Who: Alyssa and Ned What: Mistletoe Mayhem When: Dec 23 Where: Walmart Rating: low
Ned had learned to like Christmas shopping. Admittedly he did less of it back home with his mom around to do a lot of it for him, but he had been here for two years now and he had learned to do most everything by himself, shopping included. While he already figured out what most of his gifts would be, Ned wanted to get some small things for the stockings in the house. He was pushing a cart around at Walmart. Currently he had mostly chocolate and other grocery stuff - he had made the mistake of coming to Walmart hungry.
He finally made it out of the grocery section when he saw Alyssa. He tried to duck back around, but it was hard with the shopping cart. He ended up hitting the shelves at the end of the aisle which had a few boxes of Cheerios falling into the cart. Ned tried to redirect the situation so he was out in front of the cart. This, unfortunately, was his downfall.
Instead of just being in front, he ended up feeling a pull and suddenly he took a few more involuntary steps until he was, unbeknownst to him, under a mistletoe up on the ceiling. He offered an awkward smile and wave. “Um. Hey Alyssa.”
-- Alyssa needed to grab a few things from Walmart, now that she made it back from her trip to NYC with Rebekah. She managed to snag some cool stocking stuffers, but wanted to fill in the gaps with whatever Walmart still had in stock. Her trip with Rebekah had been marvelous, of course.
She’d planned on simply pretending to not see Ned. But then things hit other things and items were on the ground, so she hurried over to help him.
“Are you okay, Ned?” She actively avoided looking at the cart, in case. And for whatever reason found herself standing a little closer than normal to him.
***
Ned needed to take some spy lessons. Could you take spy lessons? He thought they'd be useful to have especially since his best friend was Spider-Man. It was too late for that right now though.
"Yeah. I mean, at least nothing broke, right?" Cheerios were pretty durable. "Are you?"
He picked up the last box, but when he went to step back and turn around, he only managed to step back before he hit some sort of invisible wall. "Uh." He turned and managed to look like he was a mime against a window pretty effortlessly. "I might need to change my answer."
--*** “I’m glad you knocked over Cheerios and not something more delicate in your attempt to hide from me.” Alyssa didn’t bother to hide the amusement from her voice. Ned should know her well enough by now to know she’d laugh while she ensured he was okay.
“Why are you...miming?” Then Alyssa turned around and bumped her face against the invisible wall. “Um. What the fuck?”
***
“At least the Cheerios aren’t your Christmas present. Which it isn’t, I promise.” Unless Alyssa told him it was the best idea ever for a gift and then he’d have to re-think it, but he was pretty sure cereal was, at most, a secondary or joke gift.
Well, at least it wasn’t just him? Or maybe that made things worse. “So.. this isn’t you doing some sort of prank then?” He had no idea if this was her kind of magic anyway, but he thought he should ask
–
Alyssa didn’t really like Cheerios. She preferred granola or eggs over cereal. “I promise your gift isn’t Cheerios either.” But right now, she wanted to figure out how the fuck they could get out of this situation. She loved Ned like a brother, but neither of them needed to be this close to each other.
“I don’t think I could do this even if I wanted, unless it involved insects or plants.” Alyssa heard a whispered “psst” and looked above them. The mistletoe said, “You two have to kiss!”
“Um...I think I know what’s happening and I don’t think you’re going to like it,” Alyssa told Ned as she pointed at said mistletoe.
***
He stared at the mistletoe when Alyssa looked up and blinked. How did they get that up there? Was that real or plastic? These were the initial thoughts before it really sank in what Alyssa said and he looked down and looked at her with wide eyes. “What? No, No, no - you’re like -” He gestured between them with a look of disgust “ - My sister?” So therefore the idea of kissing her was very, very awkward and Ned was not a fan.
– Alyssa spotted bags of candy in Ned’s cart. “Did you grab any Hersey’s Kisses? Maybe that will count?” She didn’t feel insulted by Ned’s reaction, especially since she felt pretty much the same way. “I don’t like this anymore than you do. Why couldn’t you find yourself in this situation with your girlfriend?” Did she sound slightly bemused? Yes.
***
“Uh, well, because then I’d feel like a stalker for running into her all the time?” Okay, so that didn’t really make sense, but that was what came. Ned didn’t really ever get the mistletoe thing. It looked cute in movies and maybe he went through a phase where he hoped he’d be under one when a cute girl walked by, but the more he thought about it, it was a weird tradition. “Where does this tradition even come from?”
He turned to start rummaging through the cart - he was pretty sure he got some sort of kisses.
–
“I have no idea how the tradition started, but I can definitely say it’s not a favourite one of mine. At all. And I’m pro your not stalking anyone” Really, the movies made it look cute, but in reality? It quickly turned into a situation where consent didn’t seem to matter.
As Ned flailed and looked through the cart, Alyssa spotted a bag. “They’re in the front of the cart, near the bottom under the name tags.” Usually she’d just grab them, but given how secretive Ned tried to act, she figured directions for Ned worked out best.
***
He was being careful not to show off all the contents of his cart. It was also hard to try to reach into certain parts of it since the invisible force field seemed to really have feelings on just how far apart they were allowed to get. There was some soft grunting and straining noises, but Ned finally was able to get the bag of kisses.
“I really hope they don’t call the cops on us.” He meant because he was opening the bag. Was that stealing? He was planning on buying them so that was okay, right? He sure hoped so - he was too young to go to jail.
Once open, he held out a kiss and said loudly, “I AM GIVING YOU THIS KISS ALYSSA.” Then he handed over a chocolate to her.
–
Alyssa received the kiss and said, “I’m accepting the kiss, Ned.” She opened the chocolate kiss and threw it in her mouth. Suddenly the force field vanished.
“Yeah, okay, I hated that. Do you want me to buy the kisses so you don’t stress about them now being open?”
–
“Am I that obvious?” Ned blushed a little, but he also looked appreciative . Nodded, he smiled as he handed her the bag. He was also definitely relieved that they weren’t stuck super close to each other. “We should, uh… probably look up more often just in case there’s more mistletoe around… it was less weird with you than a super stranger.” he paused. “And maybe I should get a bag of kisses to carry around just in case.”