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The fire was behaving itself tonight. It didn’t snap or spit like it had something to prove. Instead, it held the low, cozy intensity that nights like this often brought.
Clancy sat close enough to feel it through the soles of his boots, hands wrapped around a dented metal cup. Whatever Torch had brewed tasted like smoke and something sweet he couldn’t place. He drank it anyway, like he always did.
Torch was crouched across from him, feeding the fire with slow care, nudging the embers with a stick before throwing it into the flames.
“It's a shame we can’t get lights up.” Torch said, almost to himself. “Wanted to do Christmas properly.”
Clancy frowned. He waited a beat, expecting the word to resolve itself. In Dema, unfamiliar terms usually did. They were always defined, repeated, drilled in until they meant only one thing.
But this one didn’t.
“Christmas,” Clancy said carefully, testing. “Is that… a location?”
Torch snorted in response. He glanced up, firelight catching the edge of his smile before he tried to smooth it away. “No,” He said. “Definitely not.”
“A person, then,” Clancy tried. “Someone important?”
Torch tilted his head, considering. “Depends who you ask.”
Clancy’s grip tightened around the cup. His shoulders followed, bracing for the inevitable explanation. The hierarchy. The rule set. The reason people died for it.
And Torch noticed. He always noticed the subtle shift. The way Clancy was ready to take in the set of rules he was more than ready to follow.
“It’s a holiday,” Torch said, gentler now.
Clancy blinked. “Like… a sanctioned rest cycle?”
That earned a real laugh. Torch covered his mouth with the back of his hand, as if embarrassed by the sound. “Not sanctioned,” He said. “That’s kind of the appeal.”
Clancy stared at him. The word appeal lodged somewhere uncomfortable in his chest.
“A holiday,” Clancy repeated. “For what purpose?”
Torch poked the fire. An ember lifted, glowed, then vanished into the dark. “For being together,” He said. “For making things warmer when it’s cold. For remembering people. For giving stuff away for no reason.”
Clancy’s brow furrowed deeper with every word. “Giving… away,” he echoed. “Without exchange?”
“Yeah.”
“Without record?”
Torch met his eyes then. Held them. “Without owing anyone anything.”
Something in Clancy’s chest pulled tight. “That doesn’t make sense,” He said, not accusing. Just lost.
Torch smiled, like he’d been waiting for that exact sentence. “It will,” He said. “Not tonight. But it will.”
Clancy looked back at the fire, at the way the light reached outward instead of pressing in. “…When is Christmas?” He asked.
“Soon.”
A few days later, Torch called Clancy over to his tent just after dusk. Not with a shout. Not even his name. Just a tilt of his chin and a look that said trust me without ever forming the words. Clancy hesitated anyway.
Torch’s tent was quieter than the others, insulated with layers of fabric scavenged from places Clancy didn’t ask about. He just ducked inside and felt the world narrow. It smelled of old paper and smoke.
“Sit,” Torch said, already kneeling, rummaging through a metal tin like it held something fragile. “Careful with your boots.”
Clancy complied, folding himself down near the center pole. His shoulders brushed canvas. Enclosed spaces still made his pulse tick faster, but Torch was there, solid and unhurried. That helped.
Torch opened the tin. Inside were postcards. Real ones. Corners bent, edges softened with age. He took them out one by one, spreading them between them like a quiet offering.
Clancy leaned forward before he realised he was doing it. The first showed a snow covered street, lamplight glowing against windows, people bundled together in scarves and coats. No insignias. No slogans. Just light and color and closeness.
“These are… old,” Clancy said.
“Very,” Torch replied. “I’m not even sure where they come from.” He handed one over.
Clancy took it with both hands, as if it might break. The paper was thicker than anything he’d been issued. Someone had written on the back in looping ink, a name smudged by time.
Wish you were here.
His throat tightened. “They let people send these?” Clancy asked quietly. He studied another card. A family around a tree strung with lights. Gifts piled haphazardly underneath. No symmetry. No order.
“Back there,” He said slowly, “Images like this would be restricted.”
Torch hummed softly, considering that. He set the tin aside and rested his forearms on his knees, close enough that Clancy could feel the warmth radiating off him, steady as the fire outside. “Yeah,” Torch said. “That tracks.”
Clancy looked up at him. “Why keep them, then?” He asked. Not accusing. Genuinely trying to understand. “If they’re from before. If they don’t… fit.”
Torch picked up the card with the tree, studying the crooked angle of it. “That’s exactly why,” He said. “Some things aren’t meant to fit.”
Clancy tilted his head.
“It started as a promise,” Torch went on. “That even when things are cold and tight and miserable, people can still choose to make something special.”
He tapped the card lightly. “Lights when there’s not much sun. Food you don’t strictly need. Time set aside just to say: I see you. I remember you.”
Clancy frowned. “But it’s inefficient.”
Torch smiled at that, not unkindly. “It’s wildly inefficient.”
Clancy turned the postcard over in his hands, thumb brushing the ink on the back. The handwriting felt intimate in a way that made a lump form in his throat, even if he didn’t know why.
