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The madness begins when Octavia adopts Chewy. She brings the giant, slobbering, dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks dog to Murphy’s place, and Raven loses it a little. She’s on the floor with the dog for hours, then insists on walking him in the park, regardless of the fact that it’s the first truly cold day of the year. Murphy and Octavia trail miserably behind her in their parkas and toques, sniffling as the wind makes their noses run.
“I always wanted a dog growing up,” she confides to Murphy, later that night. A stormy expression blows across her features. “But my mom, I mean, you know–”
Murphy does know.
In any case, he sort of thinks she’ll get over it, but she only becomes more obsessed. She becomes Octavia’s go-to dogsitter, preferred even over the more active Bellamy, or Clarke, who is so good at cuddles.
Winter drags on, slow and deliberate, the days gray and short. The coldest winter on record, the news says. It seems like Raven lives at Murphy’s–she shows up unannounced after work, tramps through the snow to let herself in on Saturday mornings. She burns pancakes in his kitchen (though his complaints about this matter are nothing more than bullshit) and stays up too late watching horror movies with him.
It’s not an entirely confusing turn of events. They have, after all, always enjoyed each other’s company. Their arguments and teasing are borne of love, and he’s enjoyed every second of her sudden desire to spend all her time with him.
Murphy has the biggest house of all of them, even bigger than the little two-story condo that Clarke and Bellamy picked up for a steal and renovated. His place was someone’s foreclosure nightmare, it cost a song, and he has taken incredible care of it. The banisters shine, the kitchen is always spotless. It doesn’t hold the lived-in mess of Bellamy and Clarke’s house (which, in its own way, is just as comfortable and wonderful as Murphy’s) but instead is always tidy.
For those reasons, he is to hold the annual Christmas party and gift exchange at his home.
This requires the perfect Christmas tree, and the loveliest decorations.
Raven has Opinions. “Not that one,” she says dismissively of a perfectly beautiful tree. “It’s lopsided.”
At Target, she picks out gold and silver ornaments, and back at Murphy’s, helps him haul down dusty boxes of Christmas decorations that belonged to his grandmother.
It is after midnight when they flip the living room lights off, and oooooh in appreciation of the tree and its glowing lights.
“Perfect,” Raven gives a contented sigh. “Absolutely perfect.”
She sags against him on the couch. The house is warm–maybe too warm, but they jacked up the heater when they came back from freezing their asses off at the tree farm. The dregs of spiked hot chocolate sit in holiday mugs on the coffee table. Murphy is comfortably drunk; he’s had too much hot chocolate and not enough food. Raven’s cheeks are pink and her hair is mussed; the perfect french braid she’d had earlier in the evening is gone and her hair falls around her face in waves.
Snow began falling in the early hours of the evening. Raven asks, “can I stay here tonight? Don’t really wanna drive in this weather.”
“You live literally four blocks away,” Murphy gripes, but he doesn’t mean it. “But I can’t have you freezing to death three days before Christmas. Yeah, you can stay.”
Raven gives a contented little hum, settling in closer. “Do we have to get off of the couch?”
The tree lights blink on and off, and Murphy feels nearly hypnotized by the combination of Raven’s physical presence and the decorations they’ve spent all night working on. He keeps opening his mouth and then being afraid to speak for fear of ruining the moment.
She’s warm and comfortable, breathing steadily.
“C’mon,” he manages, finally. “Let’s go to bed.”
There is no fake back-and-forth where one of them offers to stay on the couch; they each know how the other feels, at least to the point that they know it would be silly to pretend they don’t just want to be near each other always and forever.
Raven borrows a tee shirt, sits on the side of the bed in it and removes her brace carefully. Without it, she looks naked, vulnerable, like she’s taken off a piece of armor. Murphy’s fingers crawl across the bed towards her as if of their own volition, he brushes her thigh gently and she turns to give him a small, sly smile.
“We’re drunk,” she reminds him, as if he’s forgotten. But he knows what she means, she means, not tonight, tonight is not our night.
He can’t help but agree, after all, does he want to remember his first time with her through a haze of Bailey’s and cream? So he hooks his arm around her waist and pulls her to him, til she is curled around his body.
It feels like he can’t get close enough.
“Murphy?” she whispers, into the dark. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Today. Tonight.” She settles her chin into the curve of his neck. Her lips brush his collarbone. “I loved every minute.”
“Me too,” he tells her, but she’s already fallen asleep.
Nothing is different in the morning. Raven is up first–she’s an early riser, always has been, as long as he’s known her–and she turns on the coffee maker. He wakes to find her puttering around in his bathrobe–a huge, fluffy thing Clarke gave him for his birthday one year as a joke. (Though he can’t rightly remember what the joke is, all this time later.)
