Status: In Progress [:

The Only Exception

All I Want for Christmas

Although she had already been laying in bed for close to forty-five minutes, Sunday could not fall asleep. She was much too aware of everything that was going on around her. If she concentrated really closely, she could hear the loud ticking of the cuckoo clock in the kitchen. With very little concentration she could feel the ache in her shoulders and arms that was the result of much painting and a few attempts at moving furniture on her own.

Christmas Eve had always been a difficult night for Sunday. Even when she was young, she was much too logical to completely believe in the idea of Santa Clause, but nonetheless, she indulged her parents and brother until a suitable time when she untruthfully informed them that some of the unkind children at school had broken the news of the ruse to her.

The difficulty that December twenty-fourth brought to Sunday was not caused by her curiosity concerning the items that the slightly obese, red fur clad man had left under her Christmas tree. Instead, Sunday laid in bed awake for most of the night wondering what people would think of the gifts that she got them.

She was never quite sure of what a good gift consisted of, and often, when she was shopping she simply chose things because they appealed to her eye. Later, she would try to match them to people who needed Christmas presents still. The only real pleasure she took in gift giving was putting large bows on things and trying to read the recipient's expression when they opened their gift. Usually, she failed at the latter task.

The only thing that Sunday could think of at that moment was what Alex's face would look like when he saw the changes that she had made to his modest house. She was hoping that he would be happy, maybe even thrilled; but, of course, she told herself that this was probably an overestimation of what the reaction would really be like. How could she make Alex quite that happy? It seemed impossible.

Another worry was eating away at Sunday as she tossed and turned in the borrowed bed: When would she be able to drag Alex away from his family so that she could show him the modifications that she, Amber, Jack and a few of her mother's most trusted interior decorators had slaved over? Christmas Eve had proved to be a very family filled event at the Gaskarth household; if they were anything like her family, this would continue to hold true for Christmas day. The thought of Alex's entire family witnessing his reaction to her gift made Sunday cringe.

So the only conclusion that Sunday could come up with was that Alex would simply have to see it before anyone could resolve to accompany him. The proper time to bestow the gift seemed like that very moment, and Sunday promptly rose from her bed and pulled a sweater on before she exited her room and discreetly crept down the hall to Alex's room.

The door squeaked as she opened it, and Alex must have been only dozing lightly as the noise was enough to open his brown eyes. "Sun?" he asked groggily. He yawned and glanced at the vibrant, red 11:27 on his clock before he added, "Is everything okay?"

"You up for a quick little trip?" she asked hopefully.

He laughed slightly and rolled onto his back. "Babe, it's kind of late," he responded hesitantly. "Why don't you just come lay down, and I promise we'll go on your trip tomorrow?"

"We need to go now," Sunday insisted, staying in the doorway. She had a feeling that if she joined him in bed, she'd instantly become too pleased with her good fortune and wouldn't be very inclined to leave anymore.

With a groan, Alex sat up. "Alright," he relented before he tried to pat his mused blonde hair back into place. "You win. I'll meet you downstairs in a minute."

Sunday grinned excitedly and grabbed a pair of her Uggs and a more substantial jacket from her bedroom before she took a seat in the living room to wait for Alex. He appeared a few minutes later with his keys in hand and a slightly more alert expression on his face. "Where is it that we're going, exactly?" he asked as he pulled a jacket on as well.

The outside air was frigid, and Sunday clenched her teeth together as she thought of the warm bedroom that awaited them back inside the Gaskarth home. "It's not too far," she answered vaguely. "I'll just give you directions."

Alex laughed. "What's with all the secrecy?"

After she buckled her seat belt and had turned the radio station to one of Christmas music, Sunday pretended to be engrossed in one of the reindeer on her pajama bottoms. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she countered offhandedly.

"Alright, Sun," he chuckled. "Where to first?"

She eagerly gave him directions towards his house, filling in the gaps of silence with mindless chatter and hoping that he didn't figure out what their destination was. Thankfully, the combination of his sleepy state and Sunday's rambling seemed to affect Alex's ability to recognize their location, but Sunday decided to have him park a street over anyway just to be on the safe side.

"Close your eyes!" Sunday ordered as soon as they were out of the car.

Once again, Alex laughed at her, and he closed his eyes merely to humor her. Sunday waved her hand in front of his eyes a few times—only because it was what people on television usually did—before she took his hands and began carefully navigating piles of snow and patches of ice. After a few slips and moments where Alex opened his eyes only to be immediately chastised by Sunday, they made it to the front door.

