Sweater Weather. Happy September 1st

nothing new // taylor swift feat. phoebe bridgers

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍  𝙏𝘼𝙏𝙐𝙈  𝙍𝙄𝙇𝙀𝙔                          (deadbride​)

“so um. i saw you going to the woods after school, @greenscrunchy”   it’s out of the blue, smack dab in the middle of the first break they’ve gotten. the big game is tonight, so if there’s any time to cram in as much practice as possible, this is it.   “what’s up with that?”   there’s no judgement, but tatum does have to ask … what the hell. with the amount of people that have gone missing from their quiet town in the past three years, taking a shortcut through the forest seems like an awful idea.

she’s been practicing. starting from before the first bell rang when she slipped the hurried note into the slats of a forbidden locker until almost running from the woods like a bat out of hell. her thoughts wrote the script over and over throughout the rest of the afternoon so that when she opens her mouth the story comes out smooth. at least, she hopes it’s smooth enough that tatum, with with her watchful gaze sharper than a scalpel, will buy it.

chrissy hates lying, but it comes naturally. it’s how she can survive until summer. 

                    ❝ meditating. i’ve been trying it out before these last few games. ❞  her expression weaves together a concerted effort to keep her smile from wobbling or seeming fixed, but the many years’ previous practice for that too is a hail mary that's yet to fail her.  ❝ it’s supposed to help with focus and relaxation. ❞  chrissy shakes both pompoms she’s clenched in one hand with a grin.  ❝ doing the opposite of cheering before a game actually helps! and i need to stay focused for the girls, so.... ❞  all the narrowness of her shoulders might end up disguising none of the helplessness tucked into her shrug.   ❝ for the championship. are you excited?  ❞

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ      𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼      𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                              (hellmartyr​)

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍. no sun, no moon — only venomous strands of electrified lifeblood. hours didn’t shift as they should, and the creatures reflected the restlessness of their cruel dimension. loathsome howls haunted the winds in immeasurable rotations. with no natural period of respite, eddie divided his routine into two cycles: get shit done and an intermittent spate of z’s.

      sleep was a treat that rarely went uninterrupted. shrieks from the sky peeled open his eyes and sounds he didn’t recognize stalked the periphery of his tenuous sanctuaries. blood-curdling shadows were a ruthless reminder that nowhere in hell was safe from the devil. munson didn’t dare breathe as he waited for the strange chittering to pass, holding the warlock so tightly his joints cramped.

      eddie never let go of her, even when he did manage to spirit away some sleep. no matter how long the man was out or in what position he awoke, his guitar’s twisted sister never strayed from his hand.

      a rest fast wasn’t the only flagellation he inflicted upon himself. his eyes opened to a sharp pain in his gut. eddie curled into a ball, the warlock twanged as she was crushed into his abdomen.

      the two things a survivor needed most were just as likely to kill him. he didn’t want to remember the last time he ate, and felt sick just thinking about cracking open another ungodly can of something parading itself as edible. but the tight ache could no longer be ignored.

      keeping parallel to the thoroughfares, it was a steady crawl into hawkins proper. the rhythmic crunch of rotten leaves under his sneakers turned to grit as he picked his way over black, pulsating veins that overlapped the butchered segments of asphalt. from there it was a reluctant beeline to the canned goods. nothing in front or too far back, somewhere in the middle where the least amount of tainted air settled. his stomach objected as eddie slipped his not-so-fresh catch into his vest pocket.

      distant thunder and the soft rustle of his gear bumping against his steps set the rhythm of his march to the police station. vines covered the parking lot like pulsating cracks in the concrete. eddie hopscotched towards the back of the building to the spore-covered dumpster. his arms wobbled as he hoisted himself onto the lid. sneakers scrapped the molded brick as he clambered onto the roof.

      on one end there was an access door that led to the ground level. completely useless of course. vines cavorted in the stairwell, bulging into a grotesque neural network of rot as they smothered each other in vacuous greed. with no super powers to speak of, munson abandoned the route, turning his attention instead to the whirlybird. the damn thing looked more like a mushroom, it’s galvanized steel covered in a crust that glistened in the brackish light.

