So This is Christmas

So This is Christmas

For James, Christmas meant running around like a maniac all throughout Diagon Alley, trying to pick out the perfect gift for Lily. It was to be their first Christmas together, and James wanted everything to be flawless. His parents had re-decorated their house in rich reds and creams with holly and mistletoe everywhere, an elegant twelve-foot tree, a warm, crackling fire constantly burning in every fireplace, and numerous white candlesticks in shiny silver candleholders in every room by the time James and Lily got there, and they had festive classical music playing in the background at all times. It was quite picturesque, James thought, and he had been so delighted that not only had his parents allowed him to invite Lily home for the holidays, but that she had said yes. Now that Christmas was actually upon him, though, he was a nervous wreck. What if he got her the wrong thing? What if his normally-pretty-cool parents decided to share embarrassing stories about his childhood over a nice, sweet ham? What if his grandmother pretended to be senile again and whacked him in the shins with her cane, going on and on about how he was too skinny and asking him 'slyly' if he and Lily made each other happy, in the dirtiest sense. Of course, he doubted nothing could have been as bad as last year, when his grandmother, who was not actually senile, told him and Sirius (who had been staying with the Potters at the time) that she was perfectly okay with her grandson's homosexuality and that they shouldn't feel like they had to hide their relationship to please her. Luckily, Sirius was Sirius, and so he took it in stride. Christmas was Lily helping his mother make pies in the kitchen and his dad whispering over a game of chess what a lovely girl she was; that she was 'a real keeper'. Christmas was Lily walking him to the mistletoe just so she could kiss him, and Christmas was the first time they said I love you. For the record, she said it first.

For Peter, Christmas meant butterbeer and eggnog, and lots of it. He wasn't a drunk; he needed it. Christmas meant wondering why he'd come home in the first place, if his parents were just going to fight again. He wished he was at James's--wait, Lily was there, so definitely not--or at least at Hogwarts. Christmas was late nights in the Muggle town, watching bad movies and eating too much popcorn. He met a girl there--Julie, a Muggle--and fooled around with her a little, but it was empty. He was lonely, and so was she. Julie chewed her gum too loudly and spoke with a harsh accent, and her hair was a horrible, orangey shade of blonde, and Peter didn't even like her very much, but she was there, and she gave Peter a reason not to spend the majority of his holiday with bickering parents and bad presents.

For Sirius, Christmas meant independence. This was the first year he had a place of his own; even if it was a shabby flat with hardly any furniture and nothing in the refrigerator except firewhisky and bologna (for sustenance purposes only--usually he ate out), it was still his. His and Remus's, actually, if only for two weeks. Christmas was the three-foot fake tree whose base was cut on an angle that they only had because Remus never had a Christmas without a tree, and Sirius didn't want to disappoint him. Christmas was not going to that party on Saturday night because they could barely keep their hands off each other at the restaurant. Christmas meant sex, and lots of it. There was sex in the morning, when they were still groggy and hardly awake--that was the sweetest sex. The kinkiest sex came in the afternoon when they were bored, and Sirius just happened to have handcuffs and a whip lying around (er, under the bed). The best sex was at night, though, after a day's worth of building up, and the comfort of the darkness. They both loved the darkness. Remus was most comfortable when he thought he could hide from everyone, and Sirius loved the idea that anything could happen in the dark without him ever seeing or knowing. Sirius always loved a good mystery. Christmas meant Remus reading his favorite Yeats poems out loud to him, and not even minding when Sirius didn't listen. Remus also read A Christmas Carol, twice, even though he hated Dickens, because Sirius thought that instead of poetry, they should read something more festive. Christmas meant candy canes and eggnog with way too much rum, and Christmas was the quiet, perfect way Sirius and Remus were able to live together for two whole weeks.

For Remus, Christmas meant chocolate. Any time of year meant chocolate, but this Christmas was special because it was a present from Sirius, and imported from France. Christmas was slowly running his tongue along a chocolate square and watching Sirius's eyes widen and his breath to go from normal to ragged and heavy as Remus flicked his tongue over it, getting his fingers, lips, and chin deliciously messy. Christmas was half-melted chocolate all over his fingers and, consequentially, all over Sirius's face and body, and Christmas was Sirius thrusting his tongue into Remus's mouth with the chocolate still on his tongue because he couldn't stand just watching anymore. French chocolate and Sirius were two tastes that mixed wonderfully together. Remus got hard just thinking about it. Christmas was their tiny, lopsided fake tree in Sirius's dingy flat that Sirius affectionately named Tiny Tim after the character in A Christmas Carol, because of its size and its disability. Christmas was being kissed awake by the sexiest man with the worst morning breath and the freedom to have sex whenever they wanted, because there was no Peter to walk in and ask them what they were doing and no James to barge in without knocking, only to shriek as if puberty had never happened. Christmas was being comfortable with who he was because he knew Sirius's love for him was unconditional, spanning both the werewolf and the homosexual man. Christmas was the peace of not having to worry about what was going on in the world outside of dinner reservations and the occasional party, and Christmas was Sirius pulling him out of bed and murmuring, "Get up already, Moony. Santa came."