“In Dema,” He said, quieter now, “Remembrance is regulated. You’re told who mattered. When. For how long.”
“I know,” Torch said.
“Christmas doesn’t do that,” Clancy said slowly, piecing it together as he spoke. “It lets people remember… whoever they want.”
“Exactly.”
Clancy swallowed. “Even the lost.”
“Especially the lost.”
Silence settled between them, not empty. Clancy looked at the image of the lamplit street again. He imagined himself there, uncounted, unnamed, just another figure in a scarf. The thought scared him.
The thought thrilled him.
“…Do people still celebrate it?” He asked.
“We try.” Torch’s mouth formed a soft smile. “Not the way it used to be. But enough.”
Clancy hesitated, the old instinct to keep his wants contained pressing in. Then, quietly, “Can I… keep one?”
Torch didn’t answer right away. He watched Clancy with an expression that made Clancy’s chest tighten, like he’d asked for something much bigger than paper.
Finally, Torch slid the postcard toward him. “Yeah,” He said. “Take as many as you’d like.”
-o-o-
Over the next few days, Torch showed Clancy Christmas. First came the lights.
Not real ones, not anymore. Strands of salvaged wire, bits of glass smoothed by time, metal bent just enough to catch the firelight. Torch let Clancy thread them where he wanted, didn’t correct him when the spacing was uneven.
“They don’t have to match,” Torch said, almost amused.
Clancy stared at the lopsided line they made. Then nodded, like he was accepting a rule written nowhere.
Then the food.
Torch brought out ingredients Clancy hadn’t seen used together. Spices saved for no strategic reason finally used on meats. Sweet things that didn’t strengthen bones or sharpen minds used to make teas.
Then came the tree. A real one.
A small pine, freshly cut, its scent sharp and clean in the cold air. It stood in a dented bucket weighted with stones, needles already dusting the ground beneath it. Someone had tied a strip of red cloth around its base, more ceremonial than useful. In the firelight, the branches caught and held the glow.
Torch handed Clancy a length of twine and a handful of ornaments. Bent metal stars. Buttons drilled through the center. A cracked bell that still rang if you coaxed it.
“You hang them,” Torch said. “It’s your first one.”
Clancy hesitated. “There’s no pattern.”
Torch smiled. “Exactly.”
Clancy worked carefully anyway. Too carefully at first. He adjusted, stepped back, frowned, then deliberately hung one ornament crooked, just to see what would happen.
Nothing did. In fact, the tree looked better for it.
Later, Torch pressed another cup into his hands. Dark liquid this time, steam curling up with the scent of citrus and spice. It smelled like winter in the best way possible. “Mulled wine,” Torch said. “Sip it.”
Clancy did. Warmth bloomed in his chest and spread outward, loosening something between his ribs. He blinked, surprised.
“That’s… dangerous,” He said, and Torch laughed.
They stood close to the fire, shoulders nearly touching now, the camp humming low around them. Clancy felt lighter. Not careless. Just… less braced.
He noticed a sprig of green hanging above the tent line then. Leaves waxy, pale berries catching the light.
“What’s that?” He asked. Torch followed his gaze. For just a moment, something like nerves crossed his face.
“Mistletoe,” He said. “Another tradition.”
Clancy frowned. “It’s placed deliberately above a passageway.”
“Yeah.”
“For… what?”
Torch scratched the back of his neck. “If two people end up standing under it at the same time, they’re supposed to kiss. It’s optional. Harmless. Just a bit of old fun.”
Clancy looked up at the mistletoe. Then down at where his boots had carried him without asking. He realised, with a strange jolt, that Torch was standing there too.
Under it.
“I don’t have to,” Clancy said, instinctively.
“I know,” Torch replied, just as quietly.
They stood there, the space between them charged and unclaimed. The fire crackled. Someone laughed somewhere behind them. The world, infuriatingly, did not end.
Clancy swallowed, heart loud in his ears. “It’s strange,” he said. “A rule that exists only if you want it to.”
Torch’s eyes softened. “Life is full of those.”
Clancy looked at Torch again.
Not a commander. Not a symbol. Just a man standing close enough that Clancy could feel his warmth, waiting without pressure.
“A rule like that,” Clancy said, voice unsteady. “would never survive in Dema.”
Torch’s mouth curved faintly. “Good thing we’re not there.”
Clancy nodded once, like he’d made a decision that didn’t need approval.
He stepped forward.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t dramatic. Just Clancy closing the space he’d already crossed a dozen times in his head. Torch inhaled sharply, then leaned in to meet him, careful as if Clancy might change his mind.
Their lips brushed. Then settled.
When they pulled back, neither of them moved away. The mistletoe swayed gently above them, satisfied.
Clancy let out a breath. His heart was still racing, but it wasn’t fear this time. It was something lighter. Something he wanted to chase instead of contain.
“If this,” he said quietly, gesturing vaguely between them, at the firelight, the laughter, the tree, “is what Christmas does…”
Torch watched him, attentive, open.
“…I think I like it,” Clancy finished. “A lot.”
Torch smiled, slow and real. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”