#and doesn't think it's super cringe and a fail gamer moment ?

[trvelyans-archive]

senti(ment)ality

mari wiseman x gray black. 4k words.

Gray’s going to hate the present you bought him for Christmas.

You call this out to Nick as you place it under the Christmas tree. It looks small compared to the boxes you have for Sally and Nick, which only makes you feel more nervous about it, but even though he’s in the other room cooking dinner, you can still hear him sigh. “Mari, he’s not going to hate it,” he calls back.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he could never hate anything from you. Besides, I wouldn’t have told you to get it if I thought he would hate it.”

“… Okay,” you concede, turning around and heading for the kitchen, “that’s a good point.”

“Yeah, I make lots of them,” he replies. “You just never listen.”

“I wish I couldn’t listen.” You sit down on a stool beside the island and rest your chin on the heel of your hand. “Except for this time. Although he could still hate it, and then at least I’d feel vindicated. Embarrassed, but vindicated.”

Nick laughs and shakes his head. You try not to think about how much he looks like your dad as you settle in across the counter from him.

He’s been working on dinner since at least before noon, which you only know because that’s when you managed to drag yourself out of bed and he made you pancakes in between baking two separate batches of holiday cookies, and though most of it’s finished now, he’ll probably still have to stick around in the kitchen for a little while after Gray and Sally get here. You wish you could tell him to take a break or something, but he’s by far the most competent cook out of the four of you, so if he doesn’t keep working, there’d be no Christmas dinner at all.

Then again, if that were the case, that means Gray wouldn’t have a reason to come over tonight and you could still go out to get him another present…

Before you can say anything, though, there’s a loud knocking and an enthusiastic warbling of Christmas songs at the front door. “Uh, can you get that?” Nick asks, a little breathless. He’s thrown a towel over his shoulder and pushed his hair out of his eyes, but a stray curl still tickles his forehead as he stares down at the food on the counter, trying not to seem stressed out.

You lean across it and push the curl out of the way, and he looks up briefly, smiling at you.

Sally’s knocking on the front door again by the time you drag yourself over to it, and you pull it open to reveal her and a slightly harried-looking Gray on the other side, each of them with arms full of gifts. Nick didn’t tell either of them to bring anything besides that, but Gray still brought a bottle of wine.

“Merry Christmas!” Sally cheers, her cheeks and the tip of her nose bright pink.

“What, no cat this year?” You back away from the door and sit on the staircase so they can both clamber inside the warm entryway.

“No, I figured Nicholas would get mad if he spent all night attacking the ornaments again,” Sally replies, kicking the door shut with her boot.

“You’re right, I would!”

You’re glad Sally didn’t bring the cat, actually – he nearly escaped last year when Gray was leaving, and Gray felt so terrible about it that apologized to Sally profusely every time he saw her for the next three weeks. As much as you love the cat, he’d just be something else to worry about tonight. While Sally bends over and unceremoniously dumps everything, including her sleepover bag, onto the ground, Gray tucks his shoes under the shoe rack with his toes and then looks down at the pile of gifts in his arms with defeat. “Uh,” he says, clearing his throat, “would either of you mind lending me a hand?”

You open your mouth to say something, but Sally beats you to it. “Here,” she says, taking two wrapped presents from his arms and handing them to you before grabbing the wine, “I’ll take this, and Mari will go with you to put the presents under the tree. Right, Mari?”

She turns to you and gives you a very pointed look. You sigh and force a smile.

“Sure,” you say. “Just don’t crack the wine open before we get back.”

“Ha-ha,” Sally responds.

