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the love that christmas can be

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“Me?” he asks, meeting Christopher’s waiting gaze. “Are you sure? You don’t want Dad to—”

Chris shakes his head, reaching out and putting his hand on Lucas’ wrist, then squeezing lightly.

“You’re my brother,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically soft, his blue eyes earnest. “I want it to be you. Dad and Buck don’t even know.”

december 21: christmas proposal

Work Text:

Lucas doesn’t remember a time before he was obsessed with his big brother.

He’s not sure that such a time existed— more likely, he met Christopher when he was three hours old and never once looked back. His parents have the stories to back it up: about how Chris would hold him when he was a baby; about how he’d choose to go to Chris over anybody else if given the option; about the two of them out in the yard bonding over gardening when Lucas was only two or three. He remembers, if vaguely, how hard it was for him when Christopher started college and moved away— the nights he spent crying because he missed his brother; the time it took for him to adjust to the distance from him when his whole existence had consisted of his brother just down the hall from him.

That could have been the fracture in their relationship. It would have been understandable, with a sixteen year age gap and Chris going out to form his own adult life while Lucas was still just a little toddler. Lucas is thankful every day that it wasn’t like that. That Christopher cared enough, loved him enough, to make sure it wasn’t like that. That now, many years later, they’re closer than ever.

To put it very simply, Lucas’ big brother is kind of his favorite person in the world. There’s nobody he admires more; nobody he wants to emulate as much; no one he would rather go to for advice or help or a listening ear. At seventeen, Lucas would consider himself a pretty social person. He loves being with his family; he’s close with many of them; adores his parents. But nobody in the world means quite as much to Lucas as Christopher does.

All of which to say, he’s not entirely surprised but delighted when Chris appears in his bedroom doorway one afternoon in December, knocking lightly on the open door frame. Lucas is newly finished with the first semester of his senior year, and honestly just grateful to be on the other side of testing with the entirety of his Christmas break in front of him.

“Hey,” he says, grinning as he rights himself on his bed and sets his phone aside, easily abandoning mindlessly scrolling to talk to Chris instead.

“Hi,” Chris answers, smiling as he moves into the room, looking around. “It’s very clean in here.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “I’m a very clean person.” Chris gives him a look and he amends, “Okay, I got bored and cleaned up everything from the semester but I am a clean person.”

Christopher laughs, moving closer and taking a seat next to Lucas on his bed. “You forget that I’ve known you for your whole life.”

Lucas grins. “How could I forget that?” he asks. Even as he says it, his eyes find the framed picture of himself and Christopher on the shelf next to his window— taken when Lucas was no more than four or five and Chris was barely in his twenties, with Chris sitting on the couch at the firehouse and Lucas trapped in a hug in front of them, both of them beaming and Lucas caught in a laugh. He loves this picture.

Chris leans back a little, sweeping his eyes over the room and landing, eventually, on Lucas. His discerning blue gaze lingers and Lucas looks back.

“I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re here for a reason,” he says, and Chris smiles a quick flash of a thing.

“Smart kid,” he admits. “I have a favor to ask you.”

There’s little Lucas wouldn’t do for Chris. He can’t think of anything, really.

“Yeah?” he asks, interested, looking his brother over. “Everything okay?”

Christopher smiles. It looks soft and indulgent, something about the way his features shift making him look like Dad.

“Everything is fine,” he says. “Actually, better than fine, I hope.”

Curious, Lucas watches as Chris leans back enough to reach into his pocket. He digs out a little box made of blue velvet and wordlessly hands it over to Lucas, nodding at him encouragingly to get him to open it.

Lucas does, and nestled inside he finds a ring. It’s beautiful, sparkly and gold and inset with little diamonds around a central oval one. He lets out a breath at the sight of it, at the idea of what it means, and looks back up at his brother. Chris is already watching him, a small smile on his face.

If you’re asking Lucas, a wedding is a long time coming.

He’d first met Audrey when he was just a little kid. She and Chris had met when they were both still going to college, and she’s been around ever since. Lucas can remember asking them, little and starry-eyed, if they were going to get married. The way they’d laughed. Audrey’s easy smile and the way nothing like that ever seemed to bother her.

For much of his childhood, Lucas had taken them as a foregone conclusion. They were always together: going on long road trips for vacations; attending all the big family events without a blink of hesitation; moving in together when they decided to relocate back to LA after graduating. Only once he’d ever asked Chris why they weren’t married yet, a few years ago. His brother had just shrugged and told him: maybe someday.

“Really?” he asks now, still holding the ring.

Chris nods. “It’s time,” he says simply.

Lucas smiles, nudging him lightly with his knee. “Tell me you’re doing it soon because I hate secrets.”

Chris smiles, too. “Well,” he says. “Yes, but you’re going to have to keep it for a few days because I need your help.”

Lucas frowns, confused. “With what?”

Chris looks down at the ring, a tender sort of look crossing his face. “I’m going to ask her on Christmas Eve,” he says— both of them knowing that this means it’ll be here, where they always spend the night before the holiday. No matter how old Christopher gets, he and Audrey always come back and stay over to have dinner as a little family and then open presents the next day. It’s a Diaz family tradition, one that Lucas holds very close to his heart. “But,” Chris adds, “I want to do it right.”

Lucas looks at the ring again. “I don’t think you can do it wrong,” he answers honestly. “She’s going to say yes.”

Chris grins. “I know,” he admits. “But that’s not what I mean. I just— I want to surprise her. I want to do the whole thing. On one knee, you know? And that’s not exactly quick enough to have the element of surprise on my own.” He nods dryly to the crutches he’d moved aside when he sat down, and Lucas glances at them as the pieces of what Chris is saying fall into place.

His chest gets kind of tight, then.

“What are you asking?” he asks.

Chris, true to form, rolls his eyes. “You know what I’m asking. I want your help. Just to make it— you know, smooth and fast so we don’t lose the moment.”

Lucas has always kind of thought that Chris could do anything. As a little kid, he’d been aware of his brother’s condition, but the way his parents and Chris himself spoke about it and the way that it was integrated into their lives had always left Lucas with the impression that it was a skill his brother had. He has memories of adhering sparkly dinosaur stickers to the poles of Chris’ crutches; of ways that they accommodated him that were so normal he never thought to wonder whether other people did things that way; of Dad explaining the ins and outs of Christopher's CP to Lucas like it was just part of their lives.

Now that he’s older— almost grown up— Lucas can see that and appreciate it for how much work it must have taken, for their parents and even more so for Chris.

“I—” he starts, finding himself a little choked up. “Me?” he asks, meeting Christopher’s waiting gaze. “Are you sure? You don’t want Dad to—”

Chris shakes his head, reaching out and putting his hand on Lucas’ wrist, then squeezing lightly.

“You’re my brother,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically soft, his blue eyes earnest. “I want it to be you. Dad and Buck don’t even know.”

Lucas blinks, and without thinking, the ring still clutched in his fingers, he throws his arms around Christopher. Chris laughs a little, but hugs him back with just as much enthusiasm.

“Okay,” Lucas says, grinning, as they pull apart. “Let’s do it.”

On Christmas Eve, Lucas is jittery.

Both of his dads have asked him if he’s okay at least once this evening, between the usual dinner traditions. He’s sharing half-glances at Chris across the dining room and trying very hard not to look suspicious. His heart is racing intermittently. He’s trying not to look at Audrey too long. He’s pretty sure he’s not cut out for this, but he hasn’t told anyone in the five days that he’s known about the rink currently in his brother’s pocket.

He just needs to get through one more hour or so, and then it’ll all be over.

Eddie is pretty sure his sons are up to something.

He leans in around Buck to check that nobody is nearby as they hover in the kitchen, plating up the last few things for the table. “Hey,” he whispers, turning his back to the doorway. “Is Lucas acting weird to you?”

Buck glances over his shoulder toward the living room, able to see the boys and Audrey all around the couch, hovering and waiting for dinner. “Yeah,” he admits. “Like he’s hiding something.”

Eddie glances back, too. “What is it, do you think?” he asks.

Buck shrugs, layering rolls into a bread basket. “Christmas present?”

It could be. But something about it doesn’t seem right to Eddie. “You don’t think it’s something bigger than that?” he presses quietly. “Chris seems—”

Buck nods. “Yeah, he’s quiet. Gets like that when he’s hiding something.”

“Exactly!” Eddie says, taking a dish that Buck offers him. Buck hands it over with a smile and then leans in to kiss his husband’s cheek.

“It’s Christmas,” he offers. “Be patient. I’m sure we’ll know what they’re hiding soon enough.”

Eddie scoffs. “Be patient. Rich words coming from you, Buckley.”

“Diaz,” Buck grins, and slips past him to the dining room without another word.

Dinner is perfect— like always— but by the time they settle in the living room with a platter of Christmas cookies for sharing on the table like they always do, Eddie is even more convinced that something is amiss. Chris and Lucas keep looking at each other, and the jittery sense that they’re carrying around with them has only gotten more obvious. Eddie is tucked into Buck’s side on the couch, but Chris and Lucas are both hovering, their younger son munching on a hot chocolate cookie but glancing repeatedly at his older brother, who is still just standing for reasons that are entirely lost on Eddie.

Until, suddenly, they’re not.

Audrey is standing on the other side of the coffee table near the doorway, on the verge of reaching for a cookie, when Chris moves in front of the Christmas tree and nods in Lucas’ direction.

Eddie only understands what’s about to happen as it unfolds in front of him: Lucas holds out his hand and Chris takes it, and the pieces lock into place as Chris takes something small out of his pocket.

“Buck,” Eddie breathes, soft under his breath, getting his husband’s attention with a death grip on his good knee just in time for them both to watch: Lucas, in one easy fluid movement, holds his brother’s hand in one of his and his elbow in the other, providing a steady brace as Chris drops to one knee.

Eddie’s vision goes blurry as his sons look at each other— one kneeling, the other standing, both of them beaming.

“Chris,” Audrey gasps, where she’s standing with half of a cookie in her hand, the twinkle of the Christmas lights shimmering and shifting on her face.

Lucas grins wildly from where he stands at his brother’s side, and Buck grips Eddie’s wrist with equal force as Chris— Eddie’s baby, the light of his life, the little boy who had glued this family together in the first place all those years ago before Buck was ever Eddie’s husband— looks up at Audrey from one knee and smiles with all his usual sweetness and charm.

Lucas’ fingers hover on Christopher’s shoulder, a tether, as Chris delivers a simple but tearjerking proposal and the ring in the box sparkles in the Christmas lights and Audrey agrees to be a Diaz, officially speaking.

By the time Chris turns to Lucas and takes his hand again, Eddie can barely see any of them through the tears in his eyes. Moments later, they’re all a tangle around Christopher and Audrey in the center of the living room, with Lucas pressed against his brother and both of them smiling so brightly, and it occurs to Eddie all at once.

That it’s a dream, this moment. That it’s all he could ever have hoped for when he and Buck had made the choice to bring another baby into their family— that someday, that baby and Christopher would be here exactly like this, loving each other exactly this much.

He hugs them both close, listening to their matching half-hearted complaints as Buck laughs and pulls Audrey aside, the first to demand to see the ring, and thinks— even in a lifetime of Christmas wishes, he could never have even imagined a moment like this one.

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