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“How much stuff did you buy? We don’t need all of this.”
Lasagna agrees.
It’s the third time Buck entered the house and each time his arms were full of bags. There were so many that they couldn’t all fit on the table and started to clutter the floor. It wasn’t as bad as a few weeks ago.
A few weeks ago Buck kept bringing in box after box. It felt like they’d never stop. For a few days, they took up space throughout the house. Buck and Eddie slowly emptied the boxes and placed the belongings around the house. Most of it went into the bedroom, but some of it made its way into the living room.
The worst part of this?
Even when the boxes were gone Buck stayed.
Now, he was bringing even more stuff into the house.
“It’s my first time having a whole house to decorate!”
“You’ve decorated here before.” Eddie is looking through the various bags on the table. Lasagna manages to see a space on the table. She jumps up onto the table and pokes her head into one of the bags. She doesn’t recognize any of the contents.
“Not the same.” Buck starts to take things out of the bag. Lasagna simply stares at Buck. “And you know it.”
“Is there even space for all of this?”
No.
But, she knows that won’t stop him. Somehow, he’ll find a place for everything. He’d already done it once.
“Trust the vision.”
“I thought Chris was intense,” Eddie mumbles under his breath. He looks through a few more of the bags. “And this is everything, right?”
“Everything.” Buck pauses before moving behind Eddie. He wraps his arms around his waist and brings his lips close to Eddie’s ear. “For inside the house.”
“Buck!” Eddie tries to turn around but Buck strengthens his grip. Then, he kisses Eddie on his neck. Eddie makes a sound that Lasagna hates - he only makes it around Buck. Most of the times when this started they’d disappear into the bedroom.
Lasagna thinks about swatting his hand away. She didn’t want to deal with this today, but Buck releases his grip on Eddie. He gives him one more quick kiss before taking a step back. “Oh, I got a new tree.”
“The one we have is fine!” Eddie called out after him.
Lasagna is confused.
The next time Buck enters the house, Lasagna can barely see him behind the massive box. He knows the layout of the house that even without looking he doesn’t hit the walls. For a brief moment she thinks about tripping him, but remembers that she is trying to be nicer to Buck.
For Eddie.
Buck starts to remove things from the bag. It’s something green and it looks plastic, but she isn’t really sure. She slowly makes her way towards it. Hesitantly she leans her head into the green thing and sniffs. The smell isn’t pleasant, but it isn’t bad. It rubs against her face slightly and it pricks her. She jumps back and looks at Buck for answers.
“This, little one,” Buck says pointing at the pile in front of him,” is a christmas tree.”
Whatever a Christmas tree is, she doesn’t want it in her house.
Buck sits on the floor in front of the tree. Lasagna moves closer to him out of curiosity. She isn’t sure exactly what he’s doing. He looks like he’s bending different pieces of the green thing. Some of the ends are now lower and Lasagna needs to be closer. She leans forward, and this time she starts to bite at one of the green sticks.
“Lasagna!” Buck attempts to push her away. Instead, Lasagna switches her attention from the tree to Buck’s hand. She stretches her body up to swat at Buck’s hand. Anytime she had a chance to hit Buck she took advantage of it.“This isn’t a toy!”
Buck holds his hand closer to Lasagna while she hits it a few more times. After that, she gently bites two of Buck’s fingers. Buck doesn’t move his hand, and even though she knows Buck is letting her bite him.
“That’s a little too much, baby girl.” Buck pulls his hand away. He then goes to pet her head again and she lets him. She waits for a few moments before quickly turning her head to attack.
The moment Buck starts laughing, she decides she’s bored. She strides over to the cat tree and climbs to the top. From here Lasagna has a better vantage point to watch whatever Buck is building. As it grows higher, she wonders if it is another cat tree for even though it doesn’t have any flat surface for her.
“Why did you buy new ornaments?” Eddie walks into the room holding a box full of colorful circles. Her eyes narrow and locks her eyes on them - she wants to play with them. She only looks away when Eddie pets her as he walks past. She nuzzles into his hand. The chaos of the living room melts away for a second.
“They’re unbreakable.” Somehow there’s even more green pieces in the box. “It’s safer for Lasagna if they fall off the tree.”
