lucetilogs | Christmas tiiiime

Entry tags:

Christmas tiiiime

Who: Bioshock ~~Family~~ House! (and friends)
What: ITS CHRISTMAS! And they're going to be civil to each other dagnabbit
When: Christmas?
Where: The Bioshocker House!
Summary: Everyone is happy! Food! Presents! Puppies? Proposals! WAIT WAHT?!
Rating: P for words starting with P.

Tree? Check. It's pathetic and almost half the pine-needles are missing from getting dragged into the house.

Ornaments? Check.

Christmas dinner? Well...there's food, at least! Robert and Booker might have raided the supermarket for all the microwaveable and appropriate foods to have for Christmas. There's microwaved chicken, microwaved mashed potatoes, microwaved green beans that are really soggy and smell funny, microwaved rolls, and microwaved ham. Because there should be variety, damnit. There's also a pie sitting in the microwave, waiting. And vanilla ice cream.

Booker wouldn't call it a feast or anything but it's not like there's absolutely nothing to be seen.

They haven't gone all out or anything for the first Christmas they're spending together, nobody here really has the Christmas spirit to do it. Either the Luteces don't remember how to do Christmas or they just don't care - the latter is more likely and Booker hasn't done Christmas in decades so it feels off to even find a tree. Booker doesn't know if Elizabeth ever got to celebrate the holiday in her tower but as far as he's concerned this should be good enough.

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"We can save the dirty part for after that." No, he couldn't quite resist the urge to add that in. Already he had visions of garter belts dancing in his head...

... only to have them interrupted by Elizabeth rubbing his nose, which earned her a laugh. "I think my romance ability needs to recharge a little after tonight. I'd say this was my crowning achievement in that department."

Bragging, him? ... maybe a little.

"But not exactly your crowning moment of hubris, obviously," Elizabeth giggled, flicking his nose a little as a not-quite rebuke. "I love all of your romantic gestures, though. Carrying me around just because, dancing with me, our quiet evenings and our... more active ones..." she smiles up at Gai and rests her head on his shoulder.

"I want us to travel together. And then everything will be perfect." Implying, of course, that everything was nearly perfect already.

Gai just wiggled his nose in retaliation, though that was more ridiculous than anything else. At least her leaning her head on his shoulder like that put her at the perfect angle for him to be able to press a kiss to her forehead, which he did without hesitation.

"I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm not doing those things just to be romantic. I do them because they make you smile, and that's what matters most to me."

"You always make me smile. Everything you do makes me smile, in some way. The romantic things have other effects though, aside from me smiling."

"That's an added side effect," he purred. Dangerously close to her ear, no less.

"No fair," Elizabeth sighed back, melting into Gai's arms. "We're walking back to Booker and the Luteces, you're not being fair..."

Truthfully, Gai was starting to get a bit worked up on his end too... but he could calm himself down by reminding himself that they had all night tomorrow to do whatever they wanted. "Just think of this as a prelude to tomorrow night. Ask, and I'll do whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" Elizabeth grinned and pulled at one of the closures on Gai's coat idly. "I suppose it's a good time to ask you if you'll marry me, then," she joked, giggling and kissing him under his jaw.

"You ever had any doubts?" The tone of his voice made quite clear that he was teasing, because he knew that she knew he would never hesitate in the slightest to say yes.

Still, he ducked his head down to capture her lips in a deep kiss just to be sure. This was the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the entire universe, and he wanted to be sure she knew that too.

No, she really hadn't ever had any serious doubts. Nothing that she carried around for days, nothing that really stuck. Small things, niggling worries, but nothing that made her wonder if Gai loved her, or if he would protect her freedom and emotions when necessary, or if he would wake up one day and be terrified of her.

Elizabeth pressed into the kiss, her fingers drifting over Gai's cheek until she can press the cold metal of her ring against his skin. Just to remind him it was there, and she was going to be his.

Had he a free hand, he would've reached it up to rest over hers and recognize what she was signaling to him with that gesture. Instead, all he could do was channel the love and gratitude he felt into the kiss and hope that she got the message. Not that he had any doubts about that, either-- if there was one thing Elizabeth had always been good at, it was understanding him.

Sometimes even better than he understood himself. It was both terrifying and amazing all at once, and something he never, ever wanted to give up or change.

After a good long moment, Elizabeth pulled away looking absolutely stupid in love and resuming her position with her head on Gai's shoulder as he walked them back.

