Disclaimer: Warehouse 13, the world and the characters that inhabit it do not belong to me in any way, though sometimes I lie awake at night wishing that they did and what I'd do with them if they did. And then I write those thoughts down.
A/N: Just a little Christmas fun with the Warehouse gang.
"What?" Claudia asks, staring at him from her spot in the doorway that leads into the hall with no small measure of fiend incredulity. "It's tradition!"
"Uh huh." Pete says, eyes narrowed as he takes a seat and stares right back at her, sipping the hot chocolate he's just made. He knows what she's doing – contrary to popular belief, he isn't oblivious to that kind of thing – but isn't about to call her on it. Mostly because he wants to see if this works.
Myka glances up from the book she has opened and settled across her bent knees to dart her gaze back and forth between them. They say nothing and Claudia's expression screams suspicious to say the least, but Myka simply purses her lips and returns her attention to the book, satisfied to let them get on with whatever it is they're doing. The fact that they didn't appear to be doing anything at all really should have worried her a little more, but she slips easily back into the silence that once again fills the room and is broken only by the popping, crackling sounds of the fire sizzling in the hearth.
Steve appears behind Claudia in the hallway and peers over her shoulder.
"What are we doing?" He whispers, making the redhead jump. She glares back at him but her annoyance quickly melts away.
"Shush." She hisses, elbowing him in the ribs. "Just," she gestures randomly with a hand, "be quiet and watch."
And as if on cue, Helena enters the living room.
"Well, this is terribly cosy, isn't it?" Myka's head snaps up as if attached to strings and tugged on by a puppet master. She catches Helena's eye and the smile that lights her face could rival the brightness of the flames dancing in the fireplace. Or even Helena's own, matching one.
There's a squeak from somewhere near the doorway that Claudia is leaning against, but it goes largely unheard and is mostly covered underneath a cough.
Helena lets the fingers of her free hand – the other occupied by a steaming mug of tea – trail over the red garland that has been wrapped around the Christmas tree as she walks by it, eyes flickering over the multitude of ornaments before meeting Myka's once more. Myka, who is still beaming as she watches Helena approach.
"It's tradition." Myka says teasingly, thumbing the corner of the hardback rapidly being forgotten in her lap. "You have to have a fire on Christmas Eve."
"Though only if you have a fireplace in which to light it, I'd imagine?" Pete gives a half shrug that goes unseen, as no one is willing to take their eyes of either woman including the women themselves.
"My friends used to light them in garbage cans." He muses aloud, brow furrowing. "Until my dad found out and boy howdy..." His flashback fades into silence as he realise no one but he himself is listening. He feels a little stung, but then Myka catches his gaze and flashes him a smile that shows she was indeed paying attention and he can't be mad.
"Did you have any traditions back in jolly old Victorian England?" Claudia asks with a forced and over-exuberant joviality, something that earns her a sidelong glance from Pete. Helena raises an eyebrow at the question and there's a fondness to the curve of her lips now.
"Christina used to make me read the Christmas tale I'd written for her when she was still a baby." And any attention Myka had been giving to Pete is snatched away in an instant, and she's enraptured by Helena's words as the Englishwoman touches the ornaments adorning the hearth with something that looks a lot like reverence. There's a far off look in her eyes and Myka feels her chest tighten. "Christmas Eve dinner with Charles, then Christina would be allowed to open only her stocking gifts first thing in the morning, leaving the rest for after lunch." Pete pulls a face.
"You sure know how to drag something out." Helena smirks, arching a brow at him.
"In more ways that one." His own eyebrows rise, almost to his hairline, before Claudia interrupts that particular train of conversation.
"Do you guys have any, I don't know," she gestures with her hands again, "weird decorations?" And Pete blinks at her because, really? He had thought her capacity for subtly would be much, much larger. Helena pauses, mulling over the slightly odd question for a moment.
"We were lucky enough to have a Christmas tree, though I can't recall any ornaments you might think strange." She turns fully from the mantle then, facing the redhead as she ponders. "Although there were a few more bows and wreaths around the home in my day, as opposed to odd little cartoon characters dressed up as Father Christmas." She's referring to the twelve inch statue of Taz dressed exactly as described with a bag slung over his shoulder that has become the centrepiece of the dining room table, courtesy of Pete.
"Well, there's no accounting for taste." He mumbles and Helena smiles at him.
"Aside from that, I'd imagine that our decorating habits are largely the same for the holiday season. Pretty baubles and stockings, mistletoe-" Claudia lunges like Pete going for the last slice of ice cream cake.
"Oh!" Her hands actually flap, uselessly, in mid-air. "We have that one too! See?" And she points at something beside Myka, near the lamp she uses for reading, a little above head height had she been standing. Frowning, Myka looks up just as Helena glances over and their eyes find the mistletoe paper-clipped to the top of the lampshade at the same time.
There are other sprigs decorating the room, though Myka's frantically darting eyes note that all of those are set in areas that make a little more sense.
