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Noé took a deep breath as he stepped away from yet another market stall, still no closer to finding a gift for Vanitas. It was the evening of December twenty-third, less than two days before he’d promised himself he’d have something to give, but try as he might, he’d found shopping for him impossible.
All around him, his latest attempt at gift shopping—a bustling Christmas market near the center of the city—filled his senses with the hubbub of an excited crowd. There was stall after stall around him up and down the street, overflowing with all manner of trinkets and foods. He’d tried a dozen of them, considering gift after gift, but nothing felt right. Vanitas didn’t like things. He despised both wasted expense and excess clutter, and nothing Noé found seemed to escape falling into those traps. He’d found a stall selling mountains of Christmas cookies that looked divine, but Vanitas didn’t like sweets. He’d found stunning handmade earrings sold for cheap, but no design had stood out, and Vanitas was endlessly particular about what he wore. He’d found a stall selling leather notebooks with beautiful art on the covers, but Noé, though well off, was still only a student, and artisan leather was a step beyond his price range.
Given Vanitas had insisted he didn’t need a gift at all, Noé doubted he’d react well to hearing that Noé had blown his budget on him. Even the Murrlike charm of Vanitas’s angry face wasn’t worth going through that argument.
Letting himself be swept up by the flow of the crowd, Noé drifted through the market toward the far end. There were a few stalls there he hadn’t seen yet, and he let his eyes drift over them as he approached the exit. There were artisan breads, holiday figurines, and more jewelry all illuminated under the lights, but none of it felt quite right.
Noé turned away, breaking from the crowd to leave the market and accept his failure for the night, when for the first time that night, something caught his eye. It was the very last stall before the market’s exit, glittering with golden Christmas lights and stacked with rows of fancy looking knitwear.
He’d found his gift.
The apartment that Vanitas and Noé shared in Paris was small: just two bedrooms, a bathroom, and one open space for a living room/kitchen. Noé, despite Vanitas’s half-hearted complaints, had decorated the whole main living space with lights, standing his miniature Christmas tree atop a tower of cardboard boxes to give it height. There was a glittering silver star atop it, almost even with Vanitas’s head thanks to the improvised table, and the space below it had been empty all month long. Vanitas had insisted to Noé that he didn’t need a gift, and that Noé shouldn’t expect one in return either. They’d be busy, he said, with finals and Noé’s obligation to buy gifts for the de Sades, and it wasn’t as if he needed anything anyway.
Noé had immediately decided that meant he’d be buying him a gift in secret, Grinch-ery be damned.
He’d stayed up late on the night of the twenty-fourth, waiting for Vanitas’s light to finally shut off in the small hours of Christmas morning, then snuck off into the living room to leave Vanitas his gift. He felt a bit like he was playing Santa.
It was oddly satisfying, he found, to ambush Vanitas like this. He felt as though he were winning some fight by looping his partner into Christmas, since Vanitas had been so set on ignoring the holiday. Then he woke up to the smell of cinnamon.
It was midmorning on Christmas day, gentle light drifting through Noé’s curtains, and the room was heavy with spice and vanilla and butter. It was like a bakery had set up shop in his apartment, just beyond his bedroom door.
Noé slid out of bed and poked his head into the living room, enthralled.
At the sound of his door opening, Vanitas’s voice broke through the quiet of the morning.
“Oi! Are you getting up?”
Noé blinked the sleep from his eyes, looking for Vanitas. He had to be in the kitchen.
“Yeah.”
Noé turned the corner from the hallway, peering into his kitchen, and there was Vanitas. He looked uncommonly soft, his hair in a bun and his bangs pinned back from his face, and he was still wearing a pair of blue flannel pajamas in place of his ever-present jeans. He was bent double when Noé saw him, pulling a tray of something from the oven before turning around to fix him with a look of irritation, and that was what led Noé’s eyes to the cookies.
The kitchen was filled with mountains of Christmas cookies: the source of the bakery smells that filled the space. There was the tray that Vanitas had just pulled from the oven, and two more trays besides, each one covered in a different type of sweet. There was flour all over the dark knit of Vanitas’s sweater.
Noé gaped.
“It’s about time.” Vanitas brushed himself off and turned toward Noé. “I thought you Christmas people liked to get up early on Christmas morning, not sleep ‘til after ten.”
“I was up late.” He ran his eyes over the trays and Vanitas again, trying to catch his half-awake brain up to what was going on. “Are those cookies?”
“They’re poison for you, genius. Yes they’re cookies.”
“I thought you hated sweets. And Christmas.”
Vanitas ran a hand over his face, making a show of his annoyance like he always did.
“They’re for you.”
Oh.
The pieces fell quickly into place in Noé’s mind, his face breaking into a glittering smile.
