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Luke sorted through the box of ornaments as he listened to the friendly bickering between Alex and Julie mix with the gentle Christmas music playing in the studio.
“Alex, he asked you on a date. This is not a point of argument because I’m right!” Julie placed a purple, sparkling ornament on the tree before holding out her hand for the next one.
Alex sputtered while handing her a small bird ornament, “If it was a date, he would have used the word date, Julie. He’s just asking me to hang out.”
“Uh huh, all friends just go ice skating and get hot chocolate one on one. That’s a really platonic activity. Totally isn’t romantic to teach someone how to ice skate like at all.”
Reggie walked into the room with the packages of tinsel while Luke cut off Alex from responding, “It does kind of sound like a date, dude. Ice skating is romantic, I mean, that’s like a number one activity in Christmas rom-coms.”
Alex sent an icy glare towards Luke who simply shrugged. Reggie snorted before adding, “All you would need to do to complete the rom-com is to kiss underneath the mistletoe at the end of the night.”
Reggie handed Alex a handful of tinsel who angrily tossed a bit on, “Well, that won’t be happening because it’s not a date! I can’t just assume that any hang out with Willie is a date even if I want it to be.”
Julie just rolled her eyes, “You’re useless.”
“So are you, Miss ‘Flynn doesn’t like me back even though she gives me goo goo eyes.’” Alex retorted, still placing tinsel on the tree with a bit too much force.
Julie let out a shocked laugh and grabbed a handful of tinsel from Reggie. She turned to Alex with mischief lining her lips and revenge in her eyes.
“Wait, don’t d-” Alex was cut off by the mass of tinsel hitting him straight in the face. Julie was already running across the room to avoid retaliation who was followed by a laughing Alex. They both tried to throw tinsel in each other's directions as Reggie and Luke took refuge on the couch (they were still hit by a few stray tinsel).
Once the garage was thoroughly covered in tinsel, Alex and Julie joined the other two on the couch, both laughing and attempting to pull the shiny string out of their hair.
“You totally deserved that,” Julie said between laughs.
“Okay, okay, I think we’re both a little useless,” Alex conceded, attempting to pull tinsel out of his hoodie.
Julie sighed, “At least we’re hopeless together?”
“Yea, dudes, it would be a Christmas miracle if either of you confessed before the twenty fifth,” Luke added, annoyed at how his hair was now sparkly despite his best efforts.
Julie, with her knowledge of Luke’s not so tiny crush on Reggie, squinted her eyes, “Not you trying to speak on this, Lucas.”
Luke gave her an alarmed look before crossing his arms in response, “I’m just saying that you dorks are pining over people that obviously like you back.”
“They do not ,” Alex and Julie both protested at the same time before looking at each other, disturbed at the unison.
“...Let's never do that again,” Julie said, crossing her arms, “Anyways, bold of you to assume that I won’t be telling Flynn I like her. I have...lots of plans, I’ll have you know.”
“Oh yeah? If you tell Flynn then Alex will fess up to Willie,” Luke challenged, leaning towards Julie
“Hey, what?! I never agreed to this!” Alex interjected, an alarmed look on his face.
“Shush. Willie likes you anyways,” Luke responded, putting his hand out for Julie to shake, “Let’s make a pact to finally confess all our feelings so that we can all stop being hopeless by Christmas! Come on, Jules.”
Julie sighed but took Luke’s hand, “Deal.”
Reggie pulled a confused face, “Wait, man, who do you like?”
Luke froze, tried to make up a lie on the spot, “No one. I am making a pact for Alex.”
To add to the somewhat lackluster lie, Alex added an unhappy, “I still haven’t agreed to this.”
Reggie’s eyebrows furrowed but he decided that it was better to not question it.
With that, the group made a kind of ‘stop being a pining idiot by Christmas’ pact. With the twenty fifth quickly approaching, they all made plans to try and come clean about their feelings, mostly to prove to the others that they could. Alex planned to tell Willie the extent of his feelings after their not-date. He practiced a speech in his head for about a week just for the occasion. Julie had an elaborate musical number for Flynn set up and practiced with the rest of the boys. It would happen on their annual Christmas movie night just so that Julie couldn’t chicken out. And Luke, well Luke didn’t really have a plan, but he was going to tell Reggie...at some point. He was trying his best and that’s what mattered.
-------<3-------
Julie stood in Flynn’s kitchen carefully decorating a sweater shaped Christmas cookie with an intense look of concentration. It was tradition for Flynn and Julie to have an unofficial cooking decoration contest at some point in the holiday season.
Flynn leaned over into Julie’s workspace, smirking with a false confidence, “I don’t mean to brag but I think my cookie is already much better.”
“No way, disappointment, every year I have superior cookies,” Julie said, still heavily focuses on where she was placing sprinkles on her cookie.
Julie was right, her cookies were always better but Flynn could always hope that somehow her icing skills would increase. Either way, it was obvious that that wasn’t the case after a few minutes of failing to get a straight line of frosting. Flynn, sensing defeat in the horizon, reached over and swiped some of the frosting off of one of Julie’s cookies.
Julie yelled, grabbing her cookie and holding it away from Flynn, “I spent so much time getting that perfect, Flynn!”
Flynn simply shrugged her shoulders, smiling like the Grinch, as she grabbed one of Julie’s completed cookies and started to eat it.
Julie looked at her best friend with a look of utter betrayal before she came to enough of her senses to grab a spoon covered with frosting. Before Flynn could do anything, Julie globbed the bright green frosting onto her cheek.
“You have a little...something, Flynn,” Julie said while motioning to her cheek with a wide, mischievous smile.
“Oh, how dare you!” Flynn grabbed the nearest spoon that happened to be covered in red frosting and smeared it onto Julie’s nose, “Oh my god, Rudolph? Is that you?”
“You are literally the rudest person I know,” Julie exclaimed but the smile on her face said the opposite of her words.
“You love me,” Flynn went to go grab napkins to wipe off the frosting.
“Maybe. I’m still thinking about it cause you’re on thin ice after eating my cookie.”
Flynn rolled her eyes before using the second napkin to reach up and delicately wipe the frosting off Julie’s nose, “Okay, Rudolph.”
Julie froze at the soft touch, tensing a little at how close Flynn was to her. Trying to keep her cool, she decided to say, “Uh, council has decided that I do love you even if you’re a menace.”
“You better,” Flynn booped her nose with her smile.
Even when Julie tried to focus on decorating cookies, she couldn’t stop catching a glimpse of that teasing smile or stop noticing how cute Flynn looked when she concentrated on trying to make a striped sweater cookie. If only Flynn knew how much Julie truly meant it when she said ‘I love you’.
------<3------
Reggie bounced with anticipation as Luke sat on the couch in the studio, drinking hot chocolate that Ray had given him. Luke and Reggie had been assigned to setting up the garage for movie night/love declaration night since the other members of their band were off on pseudo dates.
“Luke, Luke, I have a great idea to help our friends in their plans to get together,” he held out a mistletoe with a wide smile, “All we have to do is set up mistletoe and get them underneath it! Simple."
"I don't know, man, they can just kiss each other on the cheek," Luke replied, shrugging as he took a sip of hot chocolate.
"...ugh, you're right," Reggie deflated while taking a seat next to Luke on the couch. A few seconds of contemplative silence followed before he exclaimed, “Wait...what if we kiss under the mistletoe first ?"
Luke choked on his hot chocolate at the sudden statement before getting out a pained, " What ?"
"You know, to set an example, dude! If we kiss under the mistletoe and they see then boom! They have to kiss too!"
Luke felt like he’d been set on fire but Reggie was too preoccupied by feeling like a genius to really notice, "I, uh, I don't know, man. Maybe we should try something else?"
Reggie turned to Luke with a frown and crossed arms, "Do you not want to kiss me?"
"Uh, dude, I-" Luke tried before Reggie cut him off.
"Because I think I am very kissable, thank you very much."
