Just a bunch of Peddie one shots - I don't own House of Anubis!
Chilly
[Set in the Christmas holidays of Season 3 – but they are not together at this point, and have not gotten back together after the break up at the beginning of Season 3]
The lake looked odd in winter. Instead of a pool of green, it seemed like an extra piece of land, touched by frost like the rest of the park. Eddie wondered how it would feel to walk across it as he huddled further into his thick winter coat, watching stray snowflakes dither in the air before falling onto the ground.
Eddie was spending Christmas with his Father for the second time, and had been exiled from the house as his Dad was busy making the cake and both of them knew that having Eddie around could be a potential disaster for the baking. It was Christmas Eve (though it was the afternoon, not the evening) and Eddie had found himself wandering to the large park near his school. Honestly, he was glad to be away from the school, at least for a little while. It sucked going to a boarding school where your room was two metres below the room of the love of your life, and the love of your life did not love you. Patricia Williamson had been his girlfriend for three months, before breaking up with him without an explanation, not long after they had confessed that they loved one another. Eddie scoffed under his breath. How had he been so blind, so stupid? Like a girl that awesome would ever think of loving someone like him.
Eddie once again found himself staring at the lake. The lake was calm, still, motionless. The opposite of Patricia, he thought with the ghost of a smile sliding onto his face. Getting up, he strolled over to the edge of the lake and placed one foot upon the ice. He saw cracks appear at either side, and retrieved it. Patricia wouldn't have done that. Patricia would've sped easily across the ice, laughing at Eddie's fright. Pulling his woolly hat further down so that it covered his red ears, Eddie placed his foot on the ice once more, and-
"What do you think you're doing?" came a coarse yell. Eddie jumped, and found his single foot sinking into the ice.
"Crap!" he cursed, staggering back. A pair of arms caught him before he crashed to the ground, and whirled him around.
"Eddie?" He was facing Patricia. She donned a purple coat and midnight black scarf that covered the bottom half of her face, but there was no mistaking her. "What were you doing? Trying to die?"
Eddie blushed in shame at the scolding tone of her voice. "I dunno. It just looked inviting," he shrugged, trying to play off his idiocy as something smooth and admirable.
"Whatever, Slimeball," Patricia replied, arms flopping at her sides. "Don't do that again, okay? You're lucky someone was in the park when you decided to take a trip into a death-trap." Eddie panicked as she began to stroll away. He wanted to spend at least a few minutes with her.
"What are you doing in the park anyway, Yacker?" he called after her, and she turned around.
"I'm spending Christmas at Anubis House. Mum and Dad are in Germany, watching Piper perform in a concert, and they had no ticket for me. No big deal," she replied, as if spending Christmas alone in a house with only Trudy for company was normal. "Trudy lets me come visit the park, or I get bored sick."
"You're spending Christmas alone?" Eddie's voice was subdued, disbelieving. Patricia looked uncomfortable, fingers brushing against her ebony scarf.
"What's it to you, anyway? Ugh, get lost," she muttered, harshly, striding away angrily.
"Yacker, wait!" Eddie caught her arm. "I'm only asking because I care about you, as you know. And it's Christmas, and you'll be getting no presents and no fun. That sucks."
"You think?" sassed Patricia, tugging her arm away from the boy. "And what do you mean 'as you know'? Since when did I know you cared about me? The only person you seem to care about is KT." Anger flashed in Patricia's eyes, but Eddie knew those eyes, and saw the rage was soon replaced by something that looked like hurt. She made to storm off again, and Eddie felt helpless.
"I told you I loved you," he whispered, but she heard him, and bristled. He saw her figure pause for a second, halting in her tracks, and grew courageous. "Remember? I told you I loved you, Patricia, and I meant it. I have never told KT I love her, because I don't. There's no one else." Eddie felt something that resembled anger pulsate in his stomach. "And you know what? The fact that I'm in love with you sucks, because you don't feel the same, and it's so hard living under the same roof with you! I have to look at you every single day, and you are never happy to see me - that hurts. So if you didn't already know, yes, I care about you. I care about you in a way that physically hurts whenever you scowl at me, or say something genuinely nasty to me. In a way that makes me want to ditch my Dad at Christmas and come spend it with you so you're okay. I love you, and I'm sorry if that makes you feel weird." Eddie began to take off in the opposite direction, adrenalin coursing through his body.
"Oh, yeah?" he heard Patricia yell. "Well, I care about you too, jerk face! I care about you in a way that makes me scared, because I've never felt like this before, and maybe I left because when you said 'I love you' I didn't believe you because why would someone like you love me? It's just not real, okay, you don't. I care about you to the point where when I see you talking to KT, laughing at something she's said, I actually feel like my heart is burning or something stupid like that. I care about you so much that when I thought you were going to walk across that fragile ice I almost fainted because my world is complicated with you in it, but it would be totally crap without you in it. I love you, and I'm sorry if I'm not good at showing it, okay?"
Everything that followed was a blur. The red-eared boy sprinted to the angry-looking girl, and his chilly hands found her chilly face. "You love me?" he uttered. Patricia answered the question with a simple nod of the head, and that gesture caused an insane smile to crack over his face. Then, everything was in slow motion, and his lips brushed against hers in a brief kiss, before returning once more for a sustained, long act of adoration. His fingers locked into hers, and after a minute, they had to break away due to their inconvenient grins.
"Best Christmas gift ever," said Eddie, with a smirk.