Work Text:
~*~
The excited chatter begins right around the time that the days noticeably shorten, cooler nights creeping into the space where golden light used to linger long after the working day was through.
It starts with a mention of finding the perfect tree. Which, Nero thinks, is preposterous, really. What would the perfect tree even constitute? Based on what parameters? Height? Age? Amount of foliage? Overall health?
And what would one even require a so-called perfect tree for? The few that are scattered around Rhalgr’s Reach are fine enough at providing shade, but the climate isn’t exactly hospitable to vegetation, and so really, it makes little sense that they’d want to find a tree and bring it here for any reason at all.
It isn’t until he catches wind of the purpose behind it that any of it makes sense. And then, all he can do is roll his eyes and stay as far away from that particular conversation as possible.
Even here, so far from the city state where the core of the celebrations take place, there’s a sentimentality about Starlight that seems to seep into every corner of the Reach, every conversation. His fellow Ironworks engineers, especially those native to Eorzea, talk excitedly about tradition, twinkling lights, family gatherings, stories of letters addressed to saints who bring gifts to well-behaved children.
The whole thing makes him scoff, doubly so when Cid asks him to come along to pick up said perfect tree. It’s easy enough to rebuff the offer and insist that he has no time for such childish things, not when he’s on the verge of a number of great discoveries and up to his knees in work.
There’s a frown at the corners of Cid’s mouth as Nero turns and stalks back toward the workshop; he pretends he doesn’t see, and very purposefully ignores the way that it makes his stomach twist.
~*~
The so-called perfect tree is a great, deep green spruce that stands in the center of the mess hall, taller than even Nero himself. The scent of it, fresh cut and transported all the way from Coerthas, is a novel thing here in the Reach.
Biggs holds the trunk of it through its thick branches, while Cid kneels beneath it, getting it properly settled in the metal base they’ve produced from some storage space somewhere. They fret over the tree like it’s a prize of some sort, pouring sugar water into the base and fluffing the branches, until they can all agree that it looks as perfect as they had imagined when they’d left to fetch it that morning.
Nero stands in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. He’s here mostly out of a sense of morbid curiosity, he tells himself. He knows a bit about this particular Eorzean tradition, thanks to a little research after all of the fuss they’d made over finding their tree. They’ll gather around it, and they’ll adorn it with lights and ornaments - in some places, they still use paper chains and candles. (How primitive - nevermind the fire hazard.)
Were there any children among them, those children would write letters to the Saint of Nymeia and lay them under the tree, in hopes that they would wake during Starlight to find a plethora of toys and gifts awaiting them. As though a saint would have time to visit every child in the realm in a single night, and for something so trivial! Besides that - what of those who had been poorly behaved? By what standard were they judged?
The whole thing just seems laughable, even more so when they treat it with such importance.
They’ve also made a right mess of the place, the ground and benches and tables scattered with the needles fallen off while wrestling the tree into place. He’s just about to open his mouth and point it out when something bumps into the back of his legs, almost hard enough to knock him over, followed by the loud clatter of wood on stone.
Nero jumps, turning on his heel to find Wedge frantically reaching for the boxes he’d dropped.
“Ah, sorry Nero, didn’t see you there—” Wedge says, already down on his knees and grabbing at the nearest box. His hands shake as he opens the lid, peering down into the contents of it as though concerned that he’s destroyed some valuable treasure instead of…whatever it is that the boxes contain.
Wedge heaves a sigh of relief - clearly its contents are undamaged.
Nero is decidedly not interested in what they might contain. He looks anyway, just in case it’s something potentially dangerous that had been so carelessly smashed into him.
There, nestled in soft padding to keep them from shattering, are a half-dozen glass ornaments. They’re lovely, colorful things, seemingly hand-painted and carefully inscribed with familiar names: Wedge, Biggs, Jessie, Cid…
He stoops down to grab another box before Wedge can pick it up, frowning deeply at its contents. The bulbs are customized, one for each of the Ironworks’ employees - all, except for one person in particular.
It’s a stark reminder of how little space there is for him here, among their pointless, decades-long traditions.
He shoves the box back into Wedge’s arms, scowling. “Watch where you’re going next time,” he snaps, stepping around him, intent on disappearing for the remainder of the night. This whole thing is horridly childish and he doesn’t want anything to do with any of it.
(But why does his chest ache so?)
“Nero, wait!” Wedge calls after him, the concern in his voice almost enough to stop him in his tracks. “Don’t you want to help us decorate?”
“I’d sooner subject myself to a firing squad,” Nero calls back over his shoulder, doing a masterful job of keeping his voice steady.
Leave them to their sparkling ornaments and idiotic traditions. He has better things to do anyway.
~*~
“What in the hells just happened?” Cid frowns, emerging from underneath the tree just in time to catch sight of Nero’s retreating form. He’s always been prone to being standoffish, but that had felt…personal, in a way that his usual poor behavior didn’t.
“Not entirely sure, though he seemed particularly upset about the ornaments,” Wedge sighs, carefully laying the boxes out on the table nearest to the tree. He pauses, tapping his fingertips against his cheek in thought. “You know, I wonder if he isn’t feeling left out.”
“Left out? Nero? He’s been happy enough keeping himself separate from the rest of us until now,” Biggs points out, crossing his arms. “Why start caring so much now, of all times?”
“I see your point, but this is different.” Wedge plops down on one of the benches, busying himself with threading string through each of the ornaments as he continues on with his theory. “It’s his first year being around for the celebrations. It must be strange for him. Can’t imagine he knows the first thing about Starlight, and we’ve been yapping on about all of the great things we’re going to do together…”
Cid’s frown only deepens as a door slams somewhere down the hall. Wedge has a point. He’s never known Nero to be that kind of sentimental, but he’d feel out of sorts too. It had been strange to be on the outside of these things when he’d first fled here, being plunged into a whole new culture so far from home. He vaguely remembers feeling alone that first year, surrounded by happy families and unfamiliar traditions. Judging by the expression on Biggs’ and Wedge’s faces, they remember that feeling too.
There had been people in the years that followed, who had welcomed them with open arms and shared their traditions. Slowly, those traditions had become their own, regardless of where they’d gone. Be it a small tree in their workshop in Mor Dhona, or this marvel before them here at the Reach, they’d made a point of embracing these moments together.
“What if we found some way to make him feel like he’s a part of all this?” Wedge muses, reaching for another ornament. “He likes to feel needed, maybe we can figure out some way to get him involved?”
“I tried that this morning,” Cid sighs, shaking his head. “I figured he’d appreciate coming along to boss us around about the tree, but that clearly wasn’t an option.” He watches Wedge for a moment, gaze falling on the open boxes of ornaments. They were lovely little things they’d made a few years back, each one personalized for its owner. And the feeling in the workshop the night they’d hung them on the tree for the first time…
“I think I’ve got an idea.” Hard to tell if it’ll actually do the trick. But they might as well give it a shot. “…do we have any paint laying around?”
~*~
Nero is bent over the desk in the corner of his room, scowling down at a messy spread of schematics, when a knock comes at the door. He’s tempted to tell them to sod off and leave him to his work for the rest of the night. But there’s another knock, and another, and it’s clear that he’s not going to get any peace if he doesn’t acknowledge it.
He doesn’t expect to find Jessie on the other side of the door, her arms folded and a stern look on her face. “Took you long enough.”
His scowl somehow only grows deeper. “What do you want?”
“What I want is for my employee to answer his door when someone knocks instead of pretending that he didn’t hear it.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Nero points out, dryly. “What could possibly be so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
“We’ve had a little mishap in the workshop,” Jessie explains, heaving a sigh. “One of the junior engineers thought he’d take on some repairs on the airship alone, and I need you to come fix whatever it is he broke. I can’t seem to make sense of what he did, but they’re meant to be taking it on an important supply run first thing in the morning.”
“You’ve got a mess hall full of capable repairmen. Go bother one of them.”
Nero’s already half way to closing the door, when Jessie sticks her foot out to stop it. “If I can’t figure it out, none of them are going to be able to, and Cid’s busy. Please, Nero. I need someone who knows what he’s doing.”
Maybe she’s laying it on a little thick, but when he sighs and goes for his tool belt, she knows she’s won.
Willing to come along and help as he is, Nero bitches the whole way toward the common room all the same, about how they need to reign in the less experienced staff, about how incompetent they all are. They’ll need to pass through it to get to the workshop, and maybe he can make a point of rubbing it in everyone’s faces that Jessie only trusts him with this particular fix.
They’re a few steps away from the entrance to the common room when a smell hits him - a warm, sweet aroma that fills the air. It brings to mind the rare times that his family could afford fresh-baked goods when he was young, something strangely nostalgic about it.
Its source is revealed when they step into the common room, and there, on the table closest to the tree, is a plate stacked high with cookies. They’re fresh out of the oven, if the scent is anything to go by. His gaze lingers there for only a moment before a few other details draw his attention: the room is mostly empty, the tree hasn’t yet been decorated, and there, sitting around the table, are Biggs, Wedge, and Cid. But there are five place settings, five mugs of something warm enough that it’s giving off a little steam.
He’s been had.
Before he can retreat, Jessie’s hand is at his arm, giving him a little tug forward. “You’re not getting out of this that easily,” she chuckles. “Come on, let’s go sit.”
“But the repairs—” It’s a weak attempt at protesting. It’s starkly obvious that there are no repairs waiting for him, that this was all some ploy to try to force him to be a part of the celebration. The look she gives him says as much. And while some part of him resists it, wants him to pull his arm from Jessie’s (rather insistent) grasp and leave them to it…some other part of him is swayed. He lets himself be led over to the table, and settles down in one of the empty seats.
Almost immediately, Wedge is pushing one of the mugs in his direction. “Here, I made some hot cocoa,” he says, a wide smile spreading across his face. “And Biggs made the cookies.”
“Aye,” Biggs interjects, “They’re not much, but I realized you’d probably never had gingerbread before…figured it’d be a nice treat.”
Nero, for once, finds himself unsure what to say. He’d been…awful, earlier. And instead of leaving him to sulk, they’d gone out of their way to do something genuinely nice for him. “Why…?”
Wedge’s smile doesn’t falter in the least. “You’ve never had a proper Starlight before. We wanted to share it with you. You’re one of us now, aren’t you? It wouldn’t be right not to.”
One of us. “But—”
“Do you have to question every bloody little thing?” Cid interrupts, incredulous. “Just this once, let it go, Nero.”
Before he can argue, Cid is reaching over and pushing something into his hands. Their fingers brush, and he looks up, their eyes meeting briefly. There’s a smile there, at the corners of Cid’s mouth and shining in his eyes, and his thumb brushes across Nero’s knuckles, however briefly, before pulling away.
In his hands is a small box, wrapped in what looks like an old discarded sheet of blueprints, and tied with a length of red ribbon. He stares down at it for a long moment, trying to ignore the odd twist of emotion in his chest, and then tugs at the ribbon. It opens easily, and once the paper falls away, he sets the box down and opens the lid of it with suddenly unsteady hands.
There, cushioned so as to keep it safe, just like the others from earlier, is an ornament painted by hand to look like an Allegan node. The lines of it are not perfectly straight, the paint smudged in a few places. He lifts it from the box and turns it to inspect it, fighting a smile and a swell of feeling as he finds his name carefully painted along one side of it.
“It’s…”
“It isn’t much,” Cid sounds almost embarrassed, “But I—we wanted you to have your own, just like the rest of us.”
“It’s perfect.” No criticism, no rebuffing of their kindness. Instead, Nero holds the ornament in the palm of his hand and stares down at it, red in the face and unable to look up and meet all of those bright smiles. He should say something. He should— “…thank you all.” The gratitude in his voice sounds foreign even to his own ears. “You didn’t have to.”
“No, we didn’t have to do any of this,” Cid chuckles, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. His heart skips a beat. “But we wanted to. Now are you going to keep pretending like you’d rather be alone? Or are you going to help us decorate this tree?”
Later on, when the others have retired for the night, he’ll have to thank Cid properly for his thoughtful gift - not just for the ornament, but for that feeling of belonging too.
For the time being, it’s easier to make a show of rolling his eyes as he pushes to his feet. “If you insist,” he answers. “I suppose someone has to make sure that it’s done correctly if it’s meant to be the perfect Starlight tree.”
The common room is soon filled with laughter as they string the lights around the tree’s boughs together, and carefully hang each ornament. For a first Starlight, it certainly is a perfect one. There’s no need to write a letter and place it under the tree, once they stand back to admire their work; the Saint of Nymeia couldn’t have fulfilled his wishes anyway.
How strange, how wonderful, to finally feel like this place could be…home.