Chapter Text
A grin spread across Eddie’s face when Chrissy’s narrowed eyes glared back at him and fuck, there was something about this... Something about watching her grip the amp’s handles with both hands and lug it step by torturous step up the steep, narrow staircase that led to the Chicago club’s back entrance. Something about her doggedly completing her more difficult than she had expected roadie duties all on her own that really did something for him.
It was something that he enjoyed even more than having her squished up next to him, sitting between him and Gareth in the front seat of his van while the rest of the group sat in the back on their drive to Chicago. She probably didn’t need to sit so close to him, there had been plenty of room on the bench seat, but he wasn’t about to complain about her bare leg pressed against his denim-covered leg for the entire drive. And he absolutely wasn’t about to complain about how she sat, with the gear shift between her legs so that his forearm would occasionally brush against the naked skin on her thigh when he shifted gears. But even those occasional touches that had sent shivers down his spine and made goosebumps erupt across his skin had been nothing compared to this, seeing her spark of defiance on full display.
Maybe it was because he could see even more than just a spark inside of her. He could see the smoldering embers that were ready to burst into an unstoppable inferno when she was like this. Or when she’d let herself cuss. Or when she busted his balls. Or when she cheered or danced…
Or even right now, when she gritted her teeth and rested the amp against each step, steadfastly refusing help even though she probably wanted it. Like right now, when Jeff offered to carry it the rest of the way for her, and she looked like she might have given in and take him up on his offer until Eddie drawled out, “What’s the matter, Cunningham? Too heavy for ya?”
And that was when she had turned and shot daggers out of her eyes as she snapped, “No! If I can lift your sorry…” her nose twitched when her voice choked off before she said a naughty word, but his smirk gave her enough heated spite to at least say, “…your sorry butt, then I can lift this stuff too.”
“Choice is yours, Cunningham,” his smirk grew, “But if you can’t handle it and have’ta back out of our deal, well…”
He let the rest of his unspoken sentence hang in the air. And yeah, he knew he was a fucking asshole for doing that, for saying that, for figuratively poking her just to see that spark grow into a flame. All just to see that fire in her eyes that he craved and his smirk grew when she finally rewarded him with her fiery reply.
“Oh, I can handle it, Munson!” she jutted out her chin when she brashly asked him, “But can you!? Handle it, that is!?”
Before he could ask what “it” was, she turned with a flounce. Her pretty blonde hair that was tied up with a green scrunchie in a tight and tidy ponytail whipped around violently enough for Eddie to take a few steps back down the stairway lest he get smacked across the face. Her cheer skirt twirling and flipping around her hips as she redoubled her efforts and followed Jeff up the stairs. Her white Reeboks stomping on each step and right there, right in that moment, Eddie knew exactly what she was talking about. She wasn’t wearing her cheer shorts.
Jesus motherfucking Christ…
His mouth gaped open and the world went into slow motion as he watched her skirt flip up and swish around her hips but instead of revealing green short shorts under the pleats, there were white panties. White panties with little red and pink hearts scattered across them.
Holy fucking fuck…
He leaned against the wall of the narrow staircase. His head swimming when all the blood in his body rushed to his dick as he watched her because each step she took up towards the club, the more he could see of her pretty panties and the less he could “handle it” \. He cocked his head when he noticed that they weren’t quite symmetrical on her right ass cheek because the pink lacy elastic edge was riding up into her crack and the fucking crotch was probably pressing uncomfortably against her between her legs. So much so where she’d eventually have to run her fingers along the edge, down her ass cheek to her—
“Hey, wake up!”
Gareth’s voice and snapping fingers snapped Eddie out of his stupor, and he looked back to see his band mate just behind him on the stairs smirking at him, “Get a grip, man. It’s just a cheer uniform.”
“Yeah, I umm,” Eddie tried to grin back but it probably ended up as a twitching grimace as his brain tried to wrest control of his higher functions back from his dick and he somehow managed to stumble out, “I wasn’t… That wasn’t why I stopped, I was tired… I gotta quit smoking or something…”
“Yeah, right,” Gareth snorted as he playfully shoved Eddie’s shoulder and they both started climbing the stairs.
