go to your room or something?”
“Sure.” He gives her a hand up and they walk down the short hall to his bedroom. It’s kinda embarrassing - he sleeps on a sheetless twin futon without a bedframe. The carpet could use a good going over. His side table is third-hand and his dresser used to belong to his six-year-old neighbor. The only nice thing he owns is his guitar. “Sit anywhere you like,” he says, and gestures stupidly around the room.
Robin plops down on his bed. Eddie grimaces a little. Not like there’s anywhere else to sit, but...ugh, whatever.
Eddie stays standing, leans against his wall. He crosses his arms.
“Can you shut the door?” Robin’s voice is a little weak.
“Uh, sure.” Eddie shuts his door. Should he lock it?? Would Robin find that predatory or something?? Then again, judging by the deer in headlights look she’s got going on, it might make her feel safe. Ugh. Eddie takes a gamble and flicks the lock shut. He glances at Robin and -- OK, good choice. Her shoulders relax. “Alright, Robin. Spill. You come bangin’ my door down and now you’re being all quiet. What’s up?”
Robin sighs again. “I’m gonna ask you a question,” she says softly, “and I need you to answer me honestly.”
“Al...right?” It occurs to Eddie that Robin might be confessing her love or something. She doesn’t seem the type to be all shy and demure or whatever, but you never know. Girls are weird. He’ll say no as kindly as he can -- no way could he love another girl, not so soon, even if she’s beautiful and annoying.
His heart’s still in fucking smithereens.
“What do you think of homosexuals?” she asks. Her voice is bald and blunt.
And brave, Eddie thinks as some shit clicks dimly into place. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, and he’s no genius. Robin and Steve never dated, even though half the little kids are sure they’re in love. Robin without a boyfriend all four years of high school. Robin and the long looks she sometimes shoots chicks in the halls. (Look, maybe Eddie was stupid, not catching on. He just thought -- thinks?? -- girls stare at other girls ‘cause they’re jealous or something??)
He realizes he’s been silent too long when she starts looking like she’s about to bolt.
Shit.
“Why do you ask?” Eddie says carefully.
Her gaze is fierce. “Why do you think I’m asking?”
Eddie’s gonna play it safe. “We talkin’ about Steve?”
Robin’s cheeks flush a little. The low light of late afternoon is burning through his thin curtains and turning her golden. “What do you know about that?” Her voice is careful too.
“I know Steve’s doing some polygamy thing with Nancy and Jonathan. He told me.” OK, olive branch. “He told me,” Eddie clarifies, “when he let me down easy.”
“Huh,” Robin says softly. “So you’re...”
“Both,” Eddie says quickly. “I like both. So, Buckley, don’t worry. I’m fine with homosexuals.”
“Both,” she says, a little bemused. “Man, I don’t get that.”
“Well.” Eddie shrugs. “It is what it is. Boys get me all tingly too.”
Robin rolls her eyes. “Gross.”
Eddie grins. “You’re one to talk.”
She gives him a half-smile back. “Yeah.”
“OK, so you came over here to have a comin’ out kumbaya, or...?” he says. Guess it’s good that she’s not in love with him after all, but he still doesn’t get it.
“No. Well. Kinda.” Robin shuffles up on the bed and leans against the wall. Eddie’s pretty sure there might be an old cum-stain on the wall behind her, but he’s not in the mood to get murdered today, so he keeps his mouth shut. “Look, I wanted to show you that I trust you. That you could trust me. ‘Cause we’re gonna do a tit-for-that thing. Quid pro quo.”
“We are?”
“Yes. I just wanted to...” Another sigh. Another shrug. She draws her knees up close and drums her fingers on them. Yeesh, this girl never stops moving. “I wanted to talk.”
“You said that a couple times.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just hard to-- start this. Look, Eddie, it seems like you’re...” She runs a hand through her boyish hair, messing it up. Robin looks right into his eyes, those big old baby blues piercing him to the bone. “You seem very sad,” she says. “And I want to help.”
Eddie is...taken aback. Like. OK, yeah, he’s sad. But they’re all sad! They’ve been through some crazy shit and they can’t tell anyone about it. Eddie’s got scars all over his body, Robin and Steve got tortured by Soviets, Nancy went bugfucking crazy -- all violent and twitchy, Max is still in the hospital, Will might be some kinda antichrist, the little kids have nightmares 24/7.
