Chapter Text
December 1st, 1997
-
“Will you forget about the fuckin’ fountain pen Erin?” Michelle asked, very loudly and impatiently. It was a good thing she did, otherwise James might not have been able to tear his eyes away from her, and the last thing he needed to do was be caught staring at Erin.
It’s just… ten minutes ago, when they were about to draw their Secret Santa names, Erin had said, “ Oh! One sec gang, just need to fetch my diary and my fountain pen, this is important!” and began looking around her room for both. She had found her diary quickly, taking it out from under her bed and tossing it at James - most likely because he was the only person who wouldn’t read it while waiting for her to find her pen - who was holding it now.
Her fountain pen was a different story and he watched Erin ducking in and out of the room to try and find it. She was so… all over the place, it was hard not to watch her.
Then again, it was always hard not to watch her. For entirely different reasons. His eyes fixed themselves on her hair whipping around as she started quickly scanning her desk and for a second moved down to her legs while she moved, her short skirt swishing invitingly from all the darting about the room… before feeling his ears heating up and moving them back to a much safer point of focus.
So it was a good thing Michelle interrupted, even if he could have watched her for hours. Or, more accurately, because he could have watched her for hours.
“Jesus Erin, can’t you just find a different pen so we can start picking for Secret Santa already? Maybe use the one shoved up your arsehole that’s making you waste our time on this?”
“ Michelle! ” Erin whined and James felt bad for her struggling, looking around the room himself to see if he could spot her pen himself. He didn’t think he had a chance, but it turns out from his spot on her bedroom floor, he was in the perfect place to catch the metal glint from where it was resting far under her desk, only the pen cap peeking out in the light.
He leaned over and stretched his arm out to grab it and then said cheerfully, “Found it!” while holding out both her diary and her pen.
Erin gazing at him with her eager eyes was overwhelming, even if he knew they weren’t for him per se. She reached down and took both from him, exclaiming, “Thank you James, you’re my hero!” and for a second, when he smiled back, she stayed smiling and the two were just sort of smiling . It was as if for a second there was just them there and they weren’t surrounded by friends. He once again let himself wonder if this was a moment , but before it went on long enough for him to define it as one -
“You should never call an English a hero, finding your pen today might mean colonizing your pen tomorrow. Now sit the fuck down and let’s do this thing already!” Michelle said firmly, and James was a lot less grateful this time, even though he knew he should be. He avoided looking at Michelle because he knew the harsh warning he’d see in them if he did. He could practically feel her eyes warning him off Erin even without looking.
Spell broken very abruptly, Erin sat back down in her original spot beside Clare and opened her pen and her diary. “Okay let’s do this thing!”
One by one each of the girls picked the name of who they were gift giving for out of the strangely magenta Santa hat they had bought from Dennis’s Wee Shop (“It’s the new rebrand he’s doin’, these are fresh out of the North Pole.” was the explanation given, before they were promptly told to “GET OUT!”).
James could tell that Michelle had just drawn his name, because she had a very cross look on her face and threw her hands up in a way that was over dramatic and a little offending as she said, way too loud, “For FUCKS SAKE!” and threw herself onto the ground hair first.
Then straightened herself up real quick when Mrs. Quinn gave a very stern warning from outside Erin’s bedroom door, “Watch yourself Michelle!”
“Aye, sorry Mary!”
He thought for a second he might say something about how having to buy him a present wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but then wondered if he had a death wish and erased the thought entirely as Michelle pushed the startling pink Santa Hat in his direction, “Your turn dickhead.”
He was the last one, and other than knowing he wouldn’t get himself, he wasn’t sure who was left to get. Every other girl had a decent poker face about it - except Orla, who he suspects that’s just her face - and that left him no clue.
Reaching inside the hat (it was really very itchy inside, Santa wasn’t doing a good job at rebranding with selling these, though Dennis was doing an excellent job peddling absolute crap as always) he grasped at the last slip of paper and pulled it out, unfurling it and feeling his heart miss a beat as his eyes traced over the four most beautiful letters in the most beautiful order, exactly the last four letters he wanted.
Erin.
The rest of the day passed by without incident. Or as much without incident as things were for them, which meant mild incidents.
