heyheyhey! :] it's TWO days till Christmas! hooray!
haha i love winter break. okay. so here's a (hopefully) nice Christmas story. all CaRWash; i hope you guys aren't too bored with all my stories being shippie. i wouldn't write so many Calleigh/Ryan stories if the actual show had some Calleigh/Ryan action! this is basically a nice little fantasy i'd like to share. :]
so if you're not too busy Christmas shopping or decorating the house or partying all night long, take a gander. enjoy!
oops. almost forgot. i DISCLAIM that i don't own anything. not even the song.
December 12th
Ryan Wolfe had a problem. A predicament, a dilemma, a conundrum. Call it anything but good.
On top of that, he had a problem with problems. So now he had two things to worry about. Wow. December was not off to a good start this year.
The good news was, once he solved his problem, the other one would magically disappear with the first, and he'd be home free. The bad news? He has yet to solve the problem. Everything's sounding just a touch ironic, isn't it?
This must be what mid-life crises felt like. Wait. Did that mean he's going to die when he's in his forties? Oh no. Now he's got another problem to deal with.
Here's the thing. Christmas is around the corner. And Ryan was a good present-getter; his keen observation skills and anal attention to detail help him with the shopping each year. The situation wasn't about money either; he had plenty of that.
See, every year Ryan kept a journal. At the top of every page he'd write – in neat, big capital letters – someone's name, and he'd make a list of potential items to buy for them throughout the year (they depended on what they told him, what he heard about them, what he saw them do, that kind of stuff)… All right, so it sounded a bit like he was some shady stalker freak; that was why the journal was strictly top-secret and confidential.
The first page in his notebook had been blank the whole year. Just a completely white page that stared blankly right back at him every time he opened the book. Well, not completely white; there was a name at the top, but that was it.
CALLEIGH
Okay, so the page wasn't blank blank. It had useless things on it, things he was never going to buy for her, so didn't that count as nothing?
On any other year he would have taken a good long look at the list and bought every single thing on it, but this year he was going to make it different. He decided to tell Calleigh how much he liked her, and his cheesy side thought of the idea of expressing it through his Christmas present. Because as much as he enjoys the flirting relationship they shared, it never went past the point of witty sexual remarks and flirtatious banter.
And recently he realized he wanted more than that. He was fairly certain she felt the same way, but even if she didn't, he'd make sure his present would change her mind.
He liked her, he really did, he just wasn't all enthusiastic about going to Victoria's Secret and asking an employee where he could find a bra for Calleigh. Not that he knew her breast size, but even if he did, he still wouldn't have gone.
Or going to Sephora and bathing himself in women's perfume, trying to find 'a cute-smelling one' (Calleigh's words exactly). What defined a cute-smelling scent, anyway?
So there he was, giftless, with only 12 days of Christmas left.
Hey! That's a song!
Ryan stood in the Crime Lab's elevator holding a small box of evidence to bring to his Trace Lab. He made his own elevator music, humming 12 Days of Christmas while tapping his foot to the beat and bopping his head in time.
The elevator made a pit stop on its way to Ryan's floor, its doors opening to the woman with the 'blank' list on a supposedly nonexistent journal. She smiled brightly at Ryan, who stopped humming to return the smile with one showing his straight white teeth. After having already exchanged pleasantries while processing the scene earlier that day, and because the evidence was still unprocessed, they didn't have much to talk about. So Ryan returned to his humming and tapping and bopping.
"I can never memorize that song."
"... I'm sorry, what?" he didn't expect the outburst from Calleigh.
"The whole song? I can never remember all the gifts."
Ryan chuckled. "You can remember all the guns in the world, and then some, yet you can't remember 12 gifts?"
Calleigh made eye contact with him. Her eyes were sparkling. "That's different. I like guns."
"Does that mean you don't like the song?" he raised his eyebrow and leaned his head to the side.
"No, no. I like the song," she debated.
"So what makes it different, then?" Ryan asked her with a straight face.
Seconds after his lips curled into a smile. She'd been caught in her own excuse.
Taking it gracefully, she smiled and said, "Shut up. It's not my fault I have trouble reciting all the presents the true love gave."
The elevator slowed to a stop and dinged. "Oh. This is my floor," Calleigh claimed.
A brilliant idea made its way to Ryan's brain just before the metal doors closed between them.
"Don't worry, Cal," he started, "I'll help you remember them."
The doors closed on a puzzled Calleigh.
dun dun dun... ;P
i think you know what i'm thinking right now. review, please. i'ma try & get the whole story done, at the very latest, on boxing day.
reviews would be the greatest online present ever!