It's the first day of December so here starts the Christmasing! Admittedly, I already put up my tree last week but I digress. I'm starting a series of Skyeward Christmas one shots, hence the title 12 Days of Skyeward. They will all be based on either a Tumblr prompt, a Christmas song, or both. I will be uploading a story every other day leading up to Christmas, with the last story going up on Christmas Eve. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to review, follow, and favorite (because let's be honest, that would be the best Christmas gift ever :D)
Disclaimer: I do not own Agents of SHIELD, Marvel or any of the Christmas songs used in this fic.
Chapter 1: We Need a Little Christmas
Yes, we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
It hasn't snowed a single flurry
But Santa, dear, we're in a hurry
Skye Coulson loved Christmas. Which was the sole reason behind the fact she was blaring Christmas carols the day right after Thanksgiving.
The walls of her small New York apartment echoed with the tunes of Christmas songs, the beat of drums, and the jingling of bells. Some were traditional ballads while others were more upbeat. Nevertheless, they all were coated with the sweet taste of holiday cheer.
Which was probably the reason why Grant Ward hated it so much. All day that day, the thin wall separating his apartment from hers shook from the blare of her damned speakers.
It's not even anywhere near Christmas, he groaned into his bed. He was trying to get paperwork done but the constant caroling had gotten so ear wrenching he had resorted to burying his head into his bed sheets. Admittedly, he might be a bit biased towards that holiday in particular but that was beside the point. The point was, his obnoxiously attractive neighbor was blaring holiday Christmas carols in November.
Skye had moved into the building six months ago. He was friends with Skye only because she worked at the same company that Fitz and Jemma worked. Between living a couple feet away from another in the same apartment building and Fitz and Jemma being mutual friends, they had spent time together. But none of that time prepared him for the Christmas Extravaganza that seemed to be taking place on the other side of the wall.
If I hear Mariah Carey playing one more time, he thought, I'm going to lose my damn mind. And that's when All I Want for Christmas is You started playing. For the one hundredth time.
With another almighty groan of frustration he pulled himself up from his blanketed cocoon and stomped through the door and toward that of his neighbor's and rapped impatiently. He didn't fail to notice the Christmas wreath already attached to the knocker.
When he didn't hear anyone coming to the door (he figured it was due to the blaring music that blocked out even the voiced in your head) he knocked louder. Finally he heard muffled footsteps through the thick haze of his neighbor's Christmas playlist.
Suddenly, the door swung open so fast that Grant had to take a step back to avoid going into a collision with the wreath ironed wood.
"Hey Grant," Skye, in all her holiday glory, stood in the doorframe blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah, actually, you can." Grant says through the musical instrumental coming from her apartment, "Can you turn down the music? Honestly, it's not even December and the walls are really thin and I can hear every single song you put on so could you at least turn it down? Please?"
"Don't you like Christmas songs?"
"As a matter of fact I do not, especially when they are this early." Grant says with a hint of annoyance.
Skye smirks. Oh God, how that smirk made him breathless inside, he did not know.
"Alright, Scrooge, I'll keep it down. Tell Fitz and Jemma I say 'hi'." And with a wink and a swish of her hair the door slams shut.
With a controlled huff, Grant walks the two-steps to his apartment and busies himself with his paperwork once more. He is glad to hear the lack of caroling and finally relaxes with his reports. Just as he is on the first page (filling out the background of a criminal that his police department had just apprehended) he is startled by the loud sounds of bells.
HAUL OUT THE HOLLY
PUT UP THE TREE
The blaring music shakes the picture frames on the wall between him and Skye. With another loud groan of frustration (Skye seems to pulling a lot of those out of him as of late) he stomps out of his apartment and turns to face her door. While he knocks incessantly, the bells attached to the wreath on her door give off a high, tinkling noise. The door opens immediately, as if Skye had been waiting for him.
"Can I help you?" She asks with a sugary-sweet voice.
"Can you please turn your music down?!"
"Why?" She bats her eyelashes. She has got to be doing this on purpose!
"Because as much as I would like to mask my pain in front of a beautiful woman, your music is too loud and too annoying for me to focus on anything!"
With an ever-present grin on her face, she clucks her tongue gleefully.
"Fine, I'll stop." She concedes. Grant lets out a sigh of relief. "If you go on a date with me."
His newfound relief is gone as fast as it came. "What?" Grant is shocked to say the least.
"Oh come on," She steps forward close enough he can smell her perfume. She even smells like the holidays! "It's only one date. Besides, you did say that you think I'm beautiful and we're friends so why not?" She lets out a breathy laugh.
"I did not." Grant says like a child at which Skye raises an eyebrow. "No, that's not what I meant-"
Another laugh escapes her. "Aw, robot," She says using the nickname she had dubbed him with, "That was too easy. But really, it's only one date."
Grant ponders his options. He can either try to endure the days leading up to Christmas that are, no doubt, going to be loud and filled with the loud jingling of bells, or to just suck it up. A part of him, he later realizes, really wants "suck it up" and just go with her. But you're not really "sucking it up" when you actually do want to do something.
"Fine." He says tightlipped. "When do you want to go?"