Michelle kept complaining about her Secret Santa and tried to switch with everyone - or, rather, switch with Clare and Orla, who shot her down quickly. Erin offered to switch with Michelle out of the kindness of her heart and was instantly refused. He wasn’t sure if he could count it as a moment because he wasn’t sure if Erin knew Michelle had got him. Even though it seemed obvious. Maybe it was just obvious to him.
Clare was quiet, as she often was lately, in the corner starting a new crochet project. He put aside his own anxiety about the slip burning a hole in his jeans pocket to sit with her for a while, talking about Clare maybe teaching him to crochet. In the end she gave him a smile and a “…Maybe after Christmas, so I’m not busy making all these gifts.” Clare smiles were a victory these days, and it took the edge off of the inevitable worry later.
That was later. This was now.
Orla had worn the itchy Santa Hat and talked about the time she had head lice as a child and she tried to keep them as her “wee house pets” which made everyone in the Quinn-McCool house have head lice. Just the memory of the lice outbreak had Erin and Mary taking the hat away and throwing it right outside in the snow, where it was when he and Michelle left.
When that happened, Michelle asked him who he had got and he didn’t say. He couldn’t say because then she’d go back and make him switch. He might not have wanted to pick her name, but he also didn’t want anyone else to have her name either. It was very confusing.
Which is what led him here. Confused, flushed and laying in bed clutching the tiny slip in his hands, occasionally looking at it and the way Erin had written her name. He loved her handwriting. He loved so much about her. He might even -
Let’s not go there.
Shaking off the very dangerous thought trail he was heading down didn’t do much to release the anxiety he felt. A lot was at stake here whether he liked her or… well, more than liked her . He’d have to give her a gift and they were more than friends these days… less than a couple, way less but more than just friends. At least to him. He wasn’t entirely sure if she was feeling the same way he was, even though as he often remembered - very often, it was definitely not helping, how much he remembered - she kissed him.
So being stuck in that confusing middle ground between ‘maybe more than friends’ and ‘way less than a couple’ made thinking of the right gift for your ‘not girlfriend but not just a friend’ very very intimidating. What also didn’t help was dealing with the roadblocks of ‘not being entirely sure how she felt about the whole thing’ and ‘having to give that gift in front of Michelle and the others’ and worrying about the gift being too friendly and making her think he doesn’t care or too romantic and making her feel uncomfortable in their friendship.
He also wondered if other lads thought about this as much as he did.
He didn’t know if he could do this alone.
December 4th, 1997
-
It had been a few days of racking his brain trying to figure out exactly what to give Erin for Christmas that fit the specific criteria of ‘showing her how much I adore her without ruining everything’ and James was more lost than ever.
Ordinarily if he had a problem he was able to consult his encyclopedic movie knowledge for a solution which ended up working a good 75% of the time… the occasional clogged toilet at a wake or unlocked school door notwithstanding. Admittedly he did have a big section for romance movies in his head - something he picked up from Mum at a very early age and kept up with quite well these days, considering his friends were girls and one of them was Erin Quinn - however, there wasn’t any romantic gesture in any romantic movie that struck any sort of balance.
Those movies chose to go all out, which made for a great movie and a shitty guide to real life half-romances like the one he finds himself in with Erin.
Speaking of Erin, she’s posing all pretty in front of him at the moment -
Not for him, of course, for his camera which he’s pointed at the girls (okay, mostly Erin… can he be blamed if the camera loves her as much as - let’s not go there.) while he adjusts some settings and they preen at the attention.
James moved his camera all about the room, mostly to make sure it didn’t look like he was focusing on Erin as much as he actually was, which he was. It was then his eye hit the clock and after a quick zoom he was able to read the time and leapt to his feet, “Oh, I’m late!”
Erin frowned in a way that made the space between her eyebrows furrow in an unfairly kissable way, “Late? Does that mean you’re leaving? Like right now?”
“Yeah,” he said, only a little regrettably. As much as he liked being with his fellow Derry Girls and pointing his camera at Erin, he was actually running late and without the camera in his hand as a buffer, he was remembering how to be nervous. He had to try very hard not to stumble as he went to his bag, “I’ve got somewhere I need to be. Sorry girls.”
