Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉 ( alwaysrevvedup )
Fairytale? Abrupt, airy laughter escaped him, and hands burrowed themselves further into his pockets. Well—at least she hadn’t laughed. Normally, Eddie didn’t whip out such eloquent descriptors for anything besides Hellfire’s DnD campaigns. After all, what was a good campaign without a good story? But there was a certain ease that came with being around Chrissy, strangely enough, and here came a sentimental ode to autumn tripping of his tongue.
For a guy like him—a guy of his lower social standing in the high school food chain—he should be on egg shells around her, anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. But he wasn’t. If anything, he felt lighter than he had in weeks.
“Yeah, it is pretty. As pretty as Hawkins gets really.” Silence fell briefly as he searched for what he wanted to say. “You got big plans for Halloween?” he asked conversationally, a brow quirking as he glanced sidelong at her. “Or are you boring and just pass out candy?” The teasing was obvious: from his tone and how his elbow gently knocked against hers.
❝ so.... ❞ it was almost idiotic how hard she was trying to come up with a good retort, but at first all she could scavenge was an embarrassed, if wholehearted and helpless, giggle. chrissy kept pushing her steps onward through the leaves as though that cycle produced the electricity powering her train of thought. if she could keep moving, she could come up with an answer that sounded distinctly not boring but also reasonably cool.
funny — she’d had her expectations, then so did eddie. clearly they were catching up to him, judging by the bony echo of his elbow’s collide against her arm. and he didn’t even seem all that mad about it.
❝ my little brother is going trick or treating and i’ll walk with him for a while. he’s twelve and my parents don’t really want him to go by himself yet. he’s stuck with me, but he still gets to go. i just stand on the curb and look at all the costumes. it’s really cute to see what everyone comes up with. ❞ chrissy shrugged like it was all simply business as usual, pausing to unsnag the toe of her sneaker from a clump of dirt. she’d have to clean off her shoes at school before heading home. coach tweedy wasn’t such a perfectionist that she’d call chrissy out on a smudge or two, but her mother would certainly notice. white reeboks were nothing to be trifled with. she had an image to uphold. an image that only spotless reeboks would support.
❝ i did used to go to my friend tina’s house after matty was done and she’d split her candy with me while we watched a movie, but she left for college last year. ❞ another shrug. nothing to bother dwelling on since nothing about tina’s absence could be altered. but enough about me. a small smile bloomed as chrissy made a pin-sharp pivot on her left heel to tread backward. now eddie was locked in her sights. ❝ do you have big plans? ❞
𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉 ( alwaysrevvedup )
“I love the smell of autumn.” @greenscrunchy
This admission, as small and inconsequential as it is, causes a small smile to unfurl on his features. Chrissy’s expression is so earnest, eyes agleam with an undampened enthusiasm. It’s difficult to not be endeared by it, and Eddie certainly isn’t fighting against being endeared.
“Yeah? Me too. It’s…practically my favorite time of year.” There’s a hint of awkward shyness skirting around the words, and he breaks gaze with Chrissy for a moment, looking ahead as they walk through the woods. “There’s that crisp, dampness that hangs in the air and the smell of the fallen pine needles and how…” Dark eyes turn upward at the canopy of branches laden with colorful leaves overhead, “how the trees almost look like they’re painted with fire.”
an array of woodland confetti crunched underfoot, the symphonic chaos of the season in full effect beneath two sets of shoes. it really was the perfect time of year; time for hooded sweatshirts and bonfires and long walks and staying outside far, far from the stale, concrete-stiff air of her house. and time, as it turned out, for getting to know eddie munson.
chrissy had yet to put a sure finger on why she wasn’t waiting to jump out of her skin around him. but once over the hurdle over her own mental guardrails, there’s a distinct, unexpected air of confidence and....compassion? left in his wake. mixtures of sweet, dry air and eddie’s carefree grins made breathing easy. wow, who knew? ❝ you make everything sound like it’s from a fairytale. ❞ as if there was magic in even the most mundane of hawkins details. another addition to the list of surprises she wouldn’t have associated with the resident hawkins high wild child. ❝ i dunno that i’d have ever thought of the trees that way.... ❞ obviously chrissy needed to look up more and started almost immediately by burying her focus in the kaleidoscope of genuinely fiery colors above her head. ❝ yeah. yeah! the branches do look a little like they’re burning! or like someone in theater threw way too much paint around. it’s really pretty, though. ❞