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"Do you think M wants a nose hair trimmer?" Dick asks. They're in Macy's, because Dick insists on going through every store when they shop - they already spent forty-five fucking minutes in fucking Papyrus where Dick talked to some random weirdo about stationery.
"Um," Jason says. "You know, I don't really check on that for him. That's really between you and Apollo."
"Hm," Dick says. They wander through the store, Dick touching everything in sight because he can't see with his eyes. Jason's pretty much done - he bought a tie for Bruce, a new skirt and tiara for Tim, and he has to hit up Hal for something for Roy - but Dick can't decide what color to dye his hair, much less what to get his boyfriends for Christmas.
"What about that guy?" Dick asks later. They're at the Disney Store shopping for Lian, loaded up with lightsabers and a Belle dress.
"What guy?" Jason asks. He can't remember which Lion King stuffed animals Lian has. Between all of them, no one seems to be able to stop buying her toys and books and all kinds of things most of them never had.
"The one staying with you," Dick says. "Harvey?"
"Oh," Jason says. He sets down a Jasmine tea set and narrowly avoids getting run over by Bart. "You know, I don't know." He starts to say something else, but Dick finds a display of motorized Cars and they spend the next ten minutes playing with them until some toddlers start hovering over them.
"Dickie," Jason says later when they leave the story with three bags worth of presents for Lian and a stuffed Thumper for Dick. "I gotta tell you something."
Dick looks at him. He still has glitter in his hair from trying on one of the Rapunzel crowns. "Are you coming out to me? Because you already did that, Jay."
"Fucker," Jason says. "No. It's kind of important, Dickie."
"Oh," Dick says. He shuffles his bags around so he can get one of the rock candies they bought at the candy store. "Are you sick?"
"No," Jason says.
"Ooh," Dick says. "Did Bruce propose? Are you gonna have a spring wedding?"
"Ew," Jason says. "No. Do you see a ring on my finger?"
Dick slides his bags onto his wrist so he can take Jason's hand. "Hm," Dick says. "No. Unless the really rich people make invisible rings now. Hey, that would be cool -"
"Dickie," Jason says. "Focus."
He buys Dick a Cinnabon at the food court and sits him down. Dick makes a mess of all the red and green frosting and Jason looks across from him and says, "I'm gonna go part time at the store."
"Huh?" Dick asks. He has icing in his fucking eyelash.
Jason sighs. He takes one of Dick's sticky hand in his and says, "I enrolled in the spring semester at GU. I think Bruce will help, and… And I want to do this, Dickie."
"Oh," Dick says. He licks his lips, frowns. "So you won't be here as much?"
"No," Jason says. "Hey. I didn't want to work at Hot Topic forever, right?"
"I guess not," Dick says. "I never really thought about it."
"I know," Jason says. "I want… I think I might want to be an English teacher."
"Hm," Dick says. "Like Ms. Park? Man, was she a hottie. She'd come in wearing those little sweaters -"
"She also picked out some really cool books for us to read," Jason points out.
"Yeah," Dick says. He frowns. "But what about me, Jay?"
"What do you mean?" Jason asks, even though he kind of knows. He and Dick do everything together. He wouldn't even work at the stupid mall if it wasn't for Dick. He wouldn't have the friends he has if it wasn't for Dick. He -
"What should I do?" Dick says. "I mean, if you're growing up, that means I should, too, right?"
Jason reaches over to wipe some of the icing off Dick's face. "You don't have to, man," Jason says. "You can do whatever you want. I'm still gonna be here."
They split the rest of Dick's Cinnabon and hit a few more stores before Dick starts getting impatient in the stores. Jason kicks him out of Barnes & Noble and promises to find him something good for M while Dick runs off to go see him at the gym. He wanders around for a while and picks out a couple of books for Harvey while he's there. He still hasn't told Dick about him and he's not sure he wants to.
*
"You're rolling them too thick," Jason says. "They're gonna be fat."
Dick makes a face at him. "Maybe I want them to be fat, Jay," he says. There's flour on his nose and all over the apron Jason borrowed him. The whole kitchen is already a disaster area - Bruce is at work and Damian decided he'd rather hang out with Jon than make Christmas cookies, so it's just the two of them.
Dick uses the snowman cookie cutter. "Maybe I want the biggest, baddest snowman in town."
"But they'll get all smooshed together, Dickie," Jason says patiently. "Look," he says. He points to his side of the counter, where there are half a dozen perfect snowflakes and gingerbread men and Christmas trees. "See, these ones will turn out right."
Dick stares him down, then reaches over, grabs a handful of the dough and smushes all the snowflakes back together into a big ball.
Twenty minutes later, Jason and Dick are still rolling around the floor getting dough and flour and sugar into each other's hair when Harvey stumbles into the kitchen. He's wearing sweats and one of his old band t-shirts and he stares down at them as Dick tries to shove raw dough into Jason's mouth.
"No, Dickie!" Jason's yelling. "Salmonella! Dickie - oh, hey Harv."
"Hi," Harvey says. He looks around the kitchen, steps into a pile of flour when he moves over to get a closer look at them.
"Hi Harvey," Dick says. He grins up at them, pats some dough into Jason's cheek. "You wanna help make Christmas cookies?"
"Uh," Harvey says. "Do I have to roll around on the floor?"
"Maybe," Jason says. He grins, makes a grab for Harvey's leg. Harvey tries to kick him away, but Jason's stronger than he looks and holds on tight, half climbing up Harvey's leg until Dick lets him go and Jason gets to his feet.
"Jesus," Harvey says. He looks Jason over, from the little pink apron Bruce bought him a while back to the flour all but turning his hair white. "You're a mess."
