Dec 26, 2022
they had a very nice christmas night🌌🎄
seen from Germany
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they had a very nice christmas night🌌🎄
Day 13: Christmas Card
@hellcheerxmas
December 13, 1992 Chicago, Illinois
Chrissy is always a certifiable freak, but pregnancy has turned her into an emotional terrorist. Eddie digs it in the way he digs everything about her, but it’s fascinating how the pod-person that is their little nugget can send her mood vacillating between joy and sorrow in five-millisecond intervals.
Like, okay, last week they’d gone Christmas tree shopping, and a toddler fell on his butt. The falling wasn’t funny, but hearing a two-year-old scream, “ass!” in front of God and Santa Claus and the scandalized woman manning the check-out stand was, objectively, hilarious. Eddie and Chrissy had gotten the giggles, hiding them behind their gloved palms as they stood in line with their modest pine.
But then, on the train, while Eddie was trying to balance the tree and keep Chrissy upright because God forbid any cretin in this city give up his seat for a pregnant woman, she starts sobbing. Like, out of nowhere. Crying about how their baby’s gonna fall down one day, and what if she thinks that’s funny, and it scars the kid for life?
“Well, but it might be funny?” he had offered, which only made her cry harder.
So, yeah. All that to say that it’s slightly disconcerting to come home from work and find Chrissy curled up in their bedroom closet, weeping, but not all that unusual.
“Hi,” he says after following the sound of her sobs. “How we doing?”
“That bitch,” she says. It comes out a honk, which makes her laugh.
There’s something crumpled in her fist. He crouches and pries her white-tipped fingers from what he quickly identifies as a Christmas card.
A Christmas card with a photo and a letter tucked inside. The picture is of Phillip, Laura, and Clark Cunningham, posed stiffly in some Sears studio. Clark is wearing a University of Chicago sweatshirt, and Eddie bets it grinds Laura’s gears that the kid is moving closer to his sister next year.
“What a bitch,” he agrees. “Didn’t even call you for the photoshoot.”
Chrissy lets out another half-giggling sob.
“No, the letter!”
Eddie unfolds the paper. Scans the bullshit about Laura’s church groups and Phillip’s promotion. He takes longer with Clark and discovers that Laura wants their friends and relations to believe he’s studying engineering, though Eddie knows he wants to be an English major.
Below all of that, though, is the reason Chrissy’s laugh-crying in a closet.
Our daughter, Christine, has spent the majority of 1992 volunteering with charitable organizations in the inner city.
He can’t help it. He cackles. “Guess I’m charitably organized, huh?”
“Like I don’t have a job! Like we didn’t get married! Like I’m not… like she doesn’t know I’m pregnant!”
“Chris,” he says, and he helps her up as he talks. “She doesn’t know you’re pregnant.”
“But that’s… well. She knows we’re married.”
“Sure, and I’m pretty sure she called the county clerk to try to get it annulled.”
Chrissy fixes him with a scowl as he sits her down on the bed, then settles next to her, palm pressing against the scant bump that’s gonna be their daughter. Or son. He goes back and forth. (Before her first ultrasound, he told her he hoped it was twins, and she threatened to castrate him.)
“She’s just a jerk,” she says again, softening when Eddie touches her stomach. “She sent this to be spiteful.”
“She’s a spiteful person. We already knew that.”
“Yeah.” Chrissy gets quiet, her hand coming to rest on top of his. “It’s… I mean. Okay. So what if we just…”
“Spit it out, pal.”
“Well, like mother, like daughter, right?”
So, they make a card of their own. A special one, just for Laura, containing a Polaroid of the two of them. They each have one hand on Chrissy’s belly, with the other lofted, flipping her the bird.
Volunteer This, Chrissy scrawls inside the card before she slaps on a stamp, and Eddie takes it to the mailbox.
She Walks in Starlight
12/25 HellCheer Xmas Prompt: “What do you mean you’ve never decorated a Christmas tree before?”
(Part Two of Day 2: Santa Hat)
Chicago, Illinois 1986
“Next year, we’re getting a fake one!” he yells to her from beneath the tree, desperately trying to secure the stump in the stand, getting pricked and prodded by hundreds of pine needles. He tries to turn the last screw, but his hands are tacky with sap and it’s hard for him to get a grip. “Can you hand me a damp towel or something?”