She looks good in it, the robe flapping open to reveal her legs, her fingers wrapped around a mug, her hair a tumble-down mess. “Dude,” she greets him, when he staggers into the living room, “it snowed so much, look out the window!”
The snow is blinding-white, the kids in the house next door are screaming and whooping in the street. Arkadia doesn’t normally get much snow; to receive it so close to Christmas feels like an extraordinary gift.
The doorbell rings sometime after eleven, after the point when Murphy and Raven grumbled their way into their clothes. Octavia bursts into the house with Chewy and begins ordering them around in her typical dictator fashion: “Get your boots. This weather is amazing, Chewy is just dying for a big long hike with his favorite babysitter.”
“Don’t you have a boyfriend to do this kind of shit with you?” Murphy is lacing his boots even as he gripes. “Where the hell is Levitt?”
“He’s got a cold.” Octavia throws Murphy his gloves, and Raven her scarf. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she chants, and Chewy takes this as a signal that everything is very exciting and he should gambol around the living room with his ears flopping. He careens into Raven, who speaks to him in a high-pitched voice.
“Is it my favorite puppy? My very favorite one? Is it Chewy? Yes, it is! It is Chewy!” She rubs his face and ears.
Something churns in Murphy’s heart, an exquisite kind of pain. He loves this girl, he loves her wildly, he loves her madly.
It’s not easy for Raven to walk in the snow; her brace slows her down as Chewy determinedly drags her forward. She manages it with grace, somehow not falling, and Chewy seems to be having the time of his young life.
They are frozen in the afternoon, and Murphy is melting Spanish hot chocolate in a saucepan while Octavia loudly and animatedly details an argument she had with Bellamy the day before, leaping around the living room, waving her hands in the air.
(Murphy loves when Octavia imitates her brother, she pitches his growly voice just right, manages his walk perfectly.)
If, when Murphy was eighteen and a freshman in college, someone had told him that he would one day spend more time with the younger Blake than the older–and that he would thoroughly enjoy that time, he’d have said they were crazy. But Octavia is funny and adventurous, always ready to include her friends in something madcap and cool. Even the damn dog slip-sliding all over the hardwood floors is endearing, and Murphy would die for them both, Octavia and the stupid dog.
Hours after Octavia’s gone home, Raven says unhappily, “I wish my apartment complex allowed dogs.”
Murphy stretches his legs out on the coffee table. “When’re you moving out of that shithole? Isn’t your lease up soon?”
“In February,” she heaves a huge sigh. “I just haven’t really had the time to look for a new place.”
(Because you spend all your time here, he thinks.)
(And then he thinks about that a little more, and a plan starts to hatch.)
“You staying here tonight?” He taps a finger restlessly on her knee.
She sighs again, pushing off from the couch. “Nah, I have to go pick up Clarke’s Secret Santa present, and wrap a few things. Plus I need a shower and clean clothes. I worked up a real sweat walking Chewy.”
“I think Chewy walked you,” Murphy says absently, and Raven huffs a little laugh, zipping up her coat.
“See you tomorrow? At the party? You need me to bring anything?”
He looks up at her, one long, last look before she walks out the door. “Just bring yourself. That’s all I need.”
She flashes him a grin as she leaves.
Murphy doesn’t generally get nervous or worry about silly things like Christmas presents. He tries, of course he does, especially when it comes to Secret Santa, which is highly competitive among their friends. Who can give the best gift? Best is subjective and changes from year to year, the funniest gift, the kindest, the one that shows the most understanding of the giftee. Murphy has Bellamy this year, and found him a DVD box set of documentaries on the ancient Romans. It’s twelve hours long. Bellamy’s going to love it.
Murphy is second guessing his crazy idea for Raven’s present. Maybe it’s too much, maybe he’s misread the situation entirely, maybe maybe maybe–
He knows he’s acting a little cagey as everyone arrives for Christmas Eve’s Secret Santa Party. Clarke gives him swift glances, and then finally traps him on the balcony: “What’s going on with you?” she demands. “You’re acting totally weird.”
“Nothing. It’s just been a long day.” Almost against his will, his eyes slide to Raven. Clarke raises an eyebrow. “Shut up,” he warns preventatively, even though Clarke hasn’t said a word.
When she does speak, her voice is innocent: “So, what’d you get Rae for Christmas?”
“Who says I got her anything?” he counters.
Clarke stares at him for a minute, then she laughs: “Okay. Have it your way. I’ll know about ten minutes after you give it to her, anyway.”
