(in Tears) Next Year I Will Have So Much Fun!

reblog this to give the person you reblogged this from a gold star because they’ve been stellar today and they deserve it ⭐️

ISDUGL ODNGHB YOU CAN PLAY MORE THAN ONE BELL AT THE SAME TIME AND MAKE CHORDS, I’M IN HEAVEN

for everyone’s edification, turn on the bells. i just played “we wish you a merry christmas” three times and i’m NOT STOPPING, IT’S SO MUCH FUN.

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙎. 𝙎𝙐𝙈𝙈𝙀𝙍𝙎                         (blueminke​)

@greenscrunchy​​     /     chrissy   &   kacey   !

SHE’S THE LAST ONE IN THE CLASSROOM, which isn’t too far out of the norm, carefully placing her belongings into her purse - pencils, pens, wallet, car keys… she swings the bag’s strap over her shoulder as she’s preparing to head out for the day. It’s then that the door to the science classroom peeks open, causing her head to reel to the entryway. OH, CHRISSY… Painted lips curl into a pleasant smile as she stands up from her desk chair to approach the young woman. She knows that it’s been more than difficult for the poor girl to readjust to her life in Hawkins after everything that’s happened, but in the very least, she’s happy to be supportive. “Are you okay, honey?”

chrissy still heard the bats. no matter that she was in the right-side-up now, demobat screeches hid beneath the otherwise inoffensive chirping of nearby birds. the stratified sound grated against nerves in her spinal cord more frigidly than avian silhouettes on a powerline after watching the birds for the first time. hitchcock, for all his mangled and twisty brilliance, could never have fabricated a fear that clung close as breath itself.

rich sunlight washed into ms. summers’ classroom with all the syrupy golden ease of late afternoon, bouncing cheerfully against zeus’s terrarium. the corn snake lounged on a rock feature close to the glass wall, tongue tasting the air now and again. but suddenly the snake’s head turned toward chrissy still at her desk. creature and human locked eyes for a moment, transfixed, until the snake opened his mouth and hissed that time was up. 

the words seemed to come from miles away. chrissy still jumped and surrendered to a moment of spiky adrenaline which forcibly brought her wandering mind back to attention. it wasn’t zeus at all but ms. summers closing out class discussion. chrissy blinked wildly and organized her assignment folders, stuffed her backpack, and walked out like a zombie in a fog.

that was yesterday. 

today the smell of smoke follows her everywhere like it’s trapped in her nostrils. she waves at her friends with a weaker arm than last month even though graduation creeps ever closer. her grades are getting better by centimeters. except life, existence still doesn’t feel grounded when she keeps the truth of the upside down held so close. and it is the truth. but how real is the truth when almost no one knows?

                       ❝ trying. ❞  pathetic. chrissy can do so much better than whispering from the crack in the door.  ❝ today was okay. i’m going to my friend’s house later to help with cleaning up the last of the rubble on their street. ❞  one shoulder has ticked up as she tries to pour her discomfort somewhere else.  ❝  i just....i wondered if i could ask you something? about the earthquake. and....why i got lost. because there’s parts of what happened that scare me. ❞  please, her brain begs as chrissy finally dares to look her kind, pink-cheeked teacher straight in the eye. please don’t think i’m crazy.

teiknu​:

Goofy movie au with chrissy and eddie

game day thrills came and faded all too quickly. sometimes it didn’t matter what rung of the championship ladder hawkins was on (or falling off), the whole school was filled with high voltage anticipation bordering on deadly. from the knife’s edge of the inner circle, chrissy watched as weeks leading up to important games spawn everything from handmade spirit shirts to garish posters on walls and on lockers, even culminating in creative little chants some students would come up with to shout during the game itself. never mind that there was an entire troupe of girls created for such a purpose. nevertheless something about their enthusiasm did rouse a consistent smile from chrissy — and assured her that her significantly softer cheers might go unnoticed.

when the day itself finally dawned, until the gym began filling “game day” mostly meant rushing to and from extra routine run-throughs and a day of wearing the uniform. the former was more enjoyable than annoying, and the latter was so non-negotiable that chrissy nearly abandoned feeling any way at all. she’d borderline coveted the sleek look all through middle school as if mere cloth had the power to change her life, the elegantly embroidered swoops of her name on a sweater heralding a new era of chrissy cunningham at her best and brightest. for the first few weeks of high school cheer, those dreams seemed almost corporeal. then she learned how often her bare legs would sprout goosebumps when someone’s eyes lingered too long. it took a year, but she’d successfully trained herself out of tugging at the hem after nearly pulling it off completely. 

