didntrun | [christmas eve]

Entry tags:

chrissy

[christmas eve]

On the morning of December twenty-fourth, Eddie panics.

He'd asked Chrissy if she'd want to hang out, do something for Christmas, and he'd tried to make it sound as casual as possible, because he knows there's no way she could ever like him. Not the way he likes her, which he knows for certain now after their kiss, even though it had been framed as friends rescuing each other. That should be enough, he knows, to just be her friend, and it is. It's enough.

It still makes hanging out with her difficult at times. He'll get over it, but for right now, every time he sees her, he thinks of the kiss up at Kagura and how warm her mouth had felt against his. The scent of her shampoo or perfume or maybe even just soap, he doesn't know what it had been, only that he'd felt like he could drown in it. He thinks of the light touch of her hand on his arm and he knows he can't think all this stuff if they're going to keep being friends.

So they're friends. They're just friends, but Eddie is still panicked, realizing he's invited her to come over to his place on Christmas Eve, only it looks like a twenty-year-old single guy lives here and he can't let her see his place like this. She hadn't judged the trailer, but honestly, she'd had a lot going on at the time and he could blame that on Wayne. This mess is his fault, though, and so Eddie throws himself into cleaning for perhaps the first time in his life.

When that's done, he goes to get groceries. Maybe it's a mistake on Christmas Eve, the stores are crazy busy, but he needs to have something at his place. He doesn't really know how to cook, so he gets the most expensive frozen pizzas, figuring they're probably the best quality, and he gets snacks, and he gets soft drinks and iced tea and on a whim, he grabs a string of white Christmas lights that are marked down to forty percent off, due to it being so late in the season.

Back home, the groceries get put away and Eddie doesn't have a tree, so he strings the lights up over the window behind the couch, then plugs them in to make sure they work. When he turns off the rest of the lights, they make the apartment glow and, for the first time, it actually feels like Christmas.

On the coffee table sits the one thing he's had ready all this time. A neatly wrapped box with a bow on top, Chrissy's name scrawled in his writing on the tag. Inside is her gold chain, the one she had given him, but the pendant has changed. Around his neck, he still wears the gold 86 alongside his pick. In the box is a similar pendant now, but this one is a 23.

This next year is her year. He can feel it.

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Somewhere in the back of her head, Chrissy keeps thinking that this is a really bad idea. She's not sure if things have actually been a little awkward between them since that afternoon at Kagura or if it's just her imagination, just the product of her feeling awkward, but the last thing she needs is to go making any of that worse. She's done far too much harm on that front as it is. There's no way he doesn't know now about the crush she has on him; she has no doubt about that. The way he could barely look at her after that kiss, brief and necessary as it may have been, seems like proof of it.

At least he still wants her around. At least he hasn't laughed at her for it or anything like that, what she can only assume is his way of letting her down easy. And, anyway, it's Christmas Eve. While there may not be anyone in Hawkins she misses, she still doesn't want to be alone for the holiday. He's still her best friend, whatever else she might feel, and that matters far more than any stupid crush.

She isn't sure if it's because of that or in spite of it that she spends far too long getting herself ready, trying to strike the right balance between looking nice and not wanting to seem like she wants him to notice her looking nice. Eventually, she settles on a dress that seems festive without being too dressy, paired with fleece-lined leggings to make it a little more casual and also keep her warm. She does her makeup the same as she usually would — minimal except for a hint of color in her eyeliner — and wears her hair around her shoulders in loose curls, much like she did on Halloween.

The latter hardly matters by the time she gets to Eddie's apartment. It isn't raining anymore, at least, like it has the past couple of days, but it's windy instead, tousling her hair the second she steps out of the cab, and well below freezing. Fortunately, there's someone leaving the building just as she arrives who lets her in, but she still has her coat pulled tight around her when she reaches Eddie's door, the gift bag holding his present clutched against her chest as a result. She doesn't know much about Dungeons and Dragons beyond what she's learned from him, but that's just enough to have given her an idea for something to get him. The man at the store she found assured her that high quality dice would be good, and she does think the set she's chosen is pretty. Hopefully he likes it, too.

Knocking on his door, she shifts her weight a little, both in a bid to warm herself up and to calm herself down. "Hey," she calls through the door. "It's me."

This was so dumb. From the gift, to all the preparation, to the lights, which make it feel like Christmas, but are also kind of romantic, he's realized too late, this was all the worst plan he's ever had.

How is he supposed to spend Christmas Eve with Chrissy and not act like he's kind of head over heels for her?