"Right now, of course."
Xx 12 Days of Skyeward xX
And that's how Grant finds himself across from Skye at a small café half an hour later. Throughout the course of their date/spontaneous decision that was the result of an ultimatum, he enjoys her company. He had always thought of her as attractive (in fact, he secretly thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on) and Fitz and Jemma had always joked about there always being some sexual tension between them, but he had tried not to dwell on them.
They talked about their jobs (he was a police officer and she was a computer programmer), and how Rhonda, the waitress that served them, reminded him a bit of his Gramsy.
"Can I ask you something?" She asks after they finish laughing over her story of what happened on a drunken night with Jemma.
"You just did." He smiles through his coffee cup, trying to be coy.
"Haha very funny. But seriously, can I ask you something?"
"Go for it."
"Why do you hate Christmas so much? I know that anyone could get annoyed by it all but with you it seems like something more."
Grant lets out a sigh. Never in a million years did he ever think he would find himself on a coffee date with his lightning storm of a neighbor telling her things about the past that he shut away. But oddly he finds that he wants to.
"It's a long story," He says hesitantly.
"I've still got at least half a cup." She holds up her mug like a salute.
Grant takes a deep. "My family was not made up of good people. There is the exception of Tommy and Gramsy but that's about it. Everyone else was twisted in their own sort of way. My dad was abusive towards us and my mom was an alcoholic who was too busy trying to drink herself to death to give a shit about it. My brother Christian was following in my father's footsteps both in politics and in temperament. It was worse when Christian was abusing us. He-" He fights back the lump in his throat. In all honesty, he is surprised he told her this much without bolting from the room, or worse, he bolting from him.
Skye inches her hand across the table so that she is holding his fingers. Not too tight to be overbearing and pitying, but just enough to know she is there.
"He would make me hurt Tommy. And I did it." Skye's hold spasms slightly. Afraid to look her in the eye, he focuses his gaze on the small pots of poinsettias decorating the surrounding tables.
"On Christmas, my father was hosting a party for all his work friends, for them to see what a perfect life we had." He spits out 'perfect' like it's a nasty word that shouldn't be said when in company.
"He was too busy trying to impress them and my mother was taking tequila shots behind the Christmas bouquets that they didn't see Christian make Tommy and I go outside. There was a well in the backyard and" His voice falters. "And he made me push Tommy in. Tommy couldn't swim and it was so cold and he wouldn't let me pull him out until he was near freezing. Tommy was never the same afterwards. The memory has faded a bit but I can still remember Tommy's screaming being drowned out by the Christmas music playing from the house." He blinks the moisture from eyes, refusing for them to fall.
"Hey, none of that was your fault." Skye finally says, "It is not your fault that you had a shitty family and that they forced you to do fucked up things."
"But I did them, I was the one that hurt Tommy!"
"Because he made you. If he didn't force you to, you wouldn't have done it."
And because she sounds so right and comforting he believes her.
"How did you get out?"
"Gramsy figured out what was going on and she became me and Tommy's guardian. Christian and my father didn't get arrested though, they covered everything up."
After a beat Grant finally regains his voice. "Can I ask you something?"
"You just did." She responds with a smirk, echoing his earlier response.
"Why do you like Christmas so much? We know why I don't like it so why do you feel the opposite?"
Skye plays with his fingers.
"I didn't have the happiest of childhoods either. My parents dumped me on the steps of an orphanage when I was a baby and they never looked back. I spent sixteen years there surrounded by screaming nuns and screaming children who would never get a home. Christmases there weren't the best considering there was never enough of anything. There was never enough affection or love to even go around, let alone gifts. I remember being so jealous of the little kids that got a family that year."
It's Grant that squeezes his hand this time.
"It wasn't until a couple started fostering me when I sixteen that I finally got the family I had always wanted. They officially adopted me on Christmas day." Skye says with a smile. "I may have had some shitty Christmases but that doesn't mean that they all have to be that way. I'm just making the most of all the ones to come."
Xx 12 Days of Skyeward xX
"I had a nice time. " Skye says when they stand in front of their apartment doors.
"Me, too." Grant can't keep the grin from spreading across his face.
"I promise I'll keep the Christmas songs down from now on." She says. "But if you ask me, I don't regret blaring them. After all, we probably wouldn't have done this if I hadn't."
Grant lets out a laugh.
"I think we would have gone on a date eventually, we just didn't know it."
"I'm glad it happened this way."
Skye stands on her tip toes and kisses him on the lips. It's sweet and gentle and everything that the two of them never had when they were younger. All too soon the kiss ends and Skye has a hand on her door knob. From this angle, the wreath on her door is just above her head, almost like a halo.
"Goodnight, Grant." She says softly before slipping inside her apartment.
When he gets inside his own, he still has a smile on his face. Hit with a sudden idea, he goes to his computer and connects it to a pair of speakers that Fitz had left. With the laptop and speakers in hand, he walks over to the wall between him and Skye. After tapping on the keyboard a little, he props the speakers so that they face the wall.
Haul out the holly,
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again…
From the other side of the wall Skye smiles.
P.S The café I wrote about for this one-shot is the same café I used in my Begin Again universe