"Indeed I do." Helena drawls, words slow and precise as her gaze falls to meet Myka's. "A rather odd place for mistletoe, don't you think?" She says and it's clear that the question is meant for Claudia, though Helena doesn't look away from the seated woman for even a second. Claudia makes a slightly high-pitched noise that shoots for non-committal and falls flat, before purposefully ignoring the question altogether.
"Do you guys do the kissey thing over there too?" And she's still so painfully obvious that Helena is helpless again the chuckle that bubbles up. She rolls her eyes at Myka and shoots Claudia a look over her shoulder. One that screams 'I know exactly what you're doing and we'll talk about this later' that the redhead only beams at it.
"Yes." She says, drawing the word out in a long exhale. "I do believe the 'kissey thing' is still practised back in England. I dare say the rest of the British Isles likely still partakes as well."
"Awesome, awesome." She taps her fingers in a would-be absent manner against the door frame before gesturing towards H.G. and Myka with the same hand. "So I mean... it is tradition and all. And it's kind of bad luck to not go along with it." Helena took a deep breath and let it trickle out slowly as she turned to face the still seated, now frowning woman. Myka's eyes instantly found hers again. They stare at one another for a few heartbeats, their brand of silent communication that no one else can really even begin to understand, and Myka's expression remains a little dumbfounded even as Helena begins to lean down.
"Wouldn't want to break tradition now, would we?" She murmurs quietly, as Myka's skin starts to prickle. And just as Myka glances over at Pete, Helena inclines her head to press a kiss to Myka's cheek; an impulsive moment of weakness that could not be denied even in spite of Claudia's youthfully gleeful persistence. And Myka senses the motion more than she sees it, feels her curiosity captured by it and her attention gets tugged effortlessly to one side. She's turning her head before she can fully comprehend the repercussions and then Helena's lips are brushing the corner of her mouth and time shudders to a standstill around them.
And, just like always, they're caught in another eternal moment of almost's and nearly's.
Myka's skin is soft beneath her lips, the curve of her mouth an exquisite and unexpected torture of sorts, and she's breathless the entire time they're in contact. Which, by how hard her heart hammers as though demanding she draw a breath, seems like forever. Her flesh prickles as though she's developed a fever and the hand she had rested on the arm of Myka's chair turns white at the knuckles.
Finally, when her mind has caught up to her body, Helena tilts her head back wearing a confused and uncertain smile, and Myka knows she's going to pull away. Brush it off like the friendly gesture it most definitely wasn't. Because this unspoken thing between them has been there since their time began and there has never been anything that has transpired between them that could be considered 'just friendly'. There has always been more, bubbling beneath the surface. Only now it has rolled to a burning simmer in the moment.
And Myka's grip on Helena's arm is firm and almost desperate, and it drags the inventor's wandering gaze back to Myka's face. Only to find the features swimming out of focus, an effect that close proximity to something can often have.
And Myka's lips are even softer than her skin. They're softer than Helena imagined them to be – and oh, how she's imagined – and they tremble in a way that tugs at her heart, similar to how Myka's hand sliding up along her arm to pull her closer tugs at her gut. Helena's eyes drift closed as she angles her head, noses brushing in the motion, and deepens the kiss. There's warmth in the way Myka sighs into it and diamonds light the darkness behind her eyelids and everything just stalls and stops and holds, just for a moment.
Myka is the one to pull back, with a single, lingering kiss to the stooped woman's lips, and when Helena opens her eyes again it is to a vision. A blush lights Myka's cheeks and a smile curves her lips and it's all Helena can do to not lean in again. And by some unspoken agreement, they seem to fall back on what they do best – or second best, as it would now seem- and simply stare at one another.
Claudia sniffs, dabbing over dramatically at the corner of one eye with the sleeve of her sweater. "It's a Christmas miracle." She pauses, smiling smugly. "My Christmas miracle. I'm like a total Santa rockstar."
"More like mischievous elf who's had too much sugar and broken out of her holding pen." Pete snorts in his corner, stuffing a cookie that has seemingly appeared out of thin air into his mouth before taking another sip of his hot chocolate. Claudia glares at him and Steve smirks behind her back.
None of which neither Helena nor Myka hear or see.
"Well," Helena says, still reluctant to straighten or move from Myka in any way. "It would appear as though we've been set up." Myka's nose wrinkles as her smile widens and she shrugs.
"I guess we needed a push." Helena hums aloud and catches the hand that Myka is removing from her arm in her own.
"I suppose we did. However," she does straighten then, lifting the book from Myka's lap and placing it on the end table beside the chair before tugging the woman up and out of her seat. Somewhere behind them, Claudia lets out a squeal. "I think that now we have been given that push, it might be in our best interest to keep going. For a little while at least." She arches an eyebrow at Myka's knowing smile. "To ensure we don't fall back on bad habits." Myka chuckles and nods, not believing the excuse for a second but allowing Helena to led them out of the room. Past a wide-eyed Pete and a beaming Claudia, and Steve who has the good grace to at least look down after her grins at Myka.
"Can you guys at least surface for presents tomorrow morning?" Pete calls after them. "I can't promise I'll wait!" Claudia flashes him a stern look.
"Oh, you'll wait." She warns. And he doesn't have the courage to argue. After all, who knows what else Claudia Donovan is capable of.