Eddie cocked his head even further to the side as Chrissy neared the landing at the top of the stairs and he could get a really good look at the crotch of her panties again and the curve of her ass that he could see more and more of and…
Oh fuck, if I can see it, so can Gareth!
“Hey man,” Eddie stopped suddenly and turned around and clutched Gareth’s shoulders so that his band mate had no choice but to look at him and not at the half-exposed ass cheek of the girl that Eddie had a deal with and maybe a fleeting physical attraction too… and nothing else…
“What?” Gareth eyes narrowed as his obvious suspicion grew.
“You are…” Eddie nodded as his depleted brain tried to come up with something, anything to tell his friend in order to divert attention away from Chrissy’s beautiful ass. Something that his friend wouldn’t sniff out as bullshit. Something real… ah-ha!
“I was just thinking that it was smart of you to take your dad’s offer to teach you some jazz drumming because you’ve been fucking kicking ass on the skins lately.”
“Really?” Gareth’s face softened as a tentative smile spread across his mouth, “Thanks, Eddie.”
“Yeah man, no problem,” Eddie nodded then surreptitiously looked over his shoulder to see Chrissy push open the backstage door with her shapely ass and then he wrapped his arm around Gareth’s shoulder and told him truthfully as they walked up the steps together, “It’s the truth.”
Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and his brow furrowed and sweat rolled down his temples while his guitar wailed and keened out a solo for one of Corroded Coffin’s songs. He wanted to open his eyes and see the reaction of the band, of the audience… of her, but he knew he couldn’t. Not now, not while any fuck up couldn’t be covered up by Jeff when Eddie inevitably lost his shit when he saw her.
The worst part was it was that she wasn't doing anything distracting. She was just sitting at a small table at the side of the room, dressed in Guess jeans and white, cropped button-up top sipping the drink he bought her.
Eddie had asked her if she wanted to change after he had seen some of the skeezy guys in one of the other bands trying to brutally eye-fuck her and thank fucking christ she had said yes. As difficult as it was having her out there, clutching a sweaty glass filled with whatever passed for a Shirley Temple in this place, it was better than her being backstage with those fucks hitting on her or inviting her to join them on their real tour bus and offer her real drinks and quality drugs—not like the dusty shit that he sold to the jackasses at Hawkins High—and get her to…
Do not think about that! Keep your fucking eyes shut and play the fucking solo!
Fuck, he wanted to open his eyes and find her. He wanted to see if she was still at the table or if she’d noticed the looks from before and had wandered back to the small backstage area, but he couldn’t look because the last time he looked at her from his vantage point on stage he’d frozen up, and Jeff needed to kick him in the shin to snap him out of whatever fucking dream world he had drifted into because when he looked into her big blue eyes that were looking up at him, he had seen something there, something that maybe approached awe.
And having girls look at him with lust and maybe a little bit of awe while he was onstage was nothing new. He’d even got a little bit lucky with a couple of them in the past—okay, maybe more like 1 ½ of them—but this was different. She was different.
It wasn’t like he thought he’d get lucky with Chrissy. At least not tonight, or if he was being completely honest with himself, not ever. No, it wasn’t about fucking her, it was about having her respect.
Maybe that’s why he liked her being so defiant with him. She was always a good girl with everyone else. She did what she was told, but with him, she respected him enough to let her rebellious side out. It was like a secret thing they shared, both knowing that underneath that proper, preppy, cheerleader exterior was a little hellcat that all sharp teeth and claws.
Those fucking fucks wouldn’t respect her! They wouldn’t fucking know how. They’d just saw a girl in a cheerleader outfit and thought about what was under that short skirt and—
His lip twitched at the thought he wasn’t about to let himself think, not if he didn’t want to completely lose his fucking shit, so he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes closed even tighter and focused all of his fucked-up feelings into his solo and then into the rest of the song.
He could wait. He could resist temptation. He could keep his goddamn eyes shut until they finished the motherfucking song…
He let out a breath of relief as soon as he strummed the final chord; he had somehow fucking made it. He didn’t fuck up the song and to reward himself, he opened his eyes.
