#this kinda really sucks and its horribly written but I cannot do anything rn for the life of me

[lifesucksheres20bucks]

The Memories of Christmas Past

my not so secret santa fic for my favourite bubs @pink-psychic , sorry it couldn't be better but I hope you enjoy ❤️

On a soft snowy morning, in the suburbs of New York City. Eddie and Richie slept in bed, all tangled up in one another. Richie was half awake already, he had somehow gotten used to waking up early. He knew their peace and quiet would soon be interrupted by excited screams but for now he tried to take in his beautiful sleeping husband as much as he could. Snuggled up a bit closer and kissed his temple a bit longer, not wanting to wake him just yet. However, that carefulness was disregarded quickly as he heard footsteps getting closer to their room and suddenly the door swung open. 

“Daddy, papa! Santa came! We have to go open the presents!!, Olivia their oldest, screamed as she jumped on their bed. 

“Liv, sweetie, we don’t jump on the bed. You might hurt yourself.” Eddie said, slowly waking up.

“Listen to your papa sweets, you know what happens when you don’t …. TICKLE FIGHT! 

Richie grabbed his daughter and started tickling her and kissing her all over until she bagged him to stop. 

“DADDY! Please stop! I can’t b-breath. AH daddy, I’m too ticklish, it’s not fair!”

“Okay sweetie but you promise you’ll listen to papa now?”

“Yes daddy I promise. Can we open the presents now?”

“PRESENTS?”, Charlie their three year old son, screamed as he ran into the room. 

Eddie rubbed his eyes and slowly got up and grabbed his son. 

“Yeah buddy we can go open the presents soon, do you guys want hot cocoa before? Why don’t you guys go wake up Luke with daddy and i’ll go make the hot chocolate?

“YAYYY!”

Richie hurried the kids to wake up their youngest son Luke. He was a calm child, unless he was with his brother, then he would feed off of his wild energy. When they all entered his room he was already fully awake standing up in his crib. He seemed calm at first but when he saw Charlie he started jumping up in down. 

“Good morning buddy! You excited to see daddy huh?”

“No! Charwie, Charwie!!”

“Of course you want your brother. Well, news flash buddy, he can’t get you out of your bed. So, are you excited to see your daddy?”

“Dada!”, Luke said as he reached his arms out and whined for his father. 

“I guess that’s good enough.” Richie said as he kissed his son all over his face.

“Dada! Down, down!”

Richie put his youngest down and he instantly ran to Olivia and hugged her. She quickly got him ready for the day.

While Eddie went to make some hot chocolate for the whole family. He heard Richie, playfully screaming at his kids to keep calm but then screamed about being super excited for santa. Eddie smiled to himself, hearing his family being so happy just made his heart filled with love. He heard what sounded like a thousand footsteps running into the living room and felt arms wrap around his waist.

“Good morning Eds, all the kids are up, our little Olive took such good care of Luke. I can’t believe he’s almost two years old. It feels like just yesterday we were bringing him back home.”

“I know, they’re all growing up so fast. How is Liv seven already? And taking care of her little brothers with so much love. She’s so mature for her age.”

“We got good kids, my love”

Richie started kissing Eddie’s jaw and quickly stopped when they heard impatient screams coming from the living room. Richie helped with the hot chocolate and they both hurried and brought their kids some.

“Why does Olifia, get mug but i get sippy cup”, Charlie whined at his papa

“Because Olive is older than you, buddy. She doesn’t make a big mess when she drinks” Richie answered ruffling his son’s hair.

“I don’t make mess”, he pouted

“Do you not remember what happened with the orange juice yesterday?”

“THAT NOT MY FAULT! Luke made me do it.”

“Nah ah!”, Luke replied

“It’s not very nice to blame everything on your little brother Charlie” Eddie interjected. 

“Maybe we should open some presents now?”

The question was followed by a chorus of screams, the loudest coming from Richie. As the kids opened their presents Eddie went to sit on Richie’s lap, a habit he developed as a teenager but couldn't quite do anymore with all their children wanting to sit on their daddy’s lap. He wrapped his arms around Richie, nuzzled his face into his neck and admired his beautiful children. He didn’t think life could get better than this, watching the loves of his life filled with joy, in the arms of the man he loved. He was brought out of his daydream by a small nudge in his side.

