May all your Christmases be bright...

[awickedtime]

Raised in the Church of Night, Nick's never celebrated Christmas before, but it's important to Charlie and Rosie, so it's important to Sabrina, so it's important to Nick. He'd basically given Rosie and Charlie free rein to decorate the apartment, which is draped in lights and glitter, the tree shimmering merrily in the corner. It's not dissimilar to some of the festivals that he had celebrated in his life. The iconography is different, though.

They've carved out time to spend together, in the midsts of all the other meals, all the other obligations with the found families that they've made themselves. Nick had agonised over gifts for the girls, less so for Charlie, and they're neatly wrapped in paper and metallic ribbon. He's proud of how pretty they look, if he's honest.

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[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina, for her part, plans to use the holiday to kiss all of them as many times as she can manage. How to manage holidays, this still seems a new bit of territory-- but it's like the only good math problem she's ever had to do. She knows for certain they'll all be together on New Year's, but she plans to stay with Charlie that night, celebrating a very particular anniversary. There will be a chance to do their own version of Lupercalia coming up-- and she rather thinks that some of the quiet holiday prep moments can belong with Rosie and her.

They're going to need to buy dresses for the New Year's party, anyway.

She watches Rosie with a warm, quietly adoring gaze, and then smiles. "You did an amazing job," she says. "It's all the best parts, none of the mysterious dark secrets or rituals. It's-- it's incredible, to not be worried, to just be enjoying holiday with the people I love."

[forthsofar]

Rosie nods, staying quiet for a moment as she thinks back over the last six months. So much had changed and solidified between the four of them, from the cold aftermath of June on, but the cost of it had sometimes seemed just on the edge of too much to bear. But it had brought them here, to this moment--full of warmth and light and love--and maybe that's what counted more.

"I'm glad we have this," she says, her head dropping to rest on Sabrina's shoulder. "After everything, I'm glad we get something nice."

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina pulls her even closer, that slightly protective edge present even in a situation like this-- nothing to worry about, but she does enjoy wrapping her arms around Rosie and pressing her cheek in her soft, dark hair.

"We don't just get to have it," she murmurs. "We worked for it. We fought for it. We defended it and took it for ourselves. And we'll keep it. Right now? We get to enjoy it."

She's quiet then, soaking it all in and finding nothing but warmth and contentment. "What was your favorite part of Christmas, growing up?"

[forthsofar]

As always, there's that fierce edge for a moment to the tightness of Sabrina's arms around her, as though she could take Rosie inside herself as a means of protecting her further. It never fails to make Rosie's throat tight, her heart almost overfull with emotion and love. She nods, listening to the quiet murmur of the other girl's voice and the conviction therein. "That's true," she says, equally hushed and equally firm. "We didn't just...wait for this to happen, we made sure it would. Through whatever means we could."

The question that follows makes her smile, and she goes quiet again, thinking. "It didn't happen every year, but sometimes after dinner we'd bring my grandmother's old record player down from the loft," she says. "It was one of those old ones, wind-up, and some of the records that we could play on it were Christmas songs. We'd bring it down to the sitting room and turn all the lights off but the tree, and just listen to song after song until we were tired of it."