It Sucks Beyond Belief, The Tug Of War Her Mind Anxiously Wages Against Her Body Absorbing Anything That

my dear friend from high school just snapped me her joyce byers halloween costume that uses a jacket I GAVE HER and ngl, i’m kind of over the moon.

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ 𝔼𝕃𝕃𝕀𝔼                                  (bakcr​)

* .  ♡ “ i don’t know. ” she snorts. a grin on her face. “ you’d have to ask steve jobs… ”

                       ❝ are you sure things aren’t weirder when you’re from? ❞ 

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙎𝙏𝙀𝙑𝙀 𝙃𝘼𝙍𝙍𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙏𝙊𝙉                      (starsinshadows​)

@greenscrunchy​ gets a starter cause I said so…

     The early December weather in Indiana should have made the idea of an outdoor party unacceptable, but with a bonfire going and enough alcohol, most of the teenagers present had only bothered with sweatshirts and body heat to supplement despite the snow on the ground outside of the fire’s heat. Steve had given up his coat to the “flavor of the week” – a pretty girl named Becky that he would actually probably date for a month or so, possibly through Christmas if she continued to not ask questions and stayed content to just be casual and have fun. She was currently laughing with some of her friends on the other side of the fire, beers in hand, and probably gossiping about their boyfriends or some poor kid that wasn’t popular and didn’t deserve the bullshit.      He leaned back on the lawn chair someone had brought out, looking sprawled and comfortable as he sipped at his beer like the King he was supposed to be, and he put on the smiles, shot back insults and sharp jokes as was required of him whenever the attention landed on him. Becky had come over fifteen minutes before to sit across his lap and make out, probably to show off to someone, but she’d gone back to her friends for the time being. He was her ride, so she’d make her way back to him before the end of the night, and she’d make sure she had a story to tell them all in the morning, he was sure.      He didn’t care. At least, that was what he told himself, and it was mostly true even if not in the way that he wanted it to be. He didn’t care about any of this, and it showed in brief, quiet moments when he stared at the fire and the exhaustion that he tried to keep hidden eased out at the edges of his being and the strange little streaks of gray that were appearing in his hair caught the firelight. Few people dared mention it, not willing to have Tommy H, Carol or half a dozen other people turn on them, but the kids had also noticed and Nancy had asked if he was sleeping at all. Only Robin knew and she’d passed on this particular gathering – not that he could blame her. He was ‘holding court’, so to speak, but he wasn’t interested in any of it and hadn’t been for awhile. Part of him wished he could just wander off into the woods and leave the circus behind, but that was the whole point of the charade to begin with; he had to hide the fact that he didn’t belong here anymore.

was chrissy cunningham a party person or not? 

staring hard into the dancing flames of the titular bonfire, chrissy clutched the neck of a wine cooler in both hands and asked the question for quite possibly the twentieth time since her upper school career had begun. and for the twentieth-or-other time, she still wasn’t sure. 

maybe it was a hawkins problem. were their parties lackluster thanks to the somewhat backwoods, down-home, small town (et cetera, et cetera) feel to hawkins? it wasn’t actually that small, all things considered, it just wasn’t a city. maybe that was the source of the issue and only cities had good parties. or was it just that she was inexperienced? chrissy scoffed at nothing and watched as the feathery plume of her frozen breath flew off to join the embers in the air. no, she’d been to enough “my parents are gone this weekend!” get-togethers and basketball game afterparties to use that excuse.

even more depressing was the thought that maybe parties were just like this everywhere and hawkins wasn’t an exception but the rule.

                       ❝ like what? ❞  a female voice seemed to slice through chrissy’s inner monologue. she glanced up sharply, but sighed once she put it all together: the interruption was just becky, having absconded from her dramatic perch on her throne - aka steve - exclaiming something to tammy and sue at chrissy’s elbow. a little spooky, but overall harmless. 

out of curiousity chrissy tipped her body backward so as to look past the girls. sure enough, there lounged king steve with his beer and his hair reigning over all of his subjects with a fuzzy smirk and the occasional cheers and nod for good measure. it could have been the inconstant light of the fire casting shadows where none usually sunk, but she could have sworn steve looked aloof in a way that didn’t quite match with his usually too cool for this school attitude. 

an absentminded tap of a nail against glass reminded the strawberry blonde of the drink she was still gripping. chrissy snorted lightly at nothing again, hoping neither becky or sue heard her. always the possibility of the wine cooler making everything just a little more maudlin to factor in, too. chrissy definitely considered herself a part-time lightweight, but a cooler and half should hardly be enough to make her buzzed unless her tolerance changed in the past month. 

except that she leaned back one more time, a little less steadily, and now steve looked hollow. haggard firelight washed across him courtesy of the still healthy blaze, but not even that seemed to break apart his dull mien. okay, something was up. without question.

one foot at a time chrissy did her best to scoot past the nearby knot of girls and amble in steve’s direction without being pulled back toward the fire. which is where she would like to be but for the fact that heaviness spread over steve’s brow was more interesting than discussing the macy’s christmas sale. becky did whine her name but only once, and chrissy assured her of a return at some point. by then she was halfway to steve’s lawn chair. only a few more steps and she’d come up beside the saggy excuse for a seat. mercifully some heat still reached into the fringes where steve was hiding.

without so much as a pause, chrissy plopped to her haunches and curled herself over her knees facing the fire but with squinted eyes pointed toward steve. this way she wouldn’t be planting her rump in a pile of snow and making the evening even less pleasant for herself.

                      ❝ what’s up? ❞  asked through her jacket sleeve, the popped p emerged a little less sharp but nothing could hide the sound of a grin that verged on loopy.  ❝ not enough beer or too much? you look kinda like the kingdom’s seen better days. ❞  

on lucky days, the most isolated and quiet location in hawkins high wasn’t actually in the school, but out. along the far wall of the library, past shamefully dusty card catalogues, lurked a fire exit door that existed as an open secret to smokers and escapists alike. once through the forbidden passageway, down the wrought iron steps to the ground below, the narrowest point between hawkins high and middle schools stretched like a long and lonely wind tunnel. ideal for ferrying worries or wisps of smoke far, far away if the need arose.

although, the “fire exit” status was rather a legal misnomer considering that the alarm was turned on once a year solely for when the fire department barreled through to inspect. once the inspectors left, the alarm was switched off and the smokers among the staff and students could puff in peace yet again. 

but unlike the rest of the usual suspects chrissy was no smoker. what she needed today was a little silence and air. across campus the sleepy post-lunch lull reigned supreme for a little while and she’d slumped on the bottom step of the fire escape, praying for just five minutes of solitude. ten if any higher power felt merciful, but five was enough. a couple minutes separated from the rare but explosive cheer squad drama. three hours on and chrissy’s ears still rang from the vitriolic fury slung like bombs ricocheting through the changing room, spraying shocked girls with more verbal shrapnel than shower water. 

cheating of some kind; that’s what all the shouting was about. at least, that was the general consensus disseminating throughout the student body by mid-morning. later, once the steam of anger and after-practice adrenaline had worn off, the story cleared up further: samantha rosen’s boyfriend coulter and abbie smitter had drunkely screwed after a seniors-only party last saturday night and managed to keep it to themselves......until coulter gleefully spilled his guts to the wrong person. all the cheer seniors were picking up battle stations, rapidly expecting the rest of the squad to match their energy and claim a side. 

barely half a day of it and chrissy was exhausted. staring down at her pale green manicure (she’d have to go in again on saturday for a touch up) and picking at her cuticles so as not to sully the polish further, chrissy couldn’t help but wonder the point. of all of it. why cheat? why gossip? what could it mean if samantha was one of the most gorgeous girls on the squad and she still had a wandering boyfriend? 

absolutely none of those were productive roads to go down, yet down chrissy went until the next period’s bell abruptly screamed behind her as if sensing the dangerous spiral. so the absent cheerleader obediently sighed herself to her feet. she’d lately been alternating use of her free period between laps around the exercise field and hiding between the library stacks. today’s circumstances presented the perfect excuse to burrow into her statistics homework, allowing what drama prowled the halls to pass her swiftly by.

god, that was all she wanted right now. for no one to ask anything of her except numbers that she could put in their correct places and problems she could make sense of. all she had to do was slip to her locker then slip back to the library unaccosted. easier said than done, but if she could just get through the stacks first, then maybe....

the imaginary mental map of hawkins high conjured in her head left enough vigilance to shut the fire escape door silently but not much more. with her gaze on her feet chrissy completely missed telltale shadows that looked nothing like bookshelves and managed to shoulder check an entire person. with interest. 

                   ❝ sorry, sorry, i totally wasn’t watching wh — ❞ 

her voice already softened in a whisper to suit the environment, it dropped out completely once the cheerleader looked up. really looked up. to a lot of denim, long curly hair, and a dangerous looking earring. a trademark to anyone who knew their wary way around the school. chill out, just apologize, it’ll be fine. no one’s looking.  ❝ — where i was going. hi, billy. ❞  she made a slow, telling glance toward the exit she’d just left behind.  ❝ are you on your way out? it’s nice out there right now. not too cold. ❞

                                    a note for @firelightfables​’ billy hargrove

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

Uh so in other good news, flattery works with me, so Twenty-five percent discount for the half. Fifteen bucks

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

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? ❞

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

🐁 i say as i'm knee deep in your starter (finally)

    THERE SHE IS   . . .  THERE'S CHRISSY  !