Eddie’s cheeks turn a light pink of shade. Lasagna can’t believe it’s possible for him to still react like this to Buck after all of this time. “Are you planning for ornaments to fall?”
“You never know, she might knock the tree over.”
Lasagna is offended. She doesn’t knock over that much stuff.
Anymore.
Eddie places the box on the ground near Buck. “Tell me how I can help.”
“There’s a note on my phone.” Buck pointed towards the coffee table.
Before Eddie grabs the phone off the table, he leans down towards Buck. He kisses Buck on the head.
“What’s that for?” Buck tilts his head up to look at Eddie.
“Just love you,” Eddie says giving Buck a quick kiss on the lips.
Lasagna hates to admit it but they’re cute sometimes. Buck looked at Eddie like he’d never seen something so beautiful, which she completely understood. Right now, Buck might as well be glowing with his love for Eddie. It was blinding.
Eddie looked back at him in the same way. She wanted to hate it, but she knew that for some reason Buck made him happy. There was nothing she loved more than Eddie’s happiness.
Still, she hated watching them kiss. At least this time was quick. There were other times that avoided whatever room they were in altogether. Unfortunately, it seemed that it happened more and more now that Buck never left.
“Can you play the Christmas playlist?” Buck asks. “There should be one for decorating.”
“Yes, sir.” Eddie kisses Buck’s forehead one more time. Finally, he walks away from Buck towards the phone. Lasagna didn’t know if she could survive them kissing one time today.
Lasagna continues to watch Buck put together the tree. It keeps growing taller, but she doesn’t understand why it’s in the house. If she turns her head, she can sometimes see Eddie doing different things. Sometimes, he’d be reading off Buck’s phone.
She didn’t know when but at some point she closed her eyes. Eventually, she blinks them open. It takes a moment for eyes to adjust, but the first thing she sees is the tree. Buck must have finished putting it together. The colorful balls from earlier are dangling from the tree. There are a few that seem close enough to the ground that she could hit them.
“Okay, it should work.” Buck hands Eddie a small thing with what looks like a handle.
“Most people just use the remote.” Eddie’s voice sounds fonder than his words. Then, Eddie flips the handle from one side to the other. Lasagna’s head snaps up at the music that comes from the box. Then, the tree comes to life with lights.
Lasagna understands why they have a Christmas tree.
The lit up tree is the second most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The lights are suddenly colorful.
”I think I like the white better,” Eddie says. The tree changes a few more times before ending on the white lights. “It’s perfect.”
“It is,” Buck agrees. “Wait, it’s almost perfect.”
Buck disappears from the room. Lasagna thinks it’s perfect for a moment, even though she knows he’s going to come back.
”Here,” Buck says, handing Eddie a small bag.
Eddie pulls out something on a string. For a second, Lasagna thinks that it might be a toy, but Eddie puts it on the tree. She can’t see it perfectly, but she can tell that there are words on it. There’s an orange cat on the ball wearing some sort of red hat.
“You got Lasagna an ornament?”
”To celebrate her first Christmas.”
Buck is barely done talking when Eddie kisses him. Lasagna tries to ignore the two of them to keep looking at the lights, but she doesn’t think that’ll be possible. It looked like they were attempting to merge into one human.
Lasagna jumps from the cat tree and swiftly leaves the room. There’s laughter echoing down the hallway as she enters the bedroom. That night she knocks down all the ornaments that she can reach.
Over the next few more days, more and more stuff clutters the house. She doesn’t understand how there is still space for things.
Most times Buck will put something new up and that night Lasagna would tear it down.
One day, Buck up four stockings. That night, Lasagna jumped up and dragged them off the mantle. He didn’t seem surprised when he saw them on the floor the next day.
Lasagna adjusted to the decorations over time. Except, for whatever plant Buck hung up for the entry way to the living room. At first she thinks its just ugly - at least the rest of the stuff loooked decent. But, then she notices that every time Buck and Eddie are under the ugly plant they kiss. And Buck put it high enough that she can’t rip it down. (She tried multiple nights before giving up.)
There was only one decoration liked in the house.