Of course, they were immediately drawn to her table and the corners of his lips twitched upward when he saw her. Still at the same table. Her drink now just a glass of ice in front of where she was standing and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her beautiful smile directed right at him as she clapped her hands excitedly in front of her chest.
Fuck, he could feel his own stupidly goofy smile form as he swayed a bit, lightheaded but only because of the heat in the club and not any other reason…
But then she brought her hands to her lips and blew him kiss after kiss and he almost passed out.
“If you want any water, only drink the filtered water that comes out of this tap,” Murray gestured with his head towards the small spigot on the sink in the small kitchen in the small, windowless house, “The government puts drugs in the water to make the hoi polloi compliant and I don’t need any of you kiddos going Manchurian Candidate on me.”
“Whatta mean by ‘drugs’? Like fluoride?” Gareth narrowed his eyes condescendingly at the tall, balding and bearded man dressed in a bathrobe and slippers.
“You mean like fluoride?” Murray aped back at him before he shot Nancy a look as if to say where did you find this guy?! then he slowly explained, “No snookums, fluoride is good for your teeth. I’m talking about the benzos and psychotropic drugs that they put in the water supply to make you all as docile as little lambs, contentedly chewing your cud until they need to activate you or...” his eyes narrowed as they roamed across the teenagers that stood in front of him, “Lead you to your untimely demise, all in the name of their god, the almighty dollar.”
“Shit…” Gareth breathed out quietly.
“That plus I’m pretty sure there’s lead in the pipes,” Murray shrugged.
Eddie quietly huffed a laugh because Nancy had warned them that this guy might seem a little bit suspicious of people, but that was the fucking understatement of the year. This guy was a fucking paranoid nutcase. Everything was a goddamn conspiracy. Fucking drugged water. Secret government programs. You name it, he was fucking paranoid about it.
Even a group of fucking high school kids at his door screamed government conspiracy to this guy until Nancy talked him down, reminding him that weeks ago she and Jonathan had arranged for them all to crash at his place. But even with that reminder, it still took what seemed like hours of convincing from her before he begrudgingly buzzed the group into the windowless, cinder block bunker masquerading as a house.
“Oh, you think this is funny, Van Halen?” Murray asked Eddie pointedly, apparently noticing his smirk, so Eddie held up his hands, palms out, to let Mr. Red-Dawn-Could-Really-Happen know that he wasn’t about to argue with him and get them all kicked out into the cold Chicago night.
“Okay then,” Murray nodded, seemingly placated for the moment, and then told the group that huddled together in the small living room, “So I have some good news and some bad news for all of you.”
Nancy rolled her eyes and sighed at Murray while Jonathan shifted his jaw, but Murray only smiled smugly at them, “Don’t worry, you two love birds still get to use the pullout in the office."
“Oh, thank God,” Nancy breathed out quietly in relief.
"So there's room on the couch," Murray’s mouth opened in a huge muppet grin but then frowned dramatically, “But there’s only room for one,” then his muppet grin returned, “But I heard you kids were going to sleep in your van, so hooray?”
Then his frown returned, “But the front door and the gate will be locked and alarmed until the morning.”
“Umm,” Chrissy raised her hand as though she was in school. An amused smile twitched on Murray’s face and as soon as he pointed at her, she asked, “Is there some way we can get access to the bathroom if we’re outside—”
“I’m glad you asked, sunshine,” Murray’s smile spread into a grin as he pulled a huge key ring out of his pocket—the kind of ring that you usually only saw janitors carry—and as he unattached a key told her, “As luck would have it, I want you to piss in my yard even less than you want to, so here’s a key to the front door,” and handed the key to Chrissy.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You’re very welcome,” Murray looked at Nancy and blinked as he smiled, “I didn’t expect anyone to have any manners in this lot.”
Nancy’s only response was to roll her eyes at him… again.
Murray didn’t seem to take any notice of her dismissal as he tore a sheet off of a legal pad with an overly long set of numbers written on it in barely legible scrawl and handed it to Chrissy, “Now, the alarm will be activated for the night, so you have to key this code in there—” he pointed towards a box with a numerical keypad next to the front door “—within fifteen seconds of opening the front door, got it?”
