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Those Christmas lights, light up the street.
"For fuck's sake!" Alex shouted for what was probably the seventh time in the last few minutes, pacing up and down the living room "You can't just put out of order signs on the lifts AND the stairs! That's ridiculous! That's poor management! It's poor! It's bullshit!"
George just nodded slowly, long since zoned out from Alex's ranting.
To be honest, he wasn't awfully surprised this'd happened. He was pissed, and a bit claustrophobic, but not surprised. After all, it'd been less than a year since the time their downstairs neighbour had set off a firecracker and the owner of their building had barred them from the entire floor below for three days, forcing them to use the emergency fire escape just to get groceries.
It was just worse this time as, out of all days, it felt the need to happen on Christmas.
The situation was not improved when, all of a sudden, the lights in the apartment switched off.
"Oh, well that's just fantastic!" Alex shouted after a moment, throwing his arms up "Fucking brilliant. Really getting me into the Christmas spirit,"
"Get a grip, we're gonna get a noise complaint," George said finally
"Oh, what are they gonna do? Make our room out of order too? Maybe board up the fire exit, too, wait for us to starve?" Alex yelled sarcastically, seeming to contemplate saying something else before realising George probably had a point,
George looked at him sympathetically "Look, let's just sit down. Watch some bad Christmas TV or something,"
"Last time I checked TVs need electricity, George,"
"Fair point,"
Alex lost track of how long he spent sitting on the sofa in the dark. George was making an attempt to light the place up by raiding the cupboards for festive candles and putting them in every gap he could fit them in, but they weren't doing much besides making the room smell like the body mist aisle in Superdrug.
The heavy quiet in the flat was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Alex stayed put; it was probably that noise complaint he risked earlier. After a moment, the knocking came back, this time sounding less like knocking and more like someone was trying to headbutt the door out of its frame.
George looked up at him "You gonna get that before they kick the door in or no?"
"Alright, alright, don't be a prick," Alex sighed, rubbing a hand over his face as he cautiously opened the door
"Y'alright lads?" Will said, already walking into the house before Alex could get a word in
"Will? The fuck are you doing here?" George asked, some of the stress of the day seeping into his tone
"It's Christmas, innit. I'm not sitting in the flat on m' own, I'm feeling too festive," Will explained like it was obvious
"Oh yeah, come join the festive cheer, Will, we've got no lights, no heating, and some lukewarm beer in the fridge that doesn't work," Alex snapped back
"Awh come on, don' be like that," Will laughed "It's Christmas, you should make the most of it,"
"'You should make the most of it'" Alex repeated condescendingly in a poor imitation of Will's accent "How do you suggest we make the most of it? Invite Fraser and James over? Sit around a table with some room temperature kebabs and George's minging candles and sing some jolly Christmas tunes? You want that?"
"That's not a half-bad idea, Al," Will grinned, pretending not to catch the sarcasm "You wouldn't mind me getting the lads round, would you George?"
"Nah, go ahead, more the merrier," George replied coolly. Alex glared at him.
"Great," Will giggled, already getting James' contact up on his phone "Let's do Christmas"
"This is ridiculous. This is so stupid," Alex grumbled, fiddling with the stringy parts of a blown-out party popper.
When Will said they'd do Christmas, he wasn't joking. They all sat crowded around George and Alex's dining table, Kenji wandering around the room as Fraser felt bad leaving him at their place. James had donated a few of his own weird smelly candles to the event, and although it made the whole place smell like the inside of a Lush, it gave the room almost enough light to look nice. Almost. James and Fraser had also brought around a leftover chicken takeaway they found in their fridge and, using a few battery packs and some extension cables, they'd managed to reheat in the microwave, making it just about edible.
It was kind of a nice atmosphere, but Alex wasn't going to admit that.
"We're doing another shot, boys," James said, raising the vodka bottle to a few cheers from around the table "You in the mood yet, Alex?"
