When Azusa opens her front door, she's greeted with a scene of utter chaos.
It's been a long day. She's spent hours trying to restrain the more manic of Lord Death's suggestions into something semi-reasonable for all parties involved, taken her turn teaching one of the batches of new students, and spent a solid fifteen minutes making small talk with Spirit Albarn. She's ready to come home, fall onto the couch, and indulge in a glass of wine or maybe something a little bit stronger to celebrate the weekend coming up in just four more days. Maybe she'll put on a movie, or better yet read a book, and let the quiet of her peaceful apartment soothe away the worst of her shoulder-knotting stress.
Which is all, she thinks, a very good reason for her yelp of horror when she sees what's become of her front hallway.
"Oh my god," she blurts, dropping her bag to the floor next to her rather than hanging it on the hook by the front door where it belongs. "What happened?"
"Azusa?" The voice that comes from the depths of Azusa's apartment is familiar; on another day Azusa would smile at the sound of Marie's voice, would shed her winter coat at the front door and slide her shoes off and go in affectionate pursuit of the other woman. Right now she's not sure she dares venture down the glittering lights that line her front hallway. "You're home early!"
"I'm not," Azusa says, still staring at the lights pinned to the ceiling. They're blinking through a cycle of five different colors, the illumination playing across the floor shifting in sync. She can't make herself look away. "I'm right on time."
"Oh," Marie calls back. "Are you?" There's the rattle of something from the vague direction of the kitchen; Azusa winces at the possibility of what Marie may have managed to do with the assistance of pots and pans at her disposal. The other is a good cook, certainly far better than Azusa is herself, but she does have an alarming tendency to hit the kitchen like a whirlwind and leave a scene of absolute destruction in her wake. Then again, judging from what Azusa's hallway looks like, there's nothing limiting that effect solely to the kitchen.
"Yes," Azusa says, but she's losing track of the conversational thread as unimportant in the face of the twinkling lights lining the hallway, and the soft white of fake snow laid over the top edges of the doorframes, and what sounds like music coming from the direction of the living room. "What did you do to my house?"
"I decorated!" Marie sounds warm and pleased with herself; Azusa is reminded vividly of the time the other woman decided that she and Azusa would be hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the entirety of the Death Weapons at the Academy and entirely forgot to tell Azusa this until she emerged from the bedroom in her pajamas to find a half-dozen people occupying the tiny space of her kitchen. That had actually turned out to be more fun than anticipated - Albarn is a better cook than he looks, and Lord Death was delighted at the lack of chairs rather than irritated by the need to stuff all the visitors onto a single couch - but Azusa still has flashbacks to staring at all of her coworkers with the blurry vision of absent glasses and her hair tangled to a mess around her head. "You didn't have any holiday spirit so I thought I'd surprise you with some!"
"Some," Azusa mutters to herself, still staring down the winter wonderland Marie has made of her house. "I'm surprised," she calls back down the hallway in a louder tone, pitching her voice sharply to carry the edge of her discomfort to Marie in the other room. She looks down to her dropped bag, retrieves the weight of it to hang up on its hook and slides her shoes off to join it; it's not until her coat is hanging alongside her bag and her routine of coming home is fully complete that she collects herself enough to turn and face the gauntlet of her hallway again.
"I'm so glad!" Marie says from the kitchen. She sounds like she's entirely missed the edge on Azusa's voice; knowing her, she has. "I thought about getting a tree, but I decided we could go and pick one out together this weekend. It'll be easier to bring it in with two people, too!" Easier is a relative term - Azusa can hardly imagine fitting even a small tree through the narrow hallway of her apartment - but Marie isn't waiting for a response as Azusa picks her way down the holiday devastation the other woman has made of her hallway. "I'm glad this is enough to surprise you, I thought it might be too low-key."
Azusa can't imagine what part of this seems low-key to Marie. The hallway is bad enough, lit by the glitter of the multicolored Christmas lights and strewn with decorative snow; as she comes into the living room the damage only increases. There's holly out here, pinned up over the top of the television and the back of the couch, and the walls are covered with things Azusa has never owned before in her life, an Advent calendar hanging along one wall and an entire row of candles along the top of the bookcase that makes her flinch for the danger of the open flames around Marie's typical overexuberance. There's a cloth laid over the coffee table, Christmasy red decorated with a pattern of white snowflakes, and Marie's even brought in a handful of throw pillows over the couch, all of them embroidered with various festive designs. The air smells like cinnamon. Azusa feels like she'll start spontaneously caroling in a moment.
