Work Text:
hey so random question
the busses have already stopped but I haven’t seen a single fkn snowflake yet
can I crash at the house?
It had been a few weeks since you last heard from Skips, he had been busy with the theater’s most popular show of the entire year. Being the lead lighting designer kept him occupied both before and after each show, making small adjustments and inspecting for safety. You had given him an open invitation to stop by whenever he wanted, but you knew the distance was a challenge on work nights.
sure let me come pick u up
u can help me decorate!
Valdivian had given you an abundance of PTO along with your new position, and without any family you particularly wanted ot visit, you decided to take off a few weeks straight in December, inviting everyone to come visit as their schedule allowed. You were also enjoying a few traditions from your childhood, such as creating garlands out of evergreen boughs that you would then nail up above your entryway. Having a second set of hands would make that much easier.
no need I’m like right outside
started walking before I asked sry
He was walking?! Dropping the evergreen boughs you had been tying together, you threw open your front door to see him walking up the driveway, a lopsided smile on his face. His cheeks and nose were bitten red from the frigid winds you’d been ignoring from the comfort of your home. As soon as he was within range you grabbed his arm, nearly dragging him inside before letting the door shut hard behind him.
“Skips, you ass! Why didn’t you just call? I would have picked you up in a heartbeat!” You smacked his chest with the back of your hand while he laughed at your outburst.
“Okay, okay! I didn’t really walk, one of the cast members was able to drop me off a few streets away. This was closer than having them drive me home to the other side of the city.” That was almost the truth. He took a seat next to the fire place, unlacing heavy boots that fell to the ground with a loud thud. “I still don’t understand why the whole city has to shut down like the world’s about to end. Even the production got canceled tonight. It’s not even snowing yet!”
Shaking your head at him, you walked into the kitchen to grab two mugs. Skips was wearing little more than a baggy sweatshirt to block the wind, and even if the walk was short, the chill clearly cut him to the bone. He was trying to hide it, but his shivering clacked his teeth together. Hot chocolate would be the perfect cure. While the elixir was warming up in the microwave, you leaned against the wall closest to the fireplace.
“Snow here can be a little...tricky. Either the forecast downplays it and then no one is prepared for the surprise foot of snow we get overnight, or everything comes to a halt like this and we get hardly a dusting.” This was the first winter for the former objects of your house since being Realized. It was yet another thing to add to your list of worries about their well-being, but most of them had been surprisingly capable at adjusting to the curve balls of being human. “Trust me, the overreaction is way better then what happens when no one’s prepared.”
You remembered a snow storm a few years back that started so suddenly, the city had fallen into gridlock within an hour. Luckily you were able to leave your car at work while your boss drove you home, but it took her nearly two hours to get home herself. You watched buses lose traction trying to get up the most gentle of hills, rolling backwards into cars that had nowhere to escape. Half a foot accumulated in just a few hours before it finally slowed down, and that was a storm that started just a few hours before it was predicted. The beeping of the microwave broke you away from the memory.
You stirred each mug until you felt the powder was fully dissolved. Made with water instead of milk, as sacrilegious as that was, because anything else tasted wrong to you. Topping each mug with a little more whipped cream than was really necessary, you rushed out to the couch before it would melt.
“Here, warm yourself up with this. You really should get a heavier coat, suffering for the aesthetic is still just suffering.” Like you were one to talk. Your version of a rain coat was a thrifted leather jacket that you had waterproofed on a whim, which worked surprisingly well. Skips crinkled his nose at you in disagreement, taking a cautious sip from his mug.
“Oh, peppermint!” You smiled as he took another quick sip. Any time you saw the packets for sale, you stocked up. “Soooo...What’s with the trees?”
Now that you weren’t sitting in the center of the mess, you could see how strange it would look to anyone else. A mix of ceder, fir, and spruce boughs took up the majority of your floor space, save for a small clearing that still had your scissors and string in the middle.
“Prissy dropped them off for me, I’m making garlands out of them.” Testing the temperature of your mug, you took a quick sip before setting it on the table. Yep, still too hot. “They’re supposed to keep the eeeevil spirits out.” You wiggled your fingers at him threateningly, making him roll his eyes. “Plus, they smell nice.”
“Then they’ve got their work cut out for them when you keep inviting the eeeevil spirits inside. And making them hot chocolate.” He punctuated his point with a loud slurp from his mug. A ring of whipped cream stained his upper lip, which he seemed blissfully unaware of.
“You’re just a human dork, now, remember? Nice mustache, by the way.” You swiped your thumb across his lip before he could wipe it away, popping the digit into your mouth to lick it clean. The blush that crept across his cheeks was hard to miss.
“Just saving some for later.” He cleared his throat, trying to pretend he was unaffected by your proximity, your touch. Just friends. A totally normal thing for friends to do. With the help of both the fire and hot chocolate, his shivering had stopped. It was too bad, he was planning on using it as an excuse to leech your body heat from you through a totally innocent hug. “Are the garlands what you needed help with?”
“Well, I meant more helping me hang mine above the door, but I’ll take any help I can get. You should make one for yourself, too!” Stepping back into the clearing, you shuffled the boughs around with your foot, making space for him to sit next to you on the floor. He was quick to join you, setting his mug on the table next to the clearing while he watched you gather the garland you had been working on into your lap.
“I’m pretty sure nailing greenery to my front door is an immediate lease violation.” You dismissed him with a wave of your hand.
“What about your bedroom door? Then whatever evil spirits follow you home will have to attach themselves to your roommates, instead.” Prissy had dropped off nearly twice as much foliage as you had requested, and you hated the idea of it going to waste.
“Then they’d just bring them into the theater the next day!” Skips was familiar with the superstitions of his fellow crew mates when it came to the theater, and whether he believed them himself or not, he didn’t want to jinx the last two weeks of the current production.
“See? All the more reason to hang it above your door to keep everyone safe.” He relented with a sigh and an eye roll.
“Fine. Maybe just a small one that I can put up with thumbtacks or something.” You clapped your hands, giddy to show Skips one of your favorite holiday traditions. Turning your body towards him so he could mirror your actions, you handed him a few boughs and pre-cut string to start.
“Okay, they’re really easy to make, I promise. Just watch how I tie the next branch to the bunch here…” He watched you attach the next few boughs to your garland, alternating between the different varieties to add texture and color. You wished you had gloves to wear, as the constant poking from the needles was starting to irritate your hands. With a little practice he was able to imitate your technique, building his mini garland up quickly while you worked more slowly on your own.
“How many are you making?” You stopped for a moment, looking around at the boughs you had left. Somehow, it was still way too many.
“Well, mine and yours, then one for Prissy, Dorian, Holly, and maybe Stella? I guess it depends on when you get tired of helping.”
“This is actually really relaxing. It’s a nice break from the chaos of the theater now. You should come catch a show! I can’t get you free tickets, y’know. Two of them, so you can make it a...date.” He tried to over-enunciate that last word to make it sound teasing and totally not like he was fishing for information on your love life, but it just came out sounding more like the word burned his tongue to speak.
“If you’re busy making sure nothing absolutely disastrous happens with the lighting, who am I supposed to go with?” Oh. Oh. He’d be the first to admit that he could be a little dense when it came to picking up on signals, a few of his cast mates would certainly agree, but there was no missing the flirtatious lilt in your voice. You two had stayed close after he was Realized, talking on the phone at least once a week and chatting on Thiscord much more often. He assumed you were just that close to everyone, he was hardly anyone special enough to deserve all of your attention.
“That’s, uh...That’s a good point, I guess.” He felt his heart racing in his chest while his mouth went dry with the words he didn’t know how to say. The silence between you seemed to hang for an eternity before Skips finally broke it with an obvious quiver in his voice. “Guess I can...start working on Holly’s garland, then.”
