🤍𝐒𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐘𝐨𝐮 ~ 𝐩𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨🤍
𝕔𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕝𝕠 𝕩 𝕗𝕖𝕞
word count: 3.2k
genre/tropes: established friendship, one-sided love (or is it?)
warnings: slight angst
pt one: here
notes from bambi: the POV switches throughout this part - switches will be indicated by an extra blank line. also i wasn't originally planning to add another part to this but ohhhh i'm so glad i did. thank you to @sturniololover-09 , @ivonchetooo1239 , and @aliceloveschris , who asked for part two - hope you like it!
Another night, another stressed-out Christopher. While I already felt out-of-my-depth when he came to me with his existential romance crisis, his current issue proved to be even more herculean in nature.
“Chris. For the umpteenth time. I don’t know how to make the glow stars stick to your ceiling.”
“But I need them to! And they’re supposed to stick, it said so on the box-”
“It also said to clean the area thoroughly before application,” I said dryly, crossing my ankles and settling deeper into the blankets on his bed, “And when exactly did you wipe down your ceiling?”
Chris harrumphed. “The universe is working against me.”
“I’m sure it is, honey. Can we please start this now?” I gestured to his monitor, some dumb lawyer show on Netflix - Coats or Jackets or something. Chris told me earlier how much I’d love it, to which I had replied, “We’ll see.” The last show he tried to get me to watch with him was deplorable, and it took a long time for me to see Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, and KJ Appa as anything other than the god-awful actors Riverdale painted them to be.
“I wanna try one more time,” he said, stepping ungraciously over my legs and stretching towards the ceiling.
“Is it made of plaster?” I asked, tilting my head upwards, trying very hard to avoid looking straight up his loose basketball shorts.
“What, this?” He pointed upward. “I think. Why?”
I hummed in reply and began tapping away on my phone. Chris shrugged and went back to his Sisyphysian task. The stars would stick initially, but kept falling after a while and stabbing us in the rudest of places - an hour ago I got a crescent moon to the boob.
Soft music drifted down the stairs outside his bedroom door - Matt must be playing something in the kitchen. The four of us ate dinner earlier and as Chris made it, I was a guest, and Nick didn’t feel good, he’d been on clean-up.
“Hey.” I pulled on the hem of Chris’s shorts. “This says if we use rubbing alcohol to clean the area first instead of just like, a damp cloth or something, that should work. It also says a hot glue gun will help it stick better.”
Chris put his hand on my head, thumbing my soft baby hairs that would never stay put - his way of saying ‘thank you’. “Do we even have a hot glue gun?”
“No idea,” I murmured as I leaned against his leg.
“Time to find out!” He scrambled over me, stepping on my arm and almost tea-bagging me.
“You fuck,” I said, smacking him on the arm as he ran out of the room giggling.
“Hey do we have rubbing alcohol and a hot glue gun?”
Matt startled and shook his head, leaning over the sink. “Jesus, you scared the fuck outta me,” he huffed. “Alcohol, yes, in your bathroom, glue gun, no.”
“Well shit. ‘Preciate it,” Chris said, patting him on the back and turning for the stairs.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“She okay?”
Chris’s brows knitted together. “Whaddaya mean?”
“She just seems kinda stressed, ‘s all,” Matt said. “Somethin’ else on the mind.”
“She’s good as far as I know.”
“K. Come up behind me like that again, I’ll kick you in the nuts.”
“Whatever,” Chris responded, grinning his way back downstairs.
“There’s rubbing alcohol in my bathroom.”
I scrunched my face. “Since when?”
“No idea. Can you get one of my t-shirts, we’ll use that for the cleaning thingy.”
“Yeah,” I said, unwrapping myself from his blankets and stepping lazily toward his closet. Chris was already down one shirt due to the fact that I’d ripped my going out top just as we got home earlier. The “kickback” at Tara’s felt more like a rager and I considered it a miracle no one ended up naked. While digging around for something for me to wear, Chris had found the unopened bag of glow-in-the-dark stars, and the rest was history.
