Day 1: Ugly Sweaters

"No," Nikola said. It wasn't possible, humanly or inhumanly, to reflect the level of disgust that he felt in his voice. "Just… no," was all he could manage.

"Come on man," Henry cajoled. "We're all supposed to do it." He held up the sweater, a horrible garish thing with candy canes and grinning snowmen parading across it with chaotic holiday spirit.

Nikola recoiled, unnecessarily smoothing down his tailored black waistcoat and eyeing the sweater with a look of abject horror. "You kiddies can wear those – those things." His chin stuck out determinedly. "I will not."

"It'll make Dr. Magnus laugh," Erika added in what she probably thought was a persuasive tone, exchanging looks with Henry.

"Oh yes, Helen laughing her head off at what an absolute fool I look is one of my most treasured goals," Nikola bit out.

"Aw, she wouldn't laugh because you looked stupid – "

"Even though you totally would," Kate put in from the other side of the room, where she was holding an equally dreadful sweater patterned with reindeer up to Bigfoot.

Henry glared at her before returning his attention to Nikola. "She'd laugh 'cause she loves you and she knows you'd never do anything like this except for her. Plus, I mean, it's just kinda fun..."

Henry kept speaking, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden rushing in Nikola's ears. "She loves you." Nikola had never heard anyone just… say it like that before.

It wasn't that she didn't tell him, less often in words than in the way she held his hand when no one was looking at them, or that sparkle in her eyes when she leaned in to talk about some point or other with him, or how she brightened when he came into her office with her afternoon tea. But hearing it from someone else was different.

Nikola was so used to having to defend the validity of his feelings for Helen from the (not entirely undeserved) suspicion of her team, but it seemed that, perhaps, someone finally believed him. Not only that, but the very reserved Helen had been so open with her own affection that the others had picked up on it. Henry had said it so casually, like it was a simple, obvious truth: Helen loved him, and everyone knew it.

" – you did, Hank," Kate was saying as Nikola started to tune back into the conversation. "You turned him into total mush. If Magnus sees him like that, she's gonna think we got him drunk on vampire tequila… again."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Nikola said sharply, quickly wiping away the foolish grin he now felt spreading over his face. "You children are far too immature to possibly understand the complexities of my relationship with Helen."

If anything, that only made Kate snicker more.

"Now," Nikola said, holding out his hand with the expression of a man going to his execution. "Give me the damn sweater."