You're Not What I Thought (Eddie x Chrissy)

Blood and Bandages

When she finally stopped throwing up everything in her stomach, Chrissy slid away from the toilet and curled onto the cool linoleum floor of Eddie's bathroom.

There was hair tangled and coiled in the corners of the little room. The mat beneath her was threadbare and thin from too many washings. The sink vanity was peeling and bubbled at its base from a flood at some point. It was all so very real. And it was wonderful.

Through the popping in her ears from puking, she heard Eddie cursing and fumbling around beneath the sink, then he was at her side. She tilted her head and blearily peered up into his narrow, handsome face. So handsome. Such a sweet, handsome face. She gave him a tired smile. "You got me out," she croaked over the burning in her throat.

"Yeah, and now you're laying on a dirty bathroom floor. I should've cleaned last weekend. I was supposed to." He was muttering under his breath and she lifted a hand to try to calm him down, but found herself staring at her bloody fingers.

"Ouch," she said faintly. In that other place, that nightmarish world, she had torn her fingers open pulling off board after board. And I brought it all back with me.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, ouch. She says ouch, Jesus Christ. Come on, princess." His voice was shaking and rising into a nervous, higher pitch, but he slid an arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her. Her head swam, so she shut her eyes, then found her butt on a bitingly cold surface. Her eyes popped open and she was face to face with Eddie.

He'd settled her on his bathroom counter. Her little cheer skirt had ridden all the way up and lay across the tops of her thighs. She flushed, despite the situation and the pain in her fingers, and tried to use the heels of her hands to inch the hem back down unsuccessfully.

"Sweetheart," he huffed out. "I'm not staring. Um, not that view isn't amazing. But I'm more worried about these hands of yours." He gave her a lop-sided grin that didn't meet his dark eyes. His voice still shook. "Let's get your hoodie off, okay?"

"Okay. Sorry I'm bleeding all over your floor." And her uniform, she realized, noticing the red splotches spreading on her skirt, on her hoodie and top. If she hadn't literally just survived an actual monster trying to kill her in a nightmare realm, she would have been petrified of what her mother would say and do when Laura saw the damage.

"This floor has seen a lot worse, princess." He slid his fingers under either side of her hoodie and guided the sleeves downward. His warm, calloused palms coasted along her arms to her elbows and she sighed quietly, her eyes finding his. He was focused on wriggling the fabric off her wrists and hands and not watching her, so she watched him.

His curling hair fell over his face, one long strand clinging to his cheek and if her hands had been free, she wouldn't have been able to resist brushing it behind his ear. His tongue was caught between his teeth and she stared at it, warmth alive in her belly.

It was the pain of the garment catching on her fingers that had her hissing and looking away as he pulled it off her and tossed it in the harvest gold tub nearby.

"So, uh...I don't want to upset you or anything. But that was the scariest thing I have ever fucking seen, Chrissy." She looked back up at him as he turned the faucet on for hot water, then cut it to a small stream. He reached behind him to a little cabinet built into the wall and grabbed a fresh washcloth. "And um, I can tell you what I saw..." He gently took one of her hands and guided it over to the stream of water and muttered a soft apology as she hissed when it hit her torn skin. He quickly adjusted the temp and made it a little more comfortable, then lifted his eyes to her face, waiting.

The warm water began washing away the blood and she turned away from the sight of it spiraling down the drain. Maybe it was how gentle and kind and nervous Eddie was or maybe it was just the shock of it all still rioting in her system, but tears stung her eyes. "But you'd rather I tell you what was happening to me?" God knows she owed him that. Owed him everything.