'Mistletoe'
For: (tumblr request)
Pairing: Chris Jericho/Amanda (OC)
Year: 2015
Summary: Amanda stands in the doorway and watches her friends dance along very out of time to some upbeat Christmas music. Every so often someone will look her way and smirk, or perhaps wink, but she plays it off as them all being drunk. At least, she does until she feels a light hand on the centre of her back.

Nobody wants to mention how things are a little weird but everybody is feeling it to some extent. The first glaringly obvious difference is the lack of children running around and the second is the lack of homely details about the house. It looks tragically unlived in compared to previous years.

Still, nobody says a word about the difference as they stand about Chris Jericho's house and thank him for continuing to host the annual Christmas Party. That is, until everyone begins drinking and no longer cares that things are a little weird. Everyone except for Amanda, that is.

She's not bothered by the excessive drinking her co-workers do around the holidays – or any other time of the year – in fact, she finds it all largely amusing. She just sits back on the couch and watches with the corners of her lips turned upwards as Dean Ambrose tries to gather enough people to go carolling; as Dolph Ziggler pulls something out of his pocket and announces that he will be in charge of the mistletoe; as Brie Bella enters the room brandishing a large glass of wine, already well on her way to Brie Mode.

Various people sit beside her at various points in the evening – some trying to convince her that the eggnog isn't alcoholic, even though she can smell it as soon as they're within three feet of her, while others ask her what she's planning on doing for Christmas.

Everyone who is talking to her is her friend and she is grateful for them and their contagious happiness. When their loudness gets to be too much, though, Amanda heads outside and sits happily on the front steps, off to the side as to not hinder those who were walking in and out. The thing about Florida is that, while the lack of snow makes for a very different Christmas experience, the still-warm weather makes it possible to sit outside and enjoy the decorations put up by the houses on the street.

"Hot chocolate?"

She knows who the voice belongs to before she even she pulls her eyes away from the inflatable reindeer on the lawn opposite and looks up.

Chris Jericho.

"Oh, thank you," Amanda says as she reaches up take the mug being offered to her. "It's a little too warm for hot chocolate, isn't it?"

Chris shrugs and sits down beside her. "Never too warm for hot chocolate."

"I suppose," she says quietly with a small smile. "You didn't have to do this again. Everyone would have completely understood if you handed off the party to someone else."

"Gives me something normal to do."

"Are you doing okay? It must be tough."

"I think it's been long enough. It was a long time coming, anyway."

Amanda can't help but let her eyes wander to his left hand. She has seen him without his wedding ring many times before – he rarely wore it during his matches – but to see, in the faint light, that his ring finger was also void of a tattoo has his heart aching for him. She isn't going to ask about it because it wisn't any of her business but she drops her hand to his knee to comfort him.

"Everyone did good, eh?" Chris asks and Amanda watches as his attention drifted to the reindeers she had been staring at before he joined her. "It gets bigger and better every year."

"I've noticed." Amanda smiles as she looks away from him and to the house next door to the reindeer. Its large oak tree is decorated with lights and large baubles and, even if it isn't a traditional pine, it is the prettiest tree she has ever seen. "When I have a family," she says softly, "I'm going to have a huge tree like that covered in decorations. Everyone else's yards are going to look so bare in comparison to mine."

"How does mine look?" Chris asks with a light elbow into her arm. "Would it hold up?"

"You did a fantastic job, Chris. Really."

He smiles at her, opening his mouth to say something else just as the door behind them opens and they are joined by Brie and Daniel.

Amanda, not wanting to sit beside Cody and Brandi as they shamelessly make out, stands in the doorway and watches her friends dance along very out of time to some upbeat Christmas music. Every so often someone will look her way and smirk, or perhaps wink, but she plays it off as them all being drunk.

At least, she does until she feels a light hand on the centre of her back.

"It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure that means you have to kiss me."

Her gaze is directed upwards by a hand next to her face and her eyebrow furrows at the mistletoe hanging above her head. She is positive that it wasn't there at the beginning of the evening but she doesn't have much time to protest as the same hand takes a light hold of her chin and tilts her head upwards.

Chris Jericho – Irvine? Maybe she should use his real name if she's kissing him – is kissing her. Underneath the mistletoe at his house in front of all of their co-workers.

"What are you doing?" she asks breathlessly when he breaks the kiss and she can't help but lean forward and chase another.

"Mistletoe might be the only opportunity someone as old as me gets to kiss someone as pretty you."

A blush rises on Amanda's cheeks and it's futile to fight it so she leans forward to bury her head into his chest, hiding from him and everybody watching them – which is most definitely everybody. As she does so, she wraps her arms around his waist in a gesture that is supposed to assure him that she doesn't mind and that, in fact, she would like for kisses to happen regardless of the presence of mistletoe.