Eminem Fan Fiction Shorts - I

Mr. Mathers' Choice

I helped D clear the table and then followed her out to her rig, which looked like a late 90s model Jeep. It had mud-bogging tires on it and a rack on the top. I'd noticed the vehicle over the months, but I'd never asked D about it. Now, however, seemed as good a time as any.

"Why is it you drive something that looks like you're ready for a zombie apocalypse?" I asked as she opened up the back, revealing a large, long cardboard box and a tub marked 'ornaments.' D chuckled before she answered.

"I bought it in high school. Saved every check from every job I had until I could afford it." She explained. "The original owner put the rack on, which is pretty handy for hauling stuff." She paused as she moved the box around. "The tires I added last year when my girlfriends and I decided that we were too old to have never gone camping." She grunted a little as she moved the box. "That was a whole other story full of unfortunate injuries." She joked, her eyes twinkling in the lights shining onto the driveway.

I grabbed the box when it looked like she was going to try to haul it in herself and she murmured a thank you. Once it was inside, I wandered back out for the tub and closed her rig back up. When I got back to the entertainment room, D had already slit the duct tape on the box and was pulling out the pieces to a large, fake tree.

"Wouldn't have guessed a fake one." I noted as I set the tub down and moved to help her remove the pieces. She nodded.

"Yeah, I toyed with getting you a real one, but then if you'd lost it on me, it would have been a waste." She said as I was crouching next to her. I frowned slightly, not really liking that answer.

"You thought I'd lose it on you?" I asked and she shrugged with a half smile.

"Well, I did kind of go way outside the bounds of my job and touched a lot of your stuff in the process." She said. "It wouldn't have been unreasonable for you to be bugged." I shook my head.

"I don't think of you as an employee, D." I admitted. D nodded, happiness shining in her eyes.

"Good. Because I was kind of hoping that you didn't." She responded, leaving me with a wealth of questions. Had she put me in the friend-zone? Was she wanting to touch me as much as I wanted to her? Fuck. I hate the uncertainty of dating and I hadn't even gotten to that point yet with her.

Instead of pushing that statement and finding out that she considered me a Ken doll, I started putting together the pieces to the tree she'd gotten. It was a six piece number that had white lights pre-wrapped on it. The instructions were fairly simple, so it didn't take long to set up. In just a few minutes, D was walking around it and 'fluffing' it. I had my doubts at first, but once she did the whole thing, it looked like a real tree.

"Now, to the best part." She said, her smile wide and her eyes sparkling in the lights. She opened the tub I'd set to the side and there were balls and ornaments piled inside. She handed me a couple and gestured to the tree. "Have at it."

As the music swirled around us, D and I put silver and blue globes on the tree. When we'd gotten all those up, she started unwrapping personal ones. With each one she unwrapped, she told me a little story about how she'd come to have it. She was telling me the snapshots of her life in an amused, joking way that had me enthralled.

"Why aren't you doing these at your place?" I asked when I noticed we were about halfway through her stash. I watched as the walls closed on her eyes and she shrugged, shutting me out. I'd never seen her do that before and I felt my heart squeeze at the sight.

"D?" I asked, stepping away from the tree to get closer. Her eyes turned a little glassy and I couldn't stand it. I pulled her in for a hug, not knowing what was wrong but desperate to take away that look.

"My place is being demolished." She said against my chest. I had my arms closed around her, one hand in her hair and my head bent to hear her. Even so close, I barely caught her words.

"What do you mean?" I asked, speaking into her hair.

"It's this lovely old building near the downtown, but it doesn't have historical status. The owners sold it to a new developer and they've given us all notice. We have to be out by the middle of December." She explained and I clutched her closer. She sounded so heartbroken that it was making my own heart ache.

"I'm sorry, baby." I said. Her hands came around my waist and she hugged me back, closing the small space I'd left between us into nonexistence. We stood there for a few minutes until she leaned back. She wiped her face with her un-splinted hand and gave me a watery smile.

"Sorry, Marshall. I'm a bit sentimental." She said and I nodded, giving her a small smile in return.

"I hadn't noticed." I said and she chuckled and stepped away. I had to fight every instinct in my body not to pull her back into my arms. Instead, I cocked my head toward the tub and raised a brow. D nodded and we got back to it, her continuing to tell me the story behind each piece that went on my tree.

When we'd made it through the tub, I noticed a soft, satin appearing fabric in the base and a box. I took out the box and D laughed when she saw it in my hands. She came up to me, opening it as I stood still as a statue and smelled the vanilla that wafted around me. She looked up into my eyes when it was open, her earlier unhappiness gone.

"You get to choose." She said. "My mother was always traditional; so I have a star." She pulled it out of the box. "My dad, however," she said as she pulled out a toy gorilla head, "was not so much." She held each in her hand as she smiled. "They took turns every year."

I looked at the toy and at the star, and although the tree would have looked more polished with the star, I couldn't pass up the gorilla head. It was too perfectly fucked up. D grinned and put the star away as she saw me move toward the toy. While I slipped it onto the top of the tree, she took out the lush white and silver fabric that was in the bottom of the tub and spread it around the base of the tree. When she was done, she stood back and sighed, slipping an arm around my waist and leaning her head into my shoulder.

"Now, you're ready for the holidays." She said, a soft smile on her face. I looked down at her, and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.

"Stay and watch shitty Christmas movies with me."