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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

Eddie isn't some completely inexperienced dork -- it would've been hard to get through playing some of the clubs his band played in, at his age, with his hair, and not get at least a little action -- but the smooth line of Chrissy's neck where it meets her shoulder still makes his heart pound. It's like he's never seen skin before.

He takes the box from Chrissy, then gently opens the clasp so he can slip the chain into place. The 23 looks perfect, exactly how he hoped it would, and he fights a smile as he brushes aside some of her hair and then hooks the chain together again.

"So we're... I mean, this..." He grins and drops his head, feeling dumb and young and thrilled all at once. "If you want, I want to be with you. Just you."

It's crazy, how something so simple can make her heart race like this. Just the way his fingers graze her neck, though, when he fastens the necklace in place would be enough to leave her flustered, even if it weren't for what he says next. Hearing the way he sounds surprises her, too, but maybe it shouldn't. This, Chrissy thinks, is what everyone back in Hawkins was missing, what she's seen from the start. Contrary to his reputation, Eddie really is sweet.

She just never thought she would be on the receiving end of it like this. She was fine with that, genuinely happy enough just to be friends with him, but as he says that, she allows herself for the first time to really want, or at least let herself be conscious of wanting.

Fingertips tracing over the gold charm again, this time where it sits at the hollow of her throat, she nods. "I do," she says, still quiet, as if she might shatter something or make him come to his senses if she speaks any louder. "I want that. If you do."

It makes him smile, the soft way she speaks, both of them holding this moment as if too loud a noise might make it all drift away like smoke. It won't, though. It doesn't have to. That's what he's figuring out as they sit here, both of them stumbling over words, neither quite saying what they want to say, but still somehow saying enough.

He could get up right now, put the pizza in the oven, and when he came back, this would all still be here.

"I want that," he says and this time, like he wanted at Kagura, Eddie lifts his hand and his calloused fingertips glide against the smooth skin of Chrissy's cheek.

With every passing moment, it becomes that much clearer that she isn't somehow misunderstanding him, and still Chrissy can't quite wrap her head around it. Through no fault at all of Eddie's, it took her a while to even believe that he really wanted to be friends with her, that it wasn't out of some misplaced sense of obligation or pity that he kept her around. This, though, is something else entirely. Part of her almost wants to protest, certain that he could find someone prettier, cooler, more interesting. She's still afraid to break this, though. She would rather lean into the touch of his hand, her cheek flushed warm under his fingers.

"Okay," she says, and smiles, her teeth pressing to her lower lip. Part of her wants to lean in and kiss him the way she couldn't at Kagura. Part of her, though, just wants to let him look at her like that for a while longer. No one has ever really looked at her like that before, especially not while actually seeing her, too. "I... Good."

"Okay," he echoes and smiles, small and sweet and genuine. "Okay, wait right here, because the oven keeps beeping and if it kills the moment I... well, no, fuck it. I don't think it could kill this."

He cups her cheek, still almost a little hesitant, but she's said she wants this, wants to be more than just his friend, and he wants it, too. They both know that now, so Eddie wets his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, then leans toward Chrissy. Let the oven beep.

He kisses her, not quite like he had at Kagura. There's no holding back, no reason for him to be careful with her, and yet he still wants it to be special. To mean something. His lips part slightly and he sighs against Chrissy's mouth, his eyes slipping closed.

He says fuck it and Chrissy doesn't even try to hide the way she smiles, deeply endeared, the breath she lets out almost a laugh. Truthfully, until he mentioned it, she'd all but forgotten about the oven, and she can't say she's particularly concerned with it now. Food can wait, especially when he leans in to kiss her, what probably should have been the logical conclusion to that statement but still manages to take her a little by surprise. All of this still barely feels real, some part of her still waiting for the catch, the moment she finds out she's wrong about what it means.

It's easier to convince herself that one isn't going to come when he kisses her like that. There's no plant or magical barrier forcing them into it now, and while she's flustered, she isn't at all wishing for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. She very much wants, instead, to hold onto this moment, small and bright and wonderful, his mouth warm against hers. She lets herself lean into it this time in a way she didn't before, fingers curling in his sleeve when she rests her hand by his shoulder, soft but sure, gently encouraging.

Edited 2023-01-09 03:31 (UTC)

Beneath his, her lips are so soft, full and warm, and a little shiver goes down Eddie's spine as they kiss. For months, he hadn't even acknowledged the burgeoning crush, and once he had, he'd decided to ignore it. Easier to ignore it than to lose this, lose her.

Only he's not losing her, she's right here, and her fingers are curled in the material of his t-shirt and he can feel her breath against his mouth.

He could do this all night, just kiss her, sitting here, their bodies twisted, doing nothing more than that. But then the oven beeps again and Eddie laughs against Chrissy's mouth and he thinks about all the rest. Eating dinner with her, watching the movie he'd picked -- It's a Wonderful Life, because she told him that first night how much she liked old movies -- and how he doesn't have to keep himself apart from her. He can put his arms around her shoulders, she can lean against him.

It's a small thing, but there's so much to look forward to.

As soon as he laughs, Chrissy does, too, unable to help it, the sound soft and incredulous. She still doesn't know entirely how this happened, the last few minutes a blur. And while she would be lying to say that she hasn't thought about this, she never thought it would actually happen, that he would have any kind of interest in her beyond just being friends. Certainly it would never have occurred to her, these past few months, that he might be feeling the same way she was, convinced that any growing feelings couldn't possibly be returned.

She's been wrong about him from the start, though. Back in Hawkins, as far as she can tell, everyone was, but she still believed all of that until she actually talked to him and found how easily he could make her smile. In a strange way, it makes sense that she'd have been wrong about this, too.

"I guess we should maybe get the food started," she says, though she makes no move to pull away yet, slight as the distance between them is. In her surprise, she's gotten so much of this wrong. Given the outcome, she can't be very bothered by the fact of that, but she can at least try to put a little of it right. "For the record, I really like you, too."

"I'm glad," he says, grinning. "Or I'd feel really bad about kissing you."

Eddie's smile fades into something less playful, more wondering, and he squeezes Chrissy's hand gently before he gets up and goes into the kitchen so he can finally throw the pizza into the oven. While there, he takes a second, breathing in deep, then letting it out in a rush of air.

This has all happened. The thing he thought never would, because she's too good for him, too kind and sweet and funny. Not because she was popular, but because of who she really is. But she really likes him. For the record.

"I got It's a Wonderful Life for us to watch," he says as he heads back to sit with Chrissy. "I thought it'd be Christmas appropriate and something you're into."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject