Melanie walked into Chris' house after work to pick up Sadie. She'd gotten called into work and Sadie was still on winter break from school, and since it wasn't a Wednesday, Melanie didn't want Sadie with John. They'd already been planning to be with Chris anyway, so Chris volunteered to watch Sadie while Melanie left. Melanie was extremely relieved to have Chris back again to help out with Sadie. As guilty as Melanie felt for Chris spending so much time on her and Sadie, they really did need him now.
When Melanie walked into the house, it was decorated not only with left over Christmas decorations, but streamers and a corny paper banner that read 'Happy Birthday!'.
Melanie laughs, "Really?"
Chris and Sadie both them jump out of the other room, "Surprise!" They shout in unison.
Melanie smiles, "You guys didn't have to do this."
"Yes we did!" Sadie says.
Chris walks up to Melanie, "It's your birthday, we had to do something. We're gonna have some fun and give you gifts - although, you're not gonna wanna open my gift in front of Sadie."
"Why?"
Chris just smirks.
Melanie narrows her eyes at him, "So help me, Cerulli, if you got me a vibrator I will kick your ass."
"You're welcome."
x
The rest of the holiday season came and went with the new year. Melanie didn't often go along with the whole "New Years resolutions" thing, but she was hoping that 2017 would bring her and Sadie some new beginnings and new opportunities. God knows they'd need it.
Now, Chris lay in bed, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. This was the part of his off-tour life that he hated. He was home and he wasn't writing an album. He could go out and do anything he wanted, and yet he didn't want to do anything at all. Melanie and Sadie were likely going to come over this afternoon, but that still wouldn't be for a while from now. Nevertheless, he supposed he should clean himself up and get the house straightened up a bit. That would at least give him something to do. As he sat up, his phone began to ring. It was Melanie.
Chris answers his phone, "Hello?"
"Hey, loser. I just got a body brought in for me and it's a doosey. I don't suppose you can get my kid from school for me, can you?"
"I can if you need me to."
"Awesome, thank you. I'll be there as soon as I can. You know what to do."
"I do indeed, it's no problem, Mel."
x
Chris arrived at the school actually at the time that the kids were supposed to be picked up. Most of the other parents there looked at Chris as if he were from another planet, but he didn't care. By now, he was used to it. Sadie smiled as he saw him, and she dashed to his car and got into the front seat.
"Hi, Chris." Sadie says, climbing into the front seat and shutting the car door. She set her backpack on the floor in front of her and buckled herself in.
"Hey, kiddo. How was school?"
"Alright."
Chris drives off, "What music do you wanna listen to today?"
Sadie shrugs, "I don't care."
Chris raises an eyebrow, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
There's a pause.
"Are we going to your house today?" Sadie asks.
"Yeah, at least until your mom gets back."
"Okay."
Another pause.
"Has your mom taken you sledding yet?" Chris asks, "The snow is perfect for that."
"No."
"Oh. Well, the three of us should do that some time."
Sadie manages a small smile, "Okay."
There was something off about Sadie today. She wasn't her usual, enthusiastic self. Chris glances at Sadie's attire. She was in a black T-shirt with a green monster truck on it, blue jeans, black sneakers and a blue hoodie. She had a coat too, but had taken it off when she got into the car.
"Just so I can make sure we have a good day, are you a boy today?" Chris asks.
Sadie nods, "Mhm."
"Okay." Chris says, "Do you have any homework?"
"A little, but it's pretty easy. I don't think I'll need any help with it."
The rest of the ride to Chris' house was silent. When they arrived, Chris stopped the car, Sadie gathered her things and they got out. Chris opened the door to his house and Sadie rushed in, immediately kicking off her shoes and heading towards the stairs.
"I'm gonna go do my homework in my room."
Chris raises an eyebrow, "Okay...?" Sadie seldom spent time in her room at Chris' house. She usually liked to be wherever he was when she came to his house.
Sadie went upstairs to her room and tossed her backpack onto her bed with a frustrated grunt. She then went over to her window and sat in her window sill, as she'd often seen her mother do in times of distress. Sadie gazed out the window as tears began to run down her little face.
About twenty minutes later, Chris decides to go up to Sadie's room to check on her, as she'd been quiet. He peeks his head into the room and sees her upset, crying as she looked out the window. She looked so much like Melanie, it wasn't even funny. Chris could feel his heart breaking. He hated seeing her upset, especially when he didn't know why.
Sadie glances over and sees Chris, but then she resumes to look out her window, wiping her face with her sleeve.
Chris walks into the room and gets down on his knees in front of Sadie, "C'mere, kiddo."
Sadie sniffles, then crawls into Chris' lap, wrapping her legs around his torso and her arms around her neck. She then buries her face into Chris' chest, still crying. Chris kisses the top of her head and rubs her back a moment before finally speaking.
"Can you tell me what's wrong?"
Sadie leans back away from Chris a bit, crossing her arms and looking down, "I just...can't decide."
"Can't decide what?"
Sadie crawls off of Chris' lap and observes herself in the mirror. She observes herself a moment, then speaks.
"I feel like a boy today...I really, really feel like a boy today, but I still feel like a look like a girl. I mean, I know boys can have long hair too, and I don't wanna cut my hair, but..."
"Oh. Well, I know how to fix that."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Chris says, standing up and going to Sadie's closet.
As previously mentioned, Sadie had stayed over night here before - since the divorce, mainly with Melanie here as well. Because of this, Sadie had a few clothing items in the closet of the bedroom she usually resided in on such occasions.
Chris opens the closet, looks around, then smiles, "Ah."
Chris grabs a black beanie from a shelf in the closet, then walks up to Sadie.
"Do you have a hair tie on your wrist?"
Sadie nods and hands Chris the hair tie. Chris runs his fingers through Sadie's hair and puts it into a bun, then he puts the beanie on Sadie so that all of her hair was tucked inside of it.
"There." Chris says, turning Sadie to face the mirror, "And then when you feel like a girl again, you can just take the hat off and take your hair out."
Sadie's eyes get big, awe struck at this simple new discovery, "Woah..."
"It might not be this easy when you get older, but for now it works."
Sadie nods, rapidly, "Yeah! I like this! Thanks, Chris!"
Chris smiles, "So are we okay now?"
"Mhm."
"Good, because I got you your favorite snack."
"Watermelon Sour Patch Kids?!"
"You betcha."
"Yay!" Sadie exclaims. She grabs her backpack, then runs downstairs with Chris following her.
x
Melanie walks into Chris' house without knocking and smiles, "Where's my favorite idiot?"
"In here, with your favorite kid." Chris calls from the kitchen.
Melanie walks into the kitchen to find Chris and Sadie sitting at the table, Sadie with a coloring book and crayons in front of her. Sadie turns around to face Melanie with a big smile on her face.
"Hi, Mommy! Look at my hat! Chris helped me to look more like a boy!"
Melanie smiles as well, "I see that, sweetie. You look very handsome." She says before kissing Sadie's forehead.
"Thanks, Mommy." Sadie says before returning to her coloring book.
Melanie looks to Chris and mouths "thank you". Chris nods and smiles.
"So, is it safe to assume you're going to make us stay here so you can force feed us?" Melanie asks Chris.
"I've already got dinner plans for the three of us; we're going out in a couple hours."
"Chris, you really don't have to do that."
"Shush, I want to."
"Yay! I like going places with you, Chris." Sadie says.
Chris smiles, "I like doing that kinda stuff with you too, buddy."
Melanie sits down with them and kept the smile on her face, so thankful that Chris was being so good to them. It really was so great when he was home from tour.
x
They pulled up to the restaurant, and Sadie's face suddenly fell.
"Wait a minute." She says.
Chris turns around to look at her, "What is it?"
Sadie pauses, then speaks, "I've never been this much of a boy in public before..."
Melanie gives Chris a worried glance, but he looked totally relaxed.
"I know how you feel, kiddo. I mean, I've never changed my gender like you have, but I remember when I first started wearing makeup, it was not nearly as okay for boys to wear makeup as it is now. I remember going out in public wearing makeup for the first time and I was pretty scared too, but you know what?"
"What?"
"When I first started wearing makeup, I didn't have supportive parents or grown ups that I looked up to that were okay with it...you do."
Sadie pauses, thinking, then nods, "Okay...Let's go inside." She says, unbuckling herself and getting out of the car.
Chris and Melanie get out of the car too and they all walk to the restaurant.
"Do you really remember wearing makeup in public for the first time?" Melanie asks.
"Mhm. I mean, I'd worn it to school a couple of times, but never really out and about. It was January, the day after New Years of 2002. It was winter break and we didn't have school, so we decided to do something. We were still kind of...recovering from losing Tori, so we didn't do anything too...extravagant...so we just went to the mall for the day and I wore makeup, and...it was definitely a game changer."
Chris remembered the following few months after Tori died pretty perfectly. Mostly because during that time, Melanie was in the worst shape Chris had ever seen her in. Seeing your friend in such a position is sort of hard to forget, despite how much Chris wished he could. On that January day in 2002, Sandrine agreed to take young Chris and Melanie to the mall since neither of them could drive yet and Sandrine had a hair appointment at a salon near the mall anyway - Sandrine never liked to use the salons IN the mall, however - so she was fine with dropping the kids off beforehand. Melanie had done Chris' makeup that day when he arrived at her house that day. Chris almost always had Melanie do his makeup when he was there. He was capable of doing it himself and did want to learn how to do it better, but it made Melanie happy to do it and given the fact that Melanie had been such a disaster for months now, Chris would do anything to see her smile.
Since they didn't school and they had more time, Melanie didn't just put a little bit of eyeliner on Chris; she gave him a full makeover, pretty much. Since Melanie was a natural redhead, she was quite pale, so she and Chris pretty much were matching in skin tone. She did foundation, powder, eyeliner and even eyeshadow with just a hint of mascara. Mind you, this was long before Chris began doing his eyebrows and before contouring was the trend. Also mind you that Melanie had just turned fifteen at the time so the makeup was far from perfect, but it was definitely not terrible. It was just...different.
Chris had worn makeup around Sandrine plenty of times and she was actually pretty okay with it. As previously mentioned, Sandrine ADORED Chris, so in her eyes, he could pretty much do no wrong. Chris never wore makeup around Gary or his own father though. It was a bit more difficult to get the men on his side early on... It had actually never occurred to Chris that he'd never worn makeup out and about before - especially this much makeup. The realization didn't hit him until after Sandrine had dropped him and Melanie off at the mall. They were about to walk inside when Chris stopped and just stared at the doors a minute.
Melanie looked over at him. At this rate, Melanie was still a mess, but was in much better shape than she had been a couple of months ago. Her hair was shiny and voluminous again, she could eat a full meal now, her cheeks once again had the rosy pink hue to them and her skin was no longer gray and sickly; it was back to its perfect peach-pale look.
Melanie tilted her head to the side as she looked at Chris, "Something wrong?" She had asked.
Chris swallowed, then spoke, "I've never worn this much makeup in public before...and it's not like I'm in some place like Hollywood where there's freaks everywhere, I'm in Scranton; there's an Amish community twenty minutes from here."
"What's your point here, Chris?"
"I don't know, I just..." Chris trailed.
"Chris, how do you think all of those big shot musicians you look up to got to where they are?"
Chris shrugged.
"They worked hard, did what they wanted and didn't give a shit. You do that and you'll be just fine." Melanie said. She pat Chris' shoulder twice, then started toward the doors.
Chris paused half a second, taking this in, then he sped up in front of Melanie so that he could open the door for her. Melanie walked in and Chris followed her. They started to look around the mall to find a store to look in.
"Where should we go first?" Melanie had asked.
"I'm not sure..." Chris trailed, looking around and seeing people looking at him. Some people simply stared, others actually looked angry at the sight of him in makeup.
"Chris...?" Melanie asked, noticing the glances as well.
Chris paused, then pulled Melanie to the side.
"Are you okay?" Melanie asked.
Chris sighed, then spoke, "Is it...is it wrong that I like that they're looking at me this way? That I almost...want them to not like it?"
Melanie smiled, "You're getting their attention, Chris. You're doing something up here." She said, pointing to her temple, "If you're ever going to be a musician, that's exactly what you want to do."
A smile slowly formed across Chris' face as well, and he slowly nodded as he let these thoughts set in, "Yeah...Yeah, you're right...Yeah. Okay...Let's go look in the music store."
x
Sadie finishes her hotdog and Melanie steals a couple of Chris' fries. He glares at her and she just laughs as she begins munching on the french fries. Their waiter approaches the table.
"Are we finished here?"
"Yeah." Melanie says.
The waiter begins to gather their dishes and Sadie smiles.
"Thank you." Sadie says. Her mother had taught her to always say "thank you" to servers.
The waiter smiles, "You're welcome, sweetie. What's your name?"
Sadie grows sheepish, "Sadie. I know that that's a girl's name, but I'm a boy today."
"Oh, okay. Well, you're a very handsome little guy."
Sadie perks up, "Thanks!"
The waiter smiles, "I'll be back in just a minute with your check." He says before walking off.
Melanie exhales, looking relieved.
"You okay?" Chris asks.
"Yeah, it's just...you never know who's going to be respectful and who isn't."
"Well, maybe Sadie needs to know that not everyone is going to be that nice about it, unfortunately."
Melanie sighs, "Yeah, probably."
"I know it sucks, but it'll be good for her to know it from a young age."
Melanie looks across the table at Sadie happily coloring her kids' menu. Melanie smiles.
"Not today though." She says, "Another time."
A/N: So...we haven't really heard too much about John lately...What do I have planned for that? Mwah ha ha ha ha...
Let me know what you think!
xoxo, Scissorhands