Chrissy, Eddie, and the band all nodded nervously.
“Good because I don’t want to wake up to the alarm blaring and the building going into lockdown—”
“Lockdown!?” Chrissy’s eyes went wide and she looked at Eddie and he mouthed, “Don’t worry about it,” back at her.
“That’s right, precious,” Murray eyed Eddie and Chrissy with a wry smile, “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you from your boyfriend.”
“He’s not—” she said as Eddie said, “We’re not—”
“Uh-huh…” Murray interrupted them with an eye roll full of blasé disdain, “Of course you’re not. Why would anyone think that you were…?”
Eddie let out a long breath as he looked down at the floor, fully aware of how red Chrissy’s face was as she looked away from him.
“Well, lucky for you two I’m too damn tired to go through and win yet another one of these arguments,” Murray smirked at Nancy and Jonathan who both sheepishly looked down at their shoes and he continued, “And while I don’t mind improving my unbeaten record to three for three, I really do need my full 8-hours.”
Eddie shifted his jaw and thanked whatever higher power out there for the lucky break because by the looks on Nancy and Jonathan’s faces, they had been on the receiving end of this fucking fuck’s preternatural ability to fucking see into your goddamn soul and maybe reveal to everyone, including the girl that obviously did not like Eddie “that way”, that maybe some small part of him possibly liked Chrissy “that way’, but only just a little bit… A minuscule amount… That this guy could read immediately…
Fucking asshole…
“Well, you kiddies figure out who’s sleeping outside and who gets the couch, ‘cause I’m off to bed,” Murray turned and headed for a narrow hallway but just before he disappeared, he pointed towards a dark doorway, “Bathroom’s here if you need it.”
Once the grumbly man disappeared, Jonathan gave the group a small wave before he shouldered his and Nancy’s bags and headed for the office just off of what passed for a living room in what passed for a house.
Before Nancy followed her boyfriend, she touched Chrissy’s arm and asked in a low voice, “You okay? It’s okay if you wanna sleep inside. I totally get it. We can share the office if you want and Jonathan can sleep—”
“I’m fine,” Chrissy smiled at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” she nodded and Eddie tried not to notice too much when she quickly glanced at him before she told Nancy, “I really don’t mind the sleeping arrangements.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind…”
“Thanks.”
Nancy nodded before she went into the office and shut the door behind her leaving the rest of the group to figure out who should sleep inside which in Eddie’s opinion was fucking obvious.
“I think Chrissy should get the couch.”
“Yeah,” Jeff agreed with Eddie and the other two nodded as well.
“No,” Chrissy shifted her jaw, “That wouldn’t be fair to you—”
“No, it’s fair. It’s my van, so I’ll sleep in it, but for you… You should sleep in here because…” Eddie took a deep breath because even though he’d love to sleep in the same place as her, he knew that given the opportunity to actually sleep inside, she should be the one to take that spot and not just because it might be torture for him to have her so close but also because—
“Do not say it’s because I’m a girl,” her eyes narrowed dangerously and normally he’d be down for the fight, but not this time.
“Well, it is because you’re a girl,” Eddie crossed his arms across his chest, “You shouldn’t have to sleep in a van with four guys—”
“Well, if one of you takes the couch, I’ll only be sleeping in a van with three guys,” she smiled smugly as she crossed her arms, mirroring him.
“Sorry sweetheart,” he stepped closer to her, “You’re sleeping in here.”
“Oh yeah,” she glared up at him, “You gonna make me?”
“Yeah,” he nodded and could feel his heart start to thump in his chest at her proximity, at her presence, but… “The deal says you have to obedient, so obey me.”
Chrissy’s lips parted for just a moment before she quickly licked them and then told him in a slightly shaky voice, “And the deal said that I don’t have to do anything I don’t wanna do, so…”
Eddie licked his bottom lip too as he looked at her mouth. At her bottom lip that was wet and glossy from her tongue… fuck! Fuck, he wanted to kiss her so goddamn bad which was just one more reason why she should sleep inside—
“Hey umm,” Doug cleared his throat and both Eddie and Chrissy looked over at him as he nervously laughed and told them, “If you want, we could always rock, paper, scissors for the couch.”