I tugged on the faded tee now, bunching the front end up in my hands as I rifled around to the back of his closet. It all smelled like him, piney with a hint of spice that makes your nose feel cold and tingly. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms. “You don’t care about this one do you?” I said quickly, trying to move on.
He turned and shook his head, dark, soft curls falling around his eyes. “Toss it.” In my defense, I did my best. It’s not my fault the damn thing got flung halfway back to the door when he smacked it out of the air instead of catching it, and I told him so with a huff. “Sure, sure, blame me,” Chris said, grinning.
“I will,” I replied, bending over to pick it up.
Chris felt his chest cave in. There she was, baby hairs falling awry, his massively oversized crewneck slipping halfway off her shoulders, body lit up by the soft light from his screensaver. His knees buckled, and he stepped out to steady himself on the plush bed. She noticed - of course she did - and tilted her head. “You good there, hotrod?” Her smile was slightly uneven, like it always had been before, and Chris wanted to kiss it very badly for the rest of his life and probably after that as well.
“I’m fantastic,” he said, blinking the thoughts away from his mind.
“Okay,” I laughed, throwing the offending shirt back at him. “I’ll go get the rubbing alcohol and then can we please watch your damn show?”
“So rowdy. Yeah, hurry up.”
I shook my head and walked out of his room, turning the small corner into his bathroom and flicking on the light. My toothbrush rested on his counter. He only hung up his towels because he knew I would try to do it my way, and he hated my way. I looked at myself in the mirror.
A moment passed, filled of my own wonderings about what Chris saw when he looked at me. Was it me - the way I looked, my individual features, did they jump out at him? Some were impossible to miss…they sure did jump out at me. Or did his brain focus on other things? Did he even care how I looked, when my physical characteristics stacked up to the years of friendship we’d already put behind us, the late nights, early mornings, the adventures, the bad times…I pulled the rubbing alcohol out from under his sink before I forgot and opened up my phone. Swiping out of the “how to stick glow stars to plaster” search tab, I went to our messages.
iMessage chat with Orange Juice:
taras got a thing tonight u wanna go
You:
duh what’s the vibes?
Orange Juice:
i think just whatever im not putting on anything fancy
You:
you’re so boring.
Orange Juice:
shut up
im glad youre coming
You:
please use apostrophes, just once i’m actually begging.
Orange Juice:
thou can suck my confetti covered cock about it actually
You:
oh! taking a screenshot and sending it to mary lou
Orange Juice:
okay wait
You:
no :D get fucked, mister magic penis
Orange Juice: im glad youre coming
↪ me too. missed u tons
Orange Juice:
same
you wanna talk about canes
You:
we can, are you still feeling weird about things?
Orange Juice:
no i just wanna talk like that more with you
you’r advice was really good
You:
that’s not how you use an apostrophe christopher
Then they all arrived to pick me up for Tara’s, Chris hugged me, and we said nothing more about it. Chris. I should get this back to him. Reaching for the light, I looked for the rubbing alcohol, felt the switch with my other hand, grabbed the bottle, and flipped the lights off without looking. So it came as a terrifying surprise when I ran smack into Chris’s chest. “FUCKSHITPISSIMGONNAKILLYOU,” I nearly shouted at him, letting my hands rest on his chuckling chest, panting with the overwhelming surge of adrenaline.
“‘Fuck’, ‘shit’, and ‘piss’?” he snickered, covering my hands with his own. “That’s insane.”
I stalked past him into his room, tossing the bottle behind my shoulder - he would catch it or he wouldn’t and then I would know karma was on my side. “I don’t wanna discuss it.”
“Okay then,” Chris said, still laughing as he poured the awful-smelling stuff onto his ancient shirt, balled it up, and began to scrub his ceiling. “What took you so long in there?”
I did not want to answer him. “You’re doing it wrong,” I huffed. I climbed up onto the bed with him, reaching up to take his makeshift rag.
Chris’s mouth slid into a sly smile, and he raised it farther above my head than I could reach. “Am I?”
I stepped closer to him, pressed against his chest like I’d been before. Showing him my best doe-eyes, I whined, “Give it, Chris, please.”
