A/N: this is the start of a series of one-shots set in the revenge universe.

yes, i know massie lives in new york and shouldn't be so amazed at snow, but i'm from CA and AZ and this winter was the first time i've ever really been in it. it was amazing and beautiful and a real winter. i was also inspired by snow pictures on tumblr, christmas, and of course, my baby sansa.

this is my first time writing fluff. it was alright, because i just described the surroundings more than the feelings. LOL.

this is how massie and derrick went from growing up together as just heirs to BHC to something different.

Winter Wonderland

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When Massie awoke the following morning, she woke all at once. The fact that when she once she was up, she could never fall back into sleep had always been something she hated. It meant early mornings and tired eyes that belied the perfect façade she had to keep up.

But today… today was different.

Massie rolled over under the mass of fur covers and stared out the window on the far side of the room.

Snow was falling.

For a while, she watched it drift down, letting her eyes adjust to the brightness. Massie felt a sudden urge overcome her. She shoved the covers off and swung her legs off her bed. The ground was cold, even through her socked feet, but Massie was about to face colder.

She went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. Too excited, Massie didn't bother to shower or apply makeup, only threw on a soft cashmere sweater over her pajama top. Massie piled her hair up into a high bun and padded out of her room quietly, knowing that no one would be up so early after the late night they all had.

Shoving her feet into her Mui Mui boots, Massie flopped onto the ground ungracefully to lace them up clumsily with gloved fingers. She bit down on her smile at the thought of her mother's reaction seeing her on the cold ground like this.

Massie shrugged on her favorite fur lined Burberry parka and swung open the front door.

Outside, the ground was already covered in a thick blanket of white. Snowfall dusted the pine trees all around their cabin. Shutting the door quietly behind her, Massie stepped out and sucked in a deep breath of crisp, cold air.

Snowflakes swirled gently around her as Massie wrapped her arms around herself. It was so beautiful Massie almost regretted coming out. The world around her was pure and she was about to ruin it. Snow kept drifting down and down, slowly, gently, and all in still silence. There wasn't a soul around.

It was as if all color was fleeing. Massie took her first step on unbroken snow, her feet sinking in and disturbing the thick white ground. She turned slowly, taking in everything around her, the white decorating their cabin and the white brushing the trees, the pale grey of the mountains in the distance and the dark grey cloudy sky. It was a winter wonderland.

She sighed at the sight.

She walked, her boots making ankle deep holes, but absolutely no sound at all. Massie drifted past frosted trees and recently buried shrubs. She tilted her face up, her arms still around herself, and drifting snow melted as they touched her cheeks and her lashes and her lips. The flakes were as soft as a lover's kiss. She could taste the cold.

Massie found open ground near the frozen lake of their backyard. She glanced back at the nearest window of the cabin and bit her lip. Her mother had to still be asleep …and the snow looked so tempting. She didn't know what came over her, but she just had to.

Massie sank to her knees on the cold ground, feeling the chill through her Vince leggings instantly. She scooped up a handful and squeezed the snow between her gloved fingers. Soft and wet and light and cold, the snow was easy to pack. Massie shaped the snow in her hands with a roll into a snowball.

She made four more and laid them out on the ground as snow fell around her. They were white and pure and perfect. Suddenly, Massie wanted to cry. She didn't know the reason at all, but she suddenly didn't want to look at them anymore.

She struck her hand out and smashed them into the cover on the ground. She took a deep breath and stared out at the frozen lake, but she didn't leave. She didn't want to.

Massie didn't like to give up.

Massie looked back down at the white around her. She grabbed another handful and packed more together. Biting her lip and feeling the cold start to seep through her gloves, Massie formed a small wall of snow. She formed a barricade of snow around herself, a low wall surrounding her. When Massie finished her circle, the sky had turned a lighter grey. Her legs were numb and her fingers were tingling from the wetness.

She sat back and closed her eyes. The snowfall was continuous. If she wanted her barrier to stay a barrier, Massie would have to keep building. She turned back and continued.

