The bar is nearly empty, but that is to be expected tonight. It's Christmas Eve, and people should be spending time with their families, acting out their holiday traditions, drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace. But he's sitting alone at the bar, a glass of whiskey in one hand, his cheek resting in the other as he stares at the amber liquid. The bartender is wiping the bar, even though the albino has been the only one in the bar for the past two hours and he's already cleaned up.
He sighs and swirls the liquid in the glass. The bell on the door signals a new arrival, but he doesn't look up to see who it is. The bartender does, and nods to the woman as she walks in the door, the snow blowing in gently around her feet. She asks the bartender for a whiskey on the rocks and takes her seat next to the silver-haired male.
"Hey, Gilbert."
"Yo, Elizaveta," he says, taking his eyes from the glass to meet her green eyes with his red ones. Complimentary colors, he thinks to himself. Christmas colors.
The bartender hands Elizaveta the whiskey, and she thanks him. Gilbert signals the bartender to add the drink to his tab when Elizaveta's not looking, and the bartender agrees. Gilbert takes a sip of the burning liquid.
"I haven't seen you around for a while. Shouldn't you be with the aristocrat? At that house of his in Aspen or whatever?"
"Roderich and I broke up."
"Oh? When?"
"A couple weeks ago." She sips her drink.
"Why? You thought he was awesomer than me, which is impossible, by the way."
She gives him a small glare but doesn't retort against his declaration of awesomeness. "We just grew apart." She took another sip of her drink and pauses in contemplation for a long moment. "We grew apart too, didn't we, Gil?"
He stops halfway between raising his glass to his lips and turns to look at her. He sets the glass back down on the bar. She used his nickname; she hadn't used his nickname in years.
"Yeah. We did, Lizzie. You were away with that pansy ass too much of the time."
"Yeah, you're right. I did focus on him a lot," she pauses again, setting her drink down on the bar. Suddenly she turns in her barstool to face him, a bright grin spreading across her face. "Hey, do you remember that Christmas when we were twelve, when my dad set the tree on fire?"
Gilbert laughs loudly, the chortles echoing off the empty walls of the bar. "Yeah! There were flames everywhere! And he couldn't find the fire extinguisher, so my mom tried to put it out with beer. Kesesese, that was awesome! And do you remember when we were thirteen?"
"The turkey incident? God, how could I forget! Your dad had a turkey stuck on his arm! We had to go to the emergency room so they could pull it off!"
Gilbert was laughing so hard his head rested on the bar. "And the doctor fell square on his ass five times trying to detach it. Awesomest hospital visit ever."
Elizaveta laughs again. "It was, wasn't it?" She grins widely at him and launches into another story that spelled out a Christmas gone wrong, and he counters with his own tale. They were laughing so hard they could barely stay in their stools and were hiccupping when the bartender came over.
"Bar's closin'," he announces. "Y'all should get on home now."
"Oh, thank you," Elizaveta says, wiping the laughter tears out of her eyes. She moves to pull her wallet out of her purse.
"No, I got it," Gilbert insists, handing the bartender enough for both their bills and a nice tip. "My treat."
She frowns at him and moves to get money anyway, but he grabs her by the shoulders and steers her out of the bar before she can. "Think of it as a Christmas gift, Lizzie. From the awesome me to you."
The air outside the bar is cold, and the snow is lightly swirling around them as the step out onto the street lighted boulevard. She shivers and shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her black coat, and Gilbert rummages around in his coat for gloves until he finds a pair.
"Which way are you? I'll walk you home."
"Such a gentleman," Elizaveta teases, putting on gloves she found in her coat pockets. Gilbert offers her his arm with a bow, and she takes it with a grin.
"I am a gentleman. It's one of my awesomest qualities."
She snorts. "Uh-huh, that's right." He sticks his tongue out at her for a moment and she laughs lightly.
"So why are you still here?" she asks him as they walk. "Shouldn't you be with Ludwig for the holidays?"
"He went to Rome with Feliciano for Christmas," Gilbert explains, frowning ever so slightly. "Antonio went with Lovino to Rome as well. And Francis is in France, and he'd just be fucking a ton of people on Christmas anyway. So I just decided to stay put this year. I couldn't afford a ticket to Germany to visit my parents and neither could they."
"Oh, I see," she says. "What are you doing tomorrow then?"
"I don't know. I'll figure something out," he clears his throat. "Uhm, so why are you here? If you aren't in Aspen, shouldn't you be with your parents?"
"They're on a cruise. 30th wedding anniversary on the 30th."
He nods in response, and they are silent the final block to her apartment building. She stops outside and invites him into the lobby to warm up before he heads back home, and he agrees. They enter the lobby, all decorated for Christmas. Garland is strung up around the perimeter, and wreaths adorn the walls. A tree decked out in gold and silver ornaments sits in the far left corner, so tall it scrapes the ceiling. They stop in the center of the lobby, underneath a common decoration.
She turns to speak to him, but catches him staring wide-eyed at the ceiling instead. She looks up and sees the sprig of green tied with red ribbon. She swallows hard and looks back at his face. His cheeks are burning a fierce red as he looks at her, and she can feel her own cheeks flushing. She stammers incoherently, trying to form words. He leans down quickly, pushing his lips softly against hers. Her eyes widen for a moment before they close, and he pulls away a second later. He averts his eyes, looking toward the far wall instead of her, his cheeks still as red as his eyes. She smiles and bites her lip.
"Hey, uhm, Gil?"
He looks over at her, the blush slowly subsiding. "Yeah?"
"I…was planning on making a small Christmas dinner tomorrow. Since we're both alone…would you like to come over and spend Christmas with me?"
He looks surprised for a moment before nodding his head. "Yeah, that'd be awesome, Lizzie."
"Great!" she chimes. "I'll see you around four, then?" She stands on her tiptoes to press a kiss against his lips quickly before dashing off towards the staircase to her apartment.
He stands still for a while, watching the door to the staircase slowly creak closed. He looks up on the mistletoe with a big grin, and pats the sprig. "Thanks, buddy." His grin stayed plastered on his face all the way home to his apartment.
Author's Notes:
Just a little oneshot for a contest on DA =) The theme was "Holiday Memories." I'd been wanting to do it for a while (plus felt I should write something for the holidays) and I got this idea last night. I hope you enjoyed it, and happy holidays! 3