Michelle stole a crisp from Orla and narrowly avoided a warning swat before asking, “Where the fuck are you going dicks for eyes? We’re your entire social life.”
“Dicks for eyes, that’s a new one.” He noticed politely as he packed up his camera in its bag along with the notes he took on some of the shots - only a few of them were about how beautiful Erin was, he did manage mostly on track notes. Lighting and angles and things that weren’t about how beautiful she was. “I’ve got a meeting with my Doctor Who friends to listen to the new audio drama we picked up about -”
“I stopped listening when you mentioned your creep show. Just make sure you’re not home too late, I’m going out tonight so you need to make sure Mammy thinks we’re both there.”
“Got it.” He nodded once at Michelle, smiled at the girls and only let his eyes linger on Erin for a second… five seconds at most, before shutting her bedroom door and heading downstairs.
By the time he made it to the door, which took a few minutes of Mrs. Quinn handing him a hot sandwich in aluminum foil for dinner, Mr. McCool making sure he didn’t touch either of his granddaughters wrong - add that to his list of anxieties, ‘what Joe McCool might do if he comes into the house with a gift that states his intentions toward Erin, whatever those intentions were, he didn’t even know at this point’ - and Ms. McCool trying to read his fortune in his eyebrows, he went from nearly late to proper late.
They were going to have his head he was sure of it.
And yet when he saw Erin’s diary and her fountain pen had somehow ended up in Anna’s playpen and were this close to being a tool for the young artist who had taken to making loads of crayon doodles on every surface possible, he scooped them up, affectionately ruffling the toddler’s hair to make up for taking it away from her and headed back upstairs to give them back to Erin.
He was just about to open the door when he heard Michelle from outside it, “Someone said they saw Charlene sneaking a boy out of her house last Thursday, so I don’t think she’s that stuck up Erin. I think you’re just mad you never got to ride her in Paris and had to stay with us instead.”
James blushed at the implication - namely that when Charlene snuck him out of her house last Thursday he was…
“Please, she probably spread that rumor herself. ‘Oh, I’m Charlene Cavanagh, I’m so popular and I can just have boys over whenever I like.’ Catch yourself on. Half the job of being popular is just making stuff up to sound cooler. I definitely don’t want to ride her if she has to make herself cool with some imaginary boy. We have a boy over here all the time and you don’t see me bragging.” Erin said and all he focused on was ‘…she counts me as a boy she has over?’
“Then why do we call him a girl all the time?” Orla chimed in.
“Cause he doesn’t fuckin’ count as a boy you have over Erin.” Michelle shot back in a voice that left no room for argument even if Erin had one.
It was something though and he stifled his nervous smile as he left the diary and pen at the foot of the door, knocked twice and tried to head down the stairs before she saw him leaving her stuff behind for her. He had no idea how to be near her after that.
Plus, he really was very late.
That conversation with the girls that he was probably not meant to hear reminded him of the first time he met Charlene. Not when she was jokingly inviting Erin to hang out with her in Paris which was the jumpstart for a typical set of shenanigans for the gang -
‘Who the fuck says shenanigans?’ the inner Michelle that lived in his head when he wasn’t feeling very confident vocalized, before disappearing back into his subconscious or something.
No, not the first time he saw her, the first time he met her. It was Prom Night and he was very content to skip out entirely and spend time among like minded Whovians instead of his alleged friends who gave him a two-week notice for firing him from the gang and Erin, who had once again ditched one of them for a better offer and who he didn’t want to see dancing a slow set with John-Paul O’Reilly.
He was just starting to strike up a discussion with some older fellow about who was the best Doctor (obviously Tom Baker, it’s not even a discussion.) when someone bumped into him trying to get to the Doctor Who Magazines.
His instinct was to apologize and an apology was on his lips until he saw the deer in headlights look on the face of the most popular girl in school, Charlene Cavanagh, dressed as Romana I (he preferred Romana II, but he wasn’t picky about it) and with her panic fueling a sudden wave of his own anxiety, the two were sort of locked in a stalemate of awkward eye contact until the store owner came up to him and asked if he knew a Mary Quinn, who was on the phone for him and his curiosity and worry took over and he only spared her a quick wave before following the shopkeeper.