“Eds, i think it’s your turn to open your present. Olive why don’t you pass that red box to papa?”

“Why is it so heavy?”

“Well, why don’t we wait for papa to open it and we’ll see”

Eddie took the box from his girls hands and looked over at Richie and saw he had the biggest grin. He slowly started to open the gift and found a scrapbook inside. On the cover was a picture of them on their wedding day at the age of 18 years old, in Vegas. Everyone said it was crazy, but the people that knew them, the losers, were 1000% on board with the idea. The gang knew they were soulmates and nothing would ever keep them apart. When they finished high school, they all drove down to Vegas on a “graduation trip”, the same night they arrived, they had tied the knot and never looked back. On every page was a picture of their life together, one on their first day of kindergarten, another with the losers at the quarry, a lot of them, taken at mike’s farm, drunk. Eddie started feeling his eyes water up and closed the scrapbook before more could come out. 

“Richie, this is beyond perfect. I-I can’t believe you did this for me. I love you so much.”

“Spaghetti, maybe you should look into the box again, that’s not the only present.”

Eddie turned his head quickly towards the box and saw a large picture frame at the bottom, he pulled it out and started sobbing.

“Why papa cry?”, Charlie asked

“I think he really likes his gift.” Olivia answered

Eddie looked at the frame again and couldn't believe his eyes. It was a picture of him and Richie on their first Christmas together as a married couple and a second picture of them on their first christmas as a complete family. Seeing those memories took him back to their shitty New York City apartment.

-------

“Richie we have to have a tree! It can’t be christmas without a tree!”

“Eds, I know baby, but we really can’t afford one right now. We can’t even afford our rent this month. I’m already taking extra shifts at the radio station, just for that.”

“I know baby, I’m sorry for pushing it. It’s just not how I pictured our first Christmas together, that's all.”

“We’re going to have a gazillion more christmas’ we can make perfect in the future. Right now let’s just concentrate on not losing our home. I have to go to work, please don’t wait up on me like you always do. Go to sleep, Eds, you have an early class.”

“Okayyy, I will.”

“Goodnight spaghetti, I love you”,with that Richie kissed his husband and headed out the door. 

Richie working the night shift at the station became a regular occurrence during their winter break. They barely had any time to see each other. He would come home at six AM and Eddie would leave for his job at seven AM. I definitely wasn’t the Christmas break Eddie had hoped for but he knew money was their biggest priority. 

To his surprise, on December 24th, he got home from work and found their small apartment lit up by a Christmas tree.

“Richie? What the fuck, you got us a christmas tree? I thought you said no tree because they were too expensive?”

“Yeah, I still stand by that statement, I don’t want to pay 50$ for a tree...instead I stole an extra dead one from the sidewalk and I borrowed the lights from the station.”

“ ‘Chee, oh god, you shouldn't have!” Eddie said as he pulled Richie into his arms.

“You’re not mad, I got a dead tree from the streets?”

“Surprisingly, no, I don’t care. All of this is amazing, this is the best Christmas I could have asked for.”

“I’m glad you like it, love.”

“Since we have a tree, can we exchange gifts now? I know we said no gifts but I got you a little something.”

Eddie ran into their bedroom and came back with an old looking box.

“Here, open it.”

Richie ripped open the box and took out a very old looking microphone. It was a big silver one, that looked straight up from a vintage radio station. 

“I got it at the flea market, the seller said it was from a radio station from the 50’s and I thought you might like it…it doesn’t work or anything but I thought we could use it as decoration or something around the apartment. ”

“Fuck Eds, it’s perfect. You’re perfect. Thank you so much for this.”, Richie grabbed his husband and kissed him. 

“Let me get my camera, I want us to remember this. Our very first Christmas together.” Richie said with a quick kiss on the cheek before he ran off to the bedroom.

After a lovely evening of hot chocolate, christmas movies and lots of cuddles, they both fell asleep on the couch. For Eddie, this was one of his favourite memories with Richie, even more memorable than their wedding day. It was the first time they spent a holiday together as a small family. The first time it felt like it was the two of them against the world. 

