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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"I designed it to match the cross," he said, carefully lifting the ring out of the box to hold it up so that she could get a better look at it. "I wanted it to be something that represented both of us-- something more personal than just some ring I picked up at the store."

His smile softened, grew a little more loving, if that was even possible. "And I wanted you to think of me every time you look at it."

"I will, of course I will." Elizabeth wasn't going to think of much besides Gai for the next few days. Her fiance Gai. She took another moment to admire the ring, then hurriedly pulled off her glove so Gai could put it on her.

That was all the incentive Gai needed to take her hand and carefully slide it onto her finger-- one of the plus sides of using mission points to have it made was the fact that he could just request that they make it in her ring size, meaning that the fit was perfect.

That accomplished, he sat back on his heels a bit to admire how it looked on her finger. Also perfect, just as he'd imagined it would be. It looked like it belonged there, he realized with a thrill of happiness and definite pride.

And the moment Elizabeth realized it fit perfectly was magical too. Her face lit up when she felt it slide snugly onto her finger. And in her opinion too, it looked like it had always been there. She covered her mouth again and looked up at Gai before launching herself at him again. Just to hold him again and hold onto the moment.

And again he caught her in his arms and just held her tight without a word. All of this still seemed like a dream to him, the man who had spent nearly the entirety of his life knowing that he was a fake, a mistake, always trying so desperately to become the real thing.

Elizabeth had chosen to marry him of her own free will. That, right there, made him feel more complete than he'd ever thought possible.

Elizabeth stayed still in his arms for a moment, replaying the entire scene in her head one more time before pulling back again to dive in for a kiss. That seemed like the second appropriate response to it.

"I have to get you a ring," she managed to say between kisses. But hers was so perfect, how would she think up something that was a combination of both of them that wasn't what was on her finger now? She'd have to think about it.

"You don't have to get me anything," he murmured against her lips. There was more he wanted to say than just that, but kissing was a distraction he wasn't willing to put an end to, not just yet. He wanted to savor this entire moment, keep it going as long as possible. It was perfect, she was perfect, everything was perfect.

"I already have everything I could ever want." And it was the truth. That "yes" was all he needed from her; compared to that, a ring was nothing.

"Maybe you do--" Elizabeth grinned against Gai's lips and split her sentence in half for a kiss. "--but I want to ask you to marry me too. It's the only chance I'll get.

"And when are you going to figure out that when I do something for you, it's half because I want to?" She laughed and shuddered a little from the chill. The snow was melting into her skirt, and truth be told, she really couldn't feel her legs anymore.

Now Gai sobered slightly, the look in his eyes growing soft and sad. Logically, he should have been aware of that by now. Emotionally... old psychological scars were still healing. The process was long and slow and couldn't be rushed, he knew that much, but every now and then (like now) he felt bad that he wasn't able to react the way a normal person would.

"I know," he said, kissing her again. "I just still have a hard time believing that people want to do things for me."

The moment Gai's face clouded, Elizabeth's did as well. She hadn't thought this would be so strange for Gai, she'd thought that it was only normal that she give him a ring as well--to symbolize her love for him. Their relationship had always been equal, Elizabeth had never felt like something won and kept. She wanted a ring for Gai so that he would think of her when he saw it.

Elizabeth ran her fingers over Gai's cheek, trying to soothe away his sad expression. "I'm not 'people' anymore, though. I'm going to love you until the day I die, you can lean on that always, Gai."

He lifted his hand to rest over hers and hold it there and just leaned into her touch, letting his eyes slide shut. He'd spent his entire life trying to prove that he was more than just an imposter, and now that he'd achieved that, it was still a strange, alien feeling to him, one that he didn't always know how to handle.

But that didn't mean that he would ever want to give it up. It just meant that he needed to work on learning to love himself the same way that Elizabeth loved him.

"I'll love you even longer than that-- you can count on that much too."

"Oh I see, it's a contest now," Elizabeth laughed and playfully headbutted Gai before kissing him again.

"No... marriage is a partnership, Gai. You have to let me shoulder as much as what I let you shoulder. And you have to believe that I want to keep you safe and happy as much as you want to keep me safe and happy. Otherwise... I might as well be a very attractive vase, for all the good I would do you."

She smiled lightly and reached with her free hand to find his. "That's the one thing I want before we're married--I want you to feel comfortable relying on me."

When Elizabeth headbutted him, Gai laughed and leaned forward just enough to rub noses with her before her lips were on his in a kiss. "You know me. I never was one to back down from a challenge," he teased her right back when they finally broke for air.

She was right, though, and he knew it. His desire to make sure that he was never unable to protect anyone ever again didn't trump Elizabeth's desire to do the same thing for him. They weren't just protecting each other; they were supporting each other, which was, at its heart, what a marriage really was. A partnership, just like she'd said.

He just had to squash down those overprotective instincts.

"I want to feel comfortable doing that," he said, the corners of his lips lifting back into a smile. "I know it won't be easy, and it will be going against everything I've ever learned about the world, but you deserve a husband who is as comfortable relying on you as you are on him."