“Vanitas! You said you weren’t getting me anything.”
Vanitas rolled his eyes, obviously trying to hide the small creep of adorable embarrassment across his face, and Noé crossed the kitchen to sweep him up into a hug.
“I wasn’t going to, but you forced my hand, you Christmas freak.”
Noé let Vanitas go.
“I would have been happy just having you here, you know. You didn’t have to do all this.”
“Yeah right. You think I’m going to let you make me into the kind of guy that doesn’t get his own boyfriend a Christmas gift?” Vanitas shook his head. “Not when I knew you’d been shopping for me behind my back.”
“Ah, I thought I’d managed to keep that a secret.”
“You are the least sneaky person in the world.” He paused, glancing back at the cookies that were cooling atop the stove. “Some of these have been done for a while; come help me put them in tupperwares?”
“Aren’t we eating them now while they’re fresh?”
Vanitas fixed Noé with a scolding look.
“Christmas or not, you shouldn’t be eating cookies for breakfast.”
Noé made a show of pouting in response.
“They’re my cookies; why should you decide when I eat them?”
“Your cookies? I made them.”
“For me.”
Vanitas scoffed and rolled his eyes, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture as he turned away to tidy the counter.
“Fine, but don’t come crying to me later when you’ve got a stomach ache.”
Noé beamed, turning to pull a cookie from one of the trays that wasn’t actively steaming with heat. It was a cinnamon palmier, the source of a great deal of the kitchen’s smell, and it flaked apart in his mouth when he took a bite—sweet, buttery, and warm.
“Vanitas! This is delicious!”
A sliver of something like a proud smile began to pull at Vanitas’s lips.
“You think everything is delicious.”
“Not everything.” Noé came to perch against the counter next Vanitas, leaning in close to him. “It’s just that everything you make is always great.”
Vanitas’s cheeks were turning ever so slightly pink, which Noé marked with his own rush of smug, affectionate pride. Flustered Vanitas had always been his favorite.
Vanitas fixed his eyes on him, trying to maintain his smug look despite the flush.
“You’re just lucky I’m so talented.”
Noé only smiled in response, watching Vanitas as he finished cleaning. He could make out a faint spot of flour on Vanitas’s face up close, smudged across his pale cheek, and he could see the way the muscles in his neck shifted and stretched as he strained to wipe a farway section of counter.
“Oh!” Noé suddenly remembered the moment he’d been waiting for all month. “Vanitas, can I give you your gift now?”
“I suppose you’ll insist on staring as I unwrap it?”
Noé paused, considering.
“Actually, if you’ll close your eyes in front of the mirror in the hall, I was hoping I could open it and put it on you.”
“You want to open my gift?” Vanitas raised an eyebrow at him, teasing. “Is that how people do things in Averoigne?”
“No, I just thought it’d be nice for the surprise. I want this to be a big reveal!”
Vanitas let out a sigh before setting down his last cleaned bowl and turning toward the hall. “Fine, but if this was your plan, then why wrap the gift in the first place?”
“It looks nice under the tree.”
“Right.”
Though he looked skeptical, Vanitas wandered away to wait in the hallway as instructed, closing his eyes, and Noé quickly went to retrieve his gift. He pulled the paper open, trying his best not to make a mess, then slid his gift over the top of Vanitas’s head.
“You can look now!’
Vanitas opened his eyes, blinking in surprise at his reflection, and Noé beamed. He’d bought him a woolen scarf, the fabric of it handmade and incredibly soft, but that wasn’t the best part. It caught the eye, just like it had done to Noé at the Christmas market, because it was the exact same bright blue shade as Vanitas’s eyes.
Noé felt a rush of pleased affection as he watched Vanitas stare into the mirror. The scarf suited him perfectly. It was soft, but the color was sharp, eye catching and beautiful while practical to a fault, replacing the old threadbare thing he’d been wearing since October. The image of it draped around Vanitas’s neck was homey and cool, instantly making him look, and hopefully feel, like he’d been bundled up for a snow day with somebody who loved him.
Vanitas touched the scarf, eyes wide, and didn’t speak, filling Noé with impatience. He leaned in from behind, draping his arms around Vanitas’s shoulders after a long moment.
“What do you think?”
“It’s nice.” He turned to look at Noé, who was still looming in close to him. “It’s really nice. Did you pick this out for me?”
“How else would I have gotten it?”
Vanitas smiled teasingly.
“I’m just surprised you had such good taste.” He elbowed Noé softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Noé beamed. “It is nice, isn’t it?”
“It is, but don’t go getting egotistical.”
“Never.”
Noé turned his head, leaning in to press a quick kiss against Vanitas’s cheek.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, dork.”