almost worse than her self-consciousness was how jason seemed to earn his badge of “tiger” on those days, prowling around with narrowed eyes in chrissy’s wake just in case someone looked at her wrong. but there was a solution for that; sitting with jason at lunch eased his high hackles enough that he could be borderline pleasant in the hallways. in that regard the boys’ table, infinitely worse in its volleys of conversation than her squad’s, was a well-met sacrifice.

now the quarter final was upon the hawkins tigers and the high school buzzed like a provoked nest of hornets. the seniors were down one player in steve harrington, still recovering from a beating of comic book proportions, yet their “winner’s spirits” remained high and their thirst for the proverbial blood of their opponents was….interesting. the kind of make-it-or-break-it intense only high school basketball players were capable of, chrissy hoped.

the moment came at last for the levy to break and a stream of green and orange to joyously spill across the basketball court like a prairie sunset in summer. pompoms flew, legs kicked, and for the entirety of their opening routine chrissy let the blood in her veins scream to the beat of the hawkins band. gosh, was she proud of her squad. and in the middle of choreographed melee, proud of herself, too. her flier sequences were only getting tighter with each practice. while her timing had never been sloppy, the feeling of becoming one with the squad pulled her from the void of her self assurance for precious minutes at a time. 

but, as always, all that pep never lasted long enough and before chrissy knew it she was on her knees at the edge of court with the rest of the girls. normally she'd people watch while trying to keep a closely tracked eye on squeaky-shoed boys as they hopped from one end of the room to another. except her curiosity had pinned itself to a very bruised, very benched harrington. the hair was only a fraction less meticulous in its typical sculpt and his rainbow of wounds announced through a spectrum of purples and greens that they were at least healing. he just looked so tired. the kind of exhaustion that couldn’t be remedied, only pushed through. 

barely ten minutes had passed before chrissy could no longer stomach the sight. under cover of a set of free throws for the away team, she squirreled her way from the middle of the squad lineup toward the bench, only almost tripping over someone’s fingers and toes one time each. 

once at steve’s side she wasted enough time waffling over how firmly to tap him on the shoulder that the game had resumed in earnest. so, she gingerly poked him in the arm while trying to speak against the din. 

                            ❝ um, steve? are you sure you’re okay? you don’t look li — ❞  students erupted as hawkins snatched the ball and made a dash toward their hoop. chrissy dutifully wiggled her pompoms ‘til the action moved once more toward center court.  ❝ —  i mean i was just wondering, is it too loud? ❞

                                   a note for @starsinshadows​’ steve harrington

parent-child dynamics are soooo crazy. i love you i resent you i can't stand you i adore you i pity you. and still watching your hair get a little more grey every time i see you makes my stomach feel weird

okay i think i’ve waited a healthy amount of time — here’s the inaugural starter call! any and all verses are open as options. lengths will range from several inches to a mile. may or may not also include bonus musical tracks.   no cap / no expiration.

Sweater weather. Happy September 1st

@v1ctimplagued / @godstrayed - cont. from here

It wasn't as if he was keenly aware of many secrets. He heard gossip here and there but he wasn't too close to anyone to have many wanting to confide in him. The last thing Billy inspired was trust or a sense of safety. Rather it was quite the opposite. "Should I pretend that I know what you're talking about? Color me amused. What secrets does Chrissy Cunningham know?"

what a way to kill an already limp mood. and how is she supposed to answer such a targeted barb so quick on the heels of dismissal? it's not like she’d never been rebuffed so thoroughly before; getting shrugged off was a fact of life with jason and chrissy learned the ins and out of how to sidestep his proclivities quickly. a private little list of rules she walks around with inscribed inside her skull and carved by half moon nails in her palms. she’s prepared for a jason anywhere. however, none of hawkins was truly prepared for the hellion hurricane that was billy hargrove. including chrissy. 

his effect was like a slap in its suddenness. chrissy’s body was decidedly at school, yet the walls of home were a noose drawing in closer around her, her previous interest in gently examining billy’s persona further, almost fully dashed. a quotidian familiarity she liked even less than the immediate one pricked tender bits of her brain she’d rather leave alone completely. 