Luke could not believe this was happening, "It's not that I don't want to kiss yo-"
"Great!” Reggie gently punched Luke’s chest, “Get ready to smooch up, man, Julie and Flynn are coming in like thirty minutes."
“They’re coming that soon?” Luke asked, both a little panicked and disoriented.
Reggie handed the mistletoe to Luke, “Yea, dude! Alex and Willie should be coming a little later because they’re at the ice rink. Anyways, Alex doesn’t trust me with hammers and I don’t either so you should hang the mistletoe, dude.”
Luke took the mistletoe before Reggie wordlessly pulled the orange beanie off his head. Luke started to protest but quickly shut himself up at the sight of Reggie wearing his beanie. Even though it didn’t match his bright red Christmas sweater, Reggie looked so adorable. Especially since it was his beanie.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Does it look weird on me?” Reggie asked as he messed with the beanie, “This is why I don’t wear hats, man, they look goofy.”
“No, no, you...look good, bro.” Luke patted Reggie’s shoulder a bit awkwardly.
Reggie made kissy noises at Luke and waggled his eyebrows before asking, “Do I look... kissable?”
“So kissable, dude,” Luke responded, rolling his eyes with a smile, before pulling the beanie over Reggie’s eyes.
------<3------
Luke was totally and utterly screwed. Unbelievably so. He should have known that things would turn out bad when Reggie practically begged him to help with a master plan to get his friends together before Christmas.
So, here he was sitting on the couch staring at the mistletoe on the studio door filled with a dreadful amount of anticipation. He really should have just laughed and said no when Reggie said his plan. It would have been so easy for anyone that wasn't Luke. He had realized that he liked Reggie a little more than a friend a while ago. It kind of just happened. It wasn’t all at once but rather a build up of moments that made his heart beat faster than normal. The soft glow of the TV on Reggie’s face after he fell asleep on his shoulder after they binged the Star Wars movies or the smile on his face as he danced goofily around to Last Christmas by Wham!. It all led to him being one hundred percent smitten for his best friend. His best friend who wanted to kiss him under the mistletoe. He wanted to kiss him platonically though? Truly ridiculous set of circumstances he had found himself in.
He was getting the kiss of his dreams right now but only because Reggie wanted to fulfill some plan. It stung but Luke would do it if it made Reggie happy. He really was completely and totally lost for this wonderfully oblivious man.
Reggie enthusiastically broke Luke from his thoughts, “Okay, Julie just texted me that they’re here with the cookies so show time, dude!”
Luke took a deep breath, wondering how he had found himself in this situation, as he stood up. Reggie went towards the door, enthusiasm radiating off him, and opened the doors to greet Julie and Flynn. As planned, they were now both underneath the mistletoe. Luke pointed upwards as he tried to make their stupid plan look believable.
Suddenly, Reggie looked shy as if he was only now realizing what it meant to kiss his best friend, “Uh, guess we have to kiss now.”
In response, Luke simply nodded and tapped his lips with a small grin making Reggie flush. Luke was unbelievably nervous but tried his best to conceal it by putting up a confident facade. After a couple seconds that felt like years, Reggie leaned in and closed the gap between them. It was tentative and unsure before Luke gently grabbed Reggie’s face making the kiss deeper. It was a bad idea but he couldn’t resist. He was enamoured by the flush on Reggie’s cheek, the mix of a red sweater with a stolen orange beanie and the shy smile. The feeling of kissing Reggie was almost addictive. The way Reggie melted into the kiss, hands finding a place on his side, made it even harder to stop.
Julie cleared her throat, making the boys pull away from each other, “Well, hello to you too, love birds. Did I miss something when I was gone?”
Luke’s voice came out a bit rough, “Uh, hi.”
“Nice job, Reggie, glad to see it worked out.” Flynn smirked before walking into the studio with the box of cookies and Julie in hand.
There were a few seconds of silence as Reggie looked at Luke with wide eyes waiting to see if he would put two and two together from what Flynn just said. Luke squinted his eyes at this and almost laughed. He was such an idiot.
“What did she mean by that, Reg?” Luke asked, moving one of his hands so that he could hold Reggie close by his hips.