He didn’t instantly recognize the girl dressed up as Romana II joining Charlene as he turned away - though he would later learn it was Aisling of all people, impressively splitting her time between Doctor Who Night with Charlene and Prom with Jenny - before leaving and quickly being preoccupied with trying to make it to save Erin from being stood up.
He barely gave it a second thought until he was browsing comics the following week after another post-Prom detention and found himself in a split second pressed firmly against a bookshelf by a very angry blonde - and not his preferred one.
Regardless of if she was the blonde he would have chosen or not, his instinct as a boy was to blush, simply because… well… a blonde pushing you against a bookshelf was an objectively blush worthy event. James had just blinked at her, swallowing against the lump in his throat as the sight of the intense glare Charlene gave him made him nervous and a little thrilled.
“Did you tell anyone you saw me?” was what Charlene said, clarifying the reason why he was living out a fantasy with the wrong blonde.
He shook his head very quickly partly to reassure her and partly because it was hard to think with her this close to him, “No, I kinda forgot I saw you until… um…” he trailed off, his eyes fearfully going from her hands to her face back and forth. He was only sure he wasn’t dreaming because it would have been Erin in her place, but it didn’t feel entirely real either.
Pretty girls didn’t usually threaten him like this out of nowhere. He should be so lucky.
Charlene blinked, seemingly realizing she was pressing him up this way the first time. “Oh. Uh. Sorry James.” and let him go. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed so he settled on vaguely ambivalent about the whole thing.
After making it very very clear he wasn’t going to reveal her deep dark secret, she was actually very pleasant and it turns out they shared a lot of common opinions about the show. Which was really very nice. Better than being threatened by her.
… Or at least as good as being threatened by her.
She invited him along to come with her after buying his comics with her own - not leaving any room to say no, not that he could after that very interesting introduction.
Explaining on the way to Aisling’s house that those two were friends in a way, sort of on the side of both their groups, mostly so they can enjoy their hobby interest in sci-fi and comics in peace and he liked that idea, especially as he remained unsure of his place in the gang. He could use more friends. So why not find some now?
They had decided to keep meeting every week at Charlene’s after, surprisingly enough, Aisling’s mum recognized him as ‘Kathy Maguire’s wee handsome boy!’ and kept asking him questions about her that left him awkward and often without an answer to give. So they didn’t have much time to actually do what they were going to do that night because her mum - having loads of memories of him and his mum - dug up pictures of himself and Aisling as toddlers in London that neither she or himself remembered.
Aisling made it about fifteen minutes before a comment from her mum about her following him around like a ‘wee duckling’ as a child made her turn so red that he nearly blushed secondhand and shoved him and Charlene out the door before anything else could be said.
So that led him to the routine he had nearly every week since, explaining his absence to the gang in a way that was so boring they didn’t bother to question and head over to Charlene house to enjoy some time with friends who actually shared his interests. It had been a year since things with the two of them began and he couldn’t be happier to have something like this, something that’s just his.
His girls could never be replaced and he couldn’t exactly shout about this tiny group of his from rooftops - no one would believe him about being friends with Charlene (He could just imagine how mad Erin would be that he managed to befriend Charlene when she couldn’t…) and no one would accept him being friends with Aisling - but as far as secret part-time friendships go, Charlene and Aisling are good ones to have.
And, he realized suddenly, thinking about how he couldn’t find help anywhere else because of how it would affect his group if he did… they might also be his only hope.
James was proud of himself for managing to act normal at the door:
Charlene had leaned against the door frame, her eyes annoyed and impatient as they swept over him, “I hope you have a good explanation for being late. If we can’t finish Whispers of Terror because you had something better to do -”
“I don’t have much of an explanation,” he began and then had to quickly stop Charlene from closing the door by holding his foot in the gap between the door and frame, then held out the sandwich Mrs. Quinn made him, “I do have a peace offering though.”
Charlene opened the door again and took the wrapped sandwich, still warm, in her hand. “… What kind?”
“Sausage I think? Or maybe some kind of roast beef. I’m not really sure.”
Charlene unwrapped a corner of the sandwich and took a bite, then leaned over and patted his cheek, “Good boy.” Giving him permission to enter with a nod toward the inside. He managed to follow behind her, give her cats Betty and Veronica attention and greet Aisling without losing his cool.
