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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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."

"Definitely not something you should feel bad about," Chrissy says as he gets up from the couch, unable to keep from smiling as she watches him walk back to the kitchen. It's ridiculous, probably, just to sit here beaming like this, flushed and almost giddy, but with the night having taken such an unexpected turn, it's impossible to help. When she left her apartment earlier, she didn't think for a second that anything like this would happen. If anything, she thought she was likely to be making a huge mistake, bound to embarrass herself even more than she already had.

Instead, somehow, she gets this, someone who always seems to know how to make her smile, who calls her a freak like it's the best compliment there is, who likes her not for the carefully cultivated image she works so hard to present to everyone but the person underneath it. It doesn't make any kind of sense, but at least for tonight, she wants to let herself enjoy it, not start to think about how he could do so much better.

"I love It's a Wonderful Life," she tells him, bright and pleased, angled toward him on the couch. A thought occurs to her then, and she huffs out a breath. "Wait, so you did all of this, the food and the lights and the movie and the necklace, and you thought I didn't like you?"

Edited 2023-01-13 02:53 (UTC)

She says it like that and Eddie pauses, not having really thought about it, and then he shrugs and grins as he leans back against the cushions. For him, it had just been about having a nice Christmas Eve, giving them both something to do, somewhere to go.

"I wanted it to be nice," he answers. "Just... you know, a good Christmas, even if it's not what we would have had at home."

Maybe for her that would have been a good thing. Chrissy hasn't told him all the details of her home life, but between the things she has said and the fact that she'd come to him for drugs, he's gotten the sense it wasn't all that great. His own wasn't perfect. Both his parents gone, living in a trailer park, a lot of people would have thought his life was pretty shitty. They would have been wrong. Wayne was a better parent than his actual mom and dad had ever been and they made it work. He'd been happy.

For a moment, as he settles on the couch again, Chrissy just watches him, amazement still in her eyes. It's such a simple sentiment, and still, it's hard not to be struck by the fact that no one has ever done anything like this for her before. Christmas at home was stifling; whenever she was dating, there might be gifts exchanged, but nothing so personal, with this kind of thought in it. Her hand lifts again, fingertips resting against the gold charm at the hollow of her throat, the feeling of it familiar, even if the number itself is new. She wishes she could tell him how much it means, but she wouldn't know where to start, at least not without giving too much away.

"It's a really good Christmas," she tells him instead, then shifts a little closer against his side, as if convincing herself that this is something she gets to do now. "Even if you hadn't... wanted anything else, it still would be." That he does, that he apparently likes her the same way she likes him, is still nearly incomprehensible. "Can I kiss you again?"

A little laugh slips out, because he can't believe she's asking him, like he might say no, like he might not want to when it's something he's been thinking about -- and trying not to -- for months.

He shifts on the couch as well, then lifts his arm so he can slip it around Chrissy's shoulders, his heart hammering, his armpits kind of damp with nerves, and his thumb strokes against her upper arm. It's wild, thinking she likes him, thinking she actually wants to kiss him. Eddie has liked girls before, he's had stupid, unreachable crushes, he's had girlfriends, one serious, a few not. He's fooled around with women in their twenties, one in her thirties, and one or two guys after some shows.

This is different. This is heart poundingly different.

"Yeah," he answers, then ducks his head and brushes his mouth over hers. "Any time you want."

It's barely a kiss this time, and still it makes Chrissy's heart race, the feeling of everything warm and surreal. Any time she wants means more than just tonight. She's still too stunned to get too far ahead of herself, unable to fully shake the feeling that there's going to be some catch, that he can't want what it seems like he wants, but there's promise in those words all the same. She won't have to worry about being too obvious or about him letting her down easy or any number of other things that have crossed her mind over the last few months. Chances are, she'll worry about plenty regardless, but even so, it's nice to have this in the midst of it.

"Good," she says, smiling shyly, close against his mouth, before she lifts her chin to kiss him again for real. Maybe the more they sit here like this, the more he kisses her, the more she'll actually believe that this has happened. Even if she doesn't, though, she can enjoy this in the meantime. "You, too. Any time."

Maybe he's had a stroke or something and he's in a coma, dreaming all this, but Eddie doesn't think so. When he lifts his hand to cup Chrissy's cheek, her skin is warm and smooth under his calloused fingertips. Her lips are so soft, full, tasting a little of their ice tea or maybe it's just her, maybe her mouth is just sweet and the thought makes a shiver race down Eddie's spine.

He's in no rush. He doesn't ever want to push Chrissy or pressure her, so he moves slowly. If all she wants to do for the next year is kiss, he'll happily do so.

His thumb sweeps over the skin of her neck, along the edge of her jaw, amazed she's letting him do this. Amazed that he can just touch her, kiss her, and not only is she allowing it, she wants it, too.

He touches her so gently, like she's something precious, something to be treasured, and Chrissy can't understand it at all. It's not that she would have expected him to be coarse or uncaring. She's known for a long time now that Eddie isn't what everyone back in Hawkins assumed him to be, that under the tattoos and the chains on his clothing and the metal music, he's warm and kind and caring. She just never imagined for a second that he would feel like this about her. Really, she never entirely thought anyone would. She's dated, but she was never anything more than a status symbol to those guys, something for them to show off.

This is different, at once soft and electric. She sighs contentedly against his mouth, her eyes falling shut, trying to savor this. In the back of her head, she's aware that they shouldn't get carried away while there's a pizza in the oven, but that isn't going to stop her from enjoying it now.

At some point, a natural lull in the kiss falls over them, probably for the best, since Eddie can smell the pizza. He leans his forehead against Chrissy's before he gets up, his eyes still closed, trying to make sense of all this.

"This is really happening, right?" he asks, opening his eyes. "I didn't fall and hit my head in the kitchen and right now I'm having some kind of crazy coma dream while you call an ambulance?"

Maybe it's a bit too descriptive, but Eddie's always been imaginative. He knows this is happening, he just has to communicate to Chrissy how wild this feels to him, how impossible it had all seemed before tonight. How impossible it still seems.

Chrissy exhales a laugh, flushed and breathless and smiling, watching him as he draws back. Really, it's crazy enough that this is apparently happening at all; it's far more so that he apparently has been thinking all the same things she has. Even now, she can't understand why he would be the one in danger of dreaming all of this up. As far as she can tell, neither of them is actually doing so, but knowing it is a far cry from processing it. That part, she thinks, is going to take a while longer.

"I'm pretty sure you didn't, but I think I might be frozen outside somewhere, just imagining all of this," she says. There's some old story sort of like that, she thinks, though the name escapes her now, and it's largely beside the point anyway. For a moment, instead, there's a different joke on the tip of her tongue — that at least she's hallucinating something nice this time, that she knows from experience that there are far worse ways to go — but it seems much too dark for the current mood.

"It's either that, or it is really happening."

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