"No, I want to laugh at you when you're all hungover," Alex said half-jokingly
"Suit yourself, grumpy,"
"He just doesn't want a drink that isn't bathwater," George added unhelpfully
"Ha ha, maybe you should if you followed my influence your sober brain could think of an actual funny joke, but then again I doubt it," Alex snapped back
"Alright, kids, calm down, this is starting to feel too much like a real family Christmas," Will laughed as he filled up his shot glass.
"But like... It kind of does though," George said quietly
"Oh yeah, all we're missing is a racist uncle and some screaming children and it's just like back home," Fraser joked, getting a laugh out of James and Will.
"No, I'm serious though," George said. The table went quiet.
"What are you on about, you melt?" Alex spoke up, with more concern than aggression behind his words
"I mean, like, over the last two years... You guys have been like a second family to me, kind of, and it's hard to explain this when I'm drunk, oh God-" George rubbed his face with one hand "It's just whenever we do stuff like this I kind of just realise how glad I am you mongs are in my life.. I just- I just love all of you stupid wankers so much,"
Everyone sat in a kind of stunned silence for a moment, before Will spoke up "You alright, mate?"
Alex was thinking the same thing, and he assumed everybody else was as well. Moments of affection like this were rare or even completely non-existent when it came to George, so to see him getting all gooey like this, even if he wasn't at his soberest, was worrying. This concern was not helped when George let out an audible sniffle.
"Hey, hey, woah, are you crying?" James asked, getting out of his seat and walking over to George before he even got a response, pulling him out of his seat and into a hug.
"Fuck off," George protested, making no effort to pull away. Even with the sappiness of the whole situation, Alex couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at the ten-inch height difference between the two of them as they eventually broke apart and sat back down at the table.
"Big George Memeulous, alpha of commentary youtube, cries into his mates' chest after drinking one too many. We could sell this to Keemstar," Will laughed, poking at his almost-done takeaway
"Piss off," George said grinning, recovering from his moment of drunken emotion with remarkable speed.
"I'm jokes. If it means anything, I love you too, you little sappy mong,"
George just smiled at that, and after a second Fraser looked up earnestly from his food.
"Me too. Honestly, you lot are the best thing that's happened to me in years. I don't know what I'd be doing if I didn't have losers like you to cry over takeaway with,"
"Oh, don't you start too, Fraser," Will said, not meaning a word of it.
"Let's drink to sappy late-night bromance, boys," James laughed, raising his shot glass
"Cheers to that," Will said, raising his glass as well. Fraser and George followed suit.
"Alex?" James prompted
Alex thought it over for a second "Alright, fine, but this is still stupid,"
The others all cheered at that. Once Alex poured himself a shot, he raised it alongside the others, and reluctantly drank it.
He almost choked, however, when all of a sudden, the lights in the house came on again.
"Oh shit, they fixed it!" George cheered.
"Fucking finally," Alex replied, laughing in relief.
"Wait, wait, do you two have a CD player in here by any chance?" James asked suddenly.
"Yeah," George replied warily "Why?"
James got up and went to his bag, rummaged for a moment, and pulled out a copy of Now That's What I Call Christmas.
"Oh, for Fuck's sake," Alex groaned, pulling the drawstrings on his hoodie to block out the impending bad Christmas music.
"Shut up, it's Christmas," James said, grinning ear to ear as he slid it into the CD player and the opening notes to Last Christmas started playing
"No, no, absolutely not. It's my house, pick a decent one," Alex whined
"Alright, fine, you grinch," James said, clicking the skip track button a few times until the opening notes of Christmas lights started playing "This nice and sappy enough for you?"
"Fine," Alex said, sitting back in his seat. He closed his eyes, exhausted from all the crap with the electricity and the stress, as well as the comfortably filling (not that bad) chicken takeaway. He might've dozed off, he wasn't sure, but what he did know was that, as he zoned out listening to the ambient sounds of the music, and George and Will having some conversation about presents, he couldn't think of anyone he would've rather spent his Christmas with.
Those Christmas lights, keep shining on.