He was also proud of himself for managing to get through Whispers of Terror so Charlene and Aisling were in a good mood when he asked for their help, y’know, eventually. When they finished enjoying what they had listened to:
“That was amazing!” Aisling had began to say, “I never thought I’d actually be interested in a Sixth Doctor adventure but-”
“Charlene, Aisling I really really need your help!” James cut her off and then grimaced at the way he just blurted it out.
He was doing so well up until now.
Luckily Aisling didn’t take being cut off mid-sentence personally. He guesses that she’s used to it from Jenny. “What’s the matter James, you look so nervous . Poor critter…” she said sympathetically and looked at him for whatever he was going to say next.
“Yeah, you did look like you were going to boke earlier, and even more now. What’s this you need our help with?” Charlene asked, clearly listening but not quite on the level of looking away from whatever article she was reading in Doctor Who Magazine.
“I picked Erin for our group’s Secret Santa-”
“You all are doing a Secret Santa? That’s adorable!” Aisling said sweetly, but in a tone that reminded James that she was richer than any of his friends, including him. “We’ve never done that cause, y’know, we can afford to buy gifts for everyone when we do a gift exchange. Maybe we should try it though, it might be cute!”
“Speaking of gift exchanges though, you should be worrying about ours James, it’s a lot sooner than your one with your other friends. And you have two presents to worry about.” Charlene cut in.
“Aye, cause my family is going on holiday with Jenny’s family after the 18th and won’t be around until after Christmas, so…” Aisling responded and James felt his eye twitch from being interrupted when he was trying to communicate just how important this was.
“Can I please just finish my thing?” He asked, trying so very hard to get the words out.
“Sorry, go on. You got Erin for Secret Santa, yeah?” Aisling said, perching her elbows on her knees and resting her head in her hands, looking up at him with her full attention.
“Yeah, and I just can’t think of anything good , this is really important and more than just a present for a friend and I don’t know what to do to show her how much I care about her… without going too far . And I figured maybe you can help me figure out what to get.”
There. He said it. Now all he had to do was hope that Charlene and Aisling would agree to help while he still had at least a little bit of dignity.
…
...
... their pause hung in the air for longer than he would like, which drastically limited his chances of having dignity after this.
“… Um, we barely know Erin and we don’t really care about what she wants for Christmas so I’m not sure how much help we’d be here.” Charlene pointed out, leaning back on her bed and looking up from her magazine to fix James with an unsure look.
Aisling gave a nod to her agreement, looking as unsure as Charlene had, which wasn’t reassuring for James, who knew he couldn’t do this alone.
“Please girls, you’re just about the only people I can trust with this!”
That stated fact didn’t erase the skepticism from either of their faces and so he did the only reasonable thing he could in this situation… namely, ramble his head off about the entire James + Erin ‘like or maybe even more-than-like story’ until they realized the gravity of the situation.
So that’s what he did.
“… She knows I like her and I know she at least liked me enough to kiss me but we haven’t talked about it since then and she never said much to begin with - I just sort of told her I would wait for her, without even checking if she wanted me to, or if she would wait back, so I don’t know how to show her that I still like her a lot without making her think that I like her so much that I can’t be a normal friend if she doesn’t like me back any more!” James finally finished with his current Secret Santa related dilema, not above making an absolute fool of himself begging if it meant he had a shot of not completely embarrassing himself with the wrong gift for Erin.
And clearly he made a fool of himself if that’s how Charlene and Aisling were looking at him right now.
“That’s… a lot James.” Aisling blinked, then said slowly after a long stretch of the two ladies soaking up his rambling, desperate plea.
“I know right? So will you please help me?”
The few seconds the two looked at each other, seemingly deciding together despite not speaking out loud, were the longest seconds since waiting for Erin to say something when he said he liked her in Donegal, but finally Charlene sighed and something in him knew before she spoke what her answer was.
“Fine. Count us in. God those pathetic sad eyes you do, it’d be as bad as refusing a kitten something I swear.”
He’s not sure if he should want to be a kitten all things considered, but if it means they’ll help, he’ll take it.