A/n: shots may align in the same universe or may not. I'll indicate which in the notes or by chapter titles or something.
Standard Disclaimer: These pretty birds ain't mine, I just play with them gently. Please don't sue me. The mistakes are mine, though.
'Tis the season and all that shit.
Honestly, Laurel harbors no fondness for the holidays. Never has, even when her family was still picture perfect Americana where football was watched on Sunday afternoons and homemade apple pie was eaten. Any deeper meaning to Christmas was totally lost on a kid who only cared about the shiny wrapped presents under the tree with her name on them. Her parents, though? That was another story.
Since the first Christmas she can remember up until she was twelve, the year her Mom died in childbirth, her parents went all out. Like...her Mom was almost manic about it. There were Christmas knickknacks in every fucking window sill of every stripe both religious and secular, festively colored drapes, reindeer and Santa Claus themed rugs and mats on the floors, bows and baubles and ribbons adorning the light fixtures, a fancy wreath on the front door, and the most exquisitely ornate tree in the entire neighborhood. And that isn't including the visible-from-space light show her father put on in the front yard that would rival Riverside's Festival of Lights.
All of her friends wanted to hang at her place during that time of year because none of their mothers did half as much decorating or seasonal cooking, especially since sugar cookies shaped as various ornaments or other sweet confections were usually available at all hours of the day. The neighbors seethed with envy at her father's handiwork in the yard and at how he could beat their asses to claim top prize for Christmas decorating from the HOA by transforming an ordinary six thousand square foot lot into Santa's Crib at the North Pole in a single weekend. None of that meant much to Laurel, though, who even as a child exhibited cynical, misanthropic tendencies. For her parents' sake, she pretended to be the prototypical kid ebullient with energy and joy for the holiday season all the while inside she was silently counting the days until it was over and things would go back to normal again.
As an adult, when the holidays would roll around she would often mope about whatever hellhole she happened to be crashing in at the time, reminiscing – against her will by the way – about the how wonderful life used to be in comparison with her present wretched circumstance. With a bottle of cheep booze and an impressive supply of drugs on hand, heroin was her personal favorite, she would celebrate by alternating getting piss drunk and totally blitzed until every last vision of an idyllic home at Christmas time was banished from her illicit substance-addled brain. Granted, it was not a productive coping mechanism, but it worked fairly well. Up until recently, Smack and Jack were the only friends she could rely on to get her through the pain that was her existence until the New Year rolled around.
My, how drastically things have changed in only four measly years.
"Oh, God! Laurel, no! How could you? How could you be so selfish, woman?"
Leaning back, brows in her hairline, eyes as wide as saucers, Laurel stares at her distressed girlfriend as if she's grown a second head. The hand Dinah is currently clamping onto with the force of an aluminum-extrusion press is rapidly starting to lose feeling, though Laurel is too mystified to do anything about it. This is an experience she could never have prepared herself for. If given a million guesses she would never have stumbled over the fascinating fact that Dinah Drake, hard ass detective and kick ass vigilante, was a secret fanatic over Hallmark Christmas movies.
"Stop! Don't do it! No no no no no! Don't you dare walk away from him, Marci. Don't you fucking dare!"
Laurel is far too shocked by Dinah's outburst directed at the film's protagonist to respond audibly. Sadly her inner opinion does not share that difficulty.
Jesus Christ. How can she be so invested in this inane, soulless, assembly line romantic drivel? 'Aww, c'mon, baby...it'll be fun! Just the two of us snuggled up on the couch in our pajamas, sipping hot chocolate, watching two people fall in love to the background Spirit of Christmas? What could beat that?' Umm, how about watching Ollie endure watching Felicity try to cook a traditional Hanukkah meal for Team Arrow. Now that is what I call quality entertainment. This? Aside from the delicious hot chocolate and the gorgeous babe in my arms, this is...torture. Almost makes me regret saying yes.
Laurel chastises herself for the thought as soon as it crosses her mind because she knows it isn't true. For the largest part anyway.
It really was the highlight of her month last year when Ollie and Felicity had the entire team over to celebrate Hanukkah with them. She and Dinah got there hours early to help with the prep work since Dinah figured she could help with some of the cooking since her she spent a large portion of her childhood in the kitchen with either her mother or grandmother, especially around Hanukkah, learning the traditional recipes brought to the New World from Hungary by her maternal great-grandparents. And she totally could have since another one of Dinah's secrets is that she is a fan-fucking-tastic cook. Unfortunately, Felicity being Felicity meant the mostly lovable nerd was bound and determined to do it all on her own. And Ollie being Ollie meant the fireworks started before the party even got kicked off because Felicity set the frying pan on fire making the latkes. Dinah sprang into action, of course, heroically swooping in to save the day by rescuing dinner. Hell, she even managed to teach Felicity how to make authentic about sufganiyot and challah bread without turning the kitchen into a disaster zone.
