Disclaimer: I own West Side Story. I own Riff, I own Graziella, I own New York City, and I even own the English language. Obviously. Sometimes I wonder why these things are required…

A/N: This completely unnecessary and random oneshot was inspired by LazyChestnut's recent story "First Snow", which got me off on a completely random tangent of Jets in the wintertime and distracted me from the report I'm supposed to be writing on Tolstoy's Anna Karenina over winter break. But there are no Jets in Anna Karenina (though there is snow), so my interest, or lack of interest, I think makes some sense. Anyway, let's just see how this goes. This is my first real attempt at a WSS oneshot, so I'm curious to see what happens…

Home

I just couldn't take it anymore. Yeah, it was December, I knew that. Don't think I'm stupid, I know it was a bad idea heading off into the street when you couldn't see three inches in front of your face through the snow. The wind tore at my clothes and hair with a vengeance, and I wished I'd had the time to steal one of my uncle's sweatshirts before I'd hit the ground running. My tee-shirt wasn't real concerned about protecting me from freezing to death. I couldn't move my fingers anymore, and my arms and face were going number by the second. God help me if one of them Emeralds found me out here on a night like this. The way I was moving, I was gonna get my ass handed to me in forty seconds or less. But it was better than not being on the streets. You might not understand it, but it was.

I shook my arms in an attempt to remind them that they were still attached to my body and lengthened my stride until I was going at an easy run down Fourth Street. The ice on the streets slipped under the smooth soles of my sneakers, and I felt myself skidding and sliding with every step, never really getting a hold on where I was before I continued on to where I was going. But the running helped to warm me up. I don't really think I can explain it, but I've always gotten some kind of kick out of running, and not just to make my muscles warm up or to sweat my way through a December night. Back when I had the time, I used to get up early and just run through the streets before the sun came up, before I had to go to school and pretend like knowing how to find X was important for the rest of my life. (By the way, "X" was always about three places in those equations. Wasn't like it was hard to find. Did they think I was stupid?) It centered me, made me feel, I don't know, like I had some kind of control over my little corner of the world. Control was something I wouldn't have minded a little of just now.

I was running through a list of possible destinations as I flew through the snow and ice. Tony's? Nah, I'd crashed there two nights ago, and besides I knew his ma hated my guts. Couldn't blame her, though, since I'd turned her straight-and-narrow son into a no-good J.D. So, Action? No. Last time I tried it his ma was drunk off her ass and tried to get me into bed with her before I had the good sense to make like a tree and get the hell out of there. It was sweet how Action stuck up for the old lady, but she was a cracked-out wino, no two ways about it. Jesus, that was one of the problems with living on this end of town. Once you wise up and hit the road, there's nowhere for you to go that's not as screwed up as the place you left.

"Riff!" I slid to a stop, squinting through the snow for whoever had called my name. Strangely, my first reaction wasn't fear, even though it probably should've been. Once you run away from home three times a week, you start to toughen up a bit. I almost wished the voice coming through the cold was my son of a bitch uncle coming after me, so I could give him the welcome he deserved. But it wasn't him, anyway. The voice came from above my head, where a girl I knew well had stuck her red-haired head out a fourth-story window and looked at me in exasperation.

I grinned up at her and waved. "Evening, dollface," I called up to Graziella. "How's it going?"

"Aren't you freezing?" she demanded.

After a pause, like I was seriously considering it, I shrugged. "Yeah, El. Yeah I am. Can I come up?"

"My parents are home!" she warned me. "If you do anything stupid I'll never forgive you."

"I'm hurt! Hurt and shocked!" I said in mock-offense. "When have I ever…" I trailed off at the look she gave me, remembering more than a handful of times when I'd ever done exactly that. "I'll be good, I promise."

"Get up here! I ain't got the time to go to your funeral, I got a hair appointment tomorrow."

Well, with an invitation like that, how could I pass it up? I closed my eyes and shook my head, then changed course and headed for the front door of her apartment building. The warmth hit me instantly with the stinging pain that always comes with a too-fast return to normal temperatures after a stint in the cold, but I welcomed it as I shook the melting snow from my hair. Apparently Graz had found the only landlord in the whole West Side who cared more about his tenants not freezing to death than saving a few bucks on heating. I should set up a meeting with him and my uncle's super, I thought. He could learn a little something.

I made it up to number 403 after a few seconds, where my girl was already standing in the doorway. She raised her eyebrows about forty feet in the air, promising she'd kill me personally if I did anything stupider than usual. I gave her a quick kiss, enjoying the warmth and the taste of her for as long as it lasted.

"Thanks, babe," I whispered.

"Come on," she said. "Promise me you won't fight in front of my family?"

"El, I never plan on fighting with you," I shrugged as I stepped into the living room and she closed the door behind me. "That kind of stuff just happens. Well, good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Van Wylder," I added, seeing the severe couple sitting on the couch as I looked around the room. They narrowed their eyes at me and he made a grunting kind of noise that I guess was supposed to mean "Hello, Riff, it's a pleasure to see you, how have you been lately?" Or, you know, maybe not. But her parents weren't alone. There were about nine or ten other people sitting in the living room, as some feel-good holiday-type movie was playing quietly on the TV they were all crowded around. They all looked a little like my girl, but none enough to make me think they were brothers and sisters I'd never met. Oh. So we've got a family gathering going on tonight. Fantastic.

I tell you what, if you ever want to experience something like the Spanish Inquisition, walk in on your girlfriend's extended family around Christmastime when they're not expecting it. Every single aunt, uncle, and cousin whipped around in their chairs to look at me with narrowed, suspicious eyes. The way one of the younger girls looked like she was staring at a ghost when she looked at me made me think that good old Mom and Pop had been telling the fam exactly what they thought of me before the movie started, and the opinions passed weren't exactly going to get me crowned Homecoming King by this crowd. I gave Graziella a look, fifty percent dismay and fifty percent disbelief.

"Just go with it," she whispered in my ear. "And be careful. They bite like wild dogs."

Oh. Well, then. Awesome.

"So you're Riff, then?" an uncle asked me. The emphasis he put on my name made it sound about as far away from a gang name as it ever had even when my uncle used it, made me sound like a six-year-old pretending to be Captain America.

"Yeah, that's me. Nice to meet you all," I said with a broad wave, even though technically I hadn't and it wasn't. I hated not knowing things like this were coming. It's like a surprise birthday party where all the guests are evil clowns holding machetes preparing to hack my arms and legs off. Nothing says "happy birthday" like dismemberment, you know… Tony had told me about how this kind of thing happened to him when he was dating a pretty little private school girl from the East Side about two years ago. He made the mistake of going along with her to a family gathering, and the whole clan had essentially ripped him to pieces, determined to figure out whether this West Side Polack was worthy of dating their perfect little Anna. He explained it away as just being protective, not evil on purpose, but he didn't really convince either him or me. I'd laughed at the story at the time, thinking it could never happen to me. I mean, what were the odds of me ever dating someone with a stable family life? Me? Really? Apparently it's a good thing I'm not a gambling man… Love you too, Graz. Least you could've done is warned me…

None of the family acknowledged this. "And how long have you been dating Graziella?" an aunt asked me. If I'd known there was gonna be a quiz, I'd have studied. Lord help me, what if I was wrong? Come on, I knew this!

"Seven months on the 29th," I answered after a pause that I knew was going to give me hell with Graz later.

"Oh, that long? You still in high school, too?" a cousin piped up.

Uh, not exactly. "I'm done with high school, actually. I'm on a… real-world work study right now," I said vaguely. I heard Graziella choke on absolutely nothing next to me, but I didn't say anything about it. I mean, what did she want me to say? "No, actually I dropped out of school in the sixth grade and now I lead the toughest gang on this side of town"? Yeah, that's going to win me tons of points.

