Hi! Happy December Here's my POTO Holiday Advent-Calendar one-shot that was posted over on tumblr today! This is E/C's first Christmas together after they started dating in my "The Belonging You Seek"(aka "Delirium Kisses") universe!
The fairy lights in the store window twinkled white as they walked by, Christine's eyes lingering on the decorations just through the glass.
"…I mean it's our first Christmas as married couple- what do I even get him? It can't be tacky; I don't do tacky. I was thinking a nice watch, but he already has one and…"
Christine sighed and resisted rolling her eyes as she wrapped her arm tighter around Megs elbow. The crosswalk sign blinked red in front of them as it waited for the cars to finish passing.
She thought she might scream if she had to hear Meg contemplate what to get her dearest husband for Christmas again.
But here she was, and she wasn't screaming.
She shook her head; her own willpower to keep their friendship alive really surprised her sometimes.
Instead of screaming she just nudged Meg playfully to the side- effectively (albeit temporarily) shutting her up.
"Meg," she said, firm in her tone but a smile on her lips. "Raoul will love whatever you get him. Because it's from you."
She emphasized the last word with a playful wink, careful to hide the bitterness that built like bile in the back of her throat. It didn't do any good to let the past control her present or her friends.
At least that's what she'd been telling herself. And it was working…to some degree.
"Yeah, I just want it to be perfect you know? It's a special one, you only get a first Christmas together once…I want it to be memorable," Meg replied, practically dragging her across the street as the crosswalk light signaled it was safe to cross.
Christine laughed at that, stumbling to catch her footing on the other side of the street. "However it turns out, I'm positive it'll be memorable…this is you we're talking about."
Meg rolled her eyes and readjusted the purse on her shoulder.
"I know, I know…" then Meg got that look in her eyes.
That mischievous, I-know-more-than-I-should, smirky look of hers.
"Well, let's not forget that I'm not the only one celebrating a first Christmas together, hm?" Meg chided, wagging her finger playfully in front of Christine's face as they walked to the next store.
Christine couldn't help the blush that she knew crept on to her cheeks or the way that she glanced down to avoid Meg's peering gaze.
It was true. It was a Christmas of firsts all around.
"Yeah, yeah…" she smiled, shaking her head in disbelief. It seemed like only yesterday had been February and today was a week and half before Christmas—
She supposed time really did fly when you were happy.
"Sooooo…what do you and Erik have planned? Oh wait! Don't tell me…uh…ice skating? No, no he wouldn't do that…um—"
Christine laughed, cutting her off. "Erik wouldn't be caught dead ice skating, not in public at least. You know him. He has social anxiety; he doesn't like people."
Meg cocked a grin then. "Well he certainly likes one at least."
Christine shook her head, her smile growing larger. "Hey, he likes you too, and your mom!"
"Oh I know, I know…but you know what I mean…" she trailed off as she unwound her arm from Christines and opened the door to the jewelry store she had next on her list. "I will say, it was a little strange with you two at first…I mean he held me as a baby—"
"Erik is not that old—"
"Well I was practically a baby, Chris! I might as well have called him Uncle—"
Christine raised an eyebrow at that, never having heard that one before. "Are you telling me you're going to start calling me aunt or something?" She barely got the sentence out through her giggles as she eyed a pair of sparkling earrings in their glass case.
Meg's eyes were wide as she turned back to her, mouth open. "Are you trying to tell me…" instead of finishing the sentence she wiggled her left hand's fingers, pointing to her own sizable wedding ring.
Christine picked up on what she was implying before she could say another word. "Oh no. No. No, I was just saying that. We haven't…we've barely talked about it really ah…no. No ring," she flustered, eyes quickly finding anywhere— anything— else to look at to distract her from Meg's prying eyes and smug smile.
She wasn't lying. There was no ring, no promise of marriage, and they really hadn't truly talked about it. The word had been thrown into the air a few times sure but…they hadn't even dated for a whole year yet, really. She didn't want to move too fast and jump into things; she'd done that before and paid for it. As Meg was a daily reminder of. But that was different, Erik was different.
She felt like wherever he was she was home, and that was a feeling she'd learned not to take for granted.
Maybe she did want to marry him, maybe she did want the ring and the house and the kids and the perfect little movie life.
But maybe Erik didn't.
She didn't know.
"It's only been like eight months since we started dating, Meg…" she shrugged at Meg's now somewhat disappointed look.
"No, I shouldn't have assumed, but you can't blame me for hoping— I just want you happy, Chris!"
She gave Meg a small smile at that before turning back to the same dangling earrings from before.
"Any idea what you're getting him for Christmas?" Meg asked, coming to stand close beside her.
Christine shook her head, moving on to look at the next pair. "No idea. What do you get someone who can already buy whatever they want?"
Meg nodded. "I know the feeling…"
Christine blew out a puff of air, making a loose hair curl fly up and then back down in front of her face.
"Well doesn't he like those nerdy things? What about some…I don't know…Legos? Is that even right?"
She laughed at Meg's willingness to help and shook her head. "He already has too many of those in his basement. He is an architect after all. Besides…I want something better than that, something personal, y'know?"
