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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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."

"Since you're saying I haven't hit my head and I'm saying you're not frozen outside, I guess we're forced to accept this is a real thing," Eddie answers, his grin lopsided and pleased. "Which I'm a big fan of."

He kisses Chrissy again, a shorter kiss, the sort he can imagine himself giving her when one of them has to go to work as things grow more comfortable and the very thought sends sparks of pleasure down into his stomach.

"Okay, but now it's time for pizza and movies," he tells her, holding her hands for a moment and giving them a squeeze. "And absolutely more making out if you're into it."

For a moment, after he kisses her, Chrissy can only look at him, awestruck and pleased. Since the first day they started spending time together, even with as awful as everything was for her then, she's felt more comfortable in his presence than she's really used to with anyone. This, though, she never expected. Even her own feelings for him took her by surprise, once she realized they were there, but actually having them reciprocated is something else entirely, something wonderful.

"I'm definitely into it," she tells him, nose scrunching as she grins. There's so much she wants to say, to ask, but she at least has the sense not to go blurting it all out at once. "Pizza and movies and more making out sounds pretty perfect, actually."

"Pretty great Christmas Eve after all," he says, then grins again before he turns and heads into the kitchen. There's a bit of clanging as he finds his oven mitts, then again as he takes the pizza out of the oven and sets the hot pan on top of the stove so it can cool down a little.

"How many pieces do you want?" he asks, hunting for a pizza cutter in his drawers. Eddie has never bought one, but he figures that's the sort of thing that should come with these places before they even move in. With a little crow of triumph, he finds one in the back of a drawer and pulls it out, with still more clattering.

"Um, two?" Chrissy decides, what seems like a reasonable number. She doesn't want to not eat when Eddie went to the trouble of getting food for them; she doesn't want to overdo it and hate herself for it later. Two seems nicely in the middle, and she can pick at them while they watch the movie, between bouts of making out. The thought makes her cheeks feel warm all over again, her smile pulling a little wider, warm and almost shy.

As she listens to utensils clattering in the kitchen, the first thing he said sticks in her head, the after all and how much an echo it is of her own thoughts. "You know, I kept thinking this was going to be a terrible idea," she tells him, a little sheepish. "That you'd know, and it would just make things awkward, and... Well, I'm glad I was wrong."

"I thought you knew for sure," Eddie says as he returns, carrying two plates. On one, two slices, and on the other, probably too many slices, but he's hungry and he doesn't think Chrissy will mind.

"After the mistletoe," he continues as he sits down beside her, setting the plates on the coffee table. "I thought, well shit, she's seen right through me and pretty much has it all figured out and she's just too sweet to tell me I've got it totally wrong."

He picks up a slice of pizza and takes a bite, then looks over at Chrissy. As he wipes a bit of sauce from his lip, he says, "I would've been okay with that. Just so you know. I wasn't hanging around hoping you'd change your mind, I was just glad you were my friend. If that was all we ever were, it still would've been great, Chrissy."

"Same here," Chrissy says, watching him with affection that she doesn't have to try to hide now as she takes a bite of pizza. Saying some of this — the things that have been rattling around her head for months now, that she hasn't let herself admit to anyone — is still harder, but at least she doesn't have to try to pretend not to feel the way she does anymore. "To all of it, but that last part. I mean..." She pulls a face, sheepish. "You're my best friend."

Although it's been true for a long time now, probably since she got here, she isn't sure she's ever said that outright, either. It feels strange, a little childish, but she means it all the same. He is her best friend — probably the best she's ever had, at that. "You still would've been. I've been happy just to have that. It's not like I ever expected anything else."

Maybe those words shouldn't make his heart pound the way they do, not after the kisses, but they mean so much. Without even realizing, Chrissy has become his best friend, the person he trusts most in Darrow and it means a lot to hear he's become the same for her.

Eddie doesn't know a lot about relationships, he's far from an expert, his experience is limited when it comes to anything meaningful and yet he feels certain all of the sudden that being best friends first will give them an advantage. They're not just here for sex, this isn't born out of lust -- not entirely, anyway, Eddie has definitely thought about Chrissy during some personal time -- they're both here because they like being with each other.

"Yeah," he says, looking pleased, a bit wondering. "You're my best friend, too. I kinda think... maybe that's the best place to start."

For one ridiculous moment, Chrissy wonders if he means that's all he wants to be. It would make no sense, really, when he's the one who admitted his feelings to her first, never mind what else he's said since. None of it strikes her as particularly ambiguous. It's so new, though, and so hard to wrap her head around. She's spent the last few months increasingly aware of the crush she's had on him, and in turn increasingly convinced that there's no way it could ever be reciprocated. Of course there's a part of her that still seizes the slightest opportunity to think that it's too good to be true after all.