( i’ve laid awake at night, starting to wonder if going home at the end of the day feels the same way for you as it does me. dread. pure anxiety. feeling sicker the closer you get. how’s that for a secret, billy? but i won’t be telling you. )

instead, chrissy blinked, then squinted like a lamb in the sun. she knew her role to play in this conversation with certainty now.

                       “if you don’t actually care, then it doesn’t matter how you find out. word spreads fast enough. if not by tonight’s game, then tomorrow,” she added with a shrug. light, airy, careless – hoping for no fire to follow. billy’s moods were less an open secret and more like a guarantee. “i’m surprised jason hasn’t acted out more in front of you or steve since he wants the captain spot next year. but … you know, if you don’t care, that’s probably better.”

 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           (hellmartyr​)

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃, was what eddie would’ve said if his brain hadn’t flatlined. jaw rusted ajar by shock, his vengeance upended into an anemic stare. questions that were more sensation than language stacked themselves on his teeth, his tongue, leeching the dusty moisture from the back of his throat. his head wasn’t completely empty. there was something resembling a thought for a brief, crudely puerile moment when eddie’s suede eyes widened because chrissy cunningham remembered him. even in his state of oozing wounds, matted hair, and a complexion not unlike an autopsy.

      eddie was still playing catch up when chrissy’s arms interlocked around his torso. an instinctive arm swam around her, shocked by how close to nothing she felt against him. his protection amended itself into a firmer circle as her lament tumbled like tears down the chewed remains of his shirt.

      you’re not dead, his thawing tongue willed itself to say, not yet. as if on cue, an alien wail shattered the unnatural peace. pale surprise overshadowed by a sudden sharpness of narrowed eyes and iron-soaked resolve. the hard line of his lips bent at a grim angle at the shadows in the encroaching mist.

      an encouraging pat warned the girl of his intentions. ❝ come on, let’s get you inside. ❞ shuffling awkwardly, eddie eased chrissy into the station, gingerly rotating their position so that if any spawn of the upside down chose that moment to strike, it’d be forced to go through ed before it ever got a chance to even look at her.

      the door closed behind them with a bloated thunk. there were better odds finding the holy grail stashed in powell’s desk than a surface not covered in disemboweled rot. fearing he’d drop her, eddie settled chrissy in a chair that looked like a cramped piece of shit even without the upside down tinge. as eddie slipped his jacket around the despondent girl, he took the opportunity to take in the horror she’d been through.

      how was it possible for her to be even smaller than he remembered? her skin, a glass menagerie tinted by faded shades of livor mortis. and her eyes, maybe it was a trick of light straining through heavy motes. maybe it was because the last time eddie saw them was the last time anyone did. but eddie swore the twinkle that outshone gymnasium lights was still there. with ghost behind it, barricading the way between him and the girl hiding.

      any furniture not strapped to the ground by vines was dragged and deposited roughly against the door. eddie worked as quickly as his tremoring muscles allowed, always craning his neck to keep an eye on the object of his disbelief, replaying their one way exchange.

      was he real? he didn’t feel real, but he sure as shit felt alive. and — if you squinted — so did chrissy.

      panting from the strain of his task, the young man crouched in front of her, swallowing a dry knot of tension as he stumbled on what to say. because what the fuck do you say to someone murdered from the inside out? ❝ i’m, uh, i’m glad to see you too. ❞ despite the blood on his lower lip and the hellscape in the window, eddie smiled.

      realizing he was holding his breath, eddie flickered from side-to-side for a way to make her a little more comfortable. fastened to his back with medical tape was an outdoor first aid kit eddie scavenged from the drugstore. he was forced to clear out most of its contents, spoiled by the taint that permeated the upside down’s mimicry, leaving him with gauze, several bandages, and a tube of off-brand neosporin that passed the sniff test with skeptical colors. he needed to be careful retrieving its contents. a circular bite wound on his lower back was still runny, exploding with mauve-y pus if he touched it.

      placing the kit on a coaster of debris, eddie skittered to reclaim the treasonous ration from before. he returned, his joints ached as lowered himself again to meekly offer the can of campbell’s schlock to her.

