𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙉𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙔 𝙒𝙃𝙀𝙀𝙇𝙀𝙍 (vihilum)
@greenscrunchy asked, “Was it always this way? Was i too dumb to notice?”
Evil has tendrils, evil has roots. Nancy’s never just out of reach, even when she’s grounded, even when her feet are planted firmly against soil. There’s no security granted that comes with stillness. Steadiness. Better to shift. She’s not a shark. She can’t stop swimming. She’s like the other fish in the sea. If she stops moving, she will die.
That’s how it feels. That’s how it’s felt. A mind unoccupied teeters on the edge of unraveling. She’s never catered to the luxury of relaxing and doing nothing. That has never appealed to her.
She thinks Chrissy needs it from her right now. A sure, unmoving hand, set on her shoulder. Stillness. She can’t always anticipate the storm. There’s no way of knowing if this is the calm ahead of a downpour. There is no way to tell what might be coming.
“I used to think I knew,” where it started, when it started, just how wide this crack had spread, she thought she understood everything about it, “but so many things,” Her record’s still playing low. She squeezes Chrissy lightly. “so many things move in secret.”
Things not meant for their eyes, to any prying gaze.
“Hidden, on purpose,” she shifts so that her arm is wrapped around the other’s shoulders, “I’d say noticing it was nothing but dumb luck.”
it’s discouraging to brace for the itching crawl of dread at prospective touch, like prey in a thicket anticipating danger. prey — or a sack of meat for trimming and displayed as a “prize winning catch”. either way, chills still tend to prickle over wary nerves she keeps primed at all times.
when people unexpectedly touch her arms, even friends, chrissy feels hooks sink into skin and frigid air blasting against the skin of her neck. goosebumps sprout, a thousand fearful eyes waiting for the other shoe to drop. for anything that requires an artful dodge and a smile wide enough to blind anyone that could even hypothesize what’s happening under the surface. that fearful, flayed core of chrissy is ugly; no one told her so, she just knows.
but, chrissy is reminding herself, teaching herself, she is safe here in the wheeler house.
nancy’s room is low-lit, but there are no knives or hooks that she can see. none made for cleaving meat from bone at least. if there is cold, it’s drowned out by hums of music from nancy’s records and the sheer warmth of the colors strewn across the room. it’s cozy and appreciated. lived in. not that chrissy’s isn’t, but there’s a difference between girl’s bedroom and a doll’s.
❝ dumb luck, ❞ chrissy parrots. dumb luck for smart people. something about it makes the strawberry blonde grin and lean, really actually lean, into nancy’s gentle grip.
it’s been so long. so long since she had real friends. the kind of friends that truly understood. who were honest without being cruel yet invited openness, offering their own in trade.
one deep, steadying breath where she lets herself the believe the world has stopped turning, and a breath out. she turns toward nancy unsteadily reassured, but it’s a new beginning.
❝ is it better to wish i’d known sooner? even if the truth was....so terrible. you were trying to figure all of this.....stuff out, about the upside down, all by yourself. you and your brother and jonathan and steve and mike’s friends, i mean. ❞ all of them so damn young when they had to fight a monster no one taught them to look for. and chrissy is afraid that even with enough quick thinking fit to lead a squad of cheerleaders and pull off reasonably good grades while keeping everyone politely at arm’s length, she would still have been too distracted by her own inner ache to see through it clearly. ❝ things that move in secret are the deadliest. ❞
she doesn’t want to miss anything else. she can’t. not just for herself, but for everyone else.
you know what? eddie doesn’t get bitches. he gets queens.
just wanted to give a shoutout to @greenscrunchy! the mun is super nice and has made me feel so welcome in this fandom and they’re a pleasure to see on my dash! their chrissy is great and they deserve to know it! <3
❝ i've never been in a gang before. what am i supposed to do? do we have meetings? is it like a school club? ❞
@roastyoualive warren said to join the scooby gang so here she is
𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉 (hellmartyr)
you do realize you don’t have to do this alone right ? — @greenscrunchy / confrontations
❝ 𝐈’𝐌 𝐍𝐎𝐓, 𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐄. ❞ the dial clicked as eddie tuned to channel 6 before placing the plastic-sheathed walkie in chrissy’s hand, ❝ just, from the comfort of the van. ❞
his 1970s fossil-guzzling monstrosity was a shabby stand-in for her hi-tech mobile unit cousin. no reinforced chassis, no double-armored moulding, no supercomputers with crash resistant casing. and her engine? oh, her engine, a chain smoking banshee with tuberculosis on speed. yet for all her inorganic flaws, she was an ornery steel heifer who never failed to bulldoze eddie out of a pinch.
the hollow bumps popped underfoot as eddie manically pranced from one corner to its parallel. he rifled through several pouches before locating a tablet shoved into the abyss of an overstuffed duffel. speakers chirped in greeting as the handheld booted through a logo to the menu. a few taps populated the screen with an empirical application with a plain royal background. the mechanic set the device beside the young woman before tampering with the componentry on the shoulder strap of his vest. twin beady red lights blinked to life on the front and back of his right shoulder. a high definition projection of the van’s insides engulfed the tablet screen, mimicking eddie’s jostling.
