Alive and Kicking (Chrissy x Eddie)

Eddie II

In Eddie's car parked at the very edge of the hospital parking lot, nearest to the exit in case he needed to vault and run and give Jason the slip, Eddie hit his head against the steering wheel.

"Stay alive, Chrissy?" He echoed one of his last sentiments to her, wincing at his own stupidity, "No Eddie, I thought I'd just try some light suicide." He mimicked in Chrissy's voice, though it wasn't a very good mimicking, and then groaned again.

It was really, really shitty of him to be making such dark jokes, all things considered. Sure, his humor certainly edged the line of 'Woah, you talk to your mother with that sort of mouth', but ha, jokes on them...he doesn't have a mother to wash his mouth out with soap, not anymore!

And there he goes again. That comforting, sweet dark humor.

If he wants to be around Chrissy, he thinks he must do two things.

Number One: Stop saying completely idiotic statements to her.

Of course, she's going to try to live. That should go without saying. Why would he need to remind her of that?

Number Two: Watch his language. His swearing, in particular, along with his tendency to make jokes that make others extremely uncomfortable. For most, it's a tool to weed out those he'd rather not associate with. But it's different with Chrissy.

And hell, why is he even making these rules in the first place? Does he honestly think that they'll be interacting enough to merit a set of rules for himself?

Well, you hope so, bud.

His inner voice lately has begun to sound like Dustin and this annoys him to no end.

But his mind-Dustin is also right.

Or else he wouldn't be sitting in the hospital parking lot at three AM running through the entire conversation he just had, worrying about how frail she looked, or replaying the multiple times she surprised the hell out of him.

He hadn't expected to interact with her at all after she was possessed by Vecna in his house.

But then he heard that she was stirring. The doctors went from believing she was a brain-dead case to thinking that perhaps she'd wake up.

And then he'd found himself, somehow, taking vigil in this hospital. He stayed out of sight until there was a commotion, and at least got to see her awake and talking.

And he told himself, "Sir, that will be the last time!"

Dunno, he thought if he called himself 'sir' it would sound like a military command. And maybe it would stick.

Clearly, that didn't work either.

He had to make sure she was actually okay, not just see it through the dingy glass before running for his life from the athlete idiot supreme and his merry band of flying monkeys.

But he'd confirmed it now, hadn't he? She was okay. She was out of the woods.

Oh, Eddie, you know she's not.

"Head-Dustin, shut the hell up," Eddie muttered, turning over his engine a couple of times before it sputtered to life. One day this piece of shit would give its last 'pah' of power and crap out on him.

He kept praying it wouldn't be today, and right now, prayers answered.

Okay, so on levels of 'okayness', Chrissy was middling.

She was alive, yay! She was talking and sentient, yay! Her arm wasn't broken beyond repair or amputated, yay!

But mentally?