Had you been reading things wrong all along? Skips showed up out of the blue, on the one night you’re likely to be snowed in together. Was that not one of the most generic romantic plots ever? Not to mention the shameless flirting over text that he seemed all too eager to reciprocate. Very little in your life had ever seemed like less than the divine will of some cosmic deity that enjoyed seeing you suffer, so it was a little hard to believe in coincidence now of all times. You watched him from underneath your lashes as he fiddled with a few boughs, seemingly more interested in picking at the needles then tying them together. Great, you just made one of your best friends too uncomfortable to even sit still around you.
“Hey, I’m sorry if...if that wasn’t the situation I was reading. I just...thought I was picking up on something that doesn’t exist. Let’s just forget about it.” Good job, Skips. As if begging a coworker to drop him off on this side of town wasn’t already embarrassing, he couldn’t keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to tell you how you made him feel.
“You weren’t wrong, I’m just…” Quickly grabbing his mug so he had something to hide his blushing face behind, he took a sip, then another, washing down his self-doubt. “I’m just a fucking moron who can’t string together a coherent sentence to tell you how I feel. I’ve been wanting to ask you out for so long, but I kept thinking that I was just reading into things, seeing what I wanted to see. I mean, you’re nice to everyone, you still go out of you way to help any of us the minute we ask, you’re such a good friend and I didn’t want to ruin that if I was just being stupid.”
A brief moment passed while you absorbed his words, but it was just long enough for Skips’ mind to race with worry. He just blurted his entire heart out to you, that was so not how he wanted to confess his feelings. There was no way you weren’t trying to hold back laughter at how pathetic he sounded, you were probably even second-guessing why you ever saw him as anything other than a friend.
“Wow. Word vomit. That’s attractive.”
“On you, it is.” You response was so quick it stunned his overactive mind into silence. He looked...dumbfounded. It made you want to laugh, to break the tension, but along with that tension came a feeling you were internally begging him to act on.
“Skips…” You wrapped your hands around his, guiding him to set the mug down. “You’re being stupid right now.”
You watched his eyes go wide, first with surprise then realization. Before you could brace yourself, Skips pulled you into a hug that knocked you both backwards. Your laughter filled the room, a boisterous release of nervous energy that settled into a comfortable silence. Despite the bed of evergreen branches he was laying in, Skips had no interest in moving any time soon.
“I can...kiss you?” Gentle hands held your face, brushing a thumb against your cheek. He looked so sweet like this, apprehensive and yet so eager for you your approval.
“Please!” That was all the encouragement he needed before his lips were on yours. The kiss was messy, teeth clacking and noses bumping before you found a natural rhythm. It was slow and gentle, curious to learn but demanding nothing from the other. His lips were still sticky from the hot chocolate, rich and sweet. You fingers threaded through his inky hair, settling against the nape of his neck to push him closer, deepening the kiss. The soft whimper he made would have convinced to you give up air if it meant you could have stayed with him like this forever, but your lungs had a different idea.
You both pulled away from the kiss, panting through smiles while you caught your breath.
“So...the garlands…” Not that Skips wanted you to move, you felt so addictively warm pressed against him, but he said he was going to help and he didn’t want to go back on his word.
“Right! Right, you were starting Holly’s garland…” Reluctantly, you pushed yourself upright, reaching a hand towards Skips to help him sit up. Evergreen needles clung to his hair and jacket, the scent fresh in the air. Something about it suited him, like a nighttime walk through a forest.
Settling next to each other, you got back to work on the garlands, but your progress was often interrupted by stolen glances, playful shoves, and bouts of laughter. Once it was finally finished, you draped your garland across the chair behind you. Dorian’s garland would come next; your front door was as closely tied to the tradition as making the garlands themselves were, and you hated the idea of him going without just because he was human now. You knew he’d fuss about you going out of your way for him, so you planned on waiting for him to be at work before you anonymously hung it above his doorway. Surely he’d know it was you, but it would allow him to just enjoy the gift without feeling indebted to you.
