post 5x7
tw: alcoholism/alcohol abuse, childhood neglect, childhood trauma, shitty parents, Chris's mom
-x-
A knock on the door startles Chris from where she sits on her couch, knees drawn up to her chest and staring aimlessly at the wall while the TV plays a movie in the background.
Standing, Chris groans and stretches, body stiff from how long she's been sitting. Chris rolls her neck on the way to the door, looking through the peephole and answering with a question already on her face.
"I know," Street says immediately, like he's confessing to something he did but she doesn't know what, yet. There's a white take-out bag in his hand and a 6-pack in the other, tucked up against his ribs with his bike helmet under his armpit. He steps into her apartment without waiting for an invitation, Chris's body moving back out of habit to make room.
"I have no surprises, nothing bigger than the skydiving lessons, I swear," Street continues, setting the bag and beer down and then his helmet. "But I texted Tomas and he said you guys didn't have dinner plans for your birthday. Got your favorite from that Italian place off 9th."
He looks up from where his hands have started unpacking to-go containers. Chris is watching him cautiously, like she doesn't trust that there's not about to be a procession bursting into her apartment with balloons.
"If you really want to be alone, I'll let you have your night. But no one deserves to be alone on their birthday."
Coughing, Chris hopes it hides the stabbing feeling she just got in her chest that pressed all the air from her lungs in a short gasp. She turns away from Street before his own gaze can start dissecting her, getting a glass of water and letting it sit in her mouth.
"You really didn't have to do this." Chris says, once she's swallowed and processed the scene in front of her. Street nods, a cocky comment about that's what makes him so great causing Chris to roll her eyes.
But there's a hunch in her shoulders that Street doesn't like, that's been there since she ripped that birthday patch off her shirt earlier. When she doesn't come back at him with anything, Street shrugs.
"You deserve a little something special, Chris."
"Mmm." Chris vocalizes, using the water as an excuse not to speak.
Her stomach is in her throat, but still hungry. Street's expert hands made quick work of the containers, and there's a spread of pasta and caprese in front of her that Chris can't deny looks and smells delicious.
Sitting down to show her acceptance, she rolls her eyes again at the way Street lights up like a Christmas tree and goes to get silverware and napkins from her kitchen.
By the time he returns, Chris has popped open a beer for him, sticking to water herself. At first bite, she can't remember the last time she's had food this good, let alone on her birthday.
The bran muffin turned into takeout pizza and a TV binge of whatever Chris could find some 30 years later. Taking a bite, she realizes she was going seven years strong and about to make it eight before Street barged in.
"This is incredible. Thank you." She says, seeing how he's smiling at her from across the table.
"You're welcome. What else were you getting up to tonight to ring in 33?"
He's prying, and making no attempt to hide it. Glancing around at her empty apartment, the obvious answer before them both, she tells him as much.
"Helena already called this morning so, was gonna watch some TV and go to bed. It's the same as any other day."
The corners of his lips fall as Street hears her.
"Gotcha," he says, not pushing further, but with enough of an expression that it pokes Chris.
"What, you're telling me you have some great birthday tradition you do every year?"
It's a challenge but not a barb, and Street chuckles.
"No, but do I make the rounds to get the acknowledgement, at least, go have a drink. You really hate your birthday that much?"
Chris sighs, heaviness on her shoulders. Pushing her food around in its container, she doesn't look at Street as she contemplates what all she wants him to know.
"I don't hate it." She finally decides, although she's said things with much stronger conviction in the past. "I just don't think it's worth all the effort everyone puts in to make it this big thing every year."
"Of course you're worth the effort." Street says, too quick and he sees Chris's brows tighten the second the words are out. Her shoulders rise and fall with a shake that anyone not as aware of Chris wouldn't notice.
"I'm sorry, Chris, I shouldn't have pushed" he apologizes, wanting to reach out a hand to her across the table but refraining. Chris shakes her head, looking up at him.
"Not the first time, don't worry about it."
She tries to wave the whole thing off and turn back to her meal. However, she can feel Street's eyes on her like lasers, as if he's seeing right through all her muscle and bone and right into her soul.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He finally asks what's been sitting on his tongue for most of the day.
The metal fork on plastic makes a soft popping sound, the only noise that's passed between them for the next few minutes. Once her heartbeat finds acceptance of what she's choosing to share, Chris takes a deep breath.