It was Meg's turn to shrug then, picking up a bracelet off a display holder. "Well, I suppose there's always a watch, right?"
Christine laughed, but on the inside sighed.
A week and a half until Christmas.
What was she going to get him?
Christine closed the fridge door as she felt a pair of hands come up behind her, snaking around her waist.
"Well good morning to you too," she chuckled, turning around in his arms and pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
He was still in his flannel pajama pants and sweatshirt...it must be nice to work from home she supposed. She had dressed while he slept and she usually bid him goodbye while he was still in bed, his cat faithfully curled up asleep beside him.
He hummed against her.
"Did I tell you I found it?" He said, unlacing his arms and walking towards the laundry basket that sat in one of their kitchen chairs.
She shook her head, popping the lid onto her coffee cup that she'd pulled out of the fridge. "No, what'd you find?"
He made a show of holding up his hand for her to wait as he dug through the laundry before raising a tattered clump of red yarn up in the air.
"Ta da!" He sang as he shook the yarn out, a long scarf tumbling out of the clumped form as he did.
"Oh Erik!" She exclaimed as she hurried over to the kitchen table, taking her scarf from his hands and wrapping it around her throat and tucking the ends into the coat she had already put on. (She was honestly running a bit behind and if she didn't leave soon she would have to find a better excuse than "I lost my favorite lost scarf" because she'd already used that one and she didn't like repeating excuses unless they were necessary.
"Yeah, I'm afraid Ayesha had hidden it by the washer with the rest of her treasures," he chuckled, giving the cat that sat licking her paws on the floor the side eye.
Christine bent down and rubbed Ayesha's ears (earning a side eye from the cat herself) "This isn't a kitty toy, silly—"
"Can't really blame her, it's just about in tatters, she probably mistook it for a ball of string." He shrugged, straightening the clothes he had disrupted in the laundry basket.
She frowned at that, standing back up. "It's not in tatters," she was quick to defend the simple scarf around her neck, "it's just…well-loved that's all."
She watched as he rolled his eyes and picked up the laundry basket of their clothes to go put away.
"Well loved or not, it's looking rough. Why don't you just let me buy you a new one?"
"No!" She said a bit too quickly, making him stop in his path on the way back to the bedroom of their apartment.
"No, it's special. My mom made it for me and…" she glanced at the floor, picking at the loose threads of her coat. "It's really all I have left of her besides her locket. I barely remember her as it is and…"
She kept rambling until she heard the gentle clatter of the laundry basket being sent down and then there was a pair of arms around her again, holding her close. She didn't cry, she usually reserved tears for when the pain of her father not being there anymore hit, but it still hurt.
A lot.
"Shh…don't feel like you have to convince me. My own mother never made me anything, I didn't even think about it. Don't listen to me…" he trailed off as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then pulled back, holding her by her shoulders.
"Now you're gonna be late if you don't leave," he reminded her, scooping the laundry basket back into his arms, and calling Ayesha to follow him.
"I'll miss you," she smiled as she picked her keys up off the counter and watched him walk towards the bedroom.
"I'll miss you more," he called over his shoulder before the door shut behind him.
But the words lingered in her mind as she opened the hallway door to her apartment and stepped out:
My own mother never made me anything…
She nodded to herself.
She had a very good idea what to get him for Christmas now.
Christine had never knit anything before in her life.
Never.
But here she was, red yarn and steel needles in her hand, "how-to-knit-for-beginners" tutorial video pulled up on her laptop in front of her on her bed and bedroom door locked in case of curious well-meaning eyes.
She could do this.
She'd already watched the video and it didn't look that hard. It was just loops. And more loops and more loops and then a knot — she could do this!
Her first attempt was…less than useful. Her stitches kept dropping and she couldn't understand why in the world the yarn was so tight around the needles. It looked so easy when other people did it!
She'd just have to start over.
And she did. Three, four…eight more times until she got a steady start and a few neat rows of stitches done. She held her work up to admire it, the Sunday afternoon light streaming in through the window. She took a moment to glance out the window, watching the snow as it softly fell. Maybe they'd actually have a white Christmas this year. It seemed like the snow was just narrowly skipping around Christmas the past few years and it would be so nice to wake up to snow—
She felt her pile of excess yarn uncoil from her lap and then a tug against her knitting needles. She raised an eyebrow and looked down:
Her yarn was gone.
"What the…" she looked around herself but then followed the taught string to the edge of the bed and then looked to the floor beneath it.
Ah ha.
Blissfully tangled up in the dark red yarn was Ayesha, chewing on one end of the string and batting a bundle of it with her back paws.
"Ayesha!" She whispered harshly, careful to not be too loud in case Erik realized she'd locked herself in their bedroom on purpose. She hadn't known the cat was in here when she came in, she must've been sleeping under the bed…again.
Ayesha merely stared up at her from where she played on her back, still attempting to eat a bit of the string.
"Bad cat," she scolded as she reached down to wrestle the thread from the cat's grasp (not an easy feat mind you, Ayesha had claws like a bear) and pile it back up on the bed with her. She wiped the wet string on her shirt; Erik wouldn't mind, it was his cat after all.
"There now," she said to herself, situating herself back into an easy pattern of slowly knitting and eyeing the yarn.
She heard a familiar "meow" and then the rustle of the comforter as Ayesha leaped up on to the bed, determined to play with her newfound toy.
"Ayesha, no," she said firmly, pulling most of the string close to her side. "This is for your daddy, not for you."
Ayesha slowly blinked back at her.
She swore that sometimes that cat and Erik made the same faces.
She settled on gently batting the actual ball of yarn around the bed after realizing that Christine wasn't going to let her have the loose string that she knitted with. Everything was going okay then; Ayesha was being quiet, her yarn stitches didn't look a total hot mess, and Erik's new handmade scarf was slowly coming together.
It was a few days before Christmas and she'd made good headway on the scarf, only having a few more rows to make and to be honest, she was quite proud of herself.
Maybe she should pick up more yarn and make him a whole set of things: a hat…gloves…a sweater…
She stopped herself there. Knitting a scarf only involved knitting in a straight line and maybe that was enough for her right now.
She pulled her coat tighter as she walked up the stairs to her apartment, digging around for her keys in her pocket as she neared her door. Erik was constantly thanking her for letting him move in, but she thought she might explode if she had to tell him one more time that she wanted him there. After all, she certainly wasn't about to move in with Erik.
He'd been living in his friend Nadir's basement.
Basement.
Nadir had a wife and a baby nearly due and she was honestly the one who convinced him to move in with her.
Though she knew good and well he still had a lot of belongings in that man's basement.
Nadir was a saint for putting up with him.
She shook her head as she reached her door, putting the key in the lock—
She stopped.
She could hear a muffled voice on the other side — Erik's — and some rushed footsteps.
Her door never unlocked slower it seemed.
Was something wrong? Had there been an emergency? She had just been thinking about Nadir and Mandy— had their baby come early?
"Erik?" She called out as she opened the door.
She didn't see him.
"Erik?" She tried again, shutting the door behind her and poking her head into the kitchen. Not here either.
Her eyes roamed the living area until she saw it.
A long red string.
Christine's eyes widened.
"Ayesha," she growled under her breath, eyes darting around looking for the little troublemaker. But she knew where Ayesha was, even if she couldn't see her. She knew.
Her eyes followed the trail of string all the way to the bedroom door that was cracked open.
"No, no, no…" she whispered to herself as she pushed the door open, already dreading the sight of what she was sure would be waiting for her—
Instead it was Erik, back to her but facing the bed, Ayesha looking a bit too proud of herself perched on the edge of the bed.
"Erik?" She said again but was interrupted.
"Did you…" a swallow, "did you make this?" Erik asked softly as he turned around, half-unraveled scarf held gently in his hands.
She felt the heat rising to her cheeks.
Of course, the damn cat would be the one to blow her secret.
She nodded, coming to stand next to the bed with him.
"Yeah, I…well it's silly," she tripped over her words as she sat down on the bed beside Ayesha, giving her a pat on the head to distract herself. "I was so sad that your mom had never made you anything and I treasure my old red scarf so much for that exact reason and well…" she looked up at him.
His eyes very nearly had tears in them, just waiting for the right moment to fall.
"I thought I'd make you a matching one," she finished with a shrug before looking back at Ayesha. "It's not that good, and this one keeps unraveling it and—"
"Hey," his voice was low as she felt him take her hands in his.
She let her eyes drift back to him and watch him kneel beside the bed, so he was eye level with her where she sat.
"It's perfect."
And he looked so genuinely happy when he said it that Christine laughed in spite of herself and squeezed his hands. "Really? I can remake it—"
He shook his head as he put the scarf over his head then threw the other end around his neck, a purple knitting needle still hanging off on one end.
"How could I not love it?" Erik said, bringing his hands back down to hold hers. "You made it for me."
Gosh she loved it when he smiled.
She bent forward and kissed him, still holding his hands tight in hers. "I just wanted our first Christmas to be special," she breathed against his lips as they parted, feeling her own eyes start to well up with tears of her own (out of happiness or pent-up frustration that Ayesha had ruined her Christmas surprise she wasn't sure).
"Christine any day with you is special," he said in that tone of his that made her heart drop and knees weak.
She smiled and shook her head. "I was afraid you wouldn't like it, I'm not very good at knitting yet…"
But all he did in return was loop the long end of the scarf around her neck as well, pulling her in close. There was only the smallest of space between them now, and his breath was warm against her neck. She let her eyes wander from the scarf to his eyes, to his lips…and then she was closing the gap between them, his tears salty in her mouth.
"Well, now I need to find you a new Christmas present," she forced out a laugh despite her own tears that now trickled down her cheek.
Erik swiped at them with his thumb, holding her face in his hands before pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
"Oh nonsense, this is Christmas gift enough…"
But then he winked, unwrapped the scarf from her neck and stood up.
"Besides, if you really feel like getting me something else, I'm sure Wal-Mart still has that Yoda Lego set I was eyeing up last week…"