It had happened so slowly he hadn't even realized, or maybe it had happened too quickly for him to be aware of, but either way, he's here. They're here. He meant what he'd said to Steve, that Chrissy needs a friend more than she needs another shitty boyfriend, but Eddie doesn't think he'd be shitty. He thinks, all things considered, he'd be a pretty decent boyfriend.

None of that means she would want him, of course, and he's sure that hasn't changed. It's just, as he answers the door, he feels like a huge idiot. His heart swoops at the sight of her, her hair kind of a mess in an undeniably adorable way, and without even thinking, Eddie grins and reaches up to gently hook his finger in a curl that's clinging to her cheek.

"It's windy, huh?" he asks as he steps back to let her in. What a stupid fucking thing to say to the girl he likes on Christmas Eve.

It takes all of a moment for Chrissy to be certain that she was right about this being an absolutely terrible idea. She doesn't even manage to say hi before he's reaching up to touch her hair, his fingertip warm where it just barely grazes her ice-cold cheek, and her heart winds up lodged in her throat. It's so stupid. If she didn't know better — really, if he were anyone else — she'd think that he must be making fun of her, or maybe planning to let her down easy. The inside of his apartment, when his hand drops and she steps inside, only heightens that feeling, dim except for the glow of Christmas lights.

Now that she's thinking about it, she isn't really sure what she expected tonight to be. Part of her started wondering on the ride over here if there would be others around, too, making her look even more ridiculous for having brought only a present for him; part of her expected it would be like any other night they've hung out, sitting around and maybe watching something on TV. She wasn't prepared for this. She is so, so screwed.

She puts on a smile, though, like she's always been good at doing, giving him a somewhat pitiful look as she nods in response to his question. "And cold," she says, not bothering to try to keep the whine out of her voice. "All I did was get out of a cab and walk inside and I'm freezing." Only partly for dramatic effect, she shivers a little. "It looks so nice in here. I love the lights."

"Yeah?" he asks, then grins as he closes the door behind her. Chrissy has been in his apartment more than anyone else in Darrow and he feels like he should take her coat, but at the same time, she knows exactly where the closet it and he's never taken her coat for her before.

If he does that now, she's definitely going to think something is weird.

"I got them at the store this afternoon," he says, stepping back to make room for her. "I don't have a tree, but I figured some kinda decoration might be nice. Makes it feel a little bit more like Christmas."

"I should have asked if I could bring anything," Chrissy says, giving him an apologetic smile, her nose wrinkling. "I didn't think of it until I was halfway here." Her own apartment is decorated, if minimally; she could have brought some of it over here, or stopped to pick up food or something. Showing up empty-handed, aside from a present that she's now convinced will seem stupid as well, was horribly short-sighted of her.

That part would have been worse, at least, if there were more people here, if she'd initially assumed it would be just the two of them and been wrong. In all other aspects, though, she's not sure if it's better this way or not. On one hand, she would have felt like a first-rate idiot to think it would have been just them if it wasn't. On the other, it's so much more intimate this way, so much harder to pretend like she doesn't get flustered just being around him.

Switching the gift bag from one hand to the other, she slips off her coat, then holds the present out to him. "I did bring this, though. Merry Christmas."

Edited 2022-12-27 01:05 (UTC)

"Merry Christmas," he echoes, breaking into a smile he couldn't attempt to temper even if he tried. He takes the gift bag from Chrissy to make it easier for her to take off her coat, then brings it over to the coffee table where the gift for her sits.

"You didn't need to bring anything," he tells her, turning back, once the gifts are sitting side by side. "I've got food and drinks and stuff. It's nothing special, just some frozen pizza and snacks."

Eddie honestly doesn't know how to entertain people in his home. He's not the sort who ever really did so, outside of DnD, and this is definitely not that.

"No, that sounds great," Chrissy assures him, heading over to the couch after she's hung her coat up. She still feels the chill of having been outside, however briefly, but when he smiles at her like that, she feels warm all over, too. It's so stupid. He's not even doing anything but existing in her proximity. There's no good reason at all for her to react like this. Really, the time has long since come for her to get over this ridiculous crush and the distraction it causes. She likes just being friends with him, just being around him, spending Christmas Eve hanging out in his apartment even though there's probably plenty else he could be doing tonight.

Running both hands through her hair, both to try to get herself to snap out of it and to attempt to make herself look slightly less windswept, she returns his smile, warm and pleased and a little shy. "Really. Thanks for having me over."

"Yeah," he says, then smiles, caught up in her eyes, the pink of her cheeks, the way the corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles. "There's no one else I'd rather spend Christmas with."