"My mom didn't want kids, at least not so young when she had me." Chris starts, finding Street's eyes.
"So, my birthday, for her, was a reminder of all the ways she screwed up. Or, really, how I screwed up her life. When I was really little, she was out of it drunk most of the time and took the day to sleep off the hangover before going out again once she woke up. By the time I was 7, my relatives caught on and would get me out of the house for a day or two, so I'd only see or hear from her if she came by for cash or someone called her. I was 9 when I realized my Aunt Beatrice was signing birthday cards as her, and then I accepted it. She didn't care, I was done hoping that she would start to."
A soft gasp sits on Street's lips, his whole face teeming with shock and sadness for her. Chris's lips are in a line, jawline sharp, everything sharp, the story not done pouring out of her.
"When I turned 13 I was making waffles for breakfast at home that morning. She stumbled into the kitchen, popped a bottle of tequila, and proceeded to tell me exactly what she thought I'd done to her. Told me I was an ungrateful bitch who ruined her life the day I was born. She didn't see me turn 14."
Chris plays it off like these are fuzzy memories that fade in and out of focus on the edges of her mind, but Street knows her better than that. He can see on her face that Chris remembers everything as if she were standing in that kitchen now.
It feels like a jacket that's too tight, zipped onto Chris without her asking for it and she claws to get it off. Running her tongue over her teeth, Chris stabs at a noodle.
"I'm so sorry." Street says a few moments later, once silence expands between them until they each manage an even breath.
Chris's eyebrows raise, head titling to the side and then head turning and eyes traveling over her apartment, over Street's head.
"She was mean when she was drunk, and she was usually drunk."
It kills him to hear Chris brush this all off, especially when it's a thinly-veiled attempt to bury the hurt in the lockbox of her chest.
"Did your family ever…?" Street trails off, not entirely sure what he's trying to say. Protectiveness and anger bloom in his chest, as much as he loves her family, for them not doing more.
"Sarzo told me she didn't mean it." She assures Street, needing him to know that her relatives were working within conditions just as shitty as hers.
Looking at her, Street can tell that Chris doesn't believe her uncle or herself when she repeats his words now. No stranger to the feelings of devastation Chris is sharing, he wishes he could say something to assuage her uncertainty, give her an answer to the question she'll never know the truth of.
"They did what they could." Chris says. She's unsure of how to be any more specific about how she started making herself scarce on her birthday after that, not giving her family much of a choice to do anything. How when she snuck back in on the cusp of 16 and then 17, vodka barely concealed on her breath, she threw the birthday card sitting on her nightstand in the drawer and thanked them in the morning without ever tearing the envelope.
"Listen," Chris says, this attention just as uncomfortable for her as what they showered her with at HQ earlier, "it's fine. I'm fine. Plenty of my birthdays were mediocre and forgettable. I'm sure you dealt with worse over the years."
Chris's eyes search Street's as she deflects, half-hardened-steel and half-hoping-he'll-say-yes so her mess of a mother isn't the only one splayed over her oak table.
Street doesn't know how to tell her that, no, he didn't. Even in the midst of everything, Karen would still take him for ice cream, buy him a toy, and tell him she loved him before she kissed him goodnight on his birthday. He didn't have much in the group homes, but Nate always made an effort with whatever money they could pull together to go see a movie or do something to celebrate another year around the sun.
His silence is all the answer Chris needs. Her face burns hot, tightness assaulting her chest.
"It's going to be hard." She says, grasping for some control. Street asks what she means.
"Your first birthday without her. If you need anything, let me know."
Street nods. The grip he has on his fork is enough to bend it if he tried. He wishes Chris would tell him honestly what's running through her mind, but it's hers to hold onto it for as long as she wants. He's not at all surprised that she's weaving this back around to him, pertinent as it actually is.
"I'm sure they'd tone it down at HQ." Street redirects, tangling the conversation into a larger web.
"That's unnecessary." Chris bites. The thought of everyone there knowing the truth enough to make her clam up.
"It's not if it makes you uncomfortable."
"It doesn't make me uncomfortable, and I never said it did. Just that I don't need any special attention for—"
"Deserve." He corrects.
It's Chris's turn to ask what he means, finishing her water as she waits for his answer.