Edited 2013-12-31 09:56 (UTC)

"That's what I want," she said, smiling back at him and nodding a little. "I know it will be hard for you, I know you too well to think that you can just make that happen right now. But I never want you to think of me as something fragile, or something to be protected from the world." Hidden away, watched through glass. "I've had enough of that. If you go somewhere dangerous, I want to go with you. If you have to cry, I want it to be on my shoulder. I want you to fight with me, tell me I'm wrong when you think I'm wrong, tell me what little things I do drive you mad. No putting me on a pedestal. No... growing to be afraid of me, no resentment."

"I've never thought you were fragile." Never, not for a moment, not from their very first meeting where she'd told him what her life had been like. "That's why I fell in love with you in the first place. I didn't want a partner who needed my protection all the time, even if I felt like I wanted to protect them. I know you can take care of yourself when I'm not around."

Once more he leaned in to brush a kiss to her lips. "And I would never want you to stop letting me know when you disagree with me, either." Now he couldn't help but smirk a little. "If you ask me, I think it's hot."

Edited 2014-01-03 07:45 (UTC)

True, Elizabeth had never gotten the impression that Gai thought she couldn't handle something. Maybe she was more afraid of what might happen after they were married, afraid that he would want to keep her safe so badly that he would become another Comstock. Or, he would see more and more of her power and grow uneasy. Suddenly, there were a dozen things she worried about Gai seeing.

She leaned into the kiss, trying to banish the thought and listen to the low tone of Gai's voice. The comment about disagreeing with him being hot though... Elizabeth blinks self-consciously and blushes a little.

"So... we'll never have an argument that doesn't end in sex?"

Sounded good to her.

"No complaints on my end." He laughed, amused by the thought. No, he couldn't really see any downsides there either when she put it that way. "I love the fact that you aren't afraid to tell me when you think I'm wrong about something, or if I've gone too far."

Another laugh, this time his tone edging on something a little warmer and less innocent. "I didn't even mind the lamp once the bruise went away, but that isn't a tactic I'd want you to employ on a regular basis."

"I knew it!" Elizabeth playfully pushed Gai's shoulder. "I knew I'd actually hurt you, but you didn't say anything!" She groaned and buried her fact in Gai's shoulder. "I hit you with a lamp and you still want to marry me. You're unhinged."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he joked. "Besides, it was barely more than a tap. I had it coming for the things I said to you."

He turned his head enough to kiss her hair, now slightly damp from all of the snowflakes that clung to it. Truth be told, he was starting to get a bit chilled from being outside so long, lovely though the scenery was. The thought of going back to the house and making some hot chocolate and cuddling in front of the fire was starting to sound more and more appealing with each passing moment.

"Still hit you with furniture, I think that counts as 'terrible and awful' no matter what you said to me," Elizabeth replied, tucking her very cold nose against Gai's neck.

"...I can't feel my legs."

"I can fix that."

It didn't take much effort on his part to slip his arms beneath her and stand, scooping her up into his arms.

... okay, perhaps he should have asked first, but given her positive response every other time he'd done this, somehow he doubted there would be much in the way of complaints on her end.

Elizabeth makes a startled noise when Gai lifts her, but other than that there's no complaint. In fact, she giggles quietly and tucks her forehead against Gai's jaw while she admires her ring a little more.

...then a thought occurs to her.

"...Booker... And Robert."

In her opinion, there isn't any elaboration necessary. Gai had to be thinking what she's thinking now.

He knew, and he knew exactly why she would be concerned about that. Booker wasn't the sort of person to just accept an announcement of her engagement (to Gai, no less) without protest, most likely of the violent sort.

Unless, of course, Gai had spoken to Booker beforehand. Which he had. Risk-taker though he was, even that was a bit much for him to want to chance.

"It's all right. I already talked to them about it and got their permission." And surprisingly, it didn't involve any sort of forceful coercion on his part, either.

"You did?" Elizabeth sounds genuinely shocked--both that Gai spoke with Booker, Robert, and Rosalind before the fact, and that they had agreed to it. She smiled, wistfully, into Gai's chest.

"And they kept it a secret all this time..." Honestly, that was the most surprising thing of all: that they hadn't tipped her off or mentioned it to one another loudly to steal Gai's thunder or prepare her to answer a certain way. She was grateful for it.

"Gai..." She twisted the ring on her finger, just to see it from every angle again. It was still as beautiful as the first time she'd seen it, and replaying the moment in her mind only made her love everything about Gai's proposal all over again. That night was Christmas, obviously, so it wouldn't do to be away from home. But... "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

~~Her, hopefully.~~

"I did, and they did," was his response, his smile growing a bit broader. To be honest, he was almost surprised that none of them had said anything about it, intentionally or not. Not only were they still not his biggest fans, secrets like that were always the sort that were the most difficult to keep; all it would take was a single slip of the tongue and his plans could have been spoiled before they'd even been put into effect. He owed them for that and he knew it.

But that was a matter for later, not right now. Right now was just for them, and the sight of Elizabeth admiring the ring again made Gai's heart swell. Yes, all of this had been just as perfect as he'd imagined it would be. He'd already gotten the one thing he'd wanted most for Christmas; anything that happened after this would just be the icing on the cake.

Since Elizabeth was asking, however... "Whatever you'd like me to be doing, innocent or not."

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