Her walls steadily rose as the snow steadily fell.

"What are you doing?"

Massie never scared easily. She prided herself on being calm, cool, and collected. But the air around her had been so still and the white so quiet that it came as a complete surprise when a voice sounded from above her. She jerked and almost dislodged a section.

She looked up, blinking from the snow and swallowed deeply at the sight of Derrick Harrington, in a black Canada Goose jacket, standing outside her barricade. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and a beanie covered his blond hair and ears from the elements.

Massie flushed brightly, avoiding his eyes.

"Nothing," she bit out, embarrassment thrumming through her body. She couldn't believe that Derrick was seeing her like this. On the ground, knee deep in snow, with bed head and no makeup, looking like an idiot and playing around like a child.

What was she doing?

"Doesn't look like it," Derrick replied, eyeing her walls. Massie hated the emotions he caused inside her. Her stomach rolled with humiliation and injustice. This was her winter wonderland and Derrick was making her feel like a fool.

Massie blinked in shock again when Derrick sank to his knees on the outside of her circle.

"Here," he muttered, packing snow where she had missed in her surprise at his arrival. He smoothed down her walls and suddenly, Massie was feeling a different sort of churning in her stomach.

He wasn't making fun of her. He was joining her.

Together, in silence, they added to Massie's walls.

After a while, when the walls were almost at her chest level, she stopped. Derrick hesitated, but stopped too. Massie felt his eyes on her when she tilted her head up again and licked her lips. Her cheeks must have been flushed. They hurt from the cold and her ears had lost feeling a long while ago, but all Massie felt was calm. She felt at peace.

"I've never seen you like this before," Derrick told her, softly.

Massie looked at him in surprise.

He was right though. She doubted anyone had seen her like this before. She hadn't even known she was someone who liked building things on the ground, in the cold, with the snow, until today. She probably looked a fright.

Massie absentmindedly wondered what time it was and whether their parents were awake.

"Can I come in?"

She looked up again in surprise. Yeah, Derrick had never seen her like this, but she had never seen him like this. There was no teasing grin on his face, no naughty twinkle, none of the usual jokester exterior. He was serious, his eyes burning with something Massie couldn't identify.

She nodded slowly.

"Just…," she trailed off, feeling silly for being so sentimental.

"Be careful?" Derrick murmured, reading her mind anyway. Sometimes, she hated how well he knew her; how well he could read her, but other times all she felt was relieved. Derrick always knew what she wanted to say before she could voice it. He knew her too well.

He stepped over her walls and into her fort, sinking down to the ground next to her. Massie glanced at him through her wet lashes. Now that she didn't have a goal to focus on other than him, she started to shiver; finally feeling the cold in her wet hair, her frozen face, and her numbs hands and legs.

"Jesus, you're freezing," Derrick peeled off his own gloves with his teeth. "How long have you been out here?"

Massie didn't know what to say to this Derrick. He was so different that she didn't know how to act around him. It was kind of scary.

It must have been the snow around them. The white, pure world was a different place.

Derrick peeled off Massie's wet gloves and clasped his hands with hers. The warmth he radiated burned her freezing hands. Massie sighed at his touch, her breath hitching. What was going on? Why was she feeling this way?

Sure, she liked Derrick and she knew he had to like her, but they had never touched like this before. In the winter wonderland of her fort, it felt like a different sort of touch.

Like they were more than friends.

"Thank you," She whispered softly. She avoided looking at him by observing the world around her. The sky was growing lighter with each passing second and the snow drifting down around them seemed to be growing lighter with it.

When she turned back to him, Derrick's caramel eyes were boring into hers. His cheeks were turning red from the cold and he was so close she could count pale freckles she had never noticed before. He was attractive, Massie had always known and recognized, but he had never been so close to her before. Massie felt her heart speed up at the sight of him so near.

Derrick's hand rose slowly and cupped her cheek. He was so warm, Massie bit her lip. She knew it wasn't just his warmth that left a trail of heat on her skin wherever he touched. It was him, just him.

