"I Wouldn't Want To Bother Anyone," I Say As The Thing Inside Of Me Eats Me Alive.

I heard one thing, now I'm hearing another

( ᵔ◡ᵔ )

here’s your “wow, what the hell, jason” for today:  there are multiple guys on the hawkins cheer squad, and like all cheer guys they play a really big part in building the strength of the squad - which we see in the pep rally when they’re assisting with lifts. jason, during his rousing “we’ll win for the dead people” speech, only draws attention to the girls on the squad. 

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙀𝙁 𝙃𝙊𝙋𝙋𝙀𝙍                           (fatherscurse​)

❛ i’m tired of dying. ❜ - &. 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

he almost has to laugh. he feels like he’s died plenty of times over in the last eight months. the last couple of years, really. it was sad, a pang in his chest letting him know it wasn’t funny. but, of course, jim being jim, he does laugh. “ yeah. jesus. me too, kid. but hey. i got you now, no matter what, yeah? you’re not dyin’ this time. ”

feat. @greenscrunchy​

years ago laura cunningham nipped the act of chrissy allowing her head to loll back lazily in the bud. an indicator of terrible posture, she announced, and chrissy would never appear polite or put together with her neck flopping about like a chicken’s. sit up straight, feet crossed, hands in lap. like an obedient princess. 

right now, chrissy is obeying none of those pointers and looking not the least bit like a princess. her body hurts and every angled limb is an attempt to soften the ache that have come to dwell in all her hollows. both legs are bent slightly to the side and her spine has begun imitating the curvature of her seat back. the greatest offender of all, her neck, has allowed her head to wander, its weight now resting on the back of her chair. as of yet, hopper has yet to call her unladylike or sloppy. just “kid”. the simplicity is balm to her lingering frightened confusion.

                       ❝ thank you. ❞  she wishes she could hear her own voice better but it’s drowned out by heartbeat drumming even in her own ears.  ❝ i guess you have experience with that now. or everyone does and i guess i was the last to know. ❞  she twitches.  ❝ i’m sorry. you’ve had to do this for....how many kids? ❞

the brevity of chrissy’s story matters because what’s the prevailing mood after she dies? that she had so much potential. that she had so much to live for.

what, then, is the takeaway?

so do you.

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                              ( hellmartyr​ )

𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐋𝐀𝐊𝐄 with no intention of coming back. that’s how it felt listening to the violet-grey sadness that slowly flooded his insides with a dreaded sense of déjà vu. like listening to an old recording of his thoughts, spoken out loud in a crunchy, distorted voice. ideas eddie would’ve drowned in if wayne never took him in.

      calloused fingers curled into a loose fist. he had to, to keep from reaching over the barrier to hold her back from going any further. it wouldn’t be the first time they searched for each other in the dark, someone’s fingers feeling for a brush with skin that bore similar scars from the same place. eddie wanted nothing more than to be that reassurance again, but he hesitated. scared that if he moved too fast, whatever ledge chrissy was hanging onto would crumble.

      and who could blame her? not like eddie read her autobiography, but her life wasn’t hard to see when she wasn’t surrounded by faces with herculean expectations. chrissy cunningham’s picture perfect life was the exact reason vecna targeted her. a like a picture, it was a two dimensional facade that didn’t hold up to scrutiny. eddie first noticed tiny holes in his own assumptions when the unorthodox pair sat across from each other at a rickety picnic table. then the road trip when they were both supposed to be healthy … -er. yet sitting next to her for hours on end, chattering away, his dark eyes reflectively slipping from the road to her under an array of lightning. living in a drifter’s version of domesticity as the van hauled them ever closer to california. it was during those hours, destined to be carefree, that eddie learned laura cunningham had no right to be called a mom.

      ed didn’t want to answer. terrified of pushing her any further in a foreboding direction. seeing her eyes like the bottom of a well, unable to tell if it was the light or tears that made them shine. his mouth went cotton dry. ❝ a s-southpaw? ❞

      chris. the plea never cleared eddie’s throat, stuck like a rock in a hard place behind his tongue’s treacherous reply. it took several silent tries to dislodge it. when it did, her name scraped his throat like it grew claws. eddie felt like he was floating, even as the polyester sheets grazed his skin. he’d wanted the quiet to last longer, preferring it to hang over them like distended as he tried to figure out chrissy’s destination to prepare himself to deny their arrival.

      instead eddie cornered himself to think on the fly. panicking in the seconds between his and her respond with race to dredge up every synonym and tidbit he knew about lefties. he knew some people had a religious hang-ups. and it wasn’t too long ago teachers were still allowed to crack a leftie’s hand with a ruler, encouraging them to switch. that’s what wayne said happened to his brother, and that al went home everyday with a teacher’s brand till the bastard finally dropped out of high school.

      thinking of his old man sharing any similarity with chrissy made eddie’s stomach flip. if she was a mess, how fucked was  he ?

truth be told, chrissy had asked the question with no real expectation of an answer. the query was as rhetorical as it was sincerely curious. there was no way of knowing if eddie would catch her drift, especially not with sleep dancing just out of reach in the corners of her bedroom. but, not unlike the first day the two had made real conversation, looking at each other less like classmates and more like friends, eddie munson had so valiantly offered up anything he hoped might be a solution for what ailed her. a habit that became a consistent phenomenon from the previous march, through the last gasps of their school year, over the summer, all the way to the first anniversary of their deaths. or if it wasn’t death, no life had ever felt like swimming through the humidity-choked air of hawkins’ moldy, parasitic mirror, every step seemingly futile. even if the upside down and death couldn’t accomplish the same goal, they left the same scars.

the cheerleader had been all alone in that purgatory, left to suffer the consequences of mere happenstance  —  a not so miraculous resurrection. until eddie munson appeared. at school she’d felt forgotten among the aftermath, the real her with her real twisted limbs and real blank eyes left behind in the rubble. until she saw eddie in the hallway. since then, they’d left each other alone only by necessity. 

of course that’s where eddie’s head was. to assume he’d do anything else but pull her back home with oaths of understanding was honestly stupid. she should have that part of him memorized now, just like everything else he let her see. it’s why she knew the twitching in the valley beyond the pillow mountain was a contained urge to reach for the hand she’d dangled too closely in reach. 

evidently, he wasn’t holding it against her much if the next thing she felt herself do was snort at what might have been a joke.

all the stacks of emotion building a dam in her throat abated in brief as her body shook with silent laughter, no sobs or sniffles in sight. chrissy considered herself the kind of girl who cried regularly, although she never began her night hoping to curl into a ball and gasp her way to the middle of the mattress only to woozily drop off and wake up sore and salty. so, maybe this was a good replacement. even after her worst day in a long while, and that was saying something considering the spring break depression.

her lingering left hand flapped at the wrist just slightly over their all-but-pillow-fort. beyond it somewhere was his, and she aimed to fish it out again in a burst of watery grin-fueled nerve. 

                  ❝ no. i mean - yeah, that is one name for it. but not the one i’m talking about ❞  a deep sigh whistled through chrissy’s nose before her thoughts lined themselves up again in a neat, sensible row. only this way could she make him understand her debt to him and her fear for him. 

finally, softly,  ❝ sinister. ❞  the shape of the word hung in the air like the ghost of a tattered highway billboard, no context left but a single word. yellowed lights and all. if they looked out her tiny bedroom window, they might even see one.  ❝ lefties are sinister. because being left handed means you’re unlucky. or that you’re weak. sometimes both. most of the time, actually. and, that.... ❞  two hard swallows did nothing to help her breath and the harsh sound of chrissy helplessly clearing her throat seemed to shatter what remained of their cocoon.  ❝ that there’s darkness inside. ❞  

it was so easy to imagine when it shouldn’t have been: every lethal critique her mother levied against her, the thousand faults chrissy bore like ill-fitting clothes along with disgusted or jealous glances that cut truer than shattered glass on bare feet, all streaming from eddie’s face, eddie’s eyes, eddie’s mouth. an imagined nightmare questing to outpace the memory of vecna showing her why death was altogether better than the agony of living. 

                   ❝ i just don’t want to be the next person that hurts you, eddie. that’s what i’m scared of. ❞  all the tears she’d been pushing back finally crested the surface of grey ocean eyes, drizzling down her cheeks to splash mutely on an over-squished pillow. between burning droplets she could only offer a pitiful whisper in addendum,  ❝ i don’t want you to hate me. ❞

send  ❛ ♡ ❜  to suddenly hug my muse  ! 

could be angst  ,   romantic   ,  plationic  ,  etc.

serendipity in deadtown.                        /                   @nonangelic​

there’s theories aplenty about the other side of death postulated by the living, but the problem is that no one actually knows anything about it unless they’re....well, dead. anecdotes about lamps or beckoning angels or loved ones or long ladders up to someplace bright and shiny were just that: anecdotes. unconfirmed even by dreams and near-death experiences alike. because it wasn’t the real thing if you came back from it. 

what does come after that anticipated, glorified transition from life on earth to the great beyond turns out to be, aptly, deadtown. the great city in the...sky? hell? either way, it’s the end. most times there isn’t any leaving.

exiting deadtown wiped the memories of death after death clean out of the brain. at least that’s the impression chrissy got from witnessing the one one or two exits followed by a reentrance not long after. brevity was long opined the soul of wit, but it the heart of heartbreak, too. no life was long enough, and not even the wizard or superhero or guy-who-knew-a-guy-who-knew-a-guy could stop the wheel of mortality from turning. all things ended.

except who chrissy was when she died. she was confused. shy. hopeful. looking for someone.

someone absolutely not here in deadtown, but that she’d look for eternally until further notice.

a gargoyle who introduced himself as neil lurked pleasantly behind a café counter, watching chrissy from the corner of his eye, as if her presence was both brand new and absolutely expected. chrissy hadn’t thought she’d died before the first friday of spring break, but at this rate anything was possible. best to stop asking questions.

                       ❝  so — how does this work, exactly?  ❞     ......after that one.

neil just chuckled. the door blew open in answer instead of him. evening and the scent of autumn trickled in like a discontinued department store perfume. considering the setting, that might have been true. chrissy watched from the corner of her eye as moonlight blew its way over the doorjamb in ruffled, yet smooth, locks. she used to be that put together, once. the cheerleader stared into the sudden appearance of a cup smelling like black coffee with just a hint of sugar. steam wafted up to her nose languidly, buoyed by the last vestiges of the entryway breeze. 

                      ❝  oh.  ❞  it’s easy, then, to smile. despite the missing and the looking over her shoulder, the answer was there before she knew the question. chrissy kept the smile pinned in place to level at the shadow near her shoulder.  ❝  do you have a usual, too?  ❞

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There are shards of my childhood on the floor. I try to piece them together, but everywhere I step, I bleed.