Sure enough, once you’re a few steps ahead, Gray follows you dutifully into the living room. You try not to think about how good he looks in his sweater, which is red with little flecks of brown and beige – the same sweater he wore last year, you think, which you remember because Nick spilled wine on it and Gray assured him not to worry because it would just blend in with the rest of it, but you won’t say anything about him wearing it again because of how good he looks in it. (Not that that’s a surprise, because Gray looks good in everything.) You, on the other hand, are wearing a dress that Sally bought you for Christmas, a black velvet long sleeve with little gold stars all over it. It looks kind of like something that a kindergartener would wear, but she begged you to keep it and wear it this year and you know very well she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, so you didn’t really have any other choice. That’s usually how it goes with her. Accompanying Gray to the living room just proves that.

“The tree looks lovely,” he says after you both put his presents underneath it, straightening up and leaning in to look at an ornament hanging from a higher branch. “And you look adorable in this picture, Mari.”

Adorable? “Oh, uh… that was from one of the Christmas parties that our parents used to drag us to,” you say. You’re sitting on Santa’s left, your face red and puffy from crying, and Nick’s sitting on Santa’s right, smiling pleasantly because of course he is. “I didn’t like any of the food there and threw a fit about it. My dad drove us to McDonald’s on the way home, but I fell asleep in the car.”

Gray smiles softly, turning to look at you. “You say that like you thought it would make the picture less adorable.”

You shrug. “Maybe you’re just easy to please.”

Nick calls your names from the kitchen, and Gray looks at the picture one last time before heading out of the room – you, on the other hand, stay rooted in place, your eyes drifting to the black and gray box under the tree that sits there, taunting you.

God. You wish he was easy to please.

You’re quick to follow, intent on forgetting about the present as much as you can for as long as you can, and take a seat beside Sally at the counter, where she and Nick are in a spirited debate about whether or not eggnog is an acceptable drink to have with you at dinner.

“It’s not,” Nick says as he spoons cranberry sauce into a small dish. “It’s a dessert drink, Salome.”

“You know nothing about drinks, Nicholas,” she replies. You can’t help but notice that she’s staring at his hands. “Do you remember –“

“The food looks great, Nick,” Gray interrupts, a valiant effort to stop their argument. He leans on the counter and looks at the spread laid out in front of all of you. “Should I crack open the wine now or later?”

Nick hums to himself, hands on his hips. “I don’t know,” he says. “Mari, are you going to drink?”

He lets you drink as long as you’re in the house and he can keep an eye on you – usually when you and Sally are having a sleepover and watching movies in the living room while he’s working on something in the kitchen – but you’d rather not risk letting anything embarrassing slip in front of Gray tonight. “No, I’m good,” you answer.

“I’m good, too,” Sally chirps. “I’ll be having eggnog with my dinner, thank you very much.”

“I’m not pouring that for you,” Nick says.

“Well…” She stares at him until he meets her eyes. “It’s a good thing I know where the glasses are, then, isn’t it, Nicholas?”

He shakes his head and laughs as she flits off towards the cupboards.

“Is that a yes to the wine, then?” Gray asks. He already has the bottle in his hands and looks desperately like he wants to open it.

“Sure,” Nick replies. “Open it up!”

It takes fifteen minutes for the four of you to set the table in the dining room. Sally complains once or twice about how much food there is and then bashfully thanks him for doing all the work, which he looks pleased by before responding with something unconvincingly snarky. Of course, you’re distracted thinking about your present, and in the end it’s Gray who directs the rest of you to put the dishes on the table so that it fits them all perfectly.

He was right, earlier – dinner smells good. It tastes even better. Nick complains about half of the dishes and tells you all about things he wished he had added, but eventually stops after the three of you shower him with compliments, and once he’s had half a glass of wine in him, he’s all smiles.

“I tried to tell Gray that he had toilet paper on his shoe when we left the bathroom, but he was walking so fast that I didn’t have a chance,” Nick is saying, “so we go up to this man –“

Gray’s redder than you’ve ever seen him. Even the tips of his ears are red. “Nick, please, the girls don’t want to hear this –“

“No, no, it’s funny!” Nick starts laughing to himself and clears his throat until he stops. “So we go up to this man and Gray’s holds out his hand and introduces himself, and the entire time I’m standing behind him and trying desperately to pull the toilet paper out from underneath his shoe without anyone noticing.”

Sally buries her face in her hands. “This is too much,” she murmurs. “I never thought I could feel so much second-hand embarrassment in my life.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m feeling second-hand embarrassment as well as first-hand embarrassment retroactively,” Gray says, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“It’s almost done, I promise.” Nick takes another sip of wine before launching into the last leg of the story. “So Gray’s talking to this guy, telling him all about Unity and whatever, and I’ve nearly pulled the toilet paper out when the Dean comes over to talk to the two of us and then freezes when she realizes what I’m doing. I can see her go from friendly to confused in a matter of seconds as she looks down and then Gray, you know, being who he is, turns around to greet her, but because I’m standing so close behind him, he elbows me in the stomach so hard I stumble backwards, and then Gray notices that I’m standing behind him and also that he has toilet paper on his shoe, and –”

Nick doesn’t finish his sentence before everyone’s laughing again, Sally laughing so hard she’s practically crying and continues to nearly choke on her mashed potatoes, and it takes a minute for you all to come down from it and start poking at your food again.

“So, Gray.” Sally cocks her head at him from where she sits across the table. “Do you have any embarrassing stories about Nicholas that you’d like to share?”

Gray purses his lips and taps his chin. “I’m not sure,” he answers, his blue eyes flicking up to the ceiling as he thinks. “Hm… You know, actually, there’s the one from when we went to this new club downtown and –“

Nick’s eyes widen, and he reaches out to place a hand on Gray’s arm. “Gray, no.”

“What?” Gray cocks his head in mock confusion. “It’s a funny story, Nick.”

“Well, if we’re offering up embarrassing Nick stories, I have plenty,” you offer.

“You guys are terrible.” Nick drops his face into his hands. “This is the thanks I get for cooking you all dinner?”

Gray sighs. “Alright, that’s a fair point.” He claps Nick on the shoulder. “Thank you for dinner, Nick. I’ll save my story for another day.”

Sighing, Nick pulls his hands away from his face and glares at Gray. “You know what? Christmas is cancelled next year,” he grumbles. “You can all find someone else to mooch dinner off of.”

By the time you’re all full and pushing away from the dining table, only half the food that Nick spent so long cooking has been eaten. At least you can give Gray leftovers to make sure he eats relatively healthy for the next little while. He’ll probably be back in a week for New Year’s – Sally will, too, if her dads agree – but there’s no saying how many meals he’ll accidentally skip until then.

“Presents, everyone?” Nick asks with a smile when you’ve all finished cleaning.

Honestly, you’d take Nick telling everyone an embarrassing story about you over Gray opening his present. You’d take the Christmas tree falling on you and setting your dress on fire over seeing whatever look is going to be on Gray’s face.

Sally goes first, as she usually does. She just said it as a joke the first year, but now it’s tradition. Eventually, though, the order of who gets to open gifts next is a little lost in translation – which isn’t unusual, considering how chaotic the rest of the night has been – and it’s only after Sally and Nick have hurriedly disappeared into the kitchen talking about the new pan she bought him that you realize you and Gray are alone.

And that there are only two presents left under the tree – his gift for you, and your gift for him.

He smiles at you from where he sits on the couch, sliding off and joining you on the floor. He’s still at least four feet away from you, but it feels much closer, really close, and he looks really pretty with the Christmas lights shining softly on his face and twinkling in his eyes. “And then there were two,” he says.

You can’t resist smiling back at him. “Yeah,” you reply, like an idiot. “You know, Gray, I’m not sure if –“

“Do you want to go first?”

You look at the little black box under the tree and bite your lip. No, you absolutely do not want to go first. Then again, the faster to get the humiliation over with, the better. “Um… why don’t we open them at the same time?” you suggest.

“Oh.” Gray nods. “Yeah, that sounds good to me.”