"Just a bit," Jason agrees. Harvey reaches out, cups his cheek and wipes a smear of butter from his chin. He leans in and kisses Jason's nose, and Jason laughs.
"Maybe come get me for the clean up?" Harvey asks. "You're gonna need at least one shower."
"Yeah," Jason says. The way Harvey stares at him knocks the breath right out of him. Jason licks his lips. "Yeah, we can do that."
"I'll be upstairs," Harvey says. He ruffles Jason's hair. "Have fun, kid."
Jason watches him go, then turns around to start remaking the dough. Knowing Dick, it's not even worth trying to clean up yet.
"So," Dick says a little while later. They finally have some cookies in the oven, and Jason's melting the chocolate for the peanut butter balls while Dick rolls the dough. "What's with you two?"
"Huh?" Jason asks. He bats Dick's hand away from the chocolate and keeps stirring.
"Come on, Jay," Dick says. "You guys were like - holy shit, are you guys -"
"Dickie," Jason says. Dick's stopped what he's doing to stare at Jason. "Don't freak out."
"I'm not freaking out," Dick says. "You have two boyfriends and you didn't tell me."
"It's not," Jason says. "I don't know if it's - Harvey's -"
"He's old," Dick says.
"He's younger than Bruce," Jason says. He starts rolling the cookies for Dick, and Dick slaps his hand away so he can do it himself.
"Still old," Dick says.
"Shut up," Jason says. "M and Apollo are older than you."
"Yeah, but they're not collecting social security," Dick teases. Jason sticks his tongue out at him, and Dick smudges chocolate on his face.
"I don't know, Jay," Dick says later. The peanut butter balls are cooling, and Dick's munching on one of the snowmen to "test them." They're standing outside while the dogs snuffle around in the snow.
"What don't you know?" Jason asks. Dick wraps his arms around him, getting them both messier than they already were. He smells like sugar and bad cologne and his stupid hair itches Jason's chin. When Dick hugs him, it always feels like he has more limbs than anyone else.
"It's just," Dick says. "When did we get so old?"
Jason snorts. He pinches Dick's side and Dick yelps, but just clings on tighter. "No one would ever mistake you for old, Dickie. You still call me every time you have to do laundry."
"Well it's the shirts that are two colors, Jay," Dick says. "I don't get how to sort them. And when I ask M he won't answer me and Apollo just laughs."
"Poor baby," Jason says.
"I should've got a sugar daddy like you," Dick says. Jason pinches him again.
"Nah," Jason says. "Bruce doesn't know how to do laundry, either. One time Alfred went on vacation and I came back home and everything was red."
"But you're happy, right?" Dick asks. He pulls away enough to look up at Jason, chocolate on his face and cookie crumbs in the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah, Dickie," Jason says. "I am."
They clean up their first mess so Jason can make icing for the sugar cookies, and they spend the next two hours decorating. Dick starts whining halfway through that he can't possibly decorate another snowman, so Jason sends out a mass text to everyone to help decorate the other three dozen cookies. Wally and Steph show up, then Kyle, who spends half an hour on each cookie and makes Jason want to punch him because they're almost too perfect.
"Hey, I'm an artist," Kyle says.
"So am I," Wally says, holding up a gingerbread man with half it's leg hanging off, its face barely visible through all the hair Wally decided to give it.
"Dick," Jason says. "You can eat that one, too."
He kicks everyone out of the kitchen for clean up, and then they all huddle up in the living room to watch Frosty and Rudolph. Harvey comes down around the time Rudolph meets Clarice, and Jason moves off the couch so Harvey can sit down and Jason can climb in his lap.
"Maybe I need two boyfriends," Wally says, looking at the two of them.
"Please," Steph says. "Do you even know where yours is?"
Wally scoops one of the marshmallows out of his mouth to throw it at her, but Dick swoops in and catches it with his mouth.
"Behave, children," Jason murmurs. He falls asleep on Harvey's shoulder with his feet in Dick's lap and has really bizarre dreams about abominable snowmen. When he wakes up, everyone's gone but Harvey and Dick, and Dick's babbling on to Harvey about how he always wanted to be in a band.
"I could teach you guitar," Harvey offers.
"No," Jason says. His eyes are barely open but he can hear Home Alone on TV. "He'll break yours, Harvey. Get him one of those kid ones."
"Mean," Dick says.
"Uh-huh," Jason says. He yawns. "Remember when you broke Roy's?"
"That was an accident," Dick says. "And Roy used to break his all the time."
"Cuz he was a rockstar," Jason says. "You know, like Harvey." He rubs his face against Harvey's beard, and Harvey laughs.
"So you were always a groupie, huh," Harvey teases, running his fingers up and down Jason's spine.
"Oh man," Dick tells him. "Jay used to -"
"Ssh," Jason says. "This is the best part."
Everyone shuts up so they can watch Kevin McCallister with his groceries, and then Jason passes out again. When he wakes up Dick's gone, and Harvey's watching Die Hard. He squirms in Harvey's lap so he can straddle him. Harvey looks exhausted, circles under his eyes from never getting enough sleep. Half the time when Jason gets up for work Harvey's still parked on the couch reading one of the books Jason left him.
"College boy, huh?" Harvey asks, and when Jason squints at him he says, "Dick told me."
"Oh," Jason says. "Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure yet, I've just been -"
"It'll be good," Harvey says. He pushes Jason's hair back from his face. "Might take away from your housewife duties, though."
"Well," Jason says. "You'll just have to take over, won't you?" Harvey makes a face, and Jason teases, "You can borrow my apron."
Harvey laughs, and it almost sounds like the way Bruce makes him laugh sometimes. "We'll see."