Work Text:
"We should've done gold," Damian sighs, forlorn and listing in a way that he never would be if not for the mulled wine in his hand. Jon leans back to eye the Christmas tree from where he's standing next to it, cocking his head to the side as he considers it.
"Ew, no," you insist. "The silver's so much better. The ornaments are just in a weird place - Jon, try moving that one," you gesture with your own wine, and Jon pulls a couple of ornaments off the tree that he thinks you might've been pointing to.
"But red and gold is classic," Damian argues, his form heavy and warm where he slouches against you on the couch. It's odd, you think, to see him like this - drunk and hazy, his cheeks warm against your hand.
But Damian doesn't really drink - ever, too concerned about his health to partake in such a thing. It's a special allowance that he's given the two of you just for the holidays, letting you both pour him, as well as yourselves, endless glasses of hot mulled wine.
"How about this?" Jon suggests, remarkably unaffected by his own drink. Thank god one of you is, you think, as you blink blearily at the dazzling lights of the tree.
"Um," you say slowly. "I don't know. Maybe move… that one back to where it was before and try moving the other one - no, the red one - yea, move it further… up."
Jon sends you a kind, long-suffering sort of look before he begins pulling more ornaments off the tree, deciding for himself how to fix it.
"We're making a mess," Damian murmurs as he watches endless little pine needles get jostled off of the branches, left to spiral down to the floor and carpet it.
"We'll clean it up after," you wave off his concern. "I'll sweep."
"You'd have to be able to stand up for that," he giggles, a delightfully unusual sound that has Jon beaming at the two of you in amusement.
"You do it, then," you retort, knowing that Damian's in even worse shape than you.
"Neither of you are doing it," Jon interjects. "I'll clean up."
"But you've been doing all the work!" you protest, gesturing to the tree and the ornaments that he's balancing carefully in one hand.
"It's not work," Jon says kindly. "It's Christmas."
"Cleaning the floor is work no matter what time of year it is," you counter, and Damian makes an agreeing sort of noise as he leans against your shoulder.
"Well," Jon continues kindly. "If I thought either of you could stand up straight right now, I'd say go for it."
"Whatever," you sniff indignantly - and Damian, you think, knows when he's wrong, beause he just tucks his face further into your shoulder and stays silent.
"Maybe we can do gold next year," you offer thoughtfully as Jon ambles about, sweeping the loose pine needles into a messy sort of pile with his foot.
"Yea?" Damian murmurs, lifting his head from your shoulder to squint at you. Jon huffs out a low laugh, leaning over to smooth some of his ruffled hair down as he passes the couch.
"Sure," you offer easily. "Next year, red and gold."
"What about blue?" Jon asks absently. "You almost wanted to do blue this year."
"Hm," you press your lips together. "Next year, red and gold. The year after that, blue and silver."
"What about silver and gold? Add that to the list," Damian chimes in, settling further back against the couch cushions, his mulled wine carefully pried out of his hand and placed on the coffee table by Jon before it's spilled.
"Isn't silver and gold a bit much?" you retort.
"No," he squints at you. "Blue isn't even a Christmas colour."
"It's a winter colour," you insist. "It just means we can keep our tree up for longer."
"Ok, well - silver and gold are both Christmas colours. Makes it right twice," Damian says firmly. You gawk at him, thumping your own wine down onto the coffee table so that you can shuffle closer to him freely.
"You're drunk," you say kindly. "Out of your mind."
"I don't know," Jon muses from where he's kneeling on the floor with a dustpan, looking on with a face so lovesick, you feel a dizziness that has nothing to do with your drinking. "He might have a point."
"I'm feeling ganged up on," you say pointedly, and the kiss that Damian presses to your forehead is a bit sloppy, misplaced and hot to the touch as he rests a flushed cheek on the top of your head.
"Only because we're right," he says easily, rocking the two of you back and forth a bit, a disjointed rhythm playing only in his head.
"Fine," you sniff indignantly. "Next year, red and gold. Then blue and silver. Then silver and gold."
"Good enough," Damian murmurs, and your eyeroll is fond.
"What about you?" you kick a leg at Jon weakly, and he catches it easily to poke at the bottom of your foot until you shriek and pull it away.
"I don't care," he shrugs, and you open your mouth to retort with something, to tell him that he has to have some kind of opinion here - because it's his house, too. His home, his life.
But he sits down on the floor in front of the two of you, dustpan abandoned somewhere on the floor as loose pine needles stick to his pants, and there's something so shining in his gaze that it has you snapping your mouth shut.
"What's the look for?" Damian says quietly, his voice an uncharacteristically shy little sound in the midst of it all.
"I'm just thinking," Jon responds, and the smile that spreads across his face is so bright that you think, sort of idly, mostly in love, that it puts the lights of the Christmas tree to shame. "Isn't it nice?"
"What, the tree?" you blink.
"No," Jon shakes his head, leaning back on his hands to look at the two of you. "Just - I don't know. That we'll have all this time."
"No one knows what you're talking about," Damian says lazily, and you smile at Jon a bit sheepishly in agreement.
He huffs, rolling his eyes fondly as he looks on.
"I think it's… nice," Jon says slowly - careful and sure in each step. "That we… that we'll spend so many Christmases together that we get to… talk like this, you know?"
You soften at that - warm from the wine and warmed more from Jon's words, from the soft, little smile that he looks up at the two of you with.
"Of course we will," Damian scoffs, but his hand reaches out to try to tug Jon up onto the couch, all the same. "Did you ever think we wouldn't?"
"No," Jon replies honestly as he scrambles up, careful as he shifts the two of you to squish into the middle. "But I don't mind being reminded."
"Well, it's forever," you shrug - and it's simple in it's surety, solid in it's promise. "I always knew that."
"We both did," Damian agrees. "We all do."
"So start thinking about how you want the tree decorated," you add in, brushing some of Jon's hair back with a gentle, tipsy hand. "You're behind in the argument."
"Thats's alright," Jon gives in easily, laughing and beaming in a way that makes your chest nearly hurt. "Looks like I have the rest of forever to catch up, don't I?"