A/N: Aloha! So, I am writing a longer story but I'm not really happy with it right now. So I figured maybe I could post a few oneshots - but I need an excuse to post a healthy amount of them in one place. Thus, Word of the Day; though I may well do it wrong, since if I finish one site's word and still want to write...I am definitely going to find another's! Haha. Also, I'll take word prompts, if anybody has interesting words they want to see done. I like a challenge! And I'd like to see some community participation in something...I like a healthy community! So feel absolutely free to offer critique on my characterization or anything you deem needing of it. This is unbeta'd, so it may not be perfect. Warnings: Non-linear plot, not even all in the same universe. May contain character death, angst, tooth-aching fluff, foul language, maybe even triggery material. Will warn individually!
Disclaimer: I don't own this! Just the story and any OCs, but even then, I'm a share and share alike kinda girl.
Bough
1.
A branch of a tree, especially one of the larger or main branches.
"You brought me a Christmas tree."
Auggie tried his damndest to stare at Annie, incredulous, bemused, confused - all and more. It smelled strongly of resin and all of his childhood Christmases, and the boughs were just as prickly and sticky as he remembered. He smiled without really meaning to, reaching out to the top of it and snorting. It wasn't even five feet tall. "A baby Christmas tree!" It was cute, how she sometimes just kind of forgot that he was blind, but really. Blue spruce needles all over his poor apartment and all he really got out of it was the smell? He was pretty sure the smell came in a can.
All the same, he could practically feel Annie's pride radiating as she also touched the tree, sending all of the branches a-tremble. "Well, yeah," Nonchalant, like that was the absolute most normal thing in the world. That was Annie. "It looked lonely! I got one a little bigger, but this one was beside it, all pitiful and unloved and...well, I know you can't see it, Aug, but that doesn't mean you can't have Christmas spirit." She laughed, for the first time in a few months carefree - and was he going to deny that? No way. So he grinned, accepting the inevitable battles with the broom and dustpan in favor of keeping his friend laughing. If she wanted him to have a tree, he'd have a tree. Anyways, it did smell kind of nice, and the thought was good.
After a moment, there was another rustle, and the thump of a...box?...being set down on the floor. "I brought ornaments." Of course she had. "And..." There was a hesitant pause, and he tilted his head, frowning. That hesitance; it was recent, but he wasn't sure at all where it came from. Was she still feeling off-kilter about Stockholm?
"The girls, Dani and I made some ornaments last week. I brought some of them. We, uh. We made a lot." The frown vanished, replaced by a wide grin as he straightened, chest puffing. He couldn't help it; and the temptation to tease her was overwhelming. He really tried not to. Really! Still - "Aw, Walker, you do love me." He snickered, swinging out a hip for a light hipcheck before bending to reach for the box. In what he was pretty sure was a plastic grocery bag on top, the distinctive grit of glitter seemed prominent over the ornaments within; he brandished it at Annie, grinning still. "Glitter? You want me to look manly at work, don't you? Sure, take advantage of the blind guy who can't see it when it gets all over him. I get it."
She didn't respond for a long moment, and there it was again; briefly, he considered asking her what was going on in her mind. Annie was a big girl, though, and if she wanted to talk, she would, right? Surely. Deciding that last week's debacle in Quito was still sticking with her, he ramped up his resolve for shenanigans. Auggie Anderson was the king of making somebody feel better. "High opinion of yourself, there, Auggie." False bravado and he knew it - but he grinned all the same, waggling his eyebrows in her general direction. "You know it." He laughed. She laughed. In short order, while he had gone to put on a Christmas CD (Bing Crosby's classics, of course), she had wrestled the tree over to an uninhabited corner and gotten it set up in the pan of water and stand. That took skill, which he also teased her about; because really, it was too much not to.
They spent the whole CD, twice repeated, decorating the twiggy little tree. By the second repetition, the lights had been untangled from a box deep in his closet and applied haphazardly, and the skirt laid down while they both sang loudly and - in Annie's case, because he was sure, despite some Holiday Cheer slash spiked cider, that he was perfectly pitched - off-key. They sang loudly enough that it didn't really matter, though, because even if they had been on-key it would have sounded awful.
Finally, the ornaments came out. First a few boxes of what he was pretty sure were new ones; glass balls of various sizes and colors. Annie explained the colors as they went, fastidiously trying not to place too many in one area. Just because he couldn't see didn't mean that he wanted whatever tree he had to look stupid. Everything he owned was good. A few strands of tinsel and a few other random ornaments and they finally cracked open the bag of glitter-covered ornaments. Despite his teasing, the gesture was actually...touching. Not that he would ever admit to the fact that it warmed him in a way that even the heavily-spiked cider hadn't.
"Rudolph?" He guessed the first, running fingers down the long legs and laughing at the glitter-feel of the thing's nose. "Rudolph's always gonna be made fun of with glitter for a nose." She laughed, punching his arm, and he huffed in mock outrage. "Hey! I colored that one, I'll have you know. He is the picture of perfection."
Yeah, that was totally the 'I'm lying right through my teeth' voice. Was she giving him a bag full of creepy-looking ornaments that anybody who showed up at his house would make fun of? Or be afraid of? ...actually, he didn't really care. The idea that they had thought of him while making ornaments was making teasing her about them all the more necessary before he started bawling into his mug or something ridiculous. "He's purple, isn't he? I have a defective Rudolph. The horror!" Cuing up a dramatic hand-flail to his face, he covered his eyes.
The rest of the bag went much the same. Katia had forged his name in Christmassy pipecleaners and puffballs, which apparently were made to look like snowmen. Chloe had created an angel for the top of the tree out of the same pipecleaners and what he was pretty sure was at least half a pound of glitter. Annie assured him that it was glorious, and he believed her. There were crafts in yarn and cookie dough, and somehow, he felt...oddly wistful about missing out on whatever had brought what turned out to be an insane amount of ornaments into being. They must have been at it for hours. Sure, he wouldn't have been any good, and it wasn't something that he even thought that he wanted to do - well, maybe that was the fact that it was getting late and the Christmas Cheer was setting in. Nonetheless, when he finally hung the last glittery creation near the top of the tree and flopped back down on the pillows that had migrated onto the floor, they both laughed delightedly.
"It's horrible, isn't it." With mock surety, he reached out to play with one of the lower boughs, grinning at the texture. Annie laughed, lazily reaching over to kick his leg with a bare foot. "Oh, stuff it. It looks awesome." She sighed, sounding perfectly happy, and he smirked. Yep. He was awesome. If this was all it took to take her mind off of whatever it was that was bothering her these days, he'd decorate a new one every day.
After a moment's silence, she went on to describe the tree. It was a blue spruce, so it was grey-green, and they hadn't sprayed it with anything trying to keep the needles on so it wasn't shiny. The lights were his, and he remembered their colors clearly, warm reds and golds and bright blues and greens and oranges. Apparently she'd set them to slow-fade. They had managed to get the gold and red and silver glass balls perfectly aligned, according to Annie. The tinsel was silver and spiralled around the tree. Annie's handmade ornaments were scattered over it, and he could almost picture every one of them; at least, he remembered their placements. He could picture it, clearly, in his mind. There had been many trees, after all, before he'd been blinded. This was the first one he'd bothered with since he'd been blinded. He could visualize every bauble and every light like it had just been last year, though.
During her commentary, they had both shifted. He'd graciously given her two of the three pillows, and had sprawled onto the last, perfectly content in semi-hazy accomplishment on the floor. Apparently, though, it had been longer than he'd thought since she finished talking. Slow, even breathing could be discerned over O Holy Night, and he huffed. She had totally passed out on him! He was not going to let Walker live that one down. Actually, though, with his head propped up on his hand and the pillow there, he felt kind of...woozy. Maybe she had the better idea, after all.
Auggie grinned. Yeah. He wasn't going to let that one go. Annie Walker couldn't hold her spiked cider! Annie Walker was passed out by his tree. Heh.
The rest of what would probably have been an awesome thought had to wait, though, since Auggie Anderson wasn't nearly as resistant to the forces of good and sleep as he thought he was. When Bing switched to White Christmas, Auggie was already asleep. And snoring.