For a beat, there's silence, then Eddie sort of realizes what he's said and his face heats. He instantly regrets it, then decides maybe he doesn't, he has no idea, but he turns and heads for the kitchen, as if that's what he always meant to do.

"Do you want something to drink?" he calls. "I have soda and iced tea and water. I'll put a pizza in the oven!"

Hearing that brings Chrissy up short, a look of soft surprise on her face before she can try to keep her reaction in check. While the sentiment is an easy one for her to agree with — she'd already known as much, even if she hadn't thought about it in so many words — she wouldn't have expected him to say so, or to clearly mean it. With as long as she's been here now, she knows that they're friends, that he doesn't just keep her around out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Still, she would have assumed that there would be other people he would sooner have spent the holiday with, ones he would be closer to. She wouldn't have thought that she would top that list.

And that's more than enough in itself. Maybe thinking about it gives her the cliché feeling of butterflies in her stomach, but she's still content just to be friends with him, just to be around him. If her stupid crush hasn't driven him off, then that's something she can be grateful for. So, all things considered, this might not have been such a terrible idea after all.

She follows him over toward the kitchen, lingering back in the doorway. "Me, too," she says, quiet but warm, because it seems important. "And, um — iced tea would be great. Can I help?"

Hearing that does something inside him, like a clenching of his chest, hard and sudden, but still entirely pleasurable. Eddie's had good times, he's had solid friends from the time he was thirteen, he had Wayne, he's been really lucky, all things considered. But it still does something to him to know Chrissy thinks of him as someone important.

Someone who matters to her.

"Uhhh, you can turn the oven on," he suggests as he gets some glasses down from the cupboard. "I think it said turn it to three-fifty."

He gets out the ice tray he'd actually remembered to fill and drops a few ice cubes into each of their glasses, then pours them both iced tea. With the glasses set out on the counter, Eddie then gets a pizza out of the freezer and says, "Yeah, three-fifty. Even I can cook this."

"Three-fifty," Chrissy echoes, shooting him a grin as she heads over to the stove. This, too, she's not sure she completely thought through. There's a casual sort of intimacy in moving around a kitchen together, in being aware that she's in his space. It's better, though, than the alternative. She would have felt far too awkward just sitting on the couch and letting him wait on her. Helping out is the very least she can do, more fun and less formal.

His oven is a little different from hers, but not drastically so. It only takes a moment for her to determine how to set it to preheat, and once she's done so, she opens the oven door a crack to look inside, making sure there's nothing stored in there already. The last thing they need is to burn his apartment down on Christmas Eve.

"Done. And I think between the two of us, we can definitely figure out how to make a frozen pizza."

"Wayne used to actually cook when his shift started later," Eddie tells Chrissy as he unwraps the pizza and puts it on a pan. The instructions tell him everything, the temperature, how long to cook it, even if he didn't know anything, Chrissy is right. They can figure this out together.

"He taught me some stuff, but not a lot," he continues. He turns and leans against the counter while they wait for the oven to pre-heat. "I make killer eggs and grilled cheese. And I know how to make a chicken casserole, but I was never really into it for some reason. It was just kind of bland."

He doesn't know why he's talking about food. This is all so dumb on his end, just rambling about whatever comes to mind so he doesn't feel like Chrissy is just here because she's taken pity on him.

It's such a random, ridiculous topic of conversation that Chrissy can't help finding herself utterly charmed by it. Of course, with the way things have been lately, chances are good that she'd have felt the same about anything else. Still, there's something oddly nice about it, standing here in his warming kitchen, leaning back against the opposite counter so she can face him, discussing what he knows how to cook.

"Okay, no chicken casserole. Good to know," she says, mostly teasing. "I can follow a recipe well enough, I guess, but if I'm gonna be cooking, mostly I just stick to... very, very basics." Mostly, really, she doesn't do even that much, but that isn't something she has any desire to get into right now. It's Christmas Eve, and Eddie shouldn't have to worry about all that anyway.

"Do you want to open your present while we wait for the oven to heat up? Or would you rather wait?"

"Yeah, let's do that," he agrees, grabbing both their drinks to take into the living room with them. He says all this, starts heading toward the couch before he remembers what he got for Chrissy.

He doesn't regret it, but suddenly he realizes how it might seem. Honestly, it wouldn't even be wrong for her to look at the pendant on the same gold chain and think that Eddie is kind of head over heels for her, because he is. That's not the only reason he got her the pendant, but he knows he could have made the effort to get her something that seemed more like a friend gift.

This is a more than friend gift. He knows it. She'll know it, too, as soon as she opens it.

But they're here now and the worst thing that can happen is that she gently tells him it's not going to happen. Chrissy won't be cruel, she won't laugh at him, even though, once upon a time, Eddie would have assumed she might. She's too kind for that, though, and as he sets their glasses down, then sits on the couch, he grins, even if he's nervous.

"Do you want to go first?" he asks.

Following him over to the couch and taking a seat beside him, Chrissy considers that for a moment, scrunching her nose a little. It shouldn't really matter all that much. Chances are, it's a stupid gift anyway, however much it may have seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it's too impersonal. Maybe it's not impersonal enough. They're just dice, but she spent a long time considering what might be good to get him, asking questions of the guy at the store, looking at the different available sets. She's been told, at least, that a lot of people collect them, which isn't surprising, given the vast array of them. And while she doesn't really know anything about dice beyond the usual white and black ones that come with a board game, based on the price, which is higher than she has any intention of admitting, and the appearance, these seem to be good quality.

She just hopes she's gotten something right here. And while she is curious to see what he got her, too, having not really expected anything, she's more nervous about how this will be received, so she shakes her head, picking up the gift bag on the table to hand to him. "You go first," she decides. "It's — it's really not much or anything, but it seemed like something you might like?"

That makes Eddie nervous for some reason, because if Chrissy got him something that makes it clear she's only here to be friends, he's going to feel like a complete idiot when she opens her gift. But they're here. It's not like he can take it back without looking like a complete dick and Eddie doesn't want that.

He'd rather have to be let down easy than ever make Chrissy feel like there's something wrong with her.

"Okay," he agrees, taking the gift bag from her. He takes a sip of his drink first, then sets the glass back down on the coffee table and sits back on the couch and begins to open the gift. As he puts aside the tissue paper, what looks distinctly like a dice bag comes into view and when Eddie pulls it out, the clacking makes it clear.

A grin spreads over his features as he opens the small pouch and tumbles a few of the dice out into his hand. "Holy shit," he says on an exhale. "These are amazing."

"You think so?" Chrissy asks, more outwardly nervous than she intends, giving him a hopeful smile. She doesn't really know, after all, despite all she tried to find out while in the process of deciding on a gift. Whatever assurances she got or how much effort she made, it still could have easily been the wrong thing or even just something he didn't like. For as small and simple a gift as it might be, enough so that she feels self-conscious about it now, it was a gamble, too.

His smile seems genuine, but she still can't help the way her hands twist in her lap, teeth pressing to her lower lip. "I really don't know anything about DnD aside from what you've told me, but the guy at the store I found said it would be hard to go wrong with more dice, and these seemed like nice ones, so..."

"Seriously," he says, laying a hand over his heart as he looks up at Chrissy. Suddenly, he's not thinking about the gift he got her anymore, he's just thinking about how he's lucky. Whatever else happens, this really cool girl likes being around him and that alone is more than he would have expected.

"They're really cool dice," he tells her, looking back to them. He drops his hand from his chest and picks one up to roll it between the fingers. "Check out the way the gold bits catch the light. They're beautiful."

It's probably dumb to be so effusive over dice, but he can't help himself, no matter how dorky it is.

"You should open yours now," he says, even though his heart has started to pound.

It's a relief, watching him admire the dice. Chrissy thinks she's gotten to know Eddie pretty well these last few months, at least enough to be able to tell that he's being genuine. If nothing else, no matter what a mess she's made of everything, catching feelings for her best friend, making that painfully obvious when they got stuck under the mistletoe, she's gotten something right here. That's all she could have hoped for, really: to make her friend smile.

To her, that matters far more than any gift she could open, but she is curious, and flattered that he thought to get her anything. "Okay," she agrees, reaching for the small wrapped package on the table, turning it over in her hands for a moment before she carefully unwraps the paper, sets it aside, and opens the box.

Whatever she might have been expecting, it isn't this. The gold chain looks like the one she wore every day of her senior year, the one she gave him when he graduated. Instead of her 86 charm, though, there's a 23, and it isn't hard to guess what that might mean. She gave him the 86 because 1986 was his year. It'll be 2023 soon, incomprehensible as that might be.

"Oh," she breathes, her chest constricting, fingertips brushing the small gold charm. "Eddie, I — I love it. Thank you."

"It's, um... it's the same chain. I just... you gave me your 86 and I know that was my year, but 2023, that's gonna be your year, Chrissy. I'm sure of it."