Clarke’s wearing a Santa Claus sweater and her hair is in a candy-floss braid, the ends are dyed pink–a whim from a month or two ago. He thinks it looks good on her, he always likes it when Clarke takes a risk, does something unexpected. She has been one of the most reliable people in his life, but he really enjoys seeing her step out of her comfort zone.
He reaches out to tug her braid. “No offense intended, Griffin, but I’m entitled to a secret, even though they’re nearly impossible to keep in this crowd.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I have a secret, too.”
He eyes her suspiciously as she slides the balcony door open. “Don’t tell Reyes I got her anything for Christmas,” he knocks a bit of snow from the railing. “I want it to be a surprise.”
Clarke nods. “You can count on me.”
“I know,” he squeezes her shoulder.
The Secret Santa gifts are exchanged and a big hit; Raven wins best gift with her present to Clarke of left-handed artist’s tools. Bellamy and Clarke announce that they brought presents for everyone that should be opened right away.
Murphy tears the green paper away from a small box, and then pulls out an ornament. Swirly script on a silver glass ball reads, "Uncle Murphy."
Miller gives a little yelp. "Does this mean--??"
And then they're in a mess of hugs and tears, Octavia sobbing happily and unable to stop.
Murphy wouldn't necessarily tell them so, but their good news has made this the best Christmas Eve of his life.
The guests slip away one by one, until Raven is last and standing in the doorway saying goodbye. She looks up; there is mistletoe hanging. “Oh,” she murmurs, her eyes suddenly dark. “Lookit that,” and she pulls his face down to hers, pressing a soft, lingering kiss, long and dramatic.
“Come over tomorrow?” He knows there’s a bit of begging in his tone, he’s breathless from the kiss, he could grab her and carry her to the bed right now only it’s absolutely essential that she not be at his place early in the morning.
She bites her lip. “Yeah. Around lunch?”
He moves to catch her for another kiss, he loses himself in her lips for a moment. “Yeah,” he presses his forehead to hers. “Yeah, around lunch.”
Murphy is practically dancing around the house in anticipation by lunchtime on Christmas Day. When he sees Raven’s car pull in, he snatches the bedroom door closed and hurtles over the couch arm to sit casually as if he’s been there for hours. She has a present tucked under her arm, and he rises slowly and deliberately to greet her.
Her cheeks are frozen from the cold and he kisses them, first the right, then the left, and then her forehead. She sets the present down to take off her coat, chattering about the snow, and how her apartment building still hasn’t plowed, and she barely got her car out. Then she gives him the gift, a trace of nervousness in her voice when she says, “it’s nothing big.”
The Joy of Cooking, and another cookbook, and Raven tells him she expects him to try all the recipes she marked with a post-it note. He pages through, thrilled, her voice rising up and down with excitement, and then–
A whine comes from the bedroom.
Raven freezes. “What was that?”
Murphy shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe you should go find out.”
Her eyebrows meet in the middle, she crosses the living room to the bedroom and throws the door open.
Murphy would have paid any amount of money to hear the noise Raven makes, and the sweet tone in her voice when she says, “is that a puppy? Is that a cute puppy? Hiiiiii, Baby, where did you come from?” She emerges with a French Bulldog puppy in her arms, her face alight. “You got a dog? You don’t even like dogs.”
“She’s not mine, she’s yours.”
Raven frowns. “You know I can’t have dogs in my apartment.”
“You could have one if you lived here.” His heart is pounding. “I have the space, and you haven’t found–”
Raven’s mouth is hanging open a little, and she is squeezing the dog tightly. “You want me to move in?”
His stomach twists. “It’s just that–you spend all your time here, anyway, and I…I love seeing you, and…I…I mean, we, have something, you know?”
She strokes the puppy without a word.
“I named her Betty,” Murphy adds.
“We do have something,” she whispers, finally. “I’ve been spending all my time with you because I was waiting for you to make a damn move.” She buries her nose in Betty’s fur. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Murphy rises, going to Raven and Betty. He touches Raven’s shoulder. “Move in with me, and the damn dog. Or don’t you want to?”
“Yeah, I mean, of course. Yes. I want to.” She strokes Betty’s ears. “For the record, I would have said yes without the dog.”
“That so?” Murphy pets Betty, feeling like he’s just won the lottery.
Raven kisses him, paying no mind to the fact that they are squishing the dog between them like a stuffed animal. “Yes, that is so.”
Betty gives a little squeal, and Murphy laughs, backing away just slightly. “Merry Christmas, Reyes.”
“Merry Christmas, Murphy. Now, let’s take Betty for a walk.”