“Do you think you have anything in the backyard that I could add to this? It feels like Holly’s should be a little more...flashy.” Though Skips had always preferred sticking to the shadows, especially after the Great Cataclysm, Holly had always made a special effort to include him during Hollyween. Sometimes that would be as simple as extra streamers in his corner of the house, but one year he had accepted her invitation to the annual party at The Breaker Box. Thankfully there were lots of dark corners he was able to hid in, but it had felt nice, being near the others without being forced to socialize. He felt she deserved something that stood out, something extra festive.
“My neighbors have a few trees that reach across the fence line, you can go see if anything catches your interest.” You handed him the pair of scissors, thought you doubted they would be strong enough to cut through much of anything. “There should be some actual clippers in the shed.”
It took him a moment for him to retie his shoes, giving you a chance to focus on the next garland. Those boots were about the only thing he wore that prepared him for how cold it was outside. You wondered if he was simply caught off guard, or if that was the warmest thing he owned. When he disappeared out your back door, you weren’t too concerned about his ability to stay warm. It was only a few minutes before the door was flung open again.
“So that’s, like, a lot of snow.” A heavy gust of wind shut the door behind Skips, with a flurry of snow flakes following him inside. You could see dots of white stuck in his jet black hair. Glancing out your living room window, you could see the previously clear view was now clouded in a white curtain of snow flakes. You rushed to your feet, to see that your front lawn was already covered in a mess of it. Though you weren’t fond of the ways it disrupted the functioning of your entire city, there was still something about falling snow that filled you with joy. It was the excitement of watching the landscape change into small mountains of white, turning into a playground for everyone to enjoy.
“You wanna take a break? I’ve got some snow gear you can borrow.” Skips nodded vigorously, sending the flakes that hadn’t yet melted floating to the ground. You waved for him to follow you upstairs, into your bedroom closet. While you had a wool coat that would block the wind out, Skips needed something to keep the snow from drenching his sweatshirt once it melted. You tossed him your leather jacket while you kept digging for gloves and hats. He had shrugged it on over his sweatshirt by the time you looked back at him.
“That...looks really good on you.” It was a simple jacket, zipping straight down the center with a snap at the collar. The shoulders settled well on his own, despite the extra bulk of his sweatshirt underneath. “I think you should keep it.”
“I-I can’t do that, I know how often you wear it…” His hands were already shoved in the pockets, his shoulders sagging as if he could simply shrug off your attention.
“Consider it a way to ease my mind. This way I’ll know you’re staying warm and dry when I’m not around to bother you about it.” He rolled his eyes at you, but his smile was as brilliant as ever. “Here, take these gloves, too.”
Skips didn’t argue any further, stretching the gloves over his thin fingers. Together, you were a vision of black and gray, racing each other down the stairs and out the front door. The wind had thankfully calmed a little, and the snow added a layer of insulation to keep the chill from cutting straight through your clothing. Though you knew it had to be late into the evening at this point, the streetlights reflecting off the snow would be more than enough light.
Skips ran ahead of you, nearly falling when he stepped into a deceptively deep snow bank. It crossed your mind that shoveling the driveway now before the snow got too deep might be a good idea, but another half hour of accumulation while you simply enjoyed the falling flakes couldn’t be that bad, could it? While he was distracted by the neighbor kids squealing with laughter as they hurled snowballs at each other, sprinting up the street while their parents watched from the safety of their front porches, you scooped up a handful of snow yourself, carefully balling it up while you closed in on him. Skips only had a moment to catch your devious laughter before a snowball pelted him square in the back.