Before Eddie could tell his bassist to shut the fuck up and mind his own goddamn business, Chrissy nodded, “Okay, I’d be okay with doing that.”
After Dougie had won the couch and after a new argument had ensued between Eddie and Chrissy as to sleeping arrangements in the van—an argument that he was not gonna fucking lose because there was no goddamn way he’d let her sleep on the fucking floor of his van even though it made sense because she was the smallest person there and could easily fit in the cramped space—everyone had changed into their sweats and claimed their prospective areas in the van. Jeff took the front bench seat, Chrissy on the back seat with Eddie on the floor, and Gareth curled up on top of the platform created by the amps in the back-back of the van.
Eddie crossed his arms across his chest like a fucking mummy so he could fit in the tight space between the front and back seats and closed his eyes and tried not to think about how Chrissy was just a few feet away stretched out on the backseat. Or think about how much it got his blood pumping when she licked her lip when he told her to obey him. Or think about how much he liked it when she didn’t—
“Eddie?”
Chrissy’s voice was barely a whisper, and he didn’t need to open his eyes to tell that she was peering over the edge of the seat looking at him as he hummed quietly in reply.
“Eddie, I don’t want you to sleep on the floor.”
“Well,” he shifted his jaw when she tried to start up this goddamn argument again and whispered back to her, “We don’t have much choice, so…”
“No we do, Eddie, come on…” he could hear her smile though her whisper as she told him, “I bet there’s enough room for both of us on the seat.”
“No, there isn’t—”
“Yes, there is,” she quickly replied in a louder whisper, but then told him in a voice that was barely audible, “Get up here, Eddie!”
“Chrissy…”
“Eddie, you can fit. If we both lay on our sides—”
“Chrissy, we can’t both fit—”
“Yes, we can. Just try.”
He roughly rubbed his face with his hand as he let out a long breath. God, he wanted to get up there and sleep with her. Not just because he was laying on carpet that hadn’t vacuumed in forever, but just the thought of the two of them on their sides, pressed against each other, made his heartbeat thrum though his body, but he also didn’t want to get up there and be so fucking happy about it only to have her change her mind as soon as she felt him against her.
He scrunched up his face and whispered, “Chrissy, I don’t—”
“Fuck, Eddie!” Jeff hissed from the front seat, “Just get on the goddamn seat with her and shut up!”
Eddie’s eyes popped open when his friend yelled at him and the only thing he could see was Chrissy looking over the edge of the seat at him. Her eyes, bright and shining even in the darkness. Her hands covering her mouth as she tried to suppress her laughter before she grabbed at his sleeping bag that was draped over his chest to let him know that she wanted him up there.
“Fine,” he breathed out and hauled himself up off the floor as Chrissy unzipped her sleeping bag all the way.
Before she had a chance to get situated, he laid down on the seat with her sandwiched between his back and the back of the backseat. He let out a dramatically contented sigh as she let out an oof from behind him and he closed his eyes with a smug smile and waited for her to—
“Eddie!” she whispered into his shirt between his shoulder blades.
He smiled as he hummed a reply.
“Eddie, you’re squishing me!”
“Go to sleep, Cunningham. There’s enough room, remember?” he whispered as he smiled smugly at her discomfort, and his smile grew when he heard her nearly inaudible “jerk face” in reply.
After her quiet “curse”, she fell into silence for a moment.
Shit, is she gonna give in?
He wondered if maybe he pushed things too much. Maybe she felt defeated, after all he was bigger than her and yes, she could pick him up, but this might be too much, but then she moved.
It wasn’t just her moving but wriggling. Wriggling and squirming and wrestling until she had rolled over him and his back was pressed against the back of the seat with her back pressed against his chest. His arms pulled and tugged into position by her, one under her head like a pillow and the other wrapped around her like a blanket.