She says she loves it and he looks at her, studying her face, trying to find a lie. It isn't that he doesn't believe her, it's just that he's terrified, even more nervous than he realized before she opened the gift, because it's so personal. For Eddie, it says everything, and he's afraid she's going to see that and then have to tell him no. Let him down gently.

"You deserve it," he continues. The oven beeps softly from the other room to let them know it's ready for the pizza, but Eddie ignores it. If she's going to figure it out from the necklace, he might as well just say it all, have it out in the open, then she can figure out if she still wants to be friends with him.

"You deserve to have the best year and I... I really like you," he says. "I mean, I really like you. I know you had a shit boyfriend and you should just be able to do whatever you want and that's cool, if that's all you want, I get it and I wouldn't hold it against you, but I just really like you."

Even having guessed at what the meaning behind the 23 charm might be, it still hits hard to hear. Chrissy isn't quite so convinced of that herself, but for the first time maybe ever, she is at least a little optimistic about the coming year. She wouldn't know how to say so, but Eddie is a big part of that. Being here in general is — away from Hawkins, from her family, from the image she always felt she needed to maintain — but she's not sure she would have done much but continue as she had been if it weren't for him. He saw her when no one else did. She's never been able to say how much that means to her.

She means to try anyway, but he continues before she gets a chance, and what follows leaves her more than a little confused. He couldn't mean what it sounds like he means, except she doesn't know what else that possibly could mean. Mentioning her last boyfriend, saying if that's all you want like it hasn't been painfully obvious that it isn't, none of it makes any kind of sense to her, and she's sure she must be missing something here.

"I... I thought... After we got stuck under that mistletoe, you couldn't even look at me," she says, her cheeks growing warm. It's the closest she's come to acknowledging how she feels about him, and still she can't quite say it outright, too convinced that there's something she must be missing here. There's no way he could like her like that. Why would he? "I thought you didn't like me, you know. Like that."

Eddie has already braced himself for it. For the gentle smile, the oh, Eddie, the awkward excuses as Chrissy gets up to leave. The oven beeps again and he hears it, but only just, because that isn't what she's saying.

He blinks, looking a bit lost, then a surprised laugh spills out of him, one he has absolutely no hope of controlling.

"I... how could I not like you?" he asks, then he laughs again. He doesn't want to get his hopes up, he feels too incredulous to really absorb any of this. All he knows for certain is that Chrissy isn't telling him no. There's no pity in her eyes.

"I couldn't look at you because I was so sure you'd just look at me and know," he says. "That you'd figure it out and you'd have to let me down easy and you'd feel guilty and I didn't wanna do that to you."

He laughs, and Chrissy does, too, a soft little exhale that she can't hold back. Whatever is going on here, she can't begin to wrap her head around it at all, everything she's been so certain of for weeks suddenly turned on its head. There's still an awkward tension coiled around her spine, taut in her shoulders. She smiles, though, as she shakes her head at him, nose wrinkling in disbelief. Apparently she was right about all of this being stupid; she was just wrong about why.

"That's what I thought," she tells him, one hand coming up to her forehead for a moment. "That it must have just been so obvious. I never thought that you..."

Her expression softens as she trails off, growing shier, more self-conscious. "Me?" she asks, quieter now, too. This doesn't make any kind of sense to her at all, and despite what he's said, a question she can come up with far too many answers to, it's hard to believe that this could mean what it sounds like it means. "Really?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, because of course her. Chrissy is smart, she's funny, she's beautiful, she's so kind. When they're together, Eddie doesn't do much besides laugh and smile, he feels most comfortable when they're just hanging out, he never feels like the freak Hawkins made him out to be.

Or if he does, it isn't so bad, because they're freaks together.

"Yeah," he says, soft, incredulous. "Really. You."

For a moment they just sit there and then Eddie asks, "Can I put the necklace on for you?"

There are a lot of things Chrissy should probably say right now. That it's him for her, too, that it has been for probably longer even than she's been entirely aware of. Maybe even since that day in the woods, when he made her smile at a time when she wouldn't have thought that would be possible, one small bright spot in the middle of the worst week of her life. She should tell him that, no matter what else happens or doesn't happen, he's her best friend, and that when she kissed him that day, she wished she hadn't had to stop.

Instead, in response to his question, she nods, turning slightly away so he'll be able to do so, offering him the box with the necklace in it. "Yeah," she whispers, still half-convinced she's reading this all wrong, completely crazy. At least if this is in her head, what she's imagining is something nice for a change. Sweeping her hair to the side, she glances back at him and adds, "Please."

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