“Hey, that’s not fair!” You were already running to find cover behind your car, leaping over the bank that nearly tripped him earlier. He was quick on your heels, but unfortunately for him, packing a snowball that didn’t disintegrate in midair was harder than it looked. You were already balling up your second one when a cloud of snow exploded against your shoulder.
“You have to pack them harder than that if you want them to land!” He was standing just behind the hood of your car, making his chest the perfect target. Your aim was precise—but he ducked. Crouched low against the ground, he was able to pack a snowball extra dense, though he was already starting to feel the cold seeping through his gloves. The moment he saw your face appear beside the grill of the car, he threw it without thinking.
The impact of densely packed ice against your cheek left you momentarily stunned. A split second of numbness exploded into stinging pain that made your eyes water. He was a quick learner, you had to give him that.
“Skips, you’re not,” you sniffled, making you sound even more pathetic than you looked, “you’re not supposed to aim at someone’s face.” You gloved hand rubbed at the stinging skin, easing the pain.
“I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t meant to! I-I mean, I thought you were going to lunge for me, so I just threw it and—” He reached a hand out, offering to pull you in for a hug. It was just the opening you needed to scoop up a handful of snow and shove it down the front of his sweatshirt. He nearly screamed, turning heads in your direction while you sprinted to the other side of your house, leaving Skips behind.
Your laughter created a trail for him to follow, desperately shaking out his sweatshirt and biting back curses while he gave chase. When the initial shock passed, he zipped up the leather jacket, refusing to make the same mistake again. Scooping up another handful of snow, he knew there was a fence on this side of the house that would prevent you from making it far, even with your head start. Sure enough, you were attempting to scale your fence using the air condenser, but the fabric of your coat was snagging against the wood. Once you heard Skips coming, you shrugged it off your shoulders with a squeal of fear, heaving yourself halfway over the fence before he could reach you.
You weren’t quite quick enough. Skips grabbed the waist of your pants, shoving handful after handful of snow down your underwear while you pleaded for mercy. He did feel bad about how hard that snowball hit your face, and the way it sounded like you were being murdered from your screams, he was afraid your neighbors might investigate soon. Wrapping an arm around your waist, he pulled you back to this side of the fence, taking a misstep in the uneven snow and falling to the ground with you in his arms.
“You are an MONSTER, I cannot believe you just did that to me!” Despite your protests, and the threat of frostbite on your ass if you didn’t change soon, you were both laughing. “I might die, you know. What will you tell the others?”
“I’ll tell them that I got to touch your butt.” With how numb his fingers were, he hadn’t felt much of anything, but the mortified look on your face was the reaction he was hoping for.
“You are such a child!” You tried pushing away from him, but without your wool coat, the cold of the wind and snow was making you shiver.
“Pretty sure you were the one who started it.” He pulled you closer, hesitating just a moment before pressing his lips against yours. His mouth was hot against yours, tempting you to explore deeper, to press you tongue between his lips. Without the first-time nerves in the way, you found a rhythm quickly. The heat of his body against yours melted the chill on your skin. He shifted to lay on his back, urging you to move on top of him. It felt...really good to have him under you like this, not just to have the snow off your skin, but the way you could feel his heart beating in his chest, how his hands rubbed the small of your back, gently pressing you against him. A moan passed between your lips, a sound that Skips drank up greedily.
“EWWWW!”
“What are they doing over there!”
“That’s what Mom and Dad do when they make us go to bed early...”
You pushed away from him with an embarrassed laugh, finding your footing and dusting yourself off before helping Skips to his feet. “We should, uh, head back inside. I don’t really want to explain this to their parents…”
“Yeah, I...got a little carried away.” There was a hint of sheepishness in his voice, a nervous laugh that always made your heart beat a little faster with how precious it sounded, but you had a feeling he didn’t really regret anything. Neither did you. He grabbed your coat, shaking the snow out of it before draping it over your shoulders. “You should probably change into something dry, anyway.”