He peeks up through the branches when he receives no reply, seeing her head tilted over, hand on her cheek, not listening to a thing he’s saying.
“Enjoying the view!?” he chirps.
“Huh?”
“Baby, you know I’m all about being objectified, but could you stop staring at my ass and get me a damp towel?” he pleads.
“Oh, sorry!” she squeaks, giggling as she hurries over to the kitchenette. “Sorry!”
“That’s okay.” he sighs, tired and very much in love.
She’s soon army crawling down beside him.
“Woah, hey, Cunningham, it’s not safe under here!” he snaps. “This thing is still loose.”
“How are you supposed to hold onto the tree and clean your hands?” she asks pointedly, carefully wiping the sap from his fingers and knuckles. Even under a fucking tree with pine needles up his nose, she makes him smile.
“Why don’t you keep it steady and I’ll bolt it?” she asks, already working the wing nut, spinning it to the right.
“I spend all day under the hood of a car with a wrench, you think I’d be better at this.” he laughs, watching her with soft eyes. She turns over once it’s finished and gives him a quick kiss. “I love saving you.” she replies coyly, inhaling deeply as she looks up into the branches. “You know, it we get a fake one, it won’t smell like this.” she breathes.
“Fair point.” he replies, shuffling back, carefully helping her out from underneath.
“Can we decorate now!?” she asks giddily, folding her hands excitedly.
He laughs incredulously. “I still have to tie it down, but you can go get the boxes if you really can’t contain yourself.”
She takes off excitedly for the closet and he beams after her before reaching for the twine. He can’t get enough of how much she’s enjoying this. She’s all aglow, like she’s walking on air, like she’s made of starlight. “I never got to decorate my own tree before!”
He looks over his shoulder in bemusement, blinking a few times. Did he just hear right? “What do you mean you’ve never decorated a Christmas tree before?”
“My mom never let my brother or I near the tree, she always had it done by a professional decorator so we weren’t allowed to touch anything.” she explains as she riffles through the shelf above their coats, making his heart sink a little. Who could deny this cute little elf anything?
About a half hour later when everything’s battened down, Eddie helps her with the lights and they string cranberries and popcorn while watching old Rankin and Bass Specials.
Chrissy, unable to wait anymore, breaks into the box of old ornaments Wayne gave them when they moved out of the trailer.
“Awww!” Chrissy exclaims suddenly lifting up a clay hand print that he had made when he was in kindergarten, once painted red and now a chipped, muted pink, his name scratched in the palm. “Look how tiny you were!”
He rolls his eyes, indulgently lifting his hand for her to compare sizes. “It’s almost as big as yours right now.” he teases, holding it against her palm next, making her pout. It’s not too much of an exaggeration.
Chrissy fishes out a few more ornaments, darting back and forth excitedly as she hangs them on the tree, looking for the perfect spot for each one.
He recognizes most of them, a mischievous little elf, May’s ballerina that Chrissy loves, a few of his mother’s snowflakes, a race car, more various crafts he brought home from school, one mini frame of him in the first grade that makes her gush and him cringe.
Thanks, Wayne.
She coaxes him to help her reach the higher branches where there’s still some real estate left. It doesn’t take much. A flutter of her lashes, a sweet little smile.
She continues to hand him the old decorations in exchanges for his little stories behind each of them. She sometimes has to interrupt to instruct him on which branch to hang one on, reminding him not to crowd them.
“Anymore?” he asks, hand out, waiting patiently, but she doesn’t respond.
“You okay?” He raises a brow, finding her just kneeling beside the box, staring into it.
“Chrissy?”
Slowly she pulls a homemade green and white pom pom ornament, tied off with an orange ribbon. He stills, feeling all of his blood rush to his face, remembering that cute little cheerleader in her green Santa hat last year, shyly spreading “Christmas Cheer” through the halls of Hawkins High.
“…you kept it?” she asks softly, fingers gently running over the yarn, smoothing out the tassels.
“Yeah… you um… you gave it to me.” he replies softly, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling strangely embarrassed. “I mean, heh, I think we’ve already established that I had a thing for you back then, sweetheart.”
She looks up at him with glassy eyes and a watery smile. “You hung it on your tree?”