"Okay, you can open them!" Sunday said, an enormous grin lighting up her face.

Alex did as he was instructed and spent a few moments focusing on the enormous red bow hanging on his front door before his eyebrows knit in confusion. "You're giving me... my house?" he asked, completely and utterly perplexed.

Sunday pulled a Baltimore Ravens keychain out of her pocket and dangled it in front of Alex. He took the single key that was suspended from it and held it in his palm for a moment. "Nothing's going to jump out at me, right?" he asked as he sent a glance towards the door again.

She giggled, and shook her head. Alex inserted the key into the lock and turned. When the door swung open, they were greeted by a blackness, and Alex stepped inside first, fumbling around for a few moments before he located the light switch.

The first room that he saw was his kitchen. While it had previously been white and kind of heinous—Alex had always meant to fix it eventually—it was now dominated by silver appliances, pale beige walls, and deep mahogany cabinets and there was a bar that Alex wasn't sure had been there when he bought the house. A vase of silver roses sat delicately on the bar next to an unopened bottle of Jager, both of the objects looking as though they absolutely belonged there. There were a few lighting fixtures suspended from the ceiling and hanging slightly low, and Alex thought of how hilarious it would be whenever Jack got drunk and hit his head on them.

"The washer and dryer are back there," Sunday said, nervously gesturing to one of the exits of the kitchen.

Alex took her hand and pulled her to the next area of the house: the living room and dining room. The living room was dominated by a suede sectional and had some kind of Persian rug covering the hardwood floors. The fireplace was long with a mosaic background and a wooden ledge that could be dangerous after a few shots; an enormous television hung over it, and there was a leather chair placed nearby that he could see Sebastian never surrendering. Instead of a coffee table, there was an enormous suede ottoman placed by the couch The lighting in the room was provided by lamps that sat on wooden end tables, and Alex could spot his xbox sitting discreetly in the corner by a bookshelf that was filled with DVDs.

The dining room was simple, which Alex liked. The table was a dark wood with chairs that featured black leather seats, and another light fixture hung from the ceiling. Instead of the blurry, expensive paintings that his mother hang, on the main wall attraction was a black and white photo of himself, Jack, Matt, Rian and Zack taken from a party that they had attended during their first Warped Tour trek.

Next, the pair traveled upstairs towards the upper section of the house. This was Alex's favorite part of the house thus far, for the pale grey walls of the stairway were lined with paintings of Sunday's own creation: there were replicas of many things that he had found in her sketchbooks. The first door that they were greeted with once they reached the top of the stairs was the house's smallest room, which had been turned into a studio of sort. Sunday had left much of this to Jack, so she didn't quite know how to explain it to Alex, but he seemed pleased with the equipment that had been provided and didn't seem to mind the deep red walls and pale carpet.

"The master bedroom is down there," Sunday said once they were standing in the hallway again. "That's a guest bedroom, and that's a bathroom. Although, you probably know this considering this is your house."

They traveled to the master bedroom next, and Alex's silence began to worry Sunday. It was, admittedly, her favorite room in the house, and she hoped that he would have loved it as much as she did. It was the only room that she had allowed herself complete lack of restrain in.

The wall by the fireplace was painted brown, while the ceiling and remaining walls were painted a lighter variation of the color. She had demanded that wooden double doors be added to conceal the walk in closet. She had decided that a king sized bed was the only one that would work and had picked the most luxurious cream bedding that she could find. Although she knew that Alex probably would throw the many decorative pillows and brown throw blanket to the floor, she purchased the best she could find anyway.

The bathroom laid to the left of the bed, while to the right there was the glass door that led to the small terrace. A small bed for Sebastian sat across from the actual bed, near the stone fireplace. The ceiling sloped towards the fireplace, which was flanked by thin, twin bookstands decorated with random objects produced by Jack; this aesthetically pleasing architecture Sunday was awfully grateful for. To the immediate right of the bed sat a nightstand that was only decorated with a lamp and a picture of Alex and Sunday produced by Melanie from the wedding that they had attended together.

"You did all of this for me?" Alex asked as he took a seat on the large bed.

"Well, Melanie and Jack helped me out a lot," Sunday explained, "And I got a lot of advice from my mom's decorator friends. And everyone pitched in with the money for everything. Your mother was here yesterday, and she liked it a lot."

"Have I ever told you how amazing you are?" Alex inquired as he took both of her hands in his. The small box that he had been carrying around for the past week felt extremely hot in the pocket of his jeans.