His tongue swiped over his lips, both of which now hung open. Chris looked down at me and I looked up at him. The height difference was slight, but now the mere inches felt incredibly important in the moment’s silence. “What?” I whispered, barely more than a breath.
Jesus Christ, girlie, Chris groaned inwardly. She just looked so cute, and she had always been so sweet to him, and she took him to Cane’s and listened to his mostly-incoherent stream of consciousness, and she loved his brothers and she helped him hang up glow stars and she might actually be the most perfect person he’d ever met.
“Chris?” her voice, though soft, held him in a painful vice grip. “What’s wrong?”
He loosed a breath, lowering his hand and letting his arms settle around her, gathering at the small of her back. Chris pressed his lips against her forehead, resting his against it when her wrists crossed behind his neck.
“Nothin’s wrong,” he murmured, a humored smile making its way across his face. He heard his voice change with the mounting anxiety in his chest. “Jus’ like bein’ with ya, ‘s all.”
My stomach fluttered at his words. “I like being with you too, bubs.” An idea sparked in my brain, and before any of my self-preservation instincts could kick in, I dropped my hands from his neck and dug them under his arms, tickling mercilessly. Chris’s eyes lit up in a flash, cowing his back to get away from me while simultaneously making a beeline for my ribs to lay waste to them in a similar fashion.
“You little fucker!” he cackled, dancing around on the bed to avoid my hands.
“AKSPBTH, GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY!” I was shrieking with glee as we tumbled in a writhing heap on his pillows, gasping for breath while he continued his unhindered attack on my body. “ChrisChrisChrisChris-” I panted, making ultimately futile attempts to wriggle out from under him, “Please, truce, truce, I’m begging-”
Laughing still, he sat back on his knees, arms still on either side of me. Chris’s hair fell so messy above me, his chain dangling just above my nose. I gave him a downturned smile.
“Pinned ya,” he huffed triumphantly.
I lightly smacked his chest with a daring snort of derision. “Like you’d do anything about it.”
“Shut up.” Chris, still smiling that heart-wrenchingly adorable smile of his, lowered his head until our noses touched. “Hi.” He blinked his big blue eyes comically at me.
“Hey,” I replied softly, another laugh lilting quietly from my throat. I found myself enjoying this moment very much.
Chris tilted his head, hair swinging with him. “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?”
I giggled. “Nothin’.”
He huffed, scrunching his nose and rubbing it against mine, his chain slipping over my chin, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. He tended to bring that out of me. My arms reached up to wrap around his back. “Come here,” I whispered, and as he lowered his chest to mine, I felt his arms slip up around my head. I nuzzled into his neck and held him.
We lay like that for a while, the pressure on my body soothing me, his scent engulfing me. I could get used to this.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I wanna talk about our conversation.”
“From the other night?”
“Mhm.”
“We can. Do you wanna sit up?”
“No,” he grumbled, doing it anyway.
“Poor baby,” I teased, “Your life is so very hard.” My heart felt full. Something was changing. I could sense it somehow.
Chris blushed at my words, shaking his head and hiding his gaze. He settled back against his headboard to the right side of me while I tugged a blanket up to my shoulders. “You cold?” he asked, but I shook my head.
“‘S just soft, that’s all. What do you wanna talk about?” I asked, tucking my arm under his.
Chris squeezed it and took a deep breath. “I said I wasn’t sure how I loved you. And we talked about how we don’t have much romantic love experience.”
“Mhm.” I waited for him to continue.
“And I just…” Chris laid his head on mine. “I…feel something…for you. But I don’t think it’s fair to even tell you that because I really don’t know if it’s anything more than that friend-type of love.” The sigh he let out was shaky. I stayed stock-still, unsure of what he was getting at and hoping to god my heart wasn’t about to be crushed. “And then I started thinkin’ about what you said about love…how it was like, a bunch of choices you make.” His right hand reached over, tentative and uncertain, touching the arm I’d tucked next to him ever so lightly. “And then you said a buncha’ stuff about my family but you didn’t say anythin’ about yourself.” He turned his head and looked down at me, his face dark in the soft light.