Outside of the things she has grown to love not associated with the actual holidays, those things being Dinah and their friends, nothing will ever make Laurel enjoy them for their own sake. There is no amount of therapy or love that can transform that bottomless pit of bitterness into anything resembling holiday cheer. But! Dinah sure does make her want to. And that is reason enough for her to woman up and take one on the chin by watching a different Hallmark – or another equally saccharine – Christmas movie every...single...night. Besides it's only a four weeks a year. If it means Dinah will be sprawled halfway in her lap, sometimes laughing, sometimes sobbing, sometimes screaming at their humongous big screen…? Well, for that Laurel can sacrifice two hours a night for twenty-five days to watch the most disgustingly sappy programming in the history of television. If she's being completely honest she would probably do it just for the watery, moon-eyed smiles Dinah points her way at the end of each movie when the couple kisses under the mistletoe or in front of fully trimmed Christmas tree. 'Cause you know what? That means Laurel is about to a kiss, too. And she is the world's number one fan of Dinah's kisses.
Truth be told, there isn't much Laurel won't do for Dinah. So that's why she supportively rubs Dinah's back as the current couple in question miss their chance at their happily ever after. She holds Dinah tight as she cries when the spunky, intrepid blonde protagonist, Marci, gets a phone call late on Christmas Eve from a mutual friend informing her that the devastatingly charming and handsome and tenderhearted Kevin was in a tragic accident and is fighting for his life in emergency surgery. And when Marci visits him in his room on Christmas, a gift shop tree in hand, and the newly minted couple share their first kiss, Laurel's heart begins to race all of its own accord. She knows what's coming and can hardly wait for it to arrive.
As the credits roll, Dinah pulls away and readjusts so she can lean in closer, their faces drawing closer by the second. Her mesmerizing green eyes shimmer in the flickering candlelight from the lit menorah on the coffee table. A plump lower lip is tucked between pearly white teeth as their noses brush. Laurel's heart swells up in her chest and her lungs temporarily stop functioning in anticipation of the coming contact. But then, just as their lips are just about to brush together, Dinah halts her progress.
"Merry Christmas, baby," Dinah says in a breathy tone that makes Laurel warm and tingly all over.
"Happy Hanukkah, darlin'," Laurel returns in their now-habitual way, and then leans up to seal the kiss that she has been waiting two excruciating fucking hours for.
But, oh! It is oh so worth the wait. Seconds pass as they linger, enjoying the sensation of their lips joined together, neither in a rush to hurry things along. They have plenty of time after all, a whole night stretching out before them with no need to get up for work in the morning at the ass-crack of dawn. Needing to feel more than Dinah's lips, Laurel works a hand up the length of Dinah's bare arm, up a toned bicep, over a shapely shoulder without hooking the straps to a candy cane striped tank top, and then gently cups a strong jaw. Appreciative as always of little gestures like that, Dinah makes this sinful noise of pleasure that drives Laurel wild and then responds by tilting her head to change the angle. Time becomes irrelevant as Laurel breathes into their deepened kiss, her lips parting in enthusiastic welcome to Dinah's velvet tongue.
How long they sit there exchanging probing, worshipful kisses and indulging in some pretty heavy petting, Laurel can't really say. What she does know is that somewhere between that first intense kiss and when they finally separate, Dinah has maneuvered herself all the way onto Laurel's lap, where she is sitting right now with her hair slightly mussed, cheeks flushed enticingly, and her lips all glistening and kiss-swollen. Silence stretches out between them, an infinite chasm that swallows up other concerns and plans and thoughts and intentions in a gravity well of blissful serenity. Nothing else exists in the here and now except them, together, tidally locked in the inescapable attraction of their mutual affection and devotion.
Unable to speak, Laurel simply stares at Dinah as Dinah stares back at her. Thing is, Dinah is looking at her like she is the most precious being in all of the universe, as if having entered that dream world comprised solely of a room full of nondescript doors and thrown one open at random only to have unexpectedly emerged into a reality that is the sum of her every heartfelt wish and desire which is incidentally embodied in the form of one person: Laurel. No one has ever looked at Laurel the way Dinah does. No one. Not even her father – either of them. And that one look right there? It is the epitome of Dinah's love: everything Dinah is and has and ever will be, condensed down into one pure incomprehensible moment where it is poured out with reckless abandon.