Sunday smiled sheepishly. "More than I deserve to know," she answered.

Alex shook his head. "Sunday, I will never be able to tell you how amazing you are or how much I love you enough," he announced.

She smiled and pulled her hands away from him so that she could drop onto the bed. "It's really comfortable," she noted.

Alex's stomach nervously did a few somersaults before he managed to extract the black box from his pocket. He rolled onto his side and held it out in his palm. "It's not Christmas yet," Sunday admonished.

After glancing at the clock on the wall, Alex corrected her. "It has been Christmas for three minutes," he declared. "So open your present."

Sunday beamed and took the box in both of her hands. It was almost shaped like a cube and felt almost light in her hands. She hesitantly touched one side of the box. "I could say that I knew I loved you from the very first moment I saw you," Alex began, "but it'd be cliched and not really the truth."

A tinkling laugh escaped her mouth. "Way to be suave, Gaskarth," she chortled, still not opening the box.

Alex grinned as well. "But I did know that I needed to be around you and needed to spend more time with you. In the past few months, Sunday, you've taught me so much. About myself and about other people, too. You're constantly inspiring me to be a better Alex, and you might not think so, but I need you. Life with you is an adventure, and this relationship is the best kind of adventure I've ever been on. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else, including myself. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving this to you and experiencing all of the good parts and the challenging parts and the scary parts," he declared.

Sunday's fingers pulled the two sides of the box apart. Twinkling up at her sat the most brilliant diamond she had ever seen. "Harry Winston," Sunday muttered before she could help herself. She instantly thought back to the days that she had spent looking at jewlery with her mother and Amber. "Six carats in a tapered baugette setting. Set in platinum." She would've kept rambling about the beautiful creation that sat before her, but Sunday's eyes filled with hot, salty tears, and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to contain a sob.

"You want to marry me?" she asked, the notion making less than no sense to her.

"Yes," Alex nodded, "I want to marry you." He paused and gave a small laugh before he added, "More than I've ever wanted anything else in my life."

She shook her head and the box tumbled from her hands to rest on the blankets. "You don't want to marry me," Sunday countered as she began moving away from Alex. She picked her jacket up and pulled it on, struggling with the buttons as she explained, "I catagorize books and movies, and I hate it when I'm not up at the same time or eating at the same time. I can't stand it when secondary colors and primary colors are mixed up. I can't work a washer machine. I'm the most useless, intolerable person in the world."

Alex immediately jumped off the bed and intercepted Sunday before she could reach the door of the bedroom. "Sunday," he said, his eyebrows knit together in concern, "Babe, calm down." He took the hands that were fighting with her jacket buttons. "If this is too fast, it's not a big deal. I can slow down."

"Alex, I don't deserve you," she decided, "There's so much that you don't know about me, and I don't want you to wake up one day and realize that you've landed yourself in absolute misery."

"Sunday, I want to spend the next twenty or thirty or forty or however many years learning things about you. And I bet that I will. You're so unlike anyone I've known, and in the best ways. You don't pressure me about anything, and you don't expect anything, and you don't need me, which just all blows my mind," he admitted. "There are so many reasons I love you, Sunday Alice Phillips, and I hope that you love me enough to realize that I mean everything I say to you."

She took a deep breath. "I do love you, and I... I do believe you," she finally concluded.

Alex picked up the small box again. "Will it be more real if I get down on one knee?" he asked. Sunday started laughing and wiped a few tears from her eyes as he bent down. "Sunday, marry me," he said in a tone that almost sounded pleading.

At that moment, Sunday had no idea whether it was a good idea or not. She had no clue what her mother would say or her father or Alex's parents. She didn't know what their friends would think, what his fans would say. Her parents were getting divorced, she was twenty years old without much direction to be honest, and she had recently severed her oldest friendship.

Yet despite all of the many factors involved, Alex wanted to marry her. He wanted her forever. And an enormous part of Sunday wanted to be with him forever too. "Okay," she smiled, giving her permission for Alex to slide the beautiful diamond onto her finger.

He did, and after a profuse amount of tears on Sunday's part and much kissing, the pair fell onto the bed and spent the rest of the night in a content slumber in their bed, all worries and complications forgotten for the time being.
♠ ♠ ♠
I feel like such a proud parent. I really love these two, and wish you didn't need conflict for a good story.

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! I hope to be writing the Christmas part on my new laptop, but we'll see(: