Work Text:
"Hey, Chrom, look at these." Robin beckoned his boyfriend over with a smile, one hand occupied with a matryoshka. The set was quite simple, wooden with bears as the main picture. There were four layers to it and Robin was holding the smallest bear, rolling it between his fingers.
Chrom left behind the rocking horse he had been tinkering with and glanced over Robin's shoulder to get a look at what Robin wanted him to see.
"Oh. It's one of those things." Chrom honestly did not understand the appeal of them but held his tongue.
"Chrom," Robin chided "it's not 'one of those things' it's a matryoshka ."
"Right. How could I have forgotten." Came the robotic reply; the only thing it earned the blue-haired man was a angry nudge to the side. It didn't hurt, but Chrom got the memo. He needed to can it before he got on Robin's bad side. Getting on his small boyfriend's bad side before Christmas... Naga forgive him because Chrom wouldn't forgive himself.
Robin let out a sigh and stopped rolling the painted bear in his fingers, carefully putting it back into the other dolls until it was hidden away once more. "You know what, nevermind. Let's look somewhere else for your sister's Christmas gift. You said Emm just got the newest iPhone right? Let's get her a nice case."
"Robin-" Chrom frowned and reached over to rest his hand on Robin's shoulder only for the snowy haired male to shrug the hand away.
"Come on. It's the twenty fourth, we don't have time to waste." Robin was already on his way over to the antique shop's exit, leaving Chrom alone with the matryoshka.
Chrom's head swiveled back and forth, hands fidgeting with his jacket zipper as he looked around. It seemed the only one who had seen the fiasco was a middle aged woman who was shaking her head disapprovingly.
The bear painted on the wooden doll mocked him with its smiling eyes. Chrom was tempted to knock it off the table but instead he grabbed it, turning it this way and that in his hands.
"A matryoshka huh?"
~
Robin was stewing in the car when Chrom finally seated himself in the driver's seat. It seemed like the brunt of Robin's anger had faded so Chrom decided to try again.
"I'm sorry."
Robin was slow to reply but eventually he uncrossed his arms and spoke, his tone heavy with unshed tears. "My mother... she had one of those. It was one of the few things I had left to remember her by."
The rest of the apology died on Chrom's tongue. "Was...?"
"I lost it when I moved here." Robin might have not been facing him, but Chrom could tell he was crying. Not from his tone, no, the historian's shoulders were shaking and his hands were up near his face; no doubt rubbing the tears away like he did every other time he cried.
Chrom knew that if he said something it probably wouldn't be for the best, so instead he awkwardly turned his body, leaning over the gear shift to embrace Robin, who stiffened slightly before relaxing.
A few minutes passed before Robin returned the hug. He only sniffled and nuzzled his face into the crook of Chrom's neck, but that was all the forgiveness Chrom needed.
Looks like he hadn't botched Christmas after all.
~
"Chrom what the hell?"
"Shit- stop making fun of me. This is hard okay?" Chrom snapped, continuing to tie the huge Christmas gift to the top of their car.
"What is that? And can't you hurry up? We're going to be late."
Chrom yanked the final knot and snorted, watching the puff of cold air rise off towards the sky before looking down at Robin. "It'll be fine. I already told Emm we might be few minutes late so just get in the car and we can go."
Robin rolled his eyes but got on the car without further objection much to Chrom's relief.
The taller of the two patted the sizable box, tugging it a bit as well to see if it was firmly stuck to the top of the car before deciding it was stuck enough and getting into the car to drive half an hour out to get to Emmeryn's house.
It was actually more of a mansion but Emmeryn, ever the modest one, always just refered to it as her house.
The drive there was silent. Robin refused to turn on the radio and listen to Christmas music after listening to it since September and since there were no other stations left to play normal music, the radio remained dead to Robin, at least until January 2nd.
After punching in the code to get into the courtyard; Chrom parked the car on the curb and then got out of the car only to throw open the trunk and start transporting the gifts from the car to the front step. Robin also did his best to help but he wasn't as risky as Chrom who balenced boxes precariously so he wouldn't have to make as many trips.
There was a small hill of gifts by the time the car was empty. Robin rang the doorbell while Chrom wrestled with the knot he had tied earlier.
He had so many regrets.
Frederick answered the doorbell and judging by the furrowed brows and the questioning look in his eyes he was looking for the person that had rang the doorbell.
"Hey, Merry Christmas Fred." Robin popped out from behind the hill and waved, trying his best to be cheerful even though he was already getting cold. "Mind helping us with these?"
Frederick didn't even say anything, he just grabbed as many gifts as humanly possible and lumbered inside. Robin closely followed with as many gifts he could carry and Chrom, well, he was sawing at the rope with a dull pocket knife.
By the time Chrom got the rope cut and the huge gift free, everyone else had arrived. He walked inside with the four foot tall box, setting it beside the other gifts under the massive Christmas tree near the entrance before walking intp the room beside it and basically flopping onto Robin's lap, interrupting a conversation about something boring: politics.
"Chrom!" Robin exclaimed, a mug of eggnog nearly sent crashing to the floor since the history nut nearly lost his grip on it.
"Gods I wish I hadn't been a boy scout..." Was the groan Robin received as a reply.
Sumia smothered a giggle into her palm, excusing herself to give them 'alone time' even though they were technically not going to be alone with everyone in there and all.
Robin sighed, obviously exasperated, but he combed his fingers through Chrom's sweaty hair anyhow, used to Chrom's antics. "Well maybe next time you could just use carbine clips. Tie the knots to those then clip those to the-"
Chrom, who was too tired for one of Robin's plans, sat up and silenced the other man with a kiss. Robin just went with it, carefully setting his mug aside to avoid accidentally spilling it.
Their kiss was abruptly halted when someone wolf whistled. Robin quickly moved back, so hard that he bounced forward slightly when he hit the back couch.
Robin's chin only bumped into Chrom's forehead but the suddenness of it sent him off of Robin's lap and onto the coffee table where he knocked all 5 mugs of eggnog onto the- very expensive- rug.
Vaike put a fist to his mouth, looking just as guilty as Chrom, who was frantically trying to pick up the mugs and return them to the table. Robin was doing likewise, apology after apology spilling from his lips like water from a fountain.
The only thing that stopped the couple from rubbing the stains from the rug was Emmeryn herself coming over and telling them it was alright. Even then Chrom offered the to pay for the cleaning but she firmly refused, instead directing him the other room where a few of the party members had already gathered to begin the gift opening process.
Robin saw reason and just settled on washing the mugs and wiping down the coffee table.
His table wiping paused when there was and sudden increase in noise. No one was drunk, Emmeryn had made sure of that, but there was off key caroling nonetheless.
It was coming from the room Chrom was in and Robin was sure that he started it, being the Christmas dork he was.
Robin only walked into the room after the caroling stopped. He walked into a storm.
There was wrapping paper. Mountains of wrapping paper. Frederick was shaking, fists at his sides as Emmeryn calmly stood at his side holding one of his fists in a gentle hand. Vaike was rolling in one of the piles, Nowi was trying to make origami cranes out of them and Henry was making it rain, wearing sunglasses he had obviously just gotten as a gift seeing as how the tag was still hanging from it.
Chrom was sitting off to the side watching Sumia make paper hats, looking more like a curious child than a 23 year old man. Robin chuckled at the scene, obviously finding it more amusing than Frederick.
It seemed like there were only a handful of gifts left, though it was hard to tell with the mess.
Lissa was army crawling around under the tree looking for anymore gifts, armed with a camera which had been filming every single thing that had gone on at the party so far.
With a call of Lon'qu's name the man shuffled over and took at gift, reading the tag aloud stiffly since Lissa had made it clear that they all needed to be verbal for the camera.
"To Potato... from the Vaike." Olivia tittered off to the side and Vaike gave the camera a thumbs up from under his wrapping pile. Lon'qu didn't even comment, he simply ripped open the gift and held the present out to the camera. It was a cookbook but specially for potatoes. Vaike boasted that it was the first one printed, it was even sighed by the chef who wrote it. Lon'qu didn't doubt that, football players had cash to burn and so many strings to pull it was was a crime.
The usually stoic man gave Vaike a faint smile as thanks as Lissa moved on to the second to last gift. It was a gift from Henry to Gaius, and the ginger haired man was more than pleased to see a fifty dollar gift card to his favorite candy store. Henry didn't even object to being tackle hugged.
The only thing left was the huge box Chrom had gone through so much trouble to bring.
Lissa was going around and shushing people before she ushered Robin over to the gift, eager for Robin to open the last gift. Robin wasn't in the camera footage all that much because he had received his gifts early from everyone else.
Robin peeked at the tag and then glanced over to Chrom, who was looking really nervous for some reason or another, before looking back to the tag.
"To Robin from Chrom." He read before tapping box to try and guess what was in it.
"Is this.... a vacuum? That's perfect." Robin turned to look at Chrom again only to see that Chrom had froze, face stuck in an unreadable expression.
The white haired man sighed and ripped off the reindeer wrapping paper to reveal the basic cardboard box beneath it. He tore off the tape at the top and opened the box only to find another box half the size of the original box. Robin gave the smaller box a questioning look before he removed it from the big box, tore off the tape and peered inside that box only to yet another box but only slightly smaller.
Robin puffed out his cheeks as Lissa laughed. He had no idea why Chrom was doing this to him.
Robin held his breath and opened that box and ended up pulling out another box the size of his hand. At this point Robin was just trying to be civil for Emmeryn's sake, Chrom was going to get an earful when they returned home.
He opened the box expecting to find another box only to see the bear matryoshka he had seen at the antique shop. Robin would have laughed at the irony but he was too annoyed to do so. He only offered Chrom a tight smile and the tension in the room skyrocketed as Chrom gulped.
"Robin... uh there's one more gift. Keep going."
Said man looked at the Russian doll and slowly opened the first one and set it down before opening the second one and doing the same. On the third on he sighed internally, wondering what the hell was so small that it could go in the last doll before he opened that and then the last layer, only to find that instead of the small bear doll, it was a diamond ring. Robin stuck his finger into the bottom of the doll and removed the ring with a trembling finger.
"Robin! Turn around and show me what you got!" Lissa whined impatiently from behind the camera.
Robin didn't even get to turn around because Chrom was already walking over and getting on one knee.
"Robin, we've been dating since high school and we've stuck by each other throughout college. Even back in high school I dreamt of being able to marry you, but I knew that it wouldn't be possible unless we moved to Canada." Chrom paused to chuckle awkwardly.
"Since gay marriage was legalized this year I was finally able to go and get your ring knowing we could actually be like... any other couple. I love you, Robin Romanoff and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side. Will you marry me?"
Seconds passed and then those seconds quickly became a minute and then the minute turned to two. Chrom was biting his cheek, waiting for Robin's response as everyone else held their breath.
The silence was shattered by the sound of sniffling. Robin was crying, clutching the ring in his hand so tightly Chrom was worried it was cutting into his hand.
"Yes.... Chrom... I love you.. so.." Robin choked out his words shortly before falling to his knees and bawling into Chrom's ugly ass Christmas sweater as his cheeks flared to a colour that rivaled Emmeryn's Christmas decorations.
Chrom was also getting a little teary but he just smiled, eyes sliding shut as he held Robin to his chest.
There was actually a lot of crying going on since Chrom's little speech brought people to tears. Sumia was honking on on a tissue and Vaike was spewing excuses about dust in his eyes. Donnel was a mess, crying on Cordelia's shoulder saying how sweet it had been.
Everything was just peachy, save for the fact that there was wrapping paper and boxes that needed to be cleaned up.
Robin had long since stopped crying and was instead laughing into Chrom's shoulder, though he still sniffled occasionally.
"I... I made a mess... I suppose I'll have to help Frederick now..."
Chrom chuckled and kissed Robin's ear. "Yeah. I'll help you out too. We can do it together."
"Alright." Robin smiled softly, sliding the ring onto his finger. "Together."