She tries her best to ignore that stupid little voice in the back of her head, focusing instead on the warm, flustered feeling that has yet to fade. That, too, is ridiculous, but in a totally different way, and not at all unwelcome.

"So does that mean you're my best friend and my boyfriend now?" she asks with a teasing smile. Really, her own insecurities and anxiety aside, he's probably right. She's never gone out with someone she's so close to before. It feels vastly different than saying yes when some jock asks her out for the sake of status. Different, and infinitely preferable.

"I think so," Eddie answers, grinning over at Chrissy, his expression a little pleased, a little shy. "I think that's what we've figured out here."

He doesn't want to keep saying he hopes so, because obviously he does. At this point, it has to be obvious that he likes her just as much as she likes him. So he's going to be decisive. He's going to say, yeah, he likes her, he's her best friend and he's her boyfriend.

"That's pretty cool," he says, then takes another big bite of pizza. "I don't think I've ever been someone's best friend and their boyfriend." He's only had one proper girlfriend and it hadn't lasted all that long, despite how much he had liked her. Not many parents wanted their daughter dating someone like Eddie Munson.

Chrissy doesn't think she's ever even been just someone's best friend before. A lot of people's friend, maybe — she was good at that, being social, being liked, because it felt like she had to be — but certainly no one's best friend. For that matter, she doesn't think she's ever had a best friend before him. She never let herself get close enough to anyone for that. Other girls always seemed like competition, anyway. Not that she would ever have taken it out on them, but she could never stop herself from comparing them, noting who was prettier or skinnier or more talented than she was, who she'd never manage to live up to.

She supposes that's one more thing she has her mother to thank for, a mindset that was instilled in her before she even realized it was happening. But this, this is all hers. It isn't why she likes Eddie or why she wants to be with him, but she can't deny that there is a slight, guilty appeal in knowing that her parents would hate this.

"It is pretty cool," she agrees, nodding, her own following bite of pizza a smaller one. "I haven't, either." She makes a face, her own words catching up to her a moment belatedly. "Been someone's best friend and their girlfriend, that is. Though I guess I could say I've never been someone's best friend and their boyfriend, either."

It makes him laugh and Eddie leans into Chrissy, bumping her shoulder with his own. The face she's just made is so cute, something in the wrinkle of her nose warming his chest, and if he hadn't already been well aware of just how head over heels he is for her, that might have done it.

"I've only had one girlfriend before," he admits. "Kelly Wright. I don't know if you really knew her, she was a year younger than me. She was in trouble a lot, so maybe you do. She was the girl who was suspended your freshman year for punching a guy in the cafeteria."

No one had ever asked Kelly if the guy deserved it, which he had.

"Wait, I think I actually do remember that," Chrissy says, surprised and amused by this revelation. She wouldn't have known at the time that Eddie was dating her, and if she's honest, she doesn't think she even remembers Kelly herself. The incident itself, though, rings a bell. Someone getting punched in the cafeteria tends to be a pretty big deal, the sort of thing that might dominate the rumor mill for a week or two.

Thinking about that now, she feels an odd sort of relief at the fact that she doesn't have to deal with any of that anymore, that they won't have to deal with anything of the sort here. She would have, if this had happened in Hawkins instead; he's worth it. Still, if there's one thing she doesn't miss, it's the constant scrutiny she faced and the feeling that she would never live up to what anyone wanted her to be.

"I've had... a few boyfriends?" she admits in turn, unsure how much or how little attention he might have paid to any of that. "Jason, obviously. I actually went out with Steve for a little while when I was a freshman. A couple others in between. But nothing that ever really... meant anything." She was always just doing what she thought she should be doing, telling herself that she felt the way she should feel. This, from the start, has been utterly different. She leans over a little, and when she kisses him this time, it's soft and chaste, her lips pressing to the corner of his mouth. "And I happen to like you a lot, Eddie Munson."

"The guy deserved it, too, he was spreading all these rumours about this other girl," Eddie says. "He was a shit."

And Kelly had never been able to stay quiet about stuff like that. She might have seemed scary, but she stuck up for people, and she'd been well liked for it, even if it was a quiet sort of respect. Like Chrissy, Eddie still isn't sure why she'd liked him so much. It's something they have in common, two very cool girls who are much too good for him, although he already knows he was never this head over heels for Kelly.

"Steve told me you guys went out," Eddie says, grinning and slipping his arm around Chrissy. His pizza is mostly forgotten at this point, much too focused on the girl sitting beside him. "This was, um... a few months back. I got all weird and defensive, like why are you telling me, I don't have any claim on her, we're just friends and he was definitely not fooled."

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