“I’m not sad,” Eddie says firmly.
“Yes, you are, Eds, I can see it.”
Eds. Steve called him that a couple times. Uncle Wayne, when he’s in a really good mood, will let it slip now and then. His fuck-ass dad used to sneer it all mockingly -- usually before he did something like put Eddie’s head through the drywall or lock him in his room for three straight days with nothing but a bucket and a beer.
He’s not sure if it sounds good or bad coming out of Robin’s mouth. It was hard, at first, to hear it from Wayne. James and Wayne Munson are very different people. It’s nice, though, to hear Eds from the mouth of the kind Munson brother, the man who cares about him. It sounded really nice coming from Steve’s mouth. Like the start of something new.
From Robin’s...
“You’re sad,” Robin repeats. “And I’m sorry, but it’s really obvious.”
That catches him off-guard. “It is?”
“There we go.” Robin smiles -- well, sadly. “Gotcha to admit it.”
Eddie can’t tell if a smile or a frown is tugging at his lips. “Clever.”
“Not the valedictorian for nothin’.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I want to help you,” Robin repeats, all earnest and intense. “I think I can. If you let me.”
Eddie looks up at the ceiling. Big old waterstain and glow in the dark stars from when he was like twelve. Wayne had just gotten custody -- had no idea how to parent a troubled boy with nothing but hurt and anger inside him. Glow in the dark stars were his first kindness. Figured you don’t like the dark, boy. Just a hunch. You take ‘em on down if you don’t like ‘em.
“We’re all fucked up,” Eddie says. “It was -- I mean, Robin, it was the Upside Down. I got chowed on by fuckin’ bats. Got the scars to prove it. I-- I mean, we almost got killed.”
“And you never talk about it,” Robin says gently. “We-- me and Steve and Nancy, even Jon...” Her voice falters a little. “We talk about it all the time. Every day.”
Eddie shrugs.
“We process it, yanno?”
“I guess.”
“It helps.”
“I’m glad it helps you guys. That’s cool.”
“Eddie,” Robin says, irritated. “Come on. I’m trying to help here.”
“Look, I appreciate it. It’s very...” He struggles with the word. “It’s very sweet of you to come over. But I’m fine. Seriously.”
Robin gives him an Are you fucking stupid? look. “You’re clearly not. You haven’t been around. You haven’t even been picking up the phone. Steve told me he’s tried to call you like ten times.”
“I see you guys at school,” Eddie argues.
“We don’t have any classes together and you don’t sit with us at lunch,” Robin says.
“I mean, I’ve got my friends, you’ve got yours,” Eddie says.
“Eddie, come on. There’s overlap! Nancy and Jonathan’s brothers worship you! Dustin too! You’ve got, like, half the Upside Down victims in your friend group and you don’t even--”
“Robin!!” Eddie says. “It’s fine. Just...I don’t need a therapist, OK? I’m good. You’re good. We’re all good.”
“I’m not good!” Robin says. “I’m fucking traumatized!! I’m tired, but I never sleep. I go to school and do my homework, but it doesn’t mean anything. I can’t talk to my family ‘cause they don’t know about the Upside Down and I don’t want to burden Steve, especially when he finally has something good going on in his life. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“I thought yo u said you guys talk about it every day.”
“We do! We talk on the phone and hang out and everything, but sometimes I need to talk about it...I dunno, in the middle of the night or whatever! And I can’t call him or come over because he’s busy having threesomes.”
“It sounds like you need someone to talk to,” Eddie says mildly.
Robin glares at him. “This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”
“But you just--”
“I’m just trying to share! I’m being vulnerable. This is what friends do. I talk, you talk, we feel better.”
“I deal with this shit privately,” Eddie says. He wishes she would leave.
“You don’t have to,” Robin groans. “That’s what I’m saying. Jesus, you’re impossible!”
“I’m just saying -- I don’t need a therapist. I don’t need a...confidant, or whatever. I deal with this stuff in my own head and I work it out and then I’m OK. If you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me, I guess, but--”
“Chrissy,” Robin says, and it catches Eddie so off-guard that he almost falls over.
“What.”
“Chrissy.” Something seems to dawn on her. “That’s...it’s not the Upside Down that’s getting to you, huh?”
“I almost got eaten alive and I’ve got gross-ass scars for the rest of my life,” Eddie essays. “It wasn’t exactly--”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s not what I meant. I know the Upside Down was horrible for you too. I just meant...”
She bites her lower lip for a second and the gesture is so like Chrissy, that nervous little gnaw she’d do when she was scared or unsure. And it’s -- fuck, her eyes, those ocean eyes flash in his mind, how he never really saw her happy, not once, and--
Fuck.
He’s so tired.
He hurts so badly.
Eddie crawls forward and joins Robin on the bed. Shoulder to shoulder. Since she’s ridin’ the taco train, he figures the close contact won’t bother her. And maybe...maybe he needs some touch. To get through this. Because Robin’s got him with her freaky lesbo magic.
He could keep arguing with her. He could deny-deny-deny -- Her death was sad, of course it was. It was awful. And of course I feel bad about it, but I’m OVER it. And even if I’m not, I can just process it in my own head and one day I’ll move on and that’ll be that. It’s fine.
“I’m going to say something,” Robin says, “and you can tell me to shut up if I’m wrong.”
“OK...”
“You loved her.”
Eddie thinks about denying it, but he’s so weak and he hates himself so much. Would it unburden him to admit it? Maybe. Does he deserve that? Probably not.
Still. He’s only human.
“Yeah,” he says with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I do.” Not did. Fuckin’ do.
“I’m sorry,” Robin says. There’s no pity in her voice, just sincerity. It’s kinda refreshing.
“Yeah, me too.”
“I know what it’s like to want someone you’ll never have,” Robin says. She staring fixedly at the water stain on the ceiling. “It kills you from the inside out. It...it eats you alive.”
Eddie’s lips twitch. “Got some experience with that, being eaten alive.” He taps her shoe with his bare foot.
She tries to smile, doesn’t quite succeed. She just repeats, “Eats you alive.”
“Pretty much,” Eddie says.
“Especially when they’re in front of you every single day.” She presses her shoulder against his a little harder. “But...but I think if she was gone, it’d be worse.” She leans her head on Eddie’s shoulder and it feels like someone poked him with a cattle prod. “Is it?”
“Yeah, it’s worse,” Eddie says wearily. “I knew I’d never have her -- I’m not stupid.” OK, are they getting into this? It feels like they’re getting into this. “And I’d, yanno, I’d kinda made peace with that. Gettin’ to see her every day, even if it was in halls or whatever, it was enough. A privilege, right, just to see her at all.
“But then she came to me. She needed me.” The thought is staggering -- he hasn’t really put two and two together yet. Idot. “Nobody ever needs me. And...and definitely not Chrissy. But she did. I could help her. It...I didn’t even know what to do. I wanted to help her, to take some of her pain away.” He laughs bitterly. “And then she fucking died and I ran. I didn’t help her. I didn’t save her. Fuck, I didn’t even stay with her.
“But -- Robin, you’ve gotta... It was...was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. She -- fuck. The sound of her arms and legs fucking snapping and then her eyes and...and the blood. I was so scared. I was so fucking scared. And then I ran. I was a coward! I left her. Even...even if I couldn’t have saved her, I coulda just been there.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I could’ve held her hand. Or told her it was OK or something. She didn’t...” His breath is a whispery rasp. “She didn’t need to die alone. And that’s all my fault. It’ll always be my fault.”
When he finally looks at Robin, her eyes are shining. “I’m really sorry,” she says softly.
“It’s OK.”
“It’s really not,” she says. “And-- and that’s OK. That it’s not.”
Huh. OK that it’s not OK. That’s a new one.
“Tell me about yours,” he says stiffly. This is...it’s too raw. He can’t talk about Chrissy anymore. He’ll go fucking nuts if he has to, raving and shit.
“What do you mean?”
“Your...girl. The one who’s killing you inside out.”
Robin smiles sadly. “I don’t even-- It’s a lot less serious than yours. It makes me sound like a big old baby.”
“I don’t care. Just talk, Robin. Please,” he adds, when the silence starts feeling like a physical weight, like one of Vecna’s fuckshit tentacles crushing his chest.
She sighs. Her head feels OK on his shoulder. Not as oppressive as he thought it’d be. “She’s happy,” Robin says. “That’s the thing, she’s happy. They all are. And there’s not a lot of happy in our lives, yanno? So I’d never...jeopardize that. It’d be so fucking selfish. And Steve deserves this. He deserves it more than anyone. I mean, he gives and gives and gives and he never takes. So if Nancy makes him happy, then I could never...” She trails off.
Nancy.
“Damn,” Eddie says appreciatively, “Big Wheeler’s really reelin’ ‘em in, huh?”
Robin smiles a tiny little smile. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Two sexy dudes and the hottest lez this side of the Mississippi? She’s swimming in it!”
Robin chuckles. “Oh, can it.”
“No, listen, listen.” He jogs his shoulder up and down, forcing her head on a little tilt-a-whirl circuit. “She’s not just swimming in it, she’s drowning in it. She’s gotta have a magic pussy, right? ‘Cause -- ‘cause Steve and Jonathan? You know -- OK, I’m sorry, ‘cause I know he’s your best friend and you’re a whole-ass rug-muncher, but Steve’s gotta be packing heat. She took him back!! She cheated on him and took him back. I mean, he took her back and Jonathan’s fine with it?? Magic pussy, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Eddie!!” Robin whaps his arm. “OhmyGOD, stop it.”
He’s on a roll. “Magic pussy!” Eddie bellows, ‘cause the phrase is somehow the funniest thing he’s ever said. “Like, you stick it in and you’re transported to Candyland or something. Or lick it in if you’re you,” he says magnanimously.
“Eddie!” Robin scolds, but she’s smothering little snorts behind her hand. “That’s disgusting! You big old perv, stop!”
“And unfortunately,” he says, all scholarly and nasal, “we will both be denied Madam Wheeler’s Magical Pu--”
She slaps her hand over his mouth and he licks her palm.
“Ew!!” she howls, and Eddie cackles.
They wrestle around for a while ‘till he remembers Uncle Wayne is sleeping and they share a friggin’ wall. He quiets her down and they just sorta stare at each other.
If this was a chick flick, this would be the big moment -- the music swells, the leads kiss, the girl bounces on the guy’s cock.
Uh.
Yeah, not happening.
But they do smile at each other. They do go watch a movie in the living room. They do share a frozen pizza.
So that’s alright.
Maybe more than alright.
~~~
That night, Eddie dreams of Chrissy. It’s not the first time and he’s sure it won’t be the last. It’s usually her death -- the wet snapping of bone, the squelch of her eyes bursting, the hacked-off gurgling as she...
Yeah.
Sometimes he dreams of her crawling out of the grave and throttling him or setting him on fire or something. No less than he deserves.
This dream is different.
“Eddie?” A soft voice, gentle, calling his name.
Eddie sits up, confused for a second when he realizes he’s still in his bedroom. He’s GOT to be dreaming, but...shit, it feels real. The slight breeze coming in through his cracked window, the scratchy quilt -- only thing left of Shoshana Munson -- puddled around his waist, the slight twinge in his ankle from where he moved wrong in PE today.
“Eddie?”
There it is again, that voice. He’d know it anywhere.
“Chrissy?” he says hesitantly. He’s waiting for her to show up with the smell of brimstone and death, waiting for maggots in her eyesockets and retribution in her ruined hands.
But then she’s just...there.
She looks just like she did the last time he saw her, except not? She’s not, like, ripped to pieces. Still in her cheer uniform and sweet little jacket, still in those immaculate white Reebocks, still in that blazing blue eyeshadow.
“Hi,” she says, with a smile that’s so ancient and tired he just about sobs.
“Chrissy.” Eddie’s voice cracks. He jumps out of bed, scrambling towards her, tripping on the quilt, skinning his knee on the carpet, his breath coming raspy and disbelieving in his chest, his eyes burning with tears. He reaches her, finally, half-crawling. He tries to put his hands on her -- any contact will do, he’d be happy if she slapped him. Gutted him. Ripped his fucking head off.
He meets thin air.
Fuck. Of course he does. It’s a dream.
But he looks up and Chrissy’s still there. She’s still standing in his dirty room still smiling this sad little smile. She shrugs bashfully. “Sorry.”
“Don’t--” he manages. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” He’s not even sure what he means, but he can’t have her looking so guilty. Chrissy’s never done anything wrong. She’s never hurt anyone.
“I wish you could touch me,” she says. “I miss...” Chrissy trails off. “I miss it.”
“Miss being touched?” Eddie says.
“Yeah.” She twists her hands in her cheer skirt. Nervous tic -- he noticed it when she was in sixth grade and it’s just gotten worse since then.
Eddie digs his nails into his palms ‘til he feels blood welling up. He never thought he’d see that gesture again. Ever. This is so fucking weird, but so fucking good. Chrissy is whole. She’s not rotting or screaming, she’s not in pain. Maybe not happy, but...
“How are you here?” Eddie asks. He can’t help it.
“I’m not sure,” Chrissy says. “I think it’s...” She shrugs one shoulder. “My will? Maybe? I wanted to be here. With you.” A shy look.
“With me?” Eddie repeats stupidly. Why would she wanna be here with him? He’s the coward who left her to die alone!! Hell, she DIED here! One room away!
“Yeah,” Chrissy says. “You made me feel safe.”
Eddie tries not to gape. “I...did?”
“Uh-huh.” She looks up earnestly, kinda whimpers a little. “I’ve just been thinking about you so much, Eddie, and missing you.”
Yeah, of course this is a dream. Chrissy would NEVER say that in real life. She misses Jason. She misses her mom and dad and her kid brother. Eddie’s nothing to her.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I know it’s weird. We didn’t know each other very well, but I felt safe with you and-- and I never really felt safe when I was...alive,” she finishes in a tiny voice.
“Thank you,” is all Eddie can say. She still looks all shy and sad. “It’s not weird,” he rushes to assure her, cursing himself for an asshole. “You don’t need to apologize to me.” And then it comes out in a frantic, desperate rush: “I’m sorry. Jesus Christ, Chrissy, I am so fucking sorry. I-- I was this...this useless chickenshit coward and you didn’t deserve that and I just-- I can’t-- I’m so sorry. I miss you. I miss you so much. And I know this isn’t real and you’ll never forgive me, but I need you know--”
“Eddie,” Chrissy interrupts softly. “It’s real.”
“What?”
“This is real,” she says. “I don’t-- I don’t know how I’m here, but I promise it’s real.”
It’s too much. This is beyond his wildest hopes and -- look, if his dream wants to comfort him a little, he’ll take it. “OK, Chrissy,” he says gently, “OK. I believe you.”
“No, you don’t,” she says, her voice horribly tender. “But I think I can make you believe it. I’m gonna come again if I can.”
“Where are you?” he asks. What’ll his mind come up with?
“I’m not sure,” she says. Another shrug. “Someplace very lonely. It’s quiet and nobody’s hurting me anymore, though. But it’s...it’s still lonely.”
“Not Heaven?” It’s out before he can stop it.
“Not Heaven,” she says.
“But why?? You were so-- good.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I tried to be, but there was so much...darkness...and...”
She’s flickering, suddenly, like an old film or something. Going see-through. In and out. “Shit,” she mutters.
“Don’t go!!” Eddie cries. “Wait, I can-- we can figure it out, we can--”
She’s gone.
~~~
That dream was fucking crazy. Eddie remembers every detail, from the nasty carpet crunching under Chrissy’s shoes to the way she went all sepia-see-through to the horrible guilt clawing up his throat and...and the sweet way she smiled at him, the way he always hoped she would when she was alive.
It felt so real.
He knows it was just his mind trying to comfort him, but holy shit. He’s never had a dream that, like, vivid before. Weird-ass stuff.
Especially ‘cause his hands sting where he dug his dream-nails in and his knee is...still skinned from where he skidded across the carpet? Well. Probably just sleepwalking or something, but...
Eddie knows he should keep it to himself. It was a private thing, a little solace he didn’t deserve but had to take anyhow.
But at school the next day, it’s haunting him.
He’s gotta talk to Robin.