2019 Advent Challenge

'Christmas Eve, Tru,' I said with a grin, flopping down into the couch and folding my arms. The Slayers Organisation HQ was currently a bit of a mess, with bits of Christmas wrapping paper lying about and a small mountain of food taking over the kitchen. We were kinda stuck here for a while since the recent snowfalls had left the roads impossible to navigate. Truman and I had managed to venture out on foot yesterday to buy Christmas food, but other than that, nobody had left the HQ in a few days.

I watched my boyfriend walk out of the kitchen to join me in the living-room area, holding a bottle of red wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. I eyed him with surprise.

'What, you want to spend the evening getting drunk? We don't wanna be hungover on Christmas morning, you know,' I chuckled.

He sat down on the couch beside me and began pouring out a drink for each of us. When this was done, he dug his notepad and pen out of his pocket and scribbled a hasty message. <We won't go overboard,> it read.

'Yeah, probably not the best idea.' However, I accepted my glass and took a grateful sip. 'Sandra might be a little annoyed if we spend Christmas Day throwing up in the bathroom. She's already paranoid that everything's going to go wrong. I don't think she's used to hosting dinners.'

Truman sipped from his own drink, listening but not trying to write anything.

'Still,' I said after a while, 'it's really nice that we're all spending the day together. We've never done that before.' I glanced up at Truman, seeing him sitting motionless, wearing a contemplative expression. 'You don't mind, do you? That we're all staying here?'

He raised his eyebrows, then scribbled another message. <I don't mind,> he said. <As long as I'm with you.>

I couldn't help snorting out a laugh. 'Don't start getting slushy. I don't do slushiness.'

He grinned and drank some more of his wine. Both of our glasses were already half-empty; had we really been powering through them that fast? Maybe we should take it easy. But I never felt like doing anything the easy way.

We sat together and chatted as the night wore on. When I glanced up to see the clock on the wall displaying eleven-thirty, I sighed. 'It's getting kind of late now.' I was leaning against Truman, who blinked and looked at the clock in surprise, like he'd had no idea what time it was. He fumbled for his notepad and wrote a message, the letters loose and swaying and barely coherent – similar to how my head felt right now.

<You tired?>

'No, not really,' I said, even though I was fighting back the sudden desire to yawn. 'But Sandra will have our heads if we oversleep on Christmas morning...'

He flipped to a clean page and stared at it uncertainly, chewing on the end of the pen.

'Hey, Tru?' I said. My voice sounded slightly slurred, even to my own ears, but I tried to control it. This was important. I had something to say, and I wasn't going to let alcohol ruin it for me. 'Look, I know I said earlier that I don't do slushiness, but... it's Christmas, so cut me some slack.'

He looked up from his notepad and eyed me quizzically.

Forcing my tired body into motion, I sat up straighter and turned to face him. Our eyes met without resistance, grey against hazel. His were clear and curious, barely fazed by all the wine he'd drunk. I wondered what he was thinking about. Sometimes when I met his gaze, it almost felt like I could read his thoughts, hear the words that he'd never say out loud – but today was not one of those times.

I opened my mouth to say something undoubtedly slushy and ridiculous – something along the lines of how grateful I was to have him in my life – but before I could get out more than a syllable, he leaned forwards and kissed me.

Not that I was complaining.

A minute or two later, we parted. I noticed that, at some point, I'd pushed him down onto his back, one hand tangled in his scruffy hair and the other gripping the front of his shirt. The couch was barely large enough, and both of us were in immediate danger of falling into the coffee table. Both of us were also breathing a lot more harshly than usual.

Not that he was complaining.

I grinned and kissed him once more – a quick, chaste one this time – then pushed myself off of him. 'Merry Christmas,' I said.

He raised his eyebrows, grinned back – a little dazedly – then propped himself up against the backrest to catch his breath. This only lasted a second before he was dragging me into another kiss, and this time I was the one being pushed down.

We really are drunk, I realised. Sandra was going to execute us if we showed up for Christmas dinner tomorrow hungover... but right now, I couldn't bring myself to care.