all i want for christmas is us
all i want for christmas is us
an entry for @saintlymendes secret santa
for: nicole (@tell-me-when-ur-ready)
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words: 2,092 warnings: some swearing, angst, and cavity inducing fluff (it is christmas after all)
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Shawn looks down again at his phone, scrolling through the photos. Happy. Warm. Holiday season. Ice skating at his favorite park, kissing under the mistletoe, and posing in the matching pajamas his mum had bought for the entire family. A smile creeps up on his face and then disappears just when he starts to feel its warmth.
Last Christmas.
Last Christmas the photos were taken. Last Christmas they were happy. Last Christmas she had said yes to marrying him.
Now the photos just served as painful reminders of his current reality. Sitting alone in his half empty condo. He couldn’t bare to replace the things she took, just in case she decided to come back.
Odds and ends mostly; an end table she purchased at an antique store and lugged eight blocks back home on a hot August weekend, an ottoman where the two would sit on the floor across from each other and play cards all night over a bottle of her favorite red wine, an entirely empty wall that used to make up her vinyl collection. The half empty condo matched his half empty heart.
Shawn locks and drops his phone to his chest with a thud, opting for the sting of its weight on his sternum over the stinging of his broken heartstrings. He still hadn’t cleaned up the red wine stain from the carpet when she spilled it last Christmas. Getting rid of that was the last bit of her still around and, well, he needed to still hold onto something.
Karen’s rung three times at this point. She knew it was going to be a hard day for him, insisted he spend the night Christmas Eve but Shawn declined and instead drank himself stupid until three in the morning and passed out on the living room floor next to her red wine stain.
He thought about calling her, wishing her a Happy Christmas, or anything just to hear her voice. It hadn’t been a messy breakup, at least at first. She said it was too much too soon and the constant pressure from the outside world was starting to seep through their happy little bubble.
Time. It was always time that she needed. But after she returned the ring, the weeks faded into months and when he saw that first picture come up on his timeline he knew that their time had run out.
It was innocent enough; someone he knew through mutual friends but could never remember his name. Smiling, with her lips pressed against his cheek.
She was with someone else.
He blacked out that night, somewhere in the middle of a world tour in a foreign city and woke up the next morning by Brian dumping a glass of water on his head. He cried for a day and a half straight and then again when he had to tell his mum.
Time.
Everyone said it was all he’d need to get over her; the love of his life. He’d known it from a very young age, before the fame, before they’d ever exchanged a wayward glance at each other. He knew she was going to be the one for him, for the rest of his life.
Until she wasn’t.
Write about it. Was his first thought. Write until your fingers bleed and there’s nothing left in your head. Write out every memory, every feeling, every ounce of pain that courses through your God forsaken veins and then you’ll be rid of her. But Shawn couldn’t write. He couldn’t put down a single fucking word in the six months since she left. He just couldn’t describe it; there was no way to put into words how he was feeling, nothing that did it justice, nothing that captured the pathetic sadness that lingered in his bones about her.
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It’s half past two when Karen finally got ahold of him. He’d lost track looking at photos, letting his memories replay on the walls of his condo over and over again. He watches the two of them dance in the kitchen at midnight and make love on the living room floor in the morning, wrapped up in each other’s arms. If he was miserable at home on Christmas, he was going to be even worse at his parent’s house.
Everything was the same as it was last year when Shawn finally walks through the front door of his parent’s home, right down to the smells. Except she’s not there. There’s a small box in the spot where the ring box sat last year on the tree and Shawn tries to blink away the onset of tears that threaten to come through. He wonders which cousin is getting engaged this year.
Asshole stole my idea.
“Everything alright, darling?” Karen asks in only that mum way. She knows it’s not. It hasn’t been for a while.
Shawn nods his head, “yeah, fine. Just...you know. I knew today would be hard.”
Karen smiles, “I know, honey. But they day’s not over yet,” she says with a wink.
Something in Shawn’s heart flutters.
“C’mon,” she starts, “let’s go open presents.”
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An hour and two bags full of wrapping paper later the Mendes’ family is nearly finished unwrapping gifts. Shawn’s eyes glance over to the box sitting snugly on the tree branch. No one has reached for it yet, and as things are winding down he can’t help but stare at it, wanting to know the contents. It’s slightly larger than a ring box, but not enough to put anything substantial in it.
“There’s one more for you,” Manny points to the tree.
