thequeenofhawkins:
There were only a handful of people that made Chrissy feel truly safe or like herself. At the top of that list rested Adam Richards. Childhood best friend. Ex-boyfriend. Closest friend. She felt like there was no one she knew better. Cut from the same cloth, some would say. They both ticked off that boy-next-door/girl-next-door behavior and both deserved more than what they were dealt from life. Namely? Death.
Chrissy shut the door behind her, given Adam’s permission. She let out a soft laugh. If anything, Adam’s mom would probably leap with joy knowing they were in his bedroom with the door shut. She knew their parents hoped that it would be Chrissy and Adam that ended up together in the end, which would never happen in a million years. “Tell me about it. My mom wanted to get me drug tested when I came back home,” and Laura Cunningham had drug tested her daughter, only for the test to come back negative.
“The same,” she answered, vaguely. Whenever Chrissy thought back to her time on the commune, she couldn’t remember anything. If she tried hard enough she could remember being in Eddie’s trailer, then in the forest, and then back home, but any memory of the forest just felt like a memory that wasn’t hers. Like, they belonged to someone else or… they weren’t entirely real at all. “What do you mean?” She asked, turning her head towards him. The more she thought about it, Chrissy was able to convince herself that she had willingly gone, even through all the fallacies. “Like, that we were never there?”
Chrissy was probably his closest friend besides Cole. She knew so much about him; so many small personal details she’d accumulated over the years of them being family friends, then awkward boyfriend/girlfriend, and finally actual friends. Being around her had become so much easier once he had come out - he felt like she really understood him. She had seen the bad with the good, and accepted him because of who he was. In Adam’s eyes, there was no one in the world with a better heart that Chrissy Cunningham.
Rebecca Richards had always wanted them to end up together - she had taken their breakup worse than anyone else. Adam had had to assure her multiple times that they weren’t getting back together, no matter how perfect they seemed for one another. They were better off as friends. And though he couldn’t tell her this - Adam was gay. If he could fall in love with a girl, it would be someone like Chrissy, but he just wasn’t interested. He hadn’t been since the moment he met Cole Montgomery and he realized that he could only ever love him. “Thank god mine didn’t. Although, maybe we should have,” He said, brow furrowing in thought. After all, Adam thought there was a good chance that maybe they had been drugged with something unless Cole was right about everything.
Adam was terrified about what not remembering meant. If there was nothing to remember, and he had died, did that mean he hadn’t gone to Heaven or Hell? It had been years since Adam had really felt like he belonged in church, and he really didn’t know if he could believe in a God that hated him for being in love with Cole, but..... he just couldn’t believe that he’d gone no where. Adam really didn’t like thinking about that. “No, I mean...well, maybe?” Adam shrugged. “Maybe we were drugged and taken there or something.” He proposed, preferring to believe that rather than the possibility that he had died.
thequeenofhawkins:
𝐖𝐇𝐎: Chrissy Cunningham & @goldenboyrichards
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: Just ur annual skeletons talking about their time at the commune!
𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: The Richards Residence
Chrissy had been home for less than a week. Five days. Five miserable days back at home. It almost reminded her of why she had left already. In her head, Chrissy had always planned her grand escape, but that involved a cheer scholarship to Purdue, not getting high in a commune for the last two years. Two years she could barely remember. The memories were fuzzy, as if they weren’t actually her own. It was after breakfast, and a few choice words from Laura Cunningham, that Chrissy ran upstairs to her room and called the Richards landline.
Thirty minutes later, she was walking up to the Richards house, and heading up straight to Adam’s room. “Your mom isn’t going to kill me if I close the door, is she?” Chrissy asked. She felt silly. She was a twenty year old woman, but she still felt like that 17 year old girl. As if she hadn’t really grown in all this time.
If there was one constant in Chrissy’s life, it was Adam Richards. Childhood friend, Hawkins Middle Snowball date, ex-boyfriend. He ticked it all off. And somehow, they had even ended up in that commune together. She flopped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Can I ask you something? Do you… Do you remember anything from the commune?” Then she flipped on her side to look at him, asking what she deemed the most unfortunate question ever. “Was I really high the entire time?”
Being home was an adjustment. It had to be for all of them, Adam was sure. After all, reentering life in Hawkins after two or three years away was so confusing. So many things had stayed exactly the same, but there were little differences here and there, just enough to make home feel like a strange new world.
That was why Adam had been happy to hear from Chrissy. If there was one person in this world besides Cole who made him feel completely at peace, it was Chrissy Cunningham. Although they’d never worked out romantically for some very obvious reasons, she’d always showed him nothing but kindness and acceptance. She was one of the sweetest people he’d ever met, and he was glad that they’d stayed friends over the years. When he’d found out she’d been gone too, it had made him sad. Adam had always hoped Chrissy of all people would get to make her escape from Hawkins.
At Chrissy’s question, Adam shrugged. “Probably not? She’s just glad I’m home. I think she’d more worried about what I’ve done the last three years than you being in my room alone with me.” Mrs. Richards had taken it hard when he and Chrissy had “broken up,” but she still adored Chrissy and thought the world of her. Adam doubted she’d care about them being alone together with the door closed.
Adam frowned, faltering at the mention of the commune as he laid down on the bed. “I don’t.” He admitted quietly. There was just...nothing. He didn’t remember anyone or anything the last three years, no pain or happiness or anything. That was the scariest part of it all, to him; especially after Cole told him that he’d...that he’d died. Because if that were the case, what did that mean about Adam’s lack of anything? That was part of why Adam couldn’t - and wouldn’t - accept that that might be what happened. Not yet. “I get flashes of the week or so before I must have left, but nothing after. What about you?” He turned to look at her, propping himself up on an elbow. “I don’t know, Chrissy. I don’t think I would have done that. But maybe something happened to us?”