A/N: THIS HAS NOT BEEN PROOF-READ, so mistakes gon' happen. I'm kind of late posting this and, damn it, I was not going to miss my Christmas deadline! So, here we have the Christmas chapter.
This begins on (and mostly takes place during) Christmas Eve.
December. Snow was falling and Christmas decorations were finally acceptable. Normally Lovino would be pissed it was winter, but he couldn't help the excitement that bubbled up instead. He was officially moved out of his shitty old apartment and living with his handsome boyfriends. He had a home with heating and a kitchen that didn't have mold issues. He had a big bed that didn't smell like dust.
And, for the first time in years, he had a Christmas tree. It was a few-years-old artificial tree that stood at six feet tall and took up the corner of their living room. Lovino sat idly by as Antonio and Gilbert took the pieces from the giant box and matched the colored metal pieces of the branches to the base.
"I need another orange!" Antonio said, hands scraped and itchy from the fake foliage. Lovino rolled his eyes and carelessly threw an orange-ended tree limb to the Spaniard.
It took an hour to assemble, which was slow considering they had four men in their home. It was sad, really.
Lovino was unimpressed with their time—and shocked by the many, many boxes Francis pulled out of storage that was filled to the brim. Three boxes of ornaments, one box of garland and tinsel, two boxes of gaudy decorations, and a small box that only held the star and a skirt for the tree.
He knew his childish excitement wasn't as well hidden as he hoped it was when he heard the snap of a camera and awe-ing by Antonio and Francis.
"Lights go on first," Gilbert said automatically when Lovino began eying the many boxes before them. "Then garland, tinsel, and ornaments. Star goes on last."
"Why?" Lovino asked, voice flat. He was ready for some weird compulsive explanation by the albino.
"Because we're not animals," Gilbert replied.
Francis took the liberty of beginning the light, knowing he was tall and thin enough to slid around the tree without getting caught against the wall. His hair was pulled back