"Now I just need to get you used to Nemo." The puppy Booker had given her, and had been chewing on ribbon when they'd left. Part of understanding Gai was reading his expressions, and she had seen something on Gai's face when she'd looked over at him while cuddling Nemo.

"Is he even house-trained?" It was, by all accounts, a perfectly logical question to ask. But it was also a cover for his general discomfort around the puppy, because even though it was just a puppy and didn't look a thing like a Doberman, he still felt uneasy around the dog. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of having it in the house.

It was Elizabeth's present, though, and she was obviously thrilled by the puppy, so he knew that he was just going to have to put his own feelings aside and just deal with it. It wasn't as if he didn't have experience in that sort of thing.

"I'll train him!" Elizabeth frowned into Gai's shoulder and pulled at one of the closures on Gai's coat more. "Even if it's difficult though, I can't just give him up. He'd be so confused and upset. He'd wonder why I abandoned him..."

The thought depressed her, even if she wasn't about to give Nemo up. All she could see was a lonely puppy, waiting for someone to pay attention to him. And Booker too. Booker would have been hurt, as much as he'd try to hide it.

"Maybe I'll even train him to fight droids. How about that?" she smiled into Gai's shoulder faintly.

That earnest offer pulled a faint smile out of Gai, and he dropped another kiss against her hair. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Then his expression turned more serious. He couldn't keep on lying to her and pretending that he was just fine with Nemo when he clearly wasn't. He owed her an explanation for his hesitance, at the very least. "They sent dogs out after me when I escaped from the labs. Dobermans. They chased me to the cliff at the edge of the island, and that's how I ended up in the ocean."

He didn't think he really needed to say more than that to get the message across.

Oh dear... Gai had a very deep-seated fear of dogs, then. Elizabeth had suspected Gai didn't like dogs, but she hadn't known it was rooted in something that traumatic. Was the situation salvageable, then?

"Nemo isn't going to chase you, Gai," she said quietly, pressing her forehead to Gai's jaw in an attempt at comfort. "He'd rather eat ribbon than chase you. Plus you're six times bigger than he is. If either of you should be afraid, it's him."

"I know. And I'm not afraid of him," he said quickly, wanting to reassure her. "I'm just uncomfortable. But that's my problem to deal with, not yours. You don't have to worry about trying to change things for me."

It was true-- the puppy was too small and ridiculous to be frightening in the slightest. He doubted Nemo could do much damage even if he tried to bite. No, it was more that he feared he might have some sort of instinctive reaction if Nemo were ever to startle him when he wasn't expecting it.

Elizabeth fell into uncomfortable silence. Gai may have said that she didn't have to change things, but it seemed unfair to tell Gai to just deal with the problem. They were going to be married, they had to figure these things out together.

"I'll think of something."

"He doesn't look anything like a Doberman," he offered. "Sometimes it's hard to believe they're even the same species."

She wasn't happy with his answer; he could tell that much. Still, he was the one who needed to learn to be all right with dogs. The past was the past-- he couldn't let something that had happened over a decade ago still control his life. He wasn't that person anymore, and now it was time to start moving on from those fears too.

"...What does a doberman look like?" Elizabeth asked, trying not to sound too pathetic when asking. She wasn't exactly well-versed in dog breeds, but she suspected that a doberman wasn't fluffy or heavy-set like Nemo was. Maybe they were a little smarter, too. Nemo was adorable, but he seemed a little... simple. Elizabeth half expected to find him still eating ribbon when they got home.

"Bigger, and a lot meaner-looking. They look like the kind of dog you'd want for an attack or guard dog. Nemo just looks like someone bred a mop to a cotton ball and kept the results." Okay, so that wasn't the most flattering description of his fiancee's new pet, but it was fairly accurate as far as he was concerned.

"Hey, I like my cotton mop ball," Elizabeth laughed, poking Gai in the jaw teasingly. Perhaps she was only vehemently defending her little mutt because he reminded her of Booker. Mottled and rough-looking, but with a good heart.

Gai just responded by turning his head enough to playfully nip at her finger, then shower it with kisses. It wasn't that he hated the puppy, per se. It seemed more like a small, fluffy nuisance than anything else, and he did have to admit (albeit grudgingly) that it was kind of cute in a ridiculous way. As long as it didn't bite him, he supposed he could probably coexist with it.

Elizabeth laughed and held her finger still for Gai. Yes, she walked right into that. "See? You already have something in common--you both like to put my fingers in your mouths."

Gai couldn't help but laugh at that. She'd gotten him there, he would readily admit that much. "Hopefully not for the same reasons."

Christmas tiiiime

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