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Raven loved Murphy, she did, she really did. And she knew what she was in for when she asked him out; to put it plainly, he was an asshole. But she was an asshole, too, so they meshed together quite perfectly. She could handle his bitchiness and his attitude and his dark humor, because she had all those qualities, too, but what she couldn’t handle was how he got during December. All anti-Christmas, anti-holiday, anti-everything that had to do with the aesthetic of winter. She tolerated it at first, but now, going on their fifth year together, she was just fed up. For once she wanted to decorate their apartment, have a party, go all out without listening to him bitch and moan in the background. This Christmas she would. She’d be damned if Murphy ruined it this time.
She dark brunette woman hummed Christmas tunes as she strung lights around the large, tall pine tree. Across the room her boyfriend was scoffing on the couch, sipping a beer as he watched her, not offering to lift a finger to help at all, not even when she was struggling to hang the lights on the top of the tree.
“It’d be nice if you could help.” She called, careful to not fall face first into the prickles. A grunt from the man was the only reply she got. She rolled her eyes, turned to him with her hands on her hips. He was glaring past her at the tree, a disgusted, twisted look on his face. “Oh, Murphy, come on,” She sighed exasperatedly.
“No, this is bullshit.” He snapped.
She cocked an eyebrow. “What’s bullshit? The decorations? The tree?” She motioned around the room to each individual thing.
“All of it.” He said simply, sipped his drink some more.
Raven crossed her arms over her chest, her fists tight. “It makes me happy.”
“It’s stupid.” He retorted with a heavy eye roll.
Her eyes grew wide a little. “It makes me happy so it’s stupid?”
He grimaced. “I didn’t say that.”
“That’s sure as hell what it sounded like.” She grunted, a little more than hurt by his attitude and tone. She turned her back towards him, started putting more things on the tree.
He got up, walked towards her. “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached out to touch her shoulder but stopped as she spoke.
“This is the same argument every year, Murphy. I’m tired of listening to it.” Her voice was quiet, her shoulders slumped forward a little. He dropped his hand and took a step back.
“Then stop putting this shit up.” He said bluntly.
She spun around to face him, shouted, red faced and hostile, “It makes me happy!”
“I hate it!” He shouted back like a child, his voice equally as defiant.
She was silent for a few seconds, her chest heaving from adrenalin and anger. They stared at one other, their eyes searching each other’s faces. Finally, she mumbled, without conviction and earnest, “Then maybe you should leave.”
His eyes grew wide slightly and he stepped back as if her words had physically slapped him in the face, and maybe they did. “Fine, I will.” He turned away from her, started towards the door, gulped down the rest of his drink and then slammed the door shut for emphasis as he left. Raven stood still for a few seconds, argued with herself to not go after him, swallowed down the tears that stung her eyes, then took a deep breath, turned, and finished up the decorations.
It was eight o’clock, snowing heavily outside, and Murphy still wasn’t home. All the anger Raven held against him from earlier had been replaced with worry and frustration. The frustration part because she’d tried calling and texting him more than thirty times and he wasn’t picking up or answering her at all. So, she bundled herself up and set out looking for her stubborn boyfriend.
She tried all the places he loved; the library, the coffee shop they frequented, the karaoke bar they went to on group date nights with their friends, even the pet shop he volunteered at on the weekends, but he was nowhere to be found. Raven roamed the streets, looking in the windows of the soon-to-be-closed shops, unease deep in her heart. She’d called their friends to see if they’d heard anything from him, but to her dismay they hadn’t.
Raven continued to walk the streets of DC, looking high and low for her missing boyfriend. It was ten o’clock when she saw Murphy walking into the Children’s Home a few blocks away with two large bangs hanging from his arms. She ran after him, followed him into the building, stopped in surprise when she saw him handing out little Santa Claus cookies to a group of children. They were all smiling up at him, hugging him, thanking him sweetly.
“Who are you?” A little girl tugged on the end of Raven’s coat, looking up at her with wide, shining eyes. Black ringlets framed her face, her dark skin a lovely contrast against her pink pajamas. Her face was hopeful, for what Raven didn’t want to think about. Just as the woman was about to answer, Murphy came up to her, grabbed her arm, and steered her towards the lobby of the building, a promise to the children that he would be right back.
Once they were out of hearing range of the kids, he let her go, stepped away from her, asked, “What are you doing here?”
She opened her mouth a little, closed it, narrowed her eyes, then stated, “I called you.”
He shrugged, turned away. “I didn’t want to fight again.” His voice was sincere, but it still pissed her off.
“I texted you.” She nearly snarled, stepping closer to him.
Murphy nodded, side eyed her. “I know.”
She backed off, shoved her hands in her coat pockets, looked away from him and muttered, “You could have at least let me know you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere.”
The sides of his mouth quirked up. “I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
His tone was mocking and it made her want to slap that damned smirk off his face. Instead she opted for smacking him in the arm. A deep scowl consumed her face. “You’re an asshole.” She turned abruptly and began walking away, careful to hold the tears in her eyes.
“Hey, Rae, wait,” He called after her, following right at her heels as she stepped out of the building and into the crisp night air. She stopped, turned to him but kept her eyes on the street sign behind his head. In the glow of the lights around then she could just make out the regretful gleam in his eyes. Murphy ran a hand through his long light brown hair, pulled at it a lot, searching for the words he needed to say. Finally, he sighed, “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was okay. I was just trying to cool down.”
She arched a brow, motioned to the building they just exited. “At an orphanage?”
He turned and looked up at the Children’s Home, kept his eyes on it as he said softly, “I…grew up here.”
Both of her eyebrows shot up and she did little to hide the surprise in her tone. “I thought you lived with Bellamy.”
He half nodded, looked down at her. “When I turned sixteen I moved in with him, before that I lived here.”
“Why?” She asked quickly, then elaborated, “I mean, what happened to cause you to live here?”
He hesitated, kicked at the concrete sidewalk, avoided the question for a good minute before he leaned against the wall and admitted in a crackly voice, “My mom killed herself when I was seven.”
Raven’s stomach dropped. Her body sizzled and immediately she felt awful for giving him shit out not returning her texts or calls. “Oh god, Murphy,” She moved in front of him, put both of her cool hands on his oddly warm cheeks, brought his face up so that he was looking at her instead of the ground. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” She questioned, a little hurt and betrayed. He knew about her mom leaving her when she was a kid and how she moved from home to home until the Griffin’s took her in. So if he couldn’t trust her with this, what other secrets was he keeping? “We’ve known each other for ten years and you never mentioned this.” She added, the hurt still in her voice.
He exhaled deeply, his whole body deflating as he did so. He put his chilled hands over hers, took her hands off his face and held them gently between his palms, didn’t break eye contact with her even though his eyes had started to shine with tears. Usually he hated crying in front of her, but this time he couldn’t give a damn. “I didn’t want to think about it.” He admitted softly. She nodded a little, stayed silent, waited for him to go on. “And for the most part I don’t, but every Christmas, every December, really, it just…gets bad.” He looked away, a few tears slipping down his face.
A wave of understanding flushed through her body. “She killed herself on Christmas.” Raven stated, her voice low.
He nodded a little. “Yeah.”
“Fuck.” She sighed deeply. “So that’s why you hate it so much…” She instantly regretted giving him shit for always giving her shit about the holiday.
He brought her hands to his mouth, kissed her ice cold fingers. “I don’t mean to take it out on you.” He apologized.
She believed him. “I get it.” She whispered, took her hands out of his and snaking them around his waist, leaning in fully and hugging him. Murphy didn’t hesitate in wrapping his arms around her back, holding her against himself tightly. He rested his chin on the top of her head, thankful for the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. Being with Raven was easy, so easy. Of course they fought and bickered and got on each other’s nerves, but it was all worth it. She understood him like, quite literally, no one else did. She didn’t expect him to change once they started dating and vise versa.
After a while of their silence, she muttered without moving her face from his chest, “Hey, Murphy,”
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t we spend Christmas here?”
“What?” He asked, the shock prominent in his voice and facial expression as he removed his chin from her head and looked down at her with bug eyes.
She looked up at him, smiled sweetly, shrugged aloofly. “These kids obviously love you; we could hang out with them, make them food, just spend time with them.”
His face twisted from confusion to joy and a small smile spread across his pale face. “You would sacrifice your Christmas for some kids that you don’t even know?”
She unwrapped her arms from around him, poked him in the chest. “I’m not sacrificing anything.” She declared, her voice strong and sure.
He snatched her back into a hug, not pleased with the cold slapping against his body due to her short absence. She giggled, hugging him back. “I love you, you know?”
“Bitch better.” She muttered against his chest. He gave her a little squeeze and she smiled. “I love you, too.”