“Well, um, you see, man, it’s kind of complicated,” Reggie could not form a coherent thought with Luke this close with that look on his face. Especially after he just kissed him. He kissed Luke. Holy crap, his plan worked.
“Is it, babe?” Luke tilted his head to one side and used one of his hands to cradle the back of Reggie’s neck. The position felt familiar yet entirely more intimate now.
He tried to not look at Luke’s eyes but he was entirely too enthralled to not, “This may have been less about our friends and more about me wanting to...kiss you.”
“Hmm,” Luke planted a soft kiss on Reggie’s lips, “I can’t believe you tricked me, you big dork.”
“Tricked is a strong word,” Reggie barely got the sentence out before Luke placed yet another kiss on his lips.
------<3-------
Alex knew that ice skating meant physically getting onto the ice but now that he was standing at the edge of the rink, a small sense of dread filled him. He was one hundred percent going to fall in front of Willie and look like a total idiot. He would be hurt and embarrassed. A wonderful combo. Maybe he should have suggested going to see a movie or something.
Willie stood there, looking confident on the ice, encouraging Alex to just step on, “Come on, you can do it!”
After another minute of Alex placing a foot on the ice, only to pull back again, Willie skated closer to grab his hands.
“Okay, just hold onto my hands and get onto the ice. Baby steps, right?”
Alex took a deep breath, “Baby steps, sure, I can do that. I can totally do that.”
Gripping Willie’s hands like a lifeline, Alex stepped onto the ice successfully without backing out.
He laughed a little in disbelief and looked up at Willie with a bright smile, “I actually did it!”
“You did it! Now, you want to try actual skating?”
“Mmm, you think I can just stand here while you skate?”
“Nope! Come on, I got you, pretty boy. Relax a little and hold my hands, okay?”
After a while, Alex started feeling a little more confident on the ice after taking several tips from Willie and maybe falling just a little (a lot). Willie skated backwards (Alex couldn’t believe that he could even do that without dying) so that he could watch Alex very slowly make his way across the rink. It was kind of adorable to watch him very carefully try and balance on the ice with an anxious determination to not fall again.
Even with his determination, Alex still wobbled and knew he was going to fall with no railing to fall onto. He let out a small yelp before he instinctually grabbed onto Willie promptly pulling both of them down on the ice. They laid there in a daze for a few seconds before Willie started laughing. Alex laughed a little too but held his face in embarrassment.
Willie got up, holding his hand out for the other to grab, “Huh, looks like I fell for you, Alex.”
He was almost embarrassed at using such a cheesy line but the way that Alex let out an awkward laugh with a flush on his cheeks made it worth it.
-----<3-----
To rejuvenate from all the skating they did, Willie bought them both cups of hot chocolate from the small coffee joint near the ice skating rink. They sit near the window and Alex watches the people on the street pass by as he warms his hands back up with his cup. He doesn’t notice the adoring way that Willie is looking at him instead of the lights decorating outside.
After a couple moments of comfortable silence, Willie smiles happily, tucking some hair behind his ear to calm some of his nerves, “Hey, Alex, I just wanted to say that I’m really glad you came on this date with me. I, uh, wasn’t sure you were going to say yes b-”
Date? Did Willie just say date? Julie was right? Oh god. Oh god.
“This what ?” Alex whipped his head towards Willie, his voice high pitched and looking wide eyed.
“....date?” Willies eyes widened with realization as he pulled his hands out of Alex’s, “Oh my god, dude, did you not know this was a date? I am so sorry, I don’t, um, I thought that you knew... but that’s fine. That’s cool, uh, this could just be a friendly thing if that’s wha-”
Alex cut off Willie, “No! No, oh my god, no! I want this to be a date, Willie.”
Willie lets out a relieved sigh before letting out a laugh, “You didn’t realize this was a date?”
“You...you never used the word date and I can’t just assume these things, Willie, I-”
“I held your hand for like fifty percent of the date, dude.”
Alex flushed, voice raising an octave, “Okay, hand holding can be platonic. Plus. it was to keep me safe from meeting an icy doom.”