There are no words by which Laurel could express the immeasurable feeling of awe, or of unworthiness, that engulfs her entire body down to the quintessential essence of her existence at being the recipient of that love. And the most awesome part of it all is that she sees it at least once every single day.
"How did I get so fucking lucky?" she asks, meaning it rhetorically as there is no plausible explanation she would accept as to why Dinah loves her. That is the greatest mystery of her life and one she is content to leave unsolved forever.
"Not lucky," Dinah replies, smiling that smile that makes Laurel's world revolve on its axis, "Blessed. Both of us are. So, so blessed." Settling down fully onto Laurel's lap, she cups Laurel's face with both hands. "I never imagined I could be so happy..."
Laurel interrupts her with a wry grin. "Especially not with me. Betcha never would've pictured this scenario back when Quentin was the only thing standing between us and the final grisly showdown."
Dinah shakes her head, not with disappointment or anger at Laurel's deflection, but with a sympathy only she can get away with scot-free. "Maybe not. To me that just means I have that much more to be thankful for. We could've killed each other. But we didn't. We could still hate each other. But we don't. And we could both be so damaged by what we've gone through and by what we've done to each other to ever have normal lives. But we aren't." Shoulders rolling matter-of-factly, she sucks in a deep breath and then releases it with a whoosh. "Life threw everything it could at us, tried to break us, tried to prevent this – us – from ever happening. It would be so easy to write that off as standard-fare cruelty of the world or them's just the breaks, kid. Instead of taking that route, I choose to believe that there was a purpose to it. That we were put through hell so we can not only say we earned this but so we can appreciate it as much as we should. You know? And I do. I thank God for you every day."
Laurel can attest to that. Every morning while Laurel gets ready for work, Dinah conducts a private service from the comfort of their dining room table. As she gazes out the window facing east toward her ancestral homeland and bathes in the nascent sunlight whilst sipping at her coffee and nibbling at her bagel, she silently converses with a deity Laurel does not believe in. When they got together, this was not a thing at all, as Dinah was as every bit as secular-oriented. But about a year later after they paid a visit to what remains of the Drake family in Missouri, Dinah began to reconnect with the roots she once thought she had forever left behind. Lapsed Catholic turned stringent atheist that Laurel is, for a while she begrudged her girlfriend's development of a nonconformist reverence toward a religion passed down to her through untold generations. Thankfully living with and sharing an intimate relationship with a believer has taught Laurel a lot about tolerance that she never could have learned from anyone else. Again, there isn't much she won't do for Dinah Drake, even choke down a near-rabid disdain for dogmatic traditions.
So that Dinah could remain free from judgment for and guilt over her slightly unorthodox Judaic ideology while at home, Laurel forced herself to search more diligently for some value intrinsic to it rather than openly show scorn as she would have were they to be suddenly displaced into the pre-Dinah past. Up until that point, she had regarded all Abrahamic religions as premium exemplars of the oppressive, authoritarian, prohibitive, retrograde forces such archaic systems exert upon humanity at large. Then again, at that time she would have also insisted that Dinah Drake was nothing but a nasty bitch that needed to be gifted six feet of earth heaped up over her rotting corpse. Isn't it ironic how life turns prideful beliefs upside down and then shoves them down the offender's throat? Laurel certainly thought so when she found herself in a romantic relationship with said Dinah Drake while also learning to tolerate the observance of a theology she once vehemently loathed.
As logic dictates, progress did not occur over night, but the more Laurel observed Dinah's humble and informal method of worship at home, the more the blinders of what she once believed to be a totally rational enmity were peeled away. An inch at a time they came down as time and again she witnessed how that lifestyle informed Dinah's moral and ethical core, and observed with no small amount of respect at how Dinah's quietly unassuming faith gave her courage and fortitude to persevere through trials that would have been much more difficult to survive otherwise. Little by little, the hatred burning in Laurel's heart for organized religion dimmed into a tiny, solitary, flickering flame. And then one day she woke up and it hit her all at once with the force of a hundred sledgehammers how bigoted she had been to wholesale dismiss the good that originates from clinging to religious convictions just so she could hold on to her prejudices at the expense of painful honesty.
Make no mistake, there is no conversion visible upon the undulating landscape of Laurel's future, but that does not mean she will ever ask Dinah to stop practicing her faith at home. The old Laurel probably would have insisted upon it as nonnegotiable terms of continuing their relationship as she had twice previously back on Earth-2. That Laurel was also alone and miserable for most of her life, in particular around the holidays. And since this Laurel does not miss those days, she has voluntarily adopted a few lifestyle changes that had relatively low impact, mundane stuff like shopping kosher as much as is feasible and not bitching about the smattering of thematic artwork that has appeared in the apartment since Dinah rented out her house and moved in. Every minute they are together makes those minor sacrifices worth it, a point of view Sara insisted reminds her very much of the sister she lost.
"You may act a lot different than she did," Sara once told Laurel during a visit to Star City on her most recent Legends hiatus, "but you both love the same way: with every last atom of your being. And that just so happens to be the one thing about my Laurel I envied most. Guess that means I envy you, too."
Laurel shivers at being found to have something in common with her deceased doppelganger. Loving Sara came pretty easily, but she has yet to derive any satisfaction from comparisons to a woman who is so revered as to have achieved an almost mythical status within the circle to which she now belongs. However much she has evolved and will continue to, there is no hope of competing with the memory of Saint Laurel the First. Frankly, Dinah never having met the Black Canary whose leather suit and heeled boots she was tasked to fill is a big reason Laurel was able to let herself really and truly fall in love again. She never has to wonder who Dinah is thinking about when calling her name in the throes of passion or which Laurel she is referring to when she mumbles in her sleep. And that is such an immense comfort to someone who spent several years at war with a ghost that wore her face, spoke with her voice, and moved her body in exactly the same way. Thanks to Dinah, Laurel is now mostly free of that struggle, and would very much like to keep it that way.
Concluding her brief internal contemplation before any more unwelcome associations arise, Laurel starts to think up an appropriate reply to Dinah's touching statement only to abruptly change tracks when a line of inquiry pops into head that she cannot resist following.
"Good little Jewish girl that you are, can I ask why you love corny Christmas movies so much?" she asks, still a bit spellbound over Dinah's stirring speech.
"Hah! I'm far from good. Just ask my Rabbi," says Dinah, who then rolls off Laurel's lap then promptly curls back into her side.
I have asked him, Laurel thinks. In fact, I told him a redacted version of our story and he agreed with my assessment that you're a fucking angel for putting up with all of my shit. Although she wants to so badly to voice that thought, she bites her tongue to avoid inciting an argument.
"As for your question," Dinah continues without acknowledging Laurel's silent disapproval over her unnecessary self-deprecation, "all the blame for my addiction to Christmas movies can be laid at the feet of my Aunt Shara. I used to watch them with her when she'd visit for the holidays. She liked mocking them, more for the ridiculous hopefulness than for any Christian or Euro-Pagan themes, and I did too for a while. But somewhere along the way I developed a fascination that was stoked into a full blown obsession when I was in college. Remember Shelby?"
Laurel nods. Shelby was Dinah's best friend in high school before they lost touch. One moving to New York for college while the other went off and joined the Marine Corps will do that to a friendship. Laurel met Shelby this past July while they were on vacation in Hawaii. Dinah ran into the successful businesswoman on the beach of all things and promptly introduced her old friend, who at subsequent impromptu dinner reunion confessed to being the reason Dinah joined the Corps. Turns out Shelby's brother Andrew was a Marine who died in Afghanistan and Dinah met his unit at the funeral. The way those grieving Marines conducted themselves made such an impression that she decided a career in law enforcement could wait. The summer after graduation she enlisted. Dinah served eight years as an intelligence specialist in the Corps, including numerous deployments to Afghanistan, before being honorably discharged so she could return to her originally projected career path.
"Well," Dinah goes on, "the Christmas after Andrew was killed, Shelby was so depressed she didn't go home, was hardly eating or sleeping, and I was worried about her so I stayed with her at our dorm. We must have watched every Christmas movie ever made. 'It's a Wonderful Life' and 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' twice. Slowly but surely she started to smile and laugh again. By the second day, she was eating and looked more like herself than she had in months. I watched her transform with my very own eyes. And it wasn't the movies themselves, it was the spirit of them, what they represented. Hope. That yeah, life can be really shit, but it can also be beautiful, and we can't let the bad outweigh the good or all the suffering is pointless. The next year, we went our separate ways to visit family, but I watched the movies anyway. Been doing it ever since. Does that make me weird?"
"No," Laurel says, running a finger over the fluffy material of Dinah's pajama bottoms atop her thigh. "If anything, it just makes you more adorable, which I didn't think was possible."
A pointedly shy smile stretches across Dinah's bewitching lips. "Aww! That's sweet. Thanks, babe. I have to admit, though, to having another reason to love them now."
Brow arching, Laurel nudges Dinah's shoulder. "Oh, yeah? What's that, kedvesem?"
Dinah's smile intensifies. She was so proud when Laurel started learning Hungarian to fit in better at Drake family get-togethers that she took it upon herself to personally speed up the training. Every day Dinah added new terms and phrases the linguistic software did not cover then drilled Laurel on what she had learned up to the point. Finally after what seemed like years but was only five months they were speaking it casually around the house. Sometimes they still do, which is fine with Laurel because she likes the flow and sound. Plus she never gets tired of how animated Dinah becomes when slipping into her ancestral tongue.
The best part of the effort for Laurel was the insane amount of brownie points she won with Dinah. Damn she could get away with so much when she wielded Hungarian on Dinah and then deployed her famous weaponized pout. But there was also a secondary reward in that she at last burrowed into the graces of Dinah's aforementioned aunt Shana, who finally stopped referring to Laurel as 'that scrawny Aryan Shiksa' whenever Dinah wasn't listening. The first time Laurel heard that nasty epithet, she almost lost her shit. Tragically she was in no position to get away with berating her girlfriend's closest and most beloved living relative in front of the entire extended Drake family. So she bit her tongue, plastered on a fake ass smile, and did what she does best according to Dinah: politic like the morally challenged lawyer that she is. Not that it greatly helped her cause. Oh well. Let Shara or any of Dinah's other aunts, uncles, or cousins continue to call her whatever ugly names the perpetually snarky lady can conjure up. Dinah's happiness is all she has ever been concerned about, and that isn't going to change no matter who mocks her or disapproves of her.
Good thing Dinah puts up with my return fire at her cantankerous aunt. Laurel has never been one to back down from a challenge, which is probably the only reason why Shara mostly disparages her affectionately these days. If that's even a thing...
"I get to watch them with you." Dinah's softly spoken answer to Laurel's question wrenches her out of her head and returns her to the present.
And what a beautiful present it is, all wrapped up in candy cane pajamas yet essentially woven with invisible yet tangible threads of a strength that cannot be conquered and a love that surpasses the boundaries of the impossible. Leaning heavily into Laurel's side, Dinah slides her right hand down Laurel's left arm until their palms are flush and then cords their fingers together. When she again speaks, the emotion evident in her words and her every minute movement flows into and through Laurel as though gentle waves of acceptance and adoration she would not resist even if she could.
"You make everything in my life better, Laurel Lance. Even endearingly schmaltzy Christmas movies."
Laurel sucks in a breath, tears pooling rapidly at her eyelids. "You need to stop that kind of talk or I'm gonna cry."
"Can't have that, can we?" Dinah says, lips quirking up at one corner, understanding painted all over her ridiculously attractive features. "God forbid you tarnish that bad girl image."
"Bah. You love that I'm a bad girl." And if Dinah denies that, she's a liar.
As expected, Dinah doesn't deny it. What point is there anyway when during warm weather months she struts around the city once every couple of weeks wearing a t-shirt that proudly proclaims Good Girls Love Bad Girls. They get a lot of compliments about it that Dinah accepts with graceful blushes while Laurel owns them with a smugness born of over a decade of practice at being the latter.
"Guilty as charged, Counselor. What's my sentence?"
Laurel is only too thrilled to assume the role being requested of her. She does so love this game of theirs.
"A kiss for starters. We'll see where we go from there depending on how you behave."
An expression that impossible to misinterpret as anything but wicked stretches across Dinah's too-pretty visage as she leans in. "And if I'm very, very naughty? What will you do then, Miss Lance?"
Never one to back down from a challenge or pass up an opportunity to get Dinah naked, Laurel hoods her eyes and adopts a smile that really emphasizes her dimples – aka Dinah's kryptonite.
"Guess you'll have to find out," she says in her best bedroom tone. "If you're brave enough, that is."
To Laurel's delight, Dinah rises to the occasion. And as she lays in bed several hours later with Dinah spooned snugly against her, she can't help but look forward to tomorrow night.
Another Hallmark movie. Another kiss. Another night with Dinah in my arms. What more could I ever ask for? Merry Christmas to me, indeed.
Neither for the first nor the last time this month, Laurel falls asleep with a smile on her face and a joy in her heart that has nothing to do with the season.