"You're beautiful like this," he told her, his eyes staying on hers.

Massie furrowed her brow, fighting down her blush successfully, but failing at fighting down the increased churning of butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Her whole body felt tingly and light at his words, even if she didn't believe him all the way.

She was a mess, with chapped cheeks and a face bright red from the cold. Numb fingers and frozen legs, wet hair and sleepy eyes.

But he didn't seem to be making fun of her. His eyes were bright with earnest and his mouth was a thin line without his usual humor. It was so different. He was so different.

But she felt different too. With just the two of them in the silence, it felt like another place entirely. In her fort, she felt stronger, braver.

She laughed lightly. "You're kind of beautiful too."

It was his turn to furrow his own brows at her, snow collecting on his light blond lashes and Massie felt an insane urge to kiss them away.

He must have felt something of the same, because suddenly his lips were pressed against hers.

Massie felt her eyes widening in surprise, but they slowly drifted shut. He was warm, burning her cold away, and his kiss was so soft. He tasted like mint toothpaste and his spice and cold snow. She melted into him.

His thumb brushed against her cheek and Massie shivered again.

She pulled away first, to take in a breath. Her eyes stayed closed shut. She didn't want to look at him because, what was that?

He had kissed her.

"Block," Derrick murmured.

She opened her eyes. He was still watching her and Massie flushed in embarrassment.

His serious face broke out in a grin she knew all too well. Before he could crack a joke and ruin their moment, or worse, brush it off entirely, Massie blurted out, "What was that?"

Derrick frowned, but didn't say anything.

"You kissed me," she whispered, removing her hand from his and pressing it against her tingling lips.

"I know," Derrick told her with a slow smile. "I was there."

Massie whacked him in the arm with a small scowl, but she wasn't really mad. More bemused and confused and a hint of breathless, because this was Derrick and he had just kissed her.

"You looked like a snow bear," he told her, leaning back on his arms in the snow. "All cold and frosted over."

"What?" Massie laughed incredulously. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

He shrugged, a strange glimmer in his eyes. He was so calm, when her heart felt like it was racing against the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

Derrick had just changed everything and he didn't seem to have a care. Massie eyed him quietly. But, maybe she was wrong. He seemed nervous too. He was chewing his bottom lip and he was avoiding her eyes now when he had been so intent before.

He felt it too.

The snow was thinning so that the flakes were only coming down sparsely, but her fort surrounding them stood sound and strong and tall. Massie glanced up again; the sky was almost light now. The new day was starting.

She turned back to him.

"Kiss me again," she whispered, closing her eyes again.

She couldn't see him, but she heard snow rustle and felt him when he neared her. His breath soft against her face, Derrick pressed his lips against hers again as the new day began.

It was the start of Derrick and Massie.

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A/N: yay! my first attempt at some massington fluff.

like, i said this will be a series of one-shots based of revenge universe. i have a few planned. some featuring massington and a bit of the girls, but mostly claire.

i'm thinking... how she met J.T. and why she owns him. maybe a nina exchange thing with alicia and josh drama. claire in barcelona. IDK. a whole bunch of stuff.

mostly from the past. and maybe when revenge is done... the future? ;3

message me some ideas? or any suggestion of what you want to see?

thanks for reading!

[EDIT 1/27/14]: I fixed up all the typos and grammar mistakes that I never caught the first time. It's been bugging me for the longest time. Thanks for all the compliments on this one-shot. It was my first and I just really liked the image of M and D building a fort around M and the pivotal moment where M allows him inside. It was this idea where her real life walls were building/growing, but D managed to get over and into them before… I don't know. Life? Popularity? Image? And that even when the snow stopped and a new day dawned and her Winter Wonderland ended, M's walls were still up and strong, but she still wanted him to kiss her. I don't know if any of that made any sense whatsoever, but I just liked that idea for someone like Massie and Derrick. Thanks again. Love you all.