He wasn’t wrong. The snow in your pants had nearly melted, making your jeans cling to you with an uncomfortable dampness. Walking back to your front door, you gave a weak wave to your neighbors across the street, who were obviously whispering about you from behind their strategically-held mugs. Just what you needed, more rumors spreading about “the weird neighbor.” It had taken increasingly creative ways to explain away why you had essentially became a hermit for half the year, then the surge of visitors coming and going from your house at all hours. At least getting caught kissing your—boyfriend?—was relatively normal in comparison.
Opening your front door, warm air washed over you. All you could think about was getting out of your soaked jeans. Your wool coat fell to the ground, snow-encrusted shoes abandoned by the front door so you could put a towel under them later. With you back turned to him, you didn’t think anything about stripping down in the privacy of your own home until your jeans were tugged halfway down. They were too damp to pull back up, making you panic. You didn’t want him to see you like this, it was too—
“Wait, don’t turn around! I-I kind of forgot that your were right there, and I can’t get my pants back up, so just...don’t look!” Having already shed the leather jacket and soggy sweatshirt, his tee shirt was pulled halfway over his head.
You knew the lighting rigs at the theater were heavy, and he spent hours a day moving them, lifting them, climbing around on narrow beams to make sure each ray of light added the right amount of drama, but you hadn’t expected to see the physical evidence of his work etched into his body. His usual baggy clothing had been hiding defined muscles in his back that flexed with each movement, and biceps that were surprisingly toned for how slim he was. No wonder he was able to pluck you off the fence so easily. Catching yourself watching a moment longer than you really should have, you quickly stepped out of your jeans and took the stairs two at a time up to your bedroom.
“I mean, I saw you change plenty of times before you had the glasses, even afterwards! You...spent a lot of time in the dark, it was kind of hard not to see you...” Though he intended the words to sound comforting, the instant they left his mouth he could hear exactly how creepy they sounded. “It’s not like I watched you watched you, it-it was just nice to be around you, even when you couldn’t see me!”
There were never really secrets when it came to Skips, not since he revealed the truth about the Great Cataclysm, about the armaments you helped him gather. He was earnest in a way that, more often than not, ended up with him putting his foot in his mouth. That’s how you knew he had taken an interest in you, not just some idealized version of you that so many of the others had built up and loved before realizing you were just as flawed as everyone else. So many messages shared between you, many you had saved screenshots of just in case you ever lost your chat logs for whatever reason. You already knew he had seen you naked plenty of times, whether inadvertently or otherwise, but the context between you had shifted now.
There had been enough firsts between your for the day. Some things, you figured, were worth being patient for.
Warm and dry in a pair of oversized pajama pants, you bounded down the stairs with a fresh shirt for Skips tucked under your arm. You weren’t trying to give away all of your clothing, but it was sort of your fault that his own clothes had gotten soaked. Handing the shirt off to him without a word, you tried you best to keep your eyes focused on the mess of evergreen boughs that still littered your floor. There was so much work left, and you were already exhausted. At the very least, you had to get your own garland hung above the door while you still had the help. You left the nails up year around, so all you needed was the extra set of hands. The flames in your fireplace were also growing low, a problem that was much more immediate in your mind.
You had stacked an excess of wood of both sides of the fireplace, preferring the idea of having to take it back outside if the snow never fell over searching for it in the dark if the power went out. Stacking a few logs on the embers, you watched the flames dwindle into a faint glow before crawling up the fresh fuel, crackling with hunger. Warm arms surprised you from behind, wrapping around your waist and holding you tight against his chest.
“Thank you for pushing me to tell you how I feel. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to tell you, and now I’m kicking myself for all the moments like this that I’ve missed out on.” You wanted to disagree with him, feeling like this had been more perfect than you ever imagined. Instead, you leaned you head back against his shoulder, a content sigh escaping your lips with a smile
“I guess we’ll just have to catch up on lost time, then. Let’s start with getting that garland up.”