He never wanted that feeling to go away and it never did. Everyday with Richie topped the last and now, with their family, it was truly the two of them against the world. The gift Richie gave reminded him of that original feeling and it made fill with happiness. His kids got the presents they wanted and were happily playing with them as Eddie snuggled closer to the man that made this all possible. As cheesy as it is to say, the holidays were a magical time and he was reminded of that feeling, seeing his children so excited and happy made Eddie the luckiest man in the world.  

He glanced over at the old microphone that sat atop their mantle over the fireplace and smiled to himself. Christmas mornings with his children and his husband were the best mornings and he couldn’t wait for the next one.

[rigelmejo]

as usual the learning stages are so weird. reading in particular Constantly feels like a rollercoaster of: i’m drowning in unknowns, oh cool i understand what i don’t understand and its a slog looking up words/interpreting but i’m managing, this is kinda doable and not exhausting anymore!, oh no i’m drowning in new unknowns

at each iteration, each step feels a little tiny bit easier. Like me ‘kinda doable and not exhausted’ feels much more relaxing/less mentally draining to me now than it did on month like 6. my level of overall ‘this is horribly hard’ is diminishing. Still though, when i forget the longer perspective, in the short term it keeps feeling like an up down rollercoaster. to be fair, each time it feels ‘easier’ for long enough, then i will move onto harder material. so it makes sense the up down rollercoaster of difficulty continues.

anyway it is. blowing my mind lately. Because i’m at the ‘doable and not exhausting anymore’ point again! Only this time, the reading material is 寒舍, 天涯客, 盗墓笔记 - novels I found horrifically difficult in the past. Yet now I can a few paragraphs in a row before I hit unknown words, and now I can sometimes go through whole sections without looking up words and probably follow the plot and just miss some details. Right now the only hard step is me getting into the ‘reading mood’ because the actual reading is bearable, just requiring dictionary lookup if I want to study all the new words. Which is just... very overwhelming as a concept to me. its so cool. its overwhelming.

at the same time though! i know eventually i’ll get through this patch, and start realizing what new things i DIDN’T notice i didn’t understand before. And then it will get hard and draining again. Still, I’m really excited about it while I am in this part of the experience.

It also makes me want to try some extensive reading again - where I read one of my physical books, and don’t use a dictionary at all. Or only for key words at the end if they kept popping up, and i desperately want to know them. I know every time i do extensive reading - particularly that kind, the hardest kind, i am exhausted easily. Its hard! At best I can strain to follow the main idea! But I think it does spark improvement! And maybe a harder challenge is what I need to become motivated. Or just what I need in general. Since eventually, reading that way is the goal, when I do it I’m practicing the final goal.

Also I feel like such a baby! Like?!!!! I tried extensive reading at month 5, 7, 8, etc!!! When it was MUCH harder, AGONIZINGLY harder!!! I STILL managed to endure it and read the Kunlun intro in Guardian, some paragraph passages in guardian, some chapters of MDZS, some chapters of Mo Du. Like??? I read through 2 chapters of mo du with no dictionary before!! I think it was back at month 8 or 10? But like i am being a chicken to be scared to do it now. When clearly i could suck it up and bravely do it before when i had less knowledge. In a way, I think its funny - the more you learn, sometimes the scarier things become, because you realize JUST how many details may be there that you could miss. When I tried to extensively read earlier on, months ago, just following the main idea was an accomplishment! Now that I should be able to grasp it, then i also expect myself to be able to catch the details - which is harder work, more focus, more expectations to meet. 

Anyway some mostly unrelated notes to self:

Parallel reading english and chinese is a quite relaxing/lower effort way to practice reading. I did that earlier today with an english and chinese translation of a fanfic - its easy to match up unknown words to their definitions, see how words phrase together differently to convey similar things, and the only hard part is when I run into unknown hanzi since I can’t pronounce them. Similarly - reading dmbj in chinese, within days after reading the english chapter, makes it much easier to read through. Because I know the general plot, when i encounter sentences with words i can’t figure out even with a dictionary or sentences with grammar i can’t interpret for certain, the general plot knowledge helps me know whats going on enough to continue reading. 