“I mean, that is what it was for, right?” he chuckles, taking it from her, gently holding it in his hand, smiling to himself. “God, you nearly killed me that day, Cunningham… coming right over to me in your cute little hat and uniform, nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“I was so nervous,” she giggles lightly. “I was so afraid you were going to be mean or make fun of me for it.”
He matches her smile, taking her chin between his forefinger and his thumb. “Oh yeah? Why’d you come over to me then, if you thought I was so mean and scary?”
A part of him always wondered.
“Because I...” She flushes prettily, the same way she did back then. “You looked so sad and you were all by yourself and I don’t know…”
She gets flustered when he grins smugly, thumbing along the plushy pulp of her lower lip, waiting for her to continue. While he often laments all the time they could have had if he ever had enough balls to make a move, it’s still nice to know that his secret admiration wasn’t exactly all one-sided back then.
“I…” she tries again.
“You…?”
“I just wanted to cheer you up.” she murmures bashfully, making him lean down and kiss her deeply.
“Mmm… took your cheer captain duties very seriously.” he hums against her lips, smile widening at the petulant little noise she makes in her throat.
“Apparently it worked,” she gives his shoulder a playful shove. “You kept it.”
“I did.” he replies, kissing her neck gently, before hanging her ornament on the highest branch
@hellcheerxmas
So, it’s The Holiday season and I don’t know if this is a Hellcheer Christmas au or I just really want Joe and Grace to star in a remake. Both. Both is good.
“I usually hate the holiday season but it’s more bearable with you” vibes.
"This is a thing people do? Write braggy personal updates every Christmas and send them to all their friends and family? And everybody reads everybody else's bullshit?”
Eddie embraces a holiday tradition.
Intended for the Hellcheer Advent Calendar at @hellcheerxmas, this story got away from me just a little bit and I missed the posting day. Many thanks to @bratanimus, who enabled me when I said I wanted to write this instead of working on Guidance Counseling and a ton of holiday stuff I need to get done, and then betaed. ;) You're the best, my friend!
Read it @AO3
Merry Hellcheer Christmas!
For the holiday season I couldn't help but be inspired by @hellcheerxmas prompts for Christmas eve/Christmas:) I chose the dialogue inspo of : “Please get off the lake. The ice is too thin to skate on and I don’t wanna have to jump in after you.”
So I went back and wrote a little December bonus chapter to my completed long fic Do or Die ! Here's a bit of the chapter below:
Chrissy was the perfect snow angel, her cheeks rosy and joy brimming to her lips, as she began to twirl in the blustery snowstorm performing the most complex move so far.The lake’s bright reflection from the ice highlighted every movement she made with flawless precision and elegance, complementing her natural grace and beauty. Eddie shook away his captivation and tried to remind himself it might not be safe for her out on the iced over lake.
His voice was gentle with his suggestion. “Please get off the lake. The ice is too thin to skate on and I don’t wanna have to jump in after you.”
Eddie reached his arms out through the curtain of snowflakes trying to nab the hood of her soft pink jacket as she whirled by, but he missed by a moment of delay. Her petite frame zoomed out of reach as she lunged over the ice, caressing the snow beside her with her gloved hand.
“As I remember it,” Chrissy scoffed, calling out over her shoulder with her breath puffing in a big cloud of frozen condensation. “You’ve done that already. Remember chasing the crazy possessed girl who kissed you before she dove after her new friends right over there?”
"Oh, you thought…” Eddie laughed. He tested the ice in front of him, poking the toe of his boot in different spots to test its strength. “That’s funny, I could see how you thought that, but really I jumped in after Steve the Hair that night. I just had to know all his hair care secrets to get his hair just so.”
He ran his hands over the top of his head, exaggerating the volume of Steve’s typical hairstyle and exaggerating a pouty impersonation of their friend. In the meantime, his foot retreated back to the safety of the shore line, not fully convinced of the security of the ice rink.
“How embarrassing for me!” Chrissy feigned shock, placing a hand over her chest.
“Indeed, this whole time…wow, Miss Cunningham. No wonder why you confessed your undying love for me....”
maybe…🫣🎄
(for #HellcheerXMas on Twitter)
🎁🎄💗
(for #HellcheerXMas on Twitter)