Shawn looks at the box and back to his father and he nods. Standing, he goes to the tree and opens the box with shaky hands. There’s a folded up piece of paper inside and he immediately recognizes her handwriting and that stupid gold pen he always hated. It smeared the edges of her letters, he never thought it would end up being something he missed. Shawn can feel the heat of his family watching him as he reads;
Shawn,
It’s been too long since we last spoke and I suppose I owe you a lot. See, time is a funny thing. It feels the most fleeting when you have none of it left and the most crippling when you’re looking down the barrel of forever. I needed time on my own, I needed time with other people. I needed to know that what we had was what my forever was meant to look like and to do that I needed to find out a little more about myself. So, as it turns out I actually DO like cucumbers, riding motorcycles, and being alone. But I still hate tomatoes, unicorns (don’t ask) and being away from you. I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused you. I know there’s never going to be a way I can take that away or make it up to you, but I want you to know just how sorry I am.
Meet me tonight at 6 where we had our first date (yes, the first-first one, not the second-first one, you’ll know what I’m talking about).
Love, Nicole
His ears are ringing when he looks up - eyes immediately checking the clock on the wall behind him: 5:55.
“Fuck - I gotta go!”
Shawn runs to grab his shoes and jacket. It’s faster if he runs, he thinks. It’s not far and his car is packed in with his relatives in the driveway and it would take ten minutes just for everyone to move out of the way. He sets off as the snow starts to pick up, slipping and sliding against the sidewalk pavement, breath coming out in foggy puffs.
He runs to the park by the high school. It’s not far, and he thinks he can make it in time. His cheeks are frozen, and snowflakes keep getting stuck in his lashes but Shawn just runs to her. When he rounds the corner to cross he sees her there, sitting on that same old dingy swing set that has somehow (despite looked rotted for at least the last twenty years) has never broken. She’s bundled up in her winter coat, looking down at her boots absentmindedly drawing pictures in the snow with the tip of her shoe.
The park had been their halfway point when they were kids; perfectly in the middle of each house when they didn’t want to worry about being around parents. It had been here that they had their first date in sixth grade; a picnic of PB&J’s that ended in an unforecasted rainstorm. She didn’t mind, and they splashed and danced in the puddles and went home a dirty sopping mess and he was sure that was the exact moment he fell in love with her. Even though he wasn’t sure what that meant yet. As all things do when you’re twelve, the relationship ended just as quick as it started and it wasn’t until six years later that things actually became serious.
But that’s another story for another day.
He’s not sure what to say when he approaches her. His chest is frozen from heaving in the frigid air and she just looks up from the swing and stares. He’s not sure it was possible for her to get more beautiful, but she somehow managed to. Her cheeks were pinked like his, her hair sprinkled with tiny snowflakes.
“I know how much we both love grand romantic gestures,” she laughs.
Fuck, he never thought he’d hear that laugh again and it literally warms his chest to.
“Nicole I -”
“Shawn I’m sorry,” she starts, “I have no way to ever make up what I did to you. I just...I got really fucking scared. You’re the only person I’ve ever been with and that terrified me. I didn’t know what it was like to be young and single or do something by myself. So I had to be alone -”
“What about that guy? The one you posted a picture with?” Shawn says.
Nicole slaps her forehead with her palm, “Shawn, Joe is my friend.”
He sucks in a breath of air, “oh.”
“There was never anyone else,” she pats the empty swing next to her, “there’s never going to be anyone else.”
Shawn sits beside her, it feels good to be this close again; to see all the little things about her up close that made her, her. All the little things he failed to appreciate before she had gone.
“So what does this mean now?” He asks.
Nicole reaches for his frozen hand and holds it in her gloved one, “I hope it means you still have that ring -”
Before she can finish Shawn pulls the chain of her swing towards him to bring her closer, and kisses her. Her lips are cold and chapped but so are his and there’s a brilliant warmth of familiarity that his bones recognize and he melts into her, wrapping an arm around her middle and holding on like his life depends on it.
(It does)
“So how did you even pull this off? Shawn asks when he pulls away.
Nicole smiles, “Karen helped me.”
He snorts, “I knew it.”
The park is so silent Shawn swears he can hear the snowflakes hit the ground, trapped in their own personal snow globe. They sit quiet for a moment, and Shawn is still trying to process what just happened. He can feel her still lingering on his lips; the same sickly sweet lip gloss she always wore.
“Do you want to go home?” He asks, looking at her through snow flake lined lashes.
Nicole nods, “I’d really love that.”
Shawn threads his fingers through hers and they walk hand in hand back to the Mendes household. He feels the gold circular piece of metal against his chest. He’s worn it there for so long he’s forgotten he has it.
He stops them in the middle of the sidewalk and bends down onto one knee onto the snow, reaching under his shirt and jacket to snap the engagement ring off the chain he wore around his neck.
“Will you marry me...again?”
Nicole nods frantically, “yes! Now get up before your jeans get wet.”
Shawn stands and pulls her into a kiss, threading his fingers through her hair until the both of them are out of breath.
“Hey Shawn,” she starts, lips still ghosting against his, “Merry Christmas.”
He smiles so hard it hurts his cheeks, “Merry Christmas, my love.”