"You told me you feel like you don't deserve it. I can understand why, having that burden of responsibility for your mom put on your shoulders like she did."
"If you know, then why are we still having this conversation?"
Putting lids on containers and trash back into the white bag, Chris stands and clears the table, needing to get out of Street's space before he makes her do something stupid like detail more of her childhood. She hears Street sigh from where he sits.
"Because you're the first one out of the gate on everyone else's special occasions. You deserve," he drags out the word, shifting to look pointedly at her where she stares steadfast at the floor and drums her fingers against the counter she leans against, "the same thing. I don't mean surprises and balloons, if that isn't what you want, but whatever does make you feel celebrated."
Chris bites her lip, contemplating. Into her mind springs every concert she ever wished for tickets for on her birthday, every pair of sneakers and, once she got the hint that whatever her mom would get her, if anything, was going to be from the corner store, every candy bar or can of soda. The heartbreak of each disappointment rolls over her as fresh as when it happened. When Chris speaks, there's a shake in her voice.
"I don't need to be celebrated."
Her tone is one Street recognizes from when he'd stand in the mirror and try to convince himself of things that weren't true, and it rips him to standing. He walks to her in a few steps, leaving some space between them for her comfort.
"I know the world has told you different, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve to be. I'll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe me."
Tears flood Chris's eyes and she grips the counter harder. Her pulse races and she grinds her teeth and wills her face to stay dry, not wanting to give her mother's ghost any more power over her. Silently, Street stands and looks at her with soft eyes until she meets his gaze.
Of the two of them, Chris has long told herself that Street's the one who deserves, needs, warrants attention for his maternal situation and how it affects his life. The realization that maybe she does, too, is heavy as the past hanging over. But for this lead chain and lock around her, Chris thinks, there might actually be a key.
Her eyes flick down with wet, shaky breaths that catch in her chest, needing to be tempered before she can speak.
Chris's are full of fear when she brings her eyes to his again, but there's no one she trusts more than Street. No judgement sits in his eyes, just a complete openness to her and whatever she wants to tell him that makes Chris's heart skip.
"That might take a long time."
There's so much that Street knows and admires about Chris: her tenacity, her sense of justice, her heart.
He also knows that all of those were formed by her mother and her mother's choices. By the never-ending race for unconditional love that Chris always lost to booze and the truths of the world that should be incomprehensible to children, but Chris met early.
Street knows that Chris isn't used to people sticking around for a long time. He wasn't either, until her.
Putting his hands gently on her shoulders, Street tries to take away any sense of doubt in Chris's mind when he answers her.
"I don't have anywhere else that I plan on going. At least not if you're not there with me."
Her hands push from the counter and wrap around Street's torso, his sliding around from her shoulders to her upper back and neck and holding her close. Chris turns her head, ear resting over the steady beat of his heart, and manages to reel her emotions in as she stands in his arms, sniffling softly.
"Thank you," Chris says when she pulls back, shaking out the last of the rip current inside her and wiping away the wetness under her eyes from the few tears that escaped. Street gives her a closed-lip smile.
Grabbing her empty glass from the sink, Chris downs water and then tells Street she'll be right back. He watches her walk down the hallway and then turn into the bathroom, no doubt washing away the mascara smudged under her eyes. Street glances at the clock and then pulls out his maps and does math in his head until he's sure there's enough time to go before they close.
"You heading home?" Chris asks as she rounds the corner and sees his bike helmet sitting on the island and Street scrolling on his phone.
"No," Street says, voice light and smiling wider. A plan sparkles in his eyes, and Chris braces herself for whatever he's about to say in that teasing, charming, "you know you want to" tone.
"We," he continues, "are going out for ice cream."
"Street—" Chris starts, all her defenses slamming back up and then a rush of air breaking them all right down again as she takes in his eyes and the set of his mouth. Her shoulders fall when she exhales.
"Let me grab my jacket. You got an extra helmet or am I driving?"
"Of course I have an extra helmet. C'mon, birthday girl."
-x-
hello! thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed! full transparency, i haven't actually rewatched 5x7 yet in its entirety, just a few scenes, so there might be another one of these once i get there lol. but Chris saying she doesn't deserve the attention on her birthday was screaming for more context and history, and if there's one person she'd tell, it's Street. requests/suggestions welcome, and comments/kudos always and immensely appreciated! much love. Xo, Allie