"Don't worry, Joe, he's not stupid. Riff still knows his way around a book," Graziella added with a smile in my direction that was so sweet it caught me completely by surprise. That wasn't the kind of look she ever gave me, or apparently at least not in private…

"All the way around…" Mr. Van Wylder muttered, thinking I couldn't hear him.

"Oh, sure. I been going around books for years. Don't never have to read them that way," I added under my breath. Fortunately nobody but Graziella heard me; Joe was still hung up on the fact that apparently I had some kind of intellectual value.

"Yeah? What are you studying?"

"…Public relations…" I said with a small smile. The best lies are just rewording the truth. "Public relations and… and sociology." There was definitely a social element to it…

"Any drugs you're doing? Any children we should know about?"

I didn't register who asked that one. I didn't register much of anything, now that the topic was out in the air. What kind of crazy person asked that within three minutes of meeting a guy? Jesus H. Christ, I will never understand ordinary people as long as I live. Never.

"Uh, not that I know of," I responded, still blinking more often than usual to try and get over the shock. Graziella let out a tiny moan of agony; apparently a simple "no" would have made her happier, but those are always the things that you think of after whatever stupid sentence you did manage to come up with sends waves of shock through a room of strangers.

"Who would you say is your favorite president of the United States?" Graz's little cousin, a boy who couldn't have been more than thirteen, asked me to break the awkward silence.. Apparently he felt a little left out in the whole Give The Boyfriend Hell conversation. I laughed out loud. I know it was probably inappropriate, I couldn't help it. The kid was my second-favorite of the family (excepting the obvious, of course).

"Uh… Abraham Lincoln," I answered. "You know, 'Let my people go' and all that. The man was a genius."

"That was Moses," Mrs. Van Wylder said curtly from behind the paper.

"I know," I said, realizing too late that my words came out too defensive to actually sound convincing. "He's the Moses of America, right?"

Graziella grabbed me by the shoulder, her nails digging into my skin, and I knew she was completely mortified at the way this conversation was going. "Well, I'm glad you guys have all met each other," she said quickly, beginning to drag me across the living room by my shirt towards her open bedroom door.

"I don't think we were ever formally introduced, were we, dear?" an elderly relative asked with a pointed look.

My girl was about four seconds away from screaming in horror and running out the front door, with me half a step behind her. "Riff, this is everybody. Everybody, Riff," she moaned, and with that she pulled me into her room and slammed the door behind me so fast she almost caught my leg in it. She collapsed on her bed, lying flat on her back and burying her face in a pillow. I was afraid for a second she was planning on suffocating herself with it and half-formed the words to tell her to watch it as I sank down in a chair across from the bed. There would be nobody killing themselves under this roof, at least as long as I was under it too.

"My family exhausts me." I heard her muffled voice from under the pillow, very faintly.

"Yeah, I think I get why," I said with a laugh.

"And you!" she hissed, sitting up with the speed of a snake and throwing the pillow at my head. "You are not helping! 'The Moses of America'? Really, Riff? Really?"

"The kid caught me off-guard, El!" I protested, throwing the pillow back. "Least you could've warned me I was about to get the third degree!"

"Well, how was I supposed to know, Riff?" she demanded.

"They're your family, El, not mine, you've got a better chance of knowing what's up than I do, don't you?" I countered. She threw another pillow at my head, which was a sure sign that she knew I was right and wasn't up for admitting it.

"You picked a hell of a night to drop by unannounced, didn't you?" she asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder and folding her legs neatly under her.

"I don't pick the nights, girl. They pick me," I said simply. "I ain't gonna stay there when my uncle gets like he gets, I can tell you that. I ain't a child anymore. I got choices. And one of them is hitting the road, snow or no snow."

"Here." Graziella reached onto the floor next to her bed and picked up a sweatshirt that was probably one of her guy cousins, throwing it at me with impressive aim. You know. For a girl. "You're making me cold just looking at you."