"I only had the afternoon to work on it," Marie says, her voice coming more clearly as she rounds the corner from the kitchen to approach Azusa. "So it's not all up yet. But I wanted to have the biggest pieces of it done when you came home! Isn't it nice?"
No, Azusa is going to say. I don't do Christmas, I don't do holidays, and I definitely don't do decorations. Her shoulders are strained, her chest is tight on irritation; she's ready to snap frustration at Marie as quickly as the other woman comes into view, is turning towards her with the harsh edge of frustration biting at her tongue. She opens her mouth, criticism ready at her lips; and sees what Marie is wearing, and every thought in her head evaporates along with the full burden of the irritation along her spine.
It's just a dress. There's nothing all that special about it in general, Azusa thinks; probably it would be any other dress on her, maybe even a little bit uncharacteristically festive with the soft shine of the fabric and the bright scarlet of the color. But it's clinging to Marie's body like it was made to press close against her, hugging the curves of her breasts and dipping in against her waist before sweeping out over her hips, and for a moment Azusa is so caught by the fit of the fabric that she doesn't even take in the rest of the other woman's appearance. That takes a second pass, after she's made it down to the hem fluttering against Marie's knees and back up over those curves to the low scoop of the neckline; by the time she looks up to Marie's face Azusa can feel her cheeks flushing warm with heat, can feel her breathing catching faster on something totally unlike the irritation she came in with. Marie's wearing lipstick to match the dress, the red completely unnecessary for a night in but darkening her mouth to a soft pout that draws and holds Azusa's attention, and her hair is falling into soft curls around her bare shoulders, the gold weight of it shining in the illumination of the Christmas lights strung in loops from the ceiling over her head.
"Oh," Azusa says, struggling herself back into some kind of coherency from the complete distraction Marie's appearance offered for her thoughts. She can't even remember what they were talking about. "Yes. It's good. Very nice."
Marie beams up at her. "I'm so glad you like it!" she says, her whole face glowing with holiday cheer. "I'm making snickerdoodles right now, so we'll have cookies soon too. And I bought eggnog! Would you like a drink?"
"Yes," Azusa says; that question is an easy one to answer. Marie nods understanding, still smiling all across her face, and starts to turn away before Azusa takes a stumbling step towards her and reaches out to weight her hand against the other woman's shoulder.
"Wait," she says, needlessly, since Marie is already turning back to blink unsuspicious attention up at her. "How much decorating did you do?"
"The whole apartment!" Marie declares with unselfconscious delight. "There's more candles in the bedroom and some tinsel in the kitchen, and I started a collection of presents in the study before we move them out to the living room for Christmas Eve."
"Right," Azusa says, as if all of this is perfectly ordinary, as if this isn't more holiday cheer in one place than she's ever seen in her whole life. But that's all unimportant, really, she has her eyes set on something of far greater import. "What about mistletoe?"
"I have some," Marie says, and starts to turn as if to head back to the kitchen as she gestures with her far hand. "I'm going to hang it up later tonight, after the cookies are in the oven."
"Okay," Azusa says, tightening her hold on Marie's shoulder to keep the other woman where she is. "We'll just have to do without it for now, then." Marie's turning back in response to the pull, blinking wide-eyed as Azusa turns her around; and then Azusa is lifting her free hand, and sliding her fingers into the soft gold of the other's hair, and ducking down to catch the part of Marie's lips with her own. Marie makes a startled sound against her mouth, something beginning at a protest and softening into a moan as Azusa tips her head in to press closer and licks gently against the part of Marie's holiday-bright lips. Marie open her mouth to the kiss, and tips her head into surrender, and Azusa shuts her eyes to the twinkle of the lights around them and lets herself get lost against the sweet of Marie's mouth under her own and the soft of Marie's skin under her touch.
Azusa is sure she'll end up wearing as much of Marie's lipstick as the other woman is. She doesn't mind. She's going to see to it that that's all they're wearing between them very soon.