He grabs your present, a big golden gift bag that you didn’t notice earlier, and places it on the floor in front of him, pushing it over to you. You do the same with the black box – God, you can’t wait to never see it again – and then you pick the gifts up at the same time, looking at each other as you do.

“Uh… you ready?” you ask. Gray nods.

You tear open the top of the bag as quickly as you’d do a band-aid – fitting, since he just taped it shut – and fish around in the mass of tissue paper inside until you can start to feel something fluffy halfway down. As you reach deeper into it and frown, you notice that Gray’s looking at you. He’s still looking at you, and he looks a little… scared?

“Gray?”

“Yes, sorry.”

The house is silent save for the Christmas music still playing over the speakers and the crinkling of gift wrapping. You can’t even hear Nick and Sally in the kitchen, and they’re usually not very quiet whenever they argue about something. At least they’re missing this, you think – at least you and Gray don’t have an audience for what already feels like a relatively awkward affair. You chew on the inside of your lip as you finally get a good hold on the present and pull it out of the bag, and it’s a little yellow bear wearing a black bowtie.

It takes you a second to understand what it is, and then it hits you.

You had a similar bear when you were younger. You told Gray about it one night when Nick was late coming home after making an emergency run to the grocery store for new spices and Gray asked you some stupid question about school. Usually you don’t answer those questions, with him or with anyone – you avoid them like you avoid everything else, make a joke or change the topic – but you did this time. Maybe it was the soft music that was playing over the speakers or the way Gray just looked at you like there was nothing else in the room. Everyone he talks to probably feels like that, something you know very well, but you just couldn’t help it.

Some kid in your third-grade class – a Ment, just your luck – had seen you carrying the bear around every day since your birthday and heard you thinking about how much you loved it, so one day, probably just to spite you for getting a higher mark on a test or something, he stole it from your locker. He also never gave it back. He got in trouble, of course – your parents made sure of that – but he said he lost it on the way home, so there was nothing more that you could do after that.

Now, over ten years later, Gray got you what looks like the same stuffed animal with its name embroidered on the foot and, to be honest, you could probably cry over the mental image of Fortitude asking someone – probably a sweet little old lady – to embroider the word ‘Honey’ onto a bear wearing a little bowtie.

“Oh, Mari!” Gray looks up at you, smiling so much you can see his dimple and pulling his present – a silver watch – from the box. “This is amazing.”

God, you’re blushing so much from everything happening that you could probably heat the entire house for the rest of the winter. “Well, I thought I should get you a replacement since yours has been broken for months.” And it has been – you can’t count how many times he’s gone to check his watch and then had to pull his phone out of his pocket and then, because sometimes he forgets to charge it throughout the day, you have to pull your phone out of your pocket, and it turns into a big thing. “And this one’s a little more, uh, modern. According to the saleslady, anyway.”

The saleslady who thought you were getting this present for your husband and kept saying that even though it’s very obvious that you’re still a couple months away from turning twenty. You can blame her for being so nervous about it.

“That’s very thoughtful, thank you.” He turns the watch over in his hands and then stops, squinting and leaning closer to inspect the back of it. “And it gets better!”

The same saleslady as before who also frowned at you when you asked if you could get the words “Merry Christmas, Cookie Monster” engraved on the back of it. And yeah, sure, it was incredibly embarrassing to do that and made you lie face-down on your bed for an hour when you got home and yeah, sure, it made the whole thing a little more expensive than you’d hoped, but seeing his face and knowing that he likes it was worth the embarrassment and empty pockets.

“Thank you so much, Mari. I’ll treasure it.” He grins at you and then catches sight of the bear in your hands. “And do you like your -?”

“Yeah,” you answer, fiddling with the velvet bowtie. “Yeah, he’s… uh, it’s perfect.”

“Good,” Gray says, his shoulders sagging as he sighs like he had been holding his breath. “I’m glad. I thought you might not like it or might find it strange…”

“No, no! It’s – I love it, Gray. It’s really… um… thoughtful of you, too.”

He looks back down at the watch in his hand, running his thumb along the strap as a crease forms between his eyebrows, and then, right as he looks back up and opens his mouth to say something, Sally comes careening into the room and stops in her tracks as soon as she spots what you’re holding. “Oh my God!” she says, hurrying over and kneeling down beside you. “Is that Honey? He’s been resurrected! Returned to us from beyond the grave!”

“Back and better than ever,” you say, smiling at Gray even though he can’t see you as he shows Nick the features of his new watch. “And look at his little foot.”

Sally practically squeals when she sees it, her eyes lighting up before she pauses, turns to the boys and forces a pout. “Gray, you’re making me look like a chump,” she says. “I’m supposed to get Mari the best Christmas gift because I’m her best friend.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Sally,” Gray replies without even trying to sound like he’s not lying. “Though, if it makes you feel any better, I like Mari’s present more than Nick’s.”

“Hey,” Nick protests, half-heartedly punching Gray on the arm. “At least wait until I’m out of the room to say stuff like that, would you?”

The rest of the night passes in a blur – you’re so relieved that Gray liked his present and so pleased with yours that you can barely focus when Sally opens up her new board game from Nick so all of you can play it together– and by the time Gray’s leaving and you all him at the front door to say good-bye, you’re still clutching the bear against your chest. Yeah, it feels kind of silly to spend all night with a stuffed animal, but… It’s a gift from Gray. What else are you supposed to do with it besides hang onto it for dear life and hope someone doesn’t take it away from you?

Once he leaves, you and Sally flop down on the couch with her head in your lap. “So,” she asks, “good night?”

“Yeah,” you answer as she takes the bear from you and turns it over in her hands. “Definitely a good night.”

“Such a nice gift. When did you tell him about this little guy?”

“Like… six months ago.”

“Um, okay, are we ignoring how cute it is that he remembered that?” Sally sits up and leans in conspiratorially. “Or do you think he bought it the day after you told him and has been hanging onto it all year or something?”

“No, no, probably not,” you say, reaching out and pulling the bear out of her hands. “Nick probably told him to get it.”

“No, I didn’t.” Nick appears at the bottom of the stairs in his PJs and runs a hand through his hair. “Salome’s right, actually – he got it a couple months ago. He’s basically asked me once a week since then if I was sure you wouldn’t find it weird or if it was stepping over a boundary or something. He had to find a seamstress and ask her to make the bow and sew it on herself.” Laughing, Nick continues, “I think he told me that he gave her a fifty-dollar tip or something.”

“Oh my God, I just realized that it matches your dress!” Sally snatches the bear from you again and holds it up. “I told you this dress was a good idea. We should take a picture of you and send it to him!”

“What? No!” You take it back from Sally – again – and put it on the end table so she can’t reach it. “Why are you guys being so weird about this?”

“Duh, because it’s cute!” Sally replies. When she looks over at Nick, though, he gives her a small shake of his head. “But, uh… if you don’t wanna keep talking about it, then I think we could make this night even better by starting our annual rewatch of all the classic Christmas movies. And maybe Nicholas will let us have some of that red wine…?”

“Gray took it home,” he says. “Besides, there’s plenty of eggnog left for you if you want it.”

“Ooh. Good point.” Sally swings her legs over the side of the couch and hops off. “Where are the snacks?”

“In the cupboard.” He watches her go. “You can take what you want, Salome, but please use a plate!”

When Sally’s left the room, Nick turns to you. “Gray likes his present, by the way.” There’s a twinkle in his eye and what looks like both a smirk and a smile at the same time on his lips. “And you know, Mari, he’s probably going to wear this one for years until it breaks too.”

… Oh.

You hadn’t thought about it like that. Gray, wearing the watch that you got him for Christmas years from now…

Fuck, your heart can’t take all this sentimentality. You’ll just get him a gift card next year instead.