My speaking skills need some vast improvement. Just like with reading - the more experienced I get, the more i realize i haven’t even noticed i needed to do and learn! I was working on tones the past few months, and now that’s a touch better (still not much). But can i say a sentence quickly/fluidly? No. Can i say anything at a quick pace? Probably not. Do i still forget tones or screw them up when saying a sentence, especially one at a decently quick pace? Yep. I was watching John Cena speaking chinese of all things, and the language learning form was like ‘his efforts admirable but he doesn’t even have conversational ability.’ I listened to him, and his word choice was basic but sufficient for the conversation. He was able to respond immediately in chinese, which was the most impressive thing I think - no slowing down to think how to word it or which word. While he probably made some mistakes, it did show he has an active vocabulary and that he can actively put sentence together without delay. I didn’t necessarily hear tones well in what he said, but his pronunciation sounded recognizable to me. So if that’s not conversational? How good must one be to be conversational? For the conversation he had, it seemed fine? And so now, of course, I’m like “well my tones are weak anyway that’s just that. they’re even weaker in a sentence. my grammar’s weak when producing. my word choice usually requires me to pause to decide if i need to tone change based on surrounding tones in the sentence. i cannot talk as fast as him period. i cannot form sentences so confidently. mm.”

i probably know many more words? in comparison? since i know a solid enough amount now that chinese subtitles in shows i can usually read all hanzi now, its just learning some new words/sayings made with those hanzi. i can read manhua fine. i can read easier novels ok, and harder ones with a dictionary. i know i have a very long way to go, but i feel i know more than 2000 words now, and 2000 ish is usually what they recommend for daily life casual conversational ability (how are you/did you do x/you think x/you ask about x/etc). and in typing i can type pretty quickly and have an active vocabulary. but truly when speaking, i start overthinking if i’m doing the grammar properly and if i need to switch tones for 3rd tones and just slow down a ton.

also my grammar rn? its a hot mess. Reading? Phenomenal, easy. Grammar does not really confuse me in reading - sometimes a new word or phrase does, when i’m trying to figure out how its interacting with the overall sentence meaning. But grammar usually doesn’t (except that gongzi huanxi novel for some freaking reason). But when I produce? For some reason when i DO overthink and try to determine how to word something, i will sometimes fuck up my grammar so much that my sentence becomes incomprehensible and the person i’m talking to asks ‘what do you mean?’ Yet when I don’t overthink and just start talking/typing, its usually fine. BUT that means its incredibly hard for me to self correct. I am fairly sure I’ll just have to continue building a large vocabulary/reading ability, then when i’m ready, just read through some grammar books and practice exercises until i develop the proper patterns. 

Like??? the other day i had to ask someone something like “what’s the name that you use in real life?” because we were chatting online. But i overthought the sentence after i typed it, then rearranged it thinking ‘oh i have to put ‘what’ question word in a different location etc for grammar reasons.’ Then they were like ‘what??? im sorry i don’t understand what you’re asking.” Even though it was a simple sentence, i knew all the words. But i overthought how to ask it and therefore made a completely incomprehensible sentence somehow messing up the grammar when i tried to ‘correct’ so badly it became impossible to understand. And this was the same conversation where they asked why i liked to read the books i recommended. And i was able to say a long paragraph with long sentences about how “i found poyun on a reccomendation list when i was searching for more books like mo du, i love priest’s novels and i love mysteries so i was looking for a similar kind of well written story. i like boy love stories if i happen to find them, since i’m bi and its nice to find love stories i feel more able to connect to. but i like all kinds of stories if the character writing is good, and the plot is meaningful.” Like... i was able to write all of that off of the top of my head in chinese without looking things up, just typing. And i didn’t re-read it to check for grammar. And the person understood just fine and responded. But when i asked something as simple as “what name do you use in real life?” i overthought how i was supposed to word it and became incomprehensible! So for now, I’ve been just speaking/typing however the sentence comes to mind. I’m fairly SURE im making grammar errors, but i’m having more luck being understood that way. So i’ve sort of just resigned to the fact that later on when it becomes a priority, that’s when i’ll sit down with a grammar book and drill out the patterns and correct any ingrained-mistakes i might have.