A/N: Ok, so those of you that know me know how much I absolutely adore Clay & Quinn, and I really wanted to make a Christmas one shot for them. If OTH is canceled this year, then there will not be a Christmas episode, so I tried to imagine what a Clay/Quinn Christmas would be like.
Thank you to Jazz E. Roison for being my beta. I appreciate it bunches.
Also, if you would please leave a review, it would be amazing! Merry Christmas, everyone!
6 am Christmas Morning
The last of the presents had been wrapped, and Clay was ready to face the holiday. Actually, he had been ready for about an hour; but Quinn had made an abundant amount of death threats if he had even thought about waking her up before six. Originally, it had been seven, but he had made his best puppy dog face until she lowered it.
Ever since he was a little kid, Clay had never been able to sleep on Christmas morning. There was too much magic in the air for him to be missing it. That was, of course, until Sara had died. With her, the magic, too, seemed to die, for awhile there. But now that he had Quinn, the magic had come back.
As he noticed the time on the clock, Clay headed for the stairs that led to the bedroom. A plan started to formulate in his head as to how he was going to wake up his sleeping beauty. He was hardly a prince, and kissing her awake seemed too cliché. And Clay and Quinn were anything but cliché. Besides, he had a better plan.
He gently pushed the bedroom door open and saw Quinn in bed. She looked so peaceful, partly due to the fact that their would-be murderer was safely locked away, and would not be coming back for them. On any other day, he would be sympathetic and let her sleep until she woke up naturally, but today was Christmas. There would be no sympathy today.
Clay opened up a drawer, trying to keep it from creaking. He pulled out his iPod, and put it onto his Christmas playlist. The next step was to attach it to the speakers, and turn the volume all the way up. He almost thought against it, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He pressed play and waited for things to unfold.
Quinn's eyes fluttered open, and in a split second she went from extremely pleasant to extremely annoyed.
"Clay!" she said, pleadingly. "Are you serious right now?"
He bit his lip and laughed a little. This was way too much fun.
"You said I could wake you up at six," he said innocently.
"Yeah," she rolled her eyes. "But I did not say you could wake me up by blasting the most annoying Christmas music you could find!"
"Annoying?" he said, genuinely hurt. The only revenge he could come up with was too sing along loudly. "Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh!"
Quinn closed her eyes tightly and made the cutest little moaning sound.
"There's food downstairs," he tried.
"You made breakfast?" she opened her eyes, hopefully.
"Pancakes and bacon," he smiled. "Your favorite."
Quinn smiled ever so slightly, but she still was not convinced.
He only had one card left. This had to work. If it didn't, he was going to physically drag her out of bed and down the stairs. There was no way she was ruining Christmas for him. She was going to be awake and participating in the Christmas activities whether she wanted to or not. "And coffee," he said.
With that, Quinn grunted ever so slightly, but pushed her covers off and started her slow process of getting up.
Once downstairs, Quinn went straight for the coffee while Clay went straight for the tree. Rummaging through the presents, he found the one he had got for Quinn. He also found the one that was labeled to him, from Quinn, and inconspicuously put it in front of the tree so that she would have no trouble finding it. He tried shaking it lightly to see what it was, but all that he could gather was that it was rather heavy.
He sighed and then, with a glance to the kitchen, noticed that Quinn was dishing herself up some of the pancakes.
"No no no," he said. "Presents first. Then food."
"Babe," she pleaded. "If you wake me up early in the morning, I need food."
"No," Clay stayed strong. "Presents first."
Quinn frowned and then stomped over to the tree. Clay smiled and handed her the gift. He was so excited he almost clapped, but he thought it would be better if he contained himself.
She started unwrapping the present extremely slowly. Her tiny smile told him that it was on purpose and it made Clay want to jump up and grab the gift and unwrap it. But that wasn't how Christmas worked, so he waited. And waited.
As she finally worked the wrapping paper off of the box, she stared incredulously at it. "You got me a toaster?" she asked, dumbfounded.
Clay couldn't help himself and burst out into fits of laughter as he said, "Open... the... box."
She shook her head and her own face had burst into a smile. She opened the box and looked even more confused than before. "Paper..." she said as she dug large pieces of crumpled up paper out of the box.
Ok, so that was kind of cruel on Clay's part, but he hadn't had the chance to be this playful in awhile, so he went all out for Quinn.
She finally got all of the paper out and found the much smaller box taped to the bottom of the toaster box. She pulled it out and smiled curiously.
Now, Clay's smile was much less playful. He really wanted her to see what he got her.
Opening the box her smile widened. "Clay, it's beautiful," she said.
She took out the silver tennis bracelet and handed it to him so that he could put it on her wrist.
"Thank you so much," she said, pulling him in for a kiss. He was loving every second of this.
Breaking away, Clay started to feel playful again. "Now me," he said.
"Oh, but now my present to you seems so crappy," she said, looking down at the gifts. He helpfully pointed to where he had put it down in front of the rest. She laughed a little and picked up.
Handing it over to him she said, "I hope you like it."
Clay started tearing off the paper excitedly. "Is it a pony?" he asked.
Quinn didn't say a word as he cleaned the box of its wrapping paper. His eyes widened when started to lift the lid, having absolutely no clue what she got him.
In the box was a big, leatherbound book. "A book?" he said in mock disappointment.
"Silly," she said, smiling. "Open it."
He flipped open the cover of the book to reveal a picture of him in Nathan's backyard. "What is this?" he asked.
"Documentation of our entire relationship," Quinn said. "Basically, it's a scrapbook. That first one was Jamie's birthday party when I first came back to Tree Hill."
He started flipping the pages revealing more pictures. Some of just him and some of the two of them. "I don't even remember you taking some of these," he said.
"Well, do you like it?" she said.
"Honey, I love it," he replied. "How long did it take you?"
"A month," she replied, as if it were nothing.
"Well, it's kind of amazing." It was his turn to kiss her.
After the kiss, Quinn practically ran into the kitchen to get her pancakes. Clay couldn't help but smile.
"Merry Christmas, babe," he called out, happily.
"Merry Christmas!" she echoed.