I shrugged it on over my shoulders, appreciating the way the thick fabric of it sheltered my exposed arms from the memory of the bitter cold outside. It was warm in her room, there was no denying it, but somehow my mind still believed that I was running through the fast falling snow outside her window, making sure I kept moving before I died. I don't know, maybe it's a mental thing. But the longer I sat in the bedroom of this girl, wearing the sweatshirt of one of her unnamed relatives that thought I was a delinquent and a bum, the warmer I felt. Both on the outside and somewhere else I don't think I'd ever want to explain even if you paid me.

"You're staying the night here, aren't you?" Graziella asked knowingly, gesturing with her head for me to come and sit next to her on her bed. The color scheme was slightly revolting, a sick looking light purple I was sure there was a more artsy name for with flowers and, God help me, ruffles, but I swallowed my retch and crossed over to her, swinging one arm lazily around her shoulders.

"Well, babe, we've got no place to go, do we?" I asked with a wry smile.

"Riff, if you're going to start quoting Christmas carols, I'm going to throw you out the door and make you walk through the snow to wherever you're going, I don't care where, and I'm going to make you pass every single one of my relatives on the way out," she said seriously, driving a finger in my chest. I mimed getting stabbed, collapsing off the side of her bed with my face contorted in pain.

"A plague on both your houses!" I cried, careful to keep my voice low in case one of the Van Wylders decided to wander into the bedroom and see who was dying a Shakespearian death through the wall.

Graziella looked at me like I'd lost my marbles. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"I dunno, Tony wanted me to help him study for an English test once," I shrugged from my position on her carpeted floor. "It was a bad plan, but, you know…"

"Sometimes you worry me, Riff," she said in a voice like she was speaking at the funeral of someone she barely knew. "Well, actually, all the time." She reached out a hand to help me back up, but once her bare fingers touched mine she drew a quick breath with a hiss and let go instantly. As it happened, I was halfway to standing up and ended up falling flat on my back with a loud crash. Oh, thanks, girl. "Jesus, baby, your hands are freezing!" she gasped.

"Yeah, well, it's about fifteen degrees outside," I muttered, sitting up and rubbing the back of my now-aching head. "What'd you expect?"

"I know you hate your uncle, Riff, but you've got to be more careful with how you deal with it," she snapped, giving me a look like I was a four-year-old and she was telling me not to talk to strangers. "You're going to hurt yourself like this."

"Better I hurt myself than he does, babe," I said. "And I mean it. I don't wanna go all serious on you all of a sudden, but it's something you gotta understand when you're with me, that's all. If I'm going down, I'm going down on my own terms, not 'cause of some stuck-up son of a bitch who thinks he has the nerve to tell me what to do. I'll go down running. I'll go down fighting. But I'm not about to go down sitting. You got me?"

"Still, I can't believe how stupid you…" she began, but I cut her off.

"Long as you hold me tight, babe," I said with a genuine smile, "I'll be warm."

"What did I tell you about Christmas carols?" she snapped, but I could see that some of the venom had melted away from her voice. She started to grab another pillow to throw at my head, but I shook my head ruefully.

"Graz, shut up and kiss me," I said seriously.

"Real master of romance, huh?" she said with a dry laugh, but she leaned over anyway and our lips met with electricity enough to shake the last of the cold from my body. I felt the warmth of a crackling fire as my fingers brushed her face and she shivered for any number of reasons, the fire of her hair, of her personality, of mine, of the tension between us, I didn't know and I didn't care. All I cared about was that I wasn't with my uncle tonight, and I wasn't out on the streets with nowhere to go. It was a cold winter night, and I was in the arms of the girl I fought with and screamed with and insulted and was insulted by and braved crazy relatives with and lived with and loved.

Master of romance? Maybe not. But tonight at least, I still had it.

Tonight I was home.

Well, that completely changed shape somewhere in the middle from what I intended. But it could have turned out worse, couldn't it? I like to believe so, anyway…

My favorite part of this? Well, in Riff's own words, "The best lies are just rewording the truth." A disturbing amount of this plays out before my eyes a couple of times a year. And I'm glad to know it's good for something, anyway. I guess it's character-building? Both literally and figuratively...

-RebelFaerie-