❝ you can switch views. be the eyes in the back of my head, ❞ indicating the navigational options in the lower corner, ❝ there’s a three centimeter blind spot on either side. not sure it’s darwin award winning, but, uh, something to keep in mind. ❞
hesitation burned like bile in the gullet. chris wasn’t a meek little fawn ready to drop at the first sign of struggle. there was no questioning her intelligence either. she was leagues beyond his bell curve but even the brightest could be overwhelmed under maddening pressure. and it wasn’t just tasks, he was asking for her to have a hand in his safety. shit was bound to go south, and if it went far enough to t-bone the equator, eddie wasn’t keen on the young woman feeling responsible if he was ripped apart.
snow compacted with a crunch as ed leapt down from the tail. keys jangled as he slid them towards her foot along with further instructions, ❝ keep the doors locked. fuck it, even it’s me. i knock more than three times, something’s wrong. you get to the wheel and just, ❞ his lip curled inward uncomfortable, hand frozen mid-gesture as eddie considered how request she leave him for dead. he settled on a halted hand-chop and wan smile, ❝ drive. ❞
eddie was about to seal the doors when an eerie cry humbled the dense night air. his spine jammed into an uneasy curve. nothing moved aside from the motes of snow in the moon’s bleached reflection bouncing off the frozen earth. the low timber carried overhead, slipping through the trees like phantom waves. nerves estranged, eddie fished a pistol from his belt and offered it to her, grip first, ❝ live rounds. safety off. don’t go for the head, aim for the gut. ❞
❝ eddie munson, that’s not what i meant and you know it! don’t leave me in here, ❞ but this was the munson way, to dig his heels in to the point of no return. the mad metalhead had pure concentrated decision writ across his narrow face and it frightened chrissy more than she’d be willing to put to words. at least, not in front of eddie. not when he’d spent so much of his prior time around her ensuring he didn’t fumble his way across all of her tripwires at once. she couldn’t very well tell him that after months of pure care and concern, he was waltzing his way through all of her worst fears like a blindfolded ballerina dancing through a bank vault robbery: being left completely alone in a dangerous place, being left behind in general, being stuck IN THE DARK, being told things were fine when they weren’t, being a person she liked doing something unquestioningly stupid, and the list could have rambled on.
numb disbelief forced her to watch every sharp movement eddie made while booting up the ranch’s surveillance tablet and syncing it to his shoulder-mounted camera. this wasn’t helping. all chrissy could associate with her bonus eyes was a 360 degree (minus six centimeters) view of all the bad bad bad that was surely waiting for ed out in the blackness.
❝ great, i can watch you get mauled, ❞ she muttered down at the screen with its heralding rotating ‘SWR’ in the top right corner. mocking her. such a paragon of safety and in its name eddie munson was about to rank-and-file like a tin soldier out into a field of unknowns containing creatures as big as those four-legged star wars machines and worse. at least those armored walkers had no teeth, and the institution both she and eddie worked for dealt with very real quadrupeds that absolutely did. littered with teeth of all kinds, they were, and more deadly than hunks of moving metal.
all the accessories and steps to go with them were supposed to make her feel active in whatever this little expedition was meant to be, but chrissy’s tongue tangled around the truth that it was making it worse. oh so much worse and creating a bigger sense of helplessness than mad-eye munson had set forth to author. but here they were and by the time keys hit the crumbling rubber floormats, she was done.
❝ so i have to sit and wait until something with two legs and two wings knocks on the window?? eddie, you’ve got to be kidding. don’t you dare close that door, don’t you ——— ❞ exactly then the call of the wild trumpeted its primal prerogative and all words ceased in favor of divining the source and distance away. absolutely impossible within the copse of trees eddie had parked them, but painfully human instinct demanded they try. eddie’s confounding response was to, once more, arm her instead of himself.
❝ you want me to try and shoot something? ❞ she squeaked. ❝ nuh-uh, not happening. ❞ the seatbelt pinning her to the faded front seat flew apart, released into god’s hands now. chrissy cunningham would not just be van loitering like a fluffy little duck in a kiddie pool while 1) terrifying monsters circled her without her knowledge and 2) eddie traipsed into the jaws of death without at least a little backup. the matter was settled in her book. ❝ i’m coming with you before you’re too far into the next clearing and realize maybe four eyes are better than two. okay? ❞ with great haste she gingerly slapped the pistol across the empty seat and back to eddie’s vicinity, all too eager to get it away, away. ❝ just... don’t make me use that. ❞
(in tears) next year i will have so much fun!
𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙏𝙄𝙉𝘼 𝙎𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍𝙎 ( @tinasparty )
greenscrunchy asked: ❝ you start to believe all the things they say. that this place is cursed. ❞ stranger things 4 : accepting !
TINA DOESN’T EVEN NEED THE RUMORS to know there’s something wrong with hawkins; she can feel the darkness in the air, SENSING it. people go missing or succumb to fates so nightmarish it can’t be natural and she notices. “trust me… i believe it. i believe everything.” and the reason tina knows too much is because of the visions conjured by her mind’s eye, the psychic trait no one knows about her. “and i don’t have a good feeling about this… it’s not over yet,” she speaks cryptically, though she can tell chrissy understands exactly what she’s trying to say. there’s none of her typical flirtation in her smile, the charming attitude she carries herself with absent this time as she feels the weight of what chrissy says. it’s true, and there’s a wistful and almost melancholic look swimming in mocha eyes. “i’m just… so worried. about everyone, you know?” it haunts her late at night, keeping her wired and even casting shadows and chilling, premonitory scenes into her dreams: who’s next?
❝ yeah.... i do know. ❞ hard not to fret when the wheel of hawkins’ internal disaster compass keeps spinning without offering any useful sense of direction and there’s no magnetic field of realistic explanations to keep it grounded. even with all that proof that proves nothing but the worst, chrissy still feels a lump of stress unravel partway when tina needs no additional detail to keep talking. just a hint at what’s been bothering everyone their age lately set her off enough. it means chrissy isn’t alone.
midway up the bleachers that used to drive chrissy crazy, the ones parked right next to the pathway leading towards the middle school, she’s realizing how useful they are. the breeze seems to whisk away any words they utter too loudly, leaving them safe in their windy little bubble. good, because chrissy doesn’t want everyone in the yard to hear this next part.
❝ how come it’s just some of us, though, and not the adults? like, this rally we’re supposed to have in a couple weeks. it wasn’t the squad’s idea, or our coach’s, it was principle higgins’. a rally isn’t going to make us feel better when our friends kept dying all summer. i’m ready for it to stop. but instead of being able to do anything we’re just at school. and that’s it. ❞
I’m dead. The deadest girl in Deadtown. It’s been a while now. I’m comfortable with the word. You wouldn’t believe how comfortable the dead can get. We don’t tiptoe. Dead. Dead. Dead. Flying Ace of the Corpse Corps. Stepping the light. Deathtastic. I don’t actually know what a doornail is, but we have a lot in common. Dying was the biggest thing that ever happened to me. I’m famous for it.
And the thing about me is, I’m not coming back. Lots of people do, you know. Deadtown has pretty shitty border control. If you know somebody on the outside, somebody who knows a guy, a priest or a wizard or a screenwriter or a guy whose superpower shtick gets really dark sometimes or a scientist with a totally neat revivification ray who just can’t seem to get federal funding, you can go home again. But we go steady, Death and me. Nobody can tear us apart
When the fires went out in Manhattan, they went out in her eyes, too. It’s nice to be famous for something, I guess.
– the refrigerator monologues . by catherynne valente .
💭 + mementos of childhood
𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓸𝓷𝓼 — send 💭 + a topic to receive a headcanon about said topic.
HER FULL SET OF NANCY DREW MYSTERIES. those are precious to her and she keeps them well past adulthood and collects every one for as long as they’re published.
a whole stack of little diaries with the worst locks of all time as clasps. you know the ones. she never wrote in them regularly and mostly copied passages from books and little poems that she liked in between actual thoughts and doodles. (only when she had good hiding places for her diary did her real thoughts come out.) all the identical cheap metal keys live on a frayed green ribbon necklace that chrissy used to wear “just in case anyone tries to steal my secrets”.
lisa frank pencils and sticker covered notebooks. she kept a few of her favorite pencils whole and unsharpened and they live in her desk. same with several novelty erasers that have since dried beyond usability, but are just fun to look at.
teeny tiny scrunchies from when she had less hair and her wrists were smaller. their shrunken size doesn’t make them any less sweet and she enjoys keeping track of her favorite colors through the years.
a decorated shoebox full of ribbon bows, with notes and letters from cheer coaches past who always had lovely things to say.
stuffed at the back of one drawer is the ace bandage from her first cheer injury - a rolled ankle.
several shoeboxes full of makeshift scrapbook pages she tried throwing together as a little girl that never looked anything except disorganized. but she had a pretty solid eye for color grouping and aesthetic building, all the pages just looked messy. she keeps them as a reminder of how much she’s improved her approach.
then, there’s different boxes filled with victorian style cutouts of animals, angels, hearts, bows, gifts, phrases, and symbols of all kinds that she’s either saved or collects to use for cards. her valentines are stuff of legend. and lace. lots of paper lace. there’s also plastic gems she pried out of costume jewelry that get glued here and there onto the paper designs. more punchy than glitter, and far less messy.
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐘 𝐂𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬. 𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.
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