      ❝ it’s safe to eat. i promise. just don’t look at it. ❞

forever ago, sometime during sophomore year, chrissy remembered an experiment she’d done in biology. for two months straight mr. stratner’s class had been drilling the ups and downs and insides and out of the human body and it had been a bumbling, awkward mess no matter what he did. but one wednesday, they’d turned to discussion of the heart. wonder of wonders, mr. stratner had lugged out one of the massive boomboxes from the a/v closet and plopped it on his desk wearing a well earned smirk. what followed was an experiment that turned out to be...fun. 

for almost 45 minutes the entire class experimented with the way music and sound affected the speed of a heartbeat. chrissy and her whole table bent over stopwatches, fingers on pulses and pencils flying. their smiles grew as 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures almost magically bloomed in the tattoo of their heartrates, responding to the music. thoughtful, melancholic strains of chopin eased their pulses to a tranquil putter while tchaikovsky and his cannons sent it sky high. a-ha, the doobie brothers, christopher cross, john waite, starship, spyro gyra, wynton marsalis, all with different rhythms but the same result; parallel rhythms. synchronicity. 

in the spiderweb-fragile moments between embracing what was left of eddie’s mirage, him grasping her back, and the eventual ripping of shrieks from somewhere too close by, there was silence. sweet, strange, then sour. the music of absence. emptiness. and chrissy’s heart paused to match that nothing rhythm. synchronicity in death, where nothing could truly exist. it was everything, everywhere. an ugly, inevitable peace. he’d promised my suffering would end. 

like a vhs struggling over a kink in its tape and then suddenly righting itself to rewind much too fast, time sped itself up again. the un-pause was quick but violent. only a blink and chrissy had been hastily rotated then ushered inside the police station. large hands were still firm over her arms, so she wasn’t going to fall, but she might as well have lost all sense of direction and balance. until a chair was under her. or she was on a chair. had the chair come to her or the other way around?

❝ ah - oh!  ❞  an unexpected face appeared out of nowhere. except it was just eddie, pale white, with muddy gray streaks. like the moon behind clouds. that was fine. five minutes ago she’d have wanted any friendly face at all and if - if only - leaping lizards why wouldn’t her heart rate go down? her breath was coming too fast and shallow, which didn’t calm the sloshing inside her head. all her presence of mind, melted. 

but....breathing. that was something only an alive person could do. eddie was breathing. he was. exhaled air was gusting around her ears as he adjusted something over her. unaware, shaking hands searched it out almost sans chrissy’s awareness or permission. looking down once her fingertips hit canvas, she registered a savaged jacket. 

then he was gone. a volley of thuds and clatters rent the air behind her, but the strawberry blonde didn’t turn to look for causes. instead, she shivered beneath a pile of army surplus as eddie barricaded every possible ingress point in the room, judging by the many slams and grunts in her peripherals. she’d help, but...what help would she really be? 

minutes crawled past. chrissy became one with the chair. behind her, legs of tables turned to splinters and desks became walls in lieu of any real barricade. the sound of metal denting peppered the air now and again, matched by the horrible squeaks of file cabinets digging into the floor with a last gasp of obstinance. 

nothing in hawkins ever did fold easily. 

and there eddie was again, this time at eye level and heaving like he’d forgotten about air during his rushed renovations. this wasn’t a dead man after all, she considered at long last, staring into the last real pair of eyes she’d seen before falling headlong into that...creature’s clutches. friendly then, friendly now. maybe more now because he was smiling. or giving his all in the effort. chrissy tried to offer him the same, although she had very little idea of what her face was doing. honestly, she might have started crying instead. it was hard to tell. maybe both. 

❝ th  —  ❞  her throat rebelled, spiraling her into a brief coughing fit. salt water kept getting in her mouth as she clumsily gulped down air. smiling and crying, then.  ❝ sorry. ❞  but he was skittering raccoonishly out of reach then back again, now proffering a raggedy can of goop. chrissy couldn’t exactly smell through her unattractively running nose, but she could imagine. her gut entire writhed and shrank away from the sight, petrified, but she commanded her shaking hands to reach for it anyway. inside looked like an extension of the vomitous wreath cloaking this nightmare land in every direction. the outside benignly announced “campbell’s”.

❝ thanks. i, um, don’t think i’m hungry, but thanks?  ❞  still, she clung to the aluminum as an anchor. unwanted as its contents might be, the gift she still understood.   ❝ so  —  you’re actually alive. right? you are? if you are, then i am.❞  teeth absently tugged at peeling skin across her lips, where another drop of salt water crept into the soft, red valleys and stung.  ❝ where are we? i don’t understand. what happened or how i got here. how did you get here?  ❞  one long, fierce swallow around a gordian knot inside her throat halted all progress, but not for long. even if she had to whisper to pry the words free. 

❝ is there a way to get out? ❞