He swallowed his desire to bury his face in her hair and fully breathe her in, so instead he only allowed himself a brief sniff of the perfumy scent of whatever boutique shampoo that she used as her warmth spread across his chest. Then he forced himself to suppress the need to pull her tight against him when she pulled away from him so that she could lean down and grab his sleeping bag off the floor of the van and drape it over the two of them.
“See, lots of room,” she whispered with a smile as she shifted her shoulders and wiggled her body against his in an innocent yet oh so dangerous way.
His arm tightened around her, pulling her just a little bit tighter against his chest as he closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart as he whispered, “Yeah, you’re right.”
“I know. Now go to sleep, Munson.”
“You got everything, Cunningham?” Eddie smiled as he stood in front of Chrissy while they stood on the sidewalk in front of her house.
“I think so,” she looked down at her duffel bag before she looked at her watch, “11:30…” she bit her bottom lip as she looked up at him then smirked, “You still have a half hour, you know.”
“I know,” he smiled but then scrunched up his face and gestured with his head towards the van that still held his band mates, “But I still gotta drop them off.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to think I’m backing out of our deal at all,” her bottom lip was back between her teeth as she rocked back and forth on her heels and toes.
“Don’t worry about it, Cunningham,” he grinned at her, “I won’t hold you to the thirty minutes.”
Her lip slipped out from between her teeth as she looked up at him with her big blue eyes and asked, “Are you sure? I mean, a lot can happen in a half hour…”
“Yeah, like a whole episode of Cheers,” he flashed a muppet smile at her that got a quick, snorting laugh out of her.
She covered her mouth with her hand as she smiled, “See, a lot can happen…”
“Cunningham, I’m serious. Don’t worry about it. We’ll call it even since you bought me breakfast,” he smiled as she looked down at her bag and quietly told him okay.
Shit, did I say the wrong thing?
Did she think that he would be some kind of asshole that wouldn’t go through with his part of the bargain?
“Well, I can’t wait to see what you have in store for my eighteen hours,” he cocked his head to the side to try to look at her face that was hidden by her hair that she kept down this morning but then smiled when she looked up at him.
Her eyes narrowed as she pursed her lips, “Twenty hours,” she reminded him pointedly, “You only used two hours for practice time and the recital, jerk.”
“Ah well,” he let out a sigh through his smile, “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Whatever, Eddie,” she rolled her eyes even though a smile had spread across her face.
“Yeah well, you still got me wondering what it’s gonna be,” his grin returned as he clutched his hands together in front of his chest and excitedly gasped, “A slumber party!?”
She let out a loud snorting laugh and quickly covered her mouth as he continued, “We can do each other’s hair and listen to records and eat cookie dough and talk about all the boys we like.”
“Shut up, Eddie!” she laughed again through her hands before she dropped them away from her face, “It’ll be good stuff—”
Her voice cut off with a loud squeak as the van’s horn interrupted her and Jeff threw up his hands from inside the van. Probably because he had to get home before noon to go to his grandparents’ house.
Eddie flipped his friend the bird before he turned his attention back to Chrissy as she apologized, “Sorry for keeping you—”
“You’re not—”
“I am,” she sighed, “But… I had fun this weekend.”
“Me too,” he could feel that fucking goofy smile spread across his face. One that probably showed all of his stupid feelings that that bearded weirdo seemed to zero in on… goddamn it…
“You were really good too,” she beamed at him.
“Really? You think so?” he blinked at his goofy smile grew larger… damn it…
“Oh come on,” she bit her bottom lip, “You know you’re good.”
“It’s still nice to hear,” he told her aloud but silently added, from you.
“And thank you for buying me dinner last night,” her eyes sparkled as a smile spread across her face, “And that drink at the club. You didn’t have to.”
“I know, but…” he swallowed before he said anything dumb and instead told her, “I try to treat all of our roadies right—”
Honk!
“Jesus!” Eddie threw up his hands at Jeff who mirrored him.
“You should go drop them off and I should go inside.”
“Yeah,” he nodded as he looked at her again, standing there, waiting… Should I hug her? Should I kiss her? Should I—
“Okay,” she sighed and nodded, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
“Yeah, okay,” he nodded back and before he could wonder what to do again, she turned and hurried across the immaculate lawn to her house and away from him.