Her eyes flicked up to meet his and Chris’s heart went into cardiac arrest. There was so much trust in her gaze, she might as well have opened her soul wide open for him to look at, and he wanted to drown himself in it. His lips parted in a disbelieving sigh - this girl, this woman, she’d been with him for so long, always patient, always willing to listen, she never pushed him but god did she challenge him, she made him laugh, she made him want to act better…he wanted to be a person she would be proud to know. Maybe even…maybe even someone she would want to call her boyfriend. “I care about you,” he said, his heart thumping with fear. “I don’t know if that's romantic love or not but...” he paused. God, he was so scared. “If you’ll let me…I wanna find out with you.”
And there it was - the confession. Chris had metaphorically ripped his heart from its cage and handed it to her, and he was terrified over what she’d do with it.
“Love…is waking up every day and choosing that person regardless of what the day is gonna throw at you.”
Her voice echoed in his head. Chris chose her. Even if she didn’t choose him back.
I exhaled slowly. My chest almost caved in from the weight of his words. “Chris…” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “You have…no idea…how long I’ve wanted to hear that.” I wanted to hug him, desperately, but I was afraid of breaking him. He looked so scared, scared of love, scared of messing up, scared of being less than expected or not enough…he looked so scared.
“Yeah?” he asked softly, unable to look away.
“Yeah,” I nodded, my hand moving up slowly, so slowly, to touch his cheek. Gingerly, I traced my knuckle down his stubble, and his sweet blue eyes closed at my touch. My own did their best to blink away tears, but ultimately failed.
Suddenly, the most unrelated thought occurred to me. “Chris,” I whispered, “Look at the stars.” He tilted his head up in awe at the glow stars that had stuck to the ceiling after all this time. Not a single planet loose, not a moon out of place. They covered the plaster with a hazy blue hue, casting gentle shadows down his neck.
“Holy shit,” he said with a soft laugh. “They really did stay up there.”
It all felt like one big giant metaphor to me, but maybe that interpretation was a bit on-the-nose. I elected to keep it to myself. I smiled at him, hoping I didn’t look disastrous with those damn tear tracks down my cheeks.
“Heyyy, hey…” Chris murmured, holding my face with both hands and thumbing the product of my overwhelming emotions away, “I got you. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“Neither am I,” I promised. I kissed his palm on impulse, eyes darting up to his. Is this okay?
Of course it is.
I continued my ministrations, taking his wrist in hand and kissing up to the tips of his fingers, curling them down to move up his knuckles until I reached the back of his hand. He let me, a curious expression on his face. With my final kiss, I made direct eye-contact with him. He breathed out and let his hand fall, his thumb catching softly on my bottom lip, the rest of his fingers fitting neatly under my chin.
“Please let me kiss you,” he whispered, his brows furrowed, his eyelids heavy, his gaze addicted to my lip, the bottom of which sprung plushly back into place when his thumb let go of it. He looked like a man starved.
I slid my fingers into the soft, loose curls at the back of his neck and tilted my head, letting his lips press so sweetly against mine. My stomach tingled, butterflies fluttering to life in my chest. Chris’s hands slipped up my back, hugging me into him, his nose pressing against my cheek as he kissed me again and again, slowly, patiently. His breath filled my mouth, and mine his. I probably exhaled a bit of my soul too. The thought made me smile and he murmured against my skin. “What is it, pretty girl?” He kissed the edges of my smile, nosing my blushed face, relishing the closeness now allowed to him.
“I just like you,” I said shyly.
He grinned, making a fist and yanking his elbow back to his side. “Yesssss.”
I erupted into giggles and he just watched me contentedly.
Pulling away for the briefest of moments to adjust my knees, I looked up to see Chris, looking like he’d been shot. “Come back…I wasn’t done,” he grumbled.
“You’re so whiny,” I teased, holding his cheeks in my hands.
He smiled impishly. “I jus’ like ya.”
“You like sitting here with me?” I asked, stroking the shell of his ear, drowning in his eyes like he was in mine.
“I like sitting here with you,” Chris confirmed, his voice gentle and low. “I want ya’ to be my girl.”
“Well, I want you to be my boy,” I huffed, grinning. “What about that?”
“I think I’ll live,” he replied, tilting his head to kiss me again.
The end.
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