The tree - that can stay. Especially, the lights. The lights called to Lasagna. They always called to her.
She wanted to be surrounded by them and she knew it would be easy. There were so many branches that she could crawl up. It wasn’t that different from her cat tree. She could figure it out.
But, every time she started to climb into the tree she’d think of Buck’s saying she might knock over the tree. She wanted Buck to have bought all the new ornaments for no reason.
She settled for spending most of her time under the tree. It was better than nothing.
Still, she wants to climb it. She thinks it shouldn’t be that hard.
This might be one of her only chances. They had turned on her playlist before leaving and took one car. She at least has a few hours.
She’d be out of the tree before they came home. They’d never know.
Her left paw rests on the bottom branch cautiously. She presses down against it two times before jumping up. Her front paws land on the branch in front. There is a brief moment where she fears losing her balance, but quickly she finds it. She was surrounded by the soft glow of the nights. It was better than she had imagined.
But she wanted to be higher.
With slightly more confidence, Lasagna continues her climb up the tree. The branches start to become smaller, but she continues up. Looking into the living room, she thinks she has to be as tall as the cat tree. Then, she looks up it. There are only a few more branches until she’s at the top.
And she’s made it this far.
Lasagna pulls her body up to another branch when the tree wobbles underneath her. In a panic, her claws extend but there is nothing for her to grip into, and she feels her body starting to slip. There’s another big wobble and then suddenly, Lasagna is falling.
There’s a crash and the world is suddenly dark.
Lasagna opens her eyes and has no idea where she is at first. It’s just dark around her. She starts to move and feels something poke into her side. Quickly, she realizes that she’s still inside the tree.
The light must have turned off when the tree fell over. She tries to look around for the easiest way to edit, but without the lights she isn’t sure which way to go. It all looks the same. There’s a slight pressure on her from the branches above, but it isn’t uncomfortable. She’s fine.
More frustrating than being stuck in the tree is that Buck was right. She did knock the tree over. Briefly, she wondered if any of the ornaments he bought were actually unbreakable, or if they shattered across the ground.
Before she has a chance to spiral into her thoughts of being trapped, she hears the front door open.
“Why is there an ornament over there?”
Lasagna’s body relaxes. She can’t believe she finds relief at the sound of Buck’s voice. Then, she meows as loudly as she can.
“Lasagna?” Buck calls back out.
Lasagna meows again. It’s as loud as she can manage.
His footsteps are loud as he quickly enters the living room. She only hears only one set of footsteps - she wishes Eddie was here, too.
“Lasagna!” Buck yells.
It’s only a few seconds and Buck is scooping Lasagna up into his arms. Normally, she’d fight against him. She’d wriggle her body until he gave up and put her down. Right now, she just nuzzled her head into Buck’s chest. She’s surprised to hear his heart racing. It’s almost as if it's trying to burst out of his chest.
”Are you okay, baby girl?” Buck asks quietly. He’s rubbing his thumb between her ears and she continues to relax.
“What happened?”
Eddie’s voice causes Lasagna to jump. She didn’t hear his footsteps over Buck’s heartbeat.
“The tree fell over and she was stuck. She looks fine.”
Buck holds out for a moment to look at her. While he turns her, she realizes how close she is to the ugly plant. It seems close enough that she finally might be able to knock it down.
She reaches her paw and hits the bottom of the plant. When she makes contact she realizes it’s not even a real plant.
“Looks like someone wants a kiss.”
Lasagna pulls her paw down.
This is her nightmare. She officially hated Christmas. Worst time of the year.
Eddie is going to kiss Buck while she’s in his arms and it’s completely her fault. God, she hates this dumb ugly plant.
She closes her eyes. At least she won’t see it.
But, her eyes fly open when she feels lips softly press on the top of her head. “You can’t scare me like that again, okay?”
Lasagna looks at Buck. He’s looking at her the way he looks at Eddie.
“I love you.”
Buck leans towards her and gives her a second kiss on her nose. Before Buck pulls away, Lasagna licks the end of Buck’s nose.
The spirit of Christmas or that ugly plant possessed her. There was no other reason for her giving Buck Buckley a kiss.