      eddie cracked his fingers and carefully tipped it aside to reveal a crumbling system beneath. he removed his guitar, lowering her first into the insulation before following her down with a jostle. despite the tight fit, eddie had enough room to army crawl through a decadent perfume of interdimensional asbestos and spores.

      the scattered remains of the demobat he killed during his previous visit were putrefied puddles. a ghastly stench interlocked with the moisture in the back of his throat. jesus christ, he could taste it; a pungent sweetness that tested the strength of his stomach. eddie pressed his mouth into his arm, stifling a cough as he dragged himself away as quickly as he dared.

      for the better part of an hour, eddie searched for a way down. it was a grueling process, one he’d been forced to back out of multiple times. the spoiled air was suffocating, forcing him to breath with his mouth open, which in turn made him vulnerable to swallowing something that turned his insides out. that shit was just the cherry on top too. during one attempt, he almost lost consciousness. which put a fear in the man so bad he stayed away for the equivalent of several days. even the allure of a shotgun failed to shake it.

      suddenly, a ray of gloomy light illuminated a small flotilla of dust motes several feet ahead. it took a moment for his eyes to register what they were seeing. never before had eddie made it this far. a feverish zing spread from his heart to the rest of his body as the young man rustled closer. a rutted cleft in the ceiling, not big enough for him to squeeze through without a little help.

      he maneuvered the teeth of his spearhead and sawed at the disintegrating plaster. as pieces loosened, eddie broke them off by hand and piled them on the side. by the time he was finished, sweat dripped from the strands of hair sticking out from his bandana. his head felt like it was about to tailspin, but an unwitting smile kept the young man steady as he looked down into the police station.

      now there’s a sight a munson never thought he’d be thrilled to see.

      first came the warlock, descending like a fallen angel from a cloud of insulation foam. then her guitarist. he didn’t descend so much as topple when his fingers slipped. sneakers squeaked as eddie landed awkwardly. he teetered on the edge of his balance, but caught himself before he went sideways straight into a cluster of tendrils.

      sour saliva coated the dry rush of his throat. eddie spared himself a moment of relief before he fished the can out of his pocket. with a scoff, he spotted the cursive c poking out from a film of sludge.

      ❝ so, we meet again. ❞ munson remarked dryly as he cleaned the top off on his sleeve. he angled his spear and carefully punctured the can, rotating slowly to preserve the precious contents. anticipation coated his dry mouth in a harsh brine as he precociously caught the serrated edge of the lid with his thumb. eddie hissed, jerking his thumb back as a bead of blood formed on the tip. quickly, he stuck the wound in his mouth. immediate revulsion at the taste of the grime on his skin, but stifling a gag-reflex was preferable to letting bloodscent loose in the air.

      frustration surged up from the depths of all he’d been through. pain that refused to dissipate from the infection spreading on his abdomen, the hopeless determination to keep going without a chance of actually seeing his uncle again. eddie never thought it possible to miss hawkins like this, but seeing his hometown mutilated by the evil of a child-murdering madman …

      eddie crumbled.

      folding towards his knees, eddie’s shoulders quivered in tandem with the tears turning the oil on his cheeks sticky. there was no desire to give up, but the will to keep going was leaking onto his tongue. an end, he just wanted an end. to go back in time to a moment full of copper, adrenaline bleeding out as vision turned a dark red.

      just die. don’t open your eyes. there’s no point. there’s no fucking point.

      a dangerous sob was stopped by the digit still enclosed between his teeth. eddie sank closer to the ground, surrendering to the blue devils that would pin him there till the young man finally wasted away.

                              hello?

      anguish turned deathly still as his attention snapped like a viper towards the door. the burning of a final heartbreak extinguished into something silent, something cold. eddie rose, the ominous glitter in his eyes glowing brighter as the voice of chrissy cunningham begged for the help she never got.

      a shuddering sigh, ❝ that’s sick, man. even for you. ❞

      the young man swallowed the lump in his throat as he set aside the can and placed his warlock on one of the desks. his sights strayed from the door. no, his fixation steeled into a tranquil fury as the redeemer readied his spear. there was no feeling in his legs as he approached the entrance, futile pounding reverberating from the other side.

      seemed like the universe was finally showing a bit of pity. a worthy way out; all he had to do was unlock the door and kill whatever shit-eating beast was making a mockery of a girl who deserved more than her fair share of peace.

      he fished out the homebrew lock kit he’d fashioned from his jeans and picked the door. his eagerness steeled, munson kept his actions deliberate as to not alert whatever the hell was waiting for him. he had one chance to get the drop so that no matter what it did to him, eddie munson wasn’t leaving this hellhole alone.

      click. eddie’s heart rate spiked as the lock gave. in one swift motion, he raised up his spear and threw open the door to see —

                  ❝ CHRIST — Y — CHRISSY ? ❞

                           ❝ please let someone be here, plea  —  ❞  and as if loftily answering a prayer, the door flew open from the inside. 

but who waited beyond the knob wasn’t any kind of anticipated, if unimaginable, underworld monstrosity. nor was it a badge-toting figurehead of hawkins safety and security. it was a ghoul with the face of a terrified and bloody eddie munson, clutching a makeshift spear in one hand and the doorknob in the other. truly, he looked so shocked that for a moment chrissy almost believed he was real. 

the once-cheerleader automatically let out a strangled bleat in fright, but all the air was stolen from the sound halfway through. her shock stumbled down a cliff of surprise rolling all the way down into a pit of.....sadness. this vision of eddie looked so like the world they were in —  grungy, dusty, slathered in rot. so thoroughly mangled that there was no chance he could be alive. he could be nothing other than the manifestation of this place’s manic feeding frenzy on souls and bodies alike. ....which implied he’d entered their now shared purgatory while still alive only to fall and be consumed by the acidic hatred that had conjured this place however long ago. 

oh. 

here stood her confirmation that this barren slice of the universe was not a second chance at whatever passed as living here in this poor excuse for “hawkins", inverted. genuine existence was only mimicked. she was dead. and so was he. like a gunshot, chrissy’s chest was riven by the sensation of missing him. could you miss someone you barely knew? someone who wasn’t there? 

yet — almost-eddie said her name. as if her appearance was the least likely sight in hell he could muster up. she didn’t blame this shade his stupefaction, at least not for too long. this mutated world of darkness trapping them could very well birth all manner of hallucinations, could be dangling false hope in front of her at any moment. manufactured, cruel fictions to match the cruel imitation of life chrissy had lived thus far and a crueler imprint of the town she’d called home.

what was left of her heart sank quickly to the ichor-slicked soles of her sneakers. he sounded so much like eddie, this ghost. or.....she thought. guilt assuaged slumping shoulders as she realized how little she really knew of this young man from whom humble hawkins seemed to expect the worst. and he’d been so kind to her up until the moment her memories stopped. [ did you find it? eddie? ] generous with his time and his humour [ you’re not what i thought you’d be like ], clever with his attempts at making her smile. [ how could i forget?! ] a mere few hours after meeting him (again) was enough time gone to know he’d not lay a harming finger on her if he drove her home. ready to help her despite his confusion. 

oh, living and breathing chrissy, so starved of understanding had she been that the moment eddie munson stared through her like glass, she felt secure for the first time in... no. that was a pointless enumeration. she’d be ashamed of herself if she went any further. 

                          ❝ eddie? ❞  even to her own ears she sounded devastated. wrecked. what misfortune had laced the atoms of his essence together into so ripped and chewed a shadow of sentience? nothing that could comfort her in the presence of his ghost, certainly.  ❝ what happened to you? you’re.... a mess.  ❞

chapped lips closed, then opened, then closed again, rendered suddenly unable to string any kind of sufficient thought into speech. all she could feel was sorry. everything she knew was sorry. sorry to see him in such a place, sorry to be haunting the haunted, sorry to have possibly done anything that could drag him into this tartarus pit, this realm of refuse. he’d paid dearly for every act of heroism, judging by the looks of things. a shining, blood-soaked knight in shredded ribbons, complete with a sword.

either all her tears had evaporated or weariness sapped every reaction in extreme from her system. a limp swallow clenched her throat shut long enough to pause all thought of caution and chrissy stepped forward. her bruised arms lifted, powered by winces of pain, to wrap gingerly around this not-quite-eddie’s torso. no breath to reconsider, just the driving force of mourning a life half lived and a thousand chances missed. in cheer, missing by inches brought injurious disaster. what brought them here was miles.

                         ❝ it’s alright if you’re not real, ❞  chrissy mumbled into ruined fabric, utterly depressed. anything above a whisper scraped murder across her vocal cords. her fingers dug into a bony back until spinal ridging uncomfortably collided with the juts of her knuckles. the skeletal pattern was grounding. so frustrating in its physicality. he still faintly smelled like leather and hawkins humidity. you didn’t deserve this. you didn’t deserve anything you were getting. i’m sorry i thought so badly of you. if i could go back i’d make up my own mind about you and never listen to anyone tell me what to believe again. how tantalizing a thought, to admit as much to the real eddie. but his ghost was no replacement. admission to a phantom was like begging a stone for help. like pounding on the door of an abandoned police station that might never have held any remote promise of safety. absolute miserable insanity. still, there was a small childish comfort in embracing a figure that could only be meant to fade from her gaze the moment she gripped it too fiercely in a bid to regain her balance.  ❝ i'm just glad to see you. ❞

so chrissy let go.  easier, when the battle was already lost. 

                        ❝ this place is.....is twisted. i don’t know why it made you look like this. it’s messing with my head, eddie. but i can’t be losing my mind anymore if i’m dead, can i? ❞

one particular i adore about chrissy is that she’s so deeply not into profanity - not necessarily because she feels shame, but because the very sound of curse words is grating. it’s ugly to her 9/10 times spoken and heard.

there is a little baptist guilt in there thanks to a childhood of being dragged to church on sundays and her mother’s ever present televangelists on the tv, but it takes a back seat to the sound of curses.

yet with eddie or the party…..it’s still ugly, she still doesn’t like it, but with them it’s a sign of something honest and genuine. eddie especially. she gets the impression that the more he swears, the more he means what he says.

of course the freshman doing it so often is a little jarring, but she will make exceptions for them. they’re just so cute when they’re excited.

&. 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

(  various  non - halloween  themed  dialogue  prompts  for  all  your  slashers,  final  girls,  and  other  horrors  beyond  your  comprehension.  trigger  warning  for  dark  themes.  feel  free  to  edit  as  you  seem  fit.  ) 

❛ it’s the silence that scares me. ❜

❛ i’m every nightmare you ever had. ❜

❛ i want to see your true face. ❜

❛ one way or another, you’re going to die tonight. ❜

❛ just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not already here. ❜

❛ by the time anyone finds your body, they won’t be able to identify it. ❜

❛ you’re playing a dangerous game here, girl. ❜

❛ i’m playing the villain, just like you wanted. ❜

❛ i won’t give up on you, i know you’re worth it! ❜

❛ scream all you want. no one will hear you. ❜

❛ what are you going to do to me? ❜

❛ there you are, my darling! ❜

❛ i knew you would come back to me. ❜

❛ don’t you want to be consumed by what loves you? ❜

❛ i’m going to send you back to hell where you came from! ❜

❛ you can’t keep me here forever! ❜

❛ how are you still alive? i killed you! ❜

❛ sometimes human spaces make inhuman monsters. ❜

❛ please. why don’t you just let me go? ❜

❛ this missing poster has your face on it. ❜

❛ that wasn’t so bad, was it? ❜

❛ what’s wrong, you don’t trust me? ❜

❛ i know a lot about you. more than you think. ❜

❛ you want me to shut him up for you? ❜

❛ we could have been beautiful together. ❜

❛ when you think you’re alone, someone watches. ❜

❛ rest while you can, because i will hunt you and eat you whole. ❜

❛ what you want is very wrong. ❜

❛ you look so pretty all tied up like this. ❜

❛ what, you like to watch? you goddamn sicko. ❜

❛ god isn’t here. god doesn’t even know about this place. ❜

❛ there is something at work in my soul which i do not understand. ❜

❛ i am the devil, and i am here to do the devil’s work. ❜

❛ you know what they say, an eye for an eye. ❜

❛ why don’t you scream for me? ❜

❛ are you… smelling me? ❜

❛ we’re going to die out here. ❜

❛ i’m not afraid of anything. not anymore. ❜

❛ we will be what everyone wants to be. perfect. ❜

❛ no offense, but i think you might be just a little too crazy for me. ❜

❛ we all go a little mad sometimes. ❜

❛ the harder i try to escape, the further i get into this awful place. ❜

❛ this was not how it was supposed to go! ❜

❛ this is the end of your little game. i win. ❜

❛ don’t leave me! i can’t be alone! ❜

❛ no one is coming for you. ❜

❛ you hide. and i’ll try to find you. sound fun? ❜

❛ fuck this place. seriously, just fuck this place. ❜

❛ what’s the matter, honey? you’ve barely touched your dinner. ❜

❛ don’t be afraid. dying is much easier than living. ❜

❛ i won’t let them kill you. i won’t let them even touch you. ❜

❛ let’s get you some clothes before i get too turned on. ❜

❛ you weren’t putting that tongue to use anyway. ❜

❛ shall i drink your blood fresh, or slice your neck and spill it out first? ❜

❛ dying keeps moving lower on the list of worst things that could happen to me. ❜

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ   𝔻𝔸𝔽𝔽𝕆𝔻𝕀𝕃   𝔽𝕆𝔾𝔼𝕃,                                 (fogels​)

*      𝘩𝑜𝑤  𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛  𝑤𝑎𝑠  𝑚𝑦  𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑦    /        @greenscrunchy​​   ,                  —                     𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾   𝖺𝗋𝖾   𝗍𝗐𝗈   𝗌𝗂𝖽𝖾𝗌   𝗍𝗈   𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒   𝖿𝖺𝖼𝖾  .      

𝚂𝙷𝙴'𝚂  𝙳𝙾𝙸𝙽𝙶  𝚃𝙷𝙴  𝙱𝙴𝚂𝚃  𝚂𝙷𝙴  𝙲𝙰𝙽  𝚃𝙾  𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴  𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂  𝙵𝙴𝙴𝙻  𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚂  𝙻𝙸𝙺𝙴  𝙱𝙰𝙱𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚃𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶  .     shackled  to  a  stranger  with  a  walkman  threateningly  waved  in  your  face  should  you  blink  a  tad  too  long  .   daffodil  knows  she  wouldn’t  be  chrissy’s  first  choice to  spend  time  with  .

or  maybe  she  would  be  .   it  turns  out  the  little  high - flyer  has  a  precious smile  and  a  laugh  like  lemon  squares  :   good  .  

❝         𝑦𝑒𝑎𝘩  ,   𝑎𝑛𝑑  𝑏𝑜𝑡𝘩  𝑜𝑓  𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠  𝑎𝑟𝑒  𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑦  ,         ❞        daffodil  smiles  at  her  ,   nodding  towards  the  strawberry  ice  cream  generously portioned  into  chrissy’s  bowl  .          ❝         ah  !   come  on  ,   that’s  part  of  the  healing  process ,  too  .         ❞

the uneasy twisting in chrissy’s stomach has made its way to her hands, where chipped varnish-laden nails dig into soft vinyl daisy print. a kind of tablecloth pattern ripped from a field swaying in the wind somewhere. so bright and cheerful to match the pink ice cream gradually beginning a melting slump front of her face. this doesn’t feel fair. (she’s thought that once or twice this week and wondered why every time. what did she do to deserve this? what didn’t she do?)

                                    ❝ you’re being very patient with me. you don’t have to be. ❞  it’s natural as anything to hedge. easy to distract from the swimming bowl of temptation, shiny spoon lure sticking out and chrissy is a little fish who’d like to know what’s truly good for her for once. daf is kind but not easily misled; there might not be any getting out of this one. best to dive in and think about consequences later. …..maybe she’ll think more sharply with a little sugar in her system. there’s dairy too – so, protein! yes, yes, if she thinks hard enough she can write off all the sweet danger the ice cream is masking under strawberry swirls. 

then again, hasn’t her entire rubric for danger been rewritten over the past several days? you know what? screw it. for now. what’s good for her might actually be to take the kindness daf is offering so freely, imposition or not. 

                                     ❝ i’d like if it was that way, though i’m not sure wanting to snap when i’m nervous is very pretty. ❞  speaking around a spoon is absolutely abhorrent manners, she knows, but talking helps distract from the guilt. one spoonful at a time.  ❝ you seem to be taking the whole….monster thing in stride. that’s amazing. ❞

amylforsythe: Oh Chrissy. How sweet; you little tortured soul. […]

chrissy + dustin content <3

Strength is light ☀