“Well,” Willie reaches over and grabs his hand, “I don’t really want this to be platonic.”
Alex stared at their intertwined hands, almost unable to believe it, “So, wait, hold on, you like me? Like that?”
“Yea, I think I’ve made that pretty clear, pretty boy.”
“But, Willie, I-I...had this whole speech planned where I was gonna tell you that I liked you,” Alex gestured wildly with his free hand, “You like me? You’re sure you’re not joking?”
Willie squeezes Alex’s hand to reassure him, “I’m not joking at all but...I have to say that I’m very curious to hear this speech of yours.”
“Well, I was going to say stuff about how I’ve liked you even when you ran me over with your skateboard and how your hair drives me insane sometimes because how do you get it look like that? But I don’t have to say any of that now because you like me! You like me, Willie! Oh my god, this is wonderful.”
“I’ve liked you even after you dinged my board.” Alex laughed and they looked at each other, a new kind of glow in their eyes. Willie doesn’t think he’s ever seen Alex so unwaveringly happy and the sight makes his heart flutter in his chest. He could stay there looking at that bright smile in this small coffee shop for the rest of time and be happy. Even if they only played Michael Bublé over the speakers, he would be content.
He leaned across the small table to place a chaste kiss on Alex’s lips. Alex’s jaw slacked just a little from the kiss before he said, “I am the luckiest man alive.”
The prettiest sight for Willie right now wasn’t the lights outside but the oblivious man right in front of him and honestly? He wouldn’t have it any other way.
-----<3-----
Even though Julie had practiced this song plenty of times, it didn’t make it any less nerve wracking as she set up her mic to perform. Flynn who was sitting on the couch munching happily on a cookie was completely unaware that she was the reason for Julie’s nervousness.
Luke headed over to Julie and he squeezed her shoulder, “Hey, you got this, boss. She’s gonna love it.”
Julie gave him a small smile, “Thanks, I really hope she does.”
“It’s now or never so better to start the song now, Jules.” Luke patted her head before starting to walk to his designated mic. Julie took a shaky breath in and looked at all her bandmates giving her a thumbs up.
“Okay,” Julie nervously laughed in the mic, “This is, um, dedicated to Flynn who’s always been there for me.”
Flynn whooped as the band started to play their rock cover of All I Want for Christmas is You. At first Julie couldn’t really look at Flynn as the nerves hit her but as the music flowed through her, she felt more and more confident. Especially when she saw how Reggie and Luke smiled at each other as they shared a mic or the pure adoration Willie had as he watched Alex play the drums. She realized that her only chance of having that with Flynn was getting her message through to her. So, she headed towards Flynn to sing the words at her. It was now or never as Luke has said.
Flynn looked startled and she mouthed, in her shock, ‘Me?’
Julie nodded, continuing to power through the song, as a smile bloomed on Flynn’s face. Julie almost stopped singing to start yelling in happiness but instead she pulled Flynn up from her seat.
She held her hand while looking into her eyes as she sang the lyrics, “ Oh, I just want you for my own more than you could ever know. Make my wish come true. Baby, all I want for Christmas is you. ”
As the boys finished up the last lines of the song, Flynn pulled Julie into a tight hug. When she pulled away, they both looked at each other with bright smiles.
“That was the most romantic thing ever, Jules, oh my God. You almost ruined my eyeliner.” She said as she wiped some happy tears from her eyes.
“I try my best,” Julie felt like she was going to burst from happiness any second.
“Kiss already!” Luke yelled as he hugged Reggie from behind.
Julie rolled her eyes, “Ignore him. I mean...unless you wan-”
Flynn cut off Julie by leaning in and placing a gentle kiss on her lips. It was soft, sweet even and it made Julie’s insides flip. She could barely believe this was even happening or that singing the cheesiest song worked. When Flynn pulled away, she almost laughed at the love struck look on Julie’s face.
“Merry Christmas, Julie.”
Julie placed another kiss on Flynn’s lips with a smile, “Merry Christmas, Flynn.”