Chapter Text
Merry fucking Christmas Eve to me, Rusty thinks to himself. There's no going to bed excited to see if Santa ate the cookies and milk he's left out, no looking forward to a picture-perfect family unwrapping presents in the morning. Instead, he's personified dead weight to his friend who was kind enough to haul his inconsolable, sobbing, sorry excuse of himself from wherever in the snow he'd wandered after a nasty, truly just spirited argument with his parents.
Rusty and Devin step through the aftermath of another one of Minnesota's winter storms, the former wiping at the corners of his eyes, face turned away from both his friend and the gentle fluorescent lighting of a nearby streetlamp. Despite this, he feels Devin's stare nonetheless.
"Rus– it's okay, you know?" Devin's brows furrow and a frown tugs at the corners of his lips. It's an expression Rusty's grown well acquainted with as tensions between him and his family have grown in the past few weeks leading up to Christmas Eve. It's an expression he's memorized down to the softening of his friend's jaw, and if Devin wasn't just purely the nicest person Rusty'd ever known (even when he doesn't know if he deserves it– especially when he doesn't deserve it), he'd take it as the most patronizing type of pity.
Rusty scowls slightly and he looks to Devin, looking back at him with a kindness he can't help but feel he doesn't deserve. He's never going to get used to that.
"I'm serious, Rusty…" Devin sighs, fog gently falling from his lips. He adjusts his beanie, a few brown locks of hair poking out from beneath its rim. "It wasn't your fault. I really doubt it."
Rusty feels his chest tighten and he isn't sure what's wrong with him. His parents' words echo in his head– ungrateful brat, never satisfied– and he hates to admit that they almost resonate, now. The embodiment of kindness, a man who can probably count the amount of times he's lied on one hand, reassures him that he's okay, and he still doesn't believe him. With this, he has nobody to blame but himself.
His parents' words echo in his mind so loudly that he nearly echoes their sound. An empty space filled with the ringing of a bell, tone lowered by the touch of a hand.
Devin puts his hand on Rusty's shoulder before Rusty can counter him. They stand beneath the streetlight, and Rusty's guilt, his scowl, eyes red from crying– all of it is illuminated, he has nothing to hide, nothing he can hide. Devin holds Rusty forward, facing him, and he nearly breaks.
"F–fuck, I'm sorry, man." Rusty mumbles through gasps, chapped lips colder by the second as he rapidly inhales, exhales, trying to get himself back together. Devin watches him, differently from how anyone else would, he's sure. Devin stays composed, but not in spite of Rusty's emotions, twisting, contorting, snapping. He's composed in response to him, balancing him, anchoring him. He holds him down when he wants to run.
"It's okay," Devin breathes. "You're okay, alright?"
The hand on his shoulder tightens comfortingly and Rusty gasps out a quiet "yeah, yeah", following Devin as they continue the path to him and his roommates place. It's a small place, not too fancily decorated last he saw. But it's cozy, the merriest he'll get this Christmas Eve.
Devin glances at him one more time before looking forward again, wrapping an arm around Rusty as they walk. For a moment, it really does feel like the holidays.
"I'll make you some hot chocolate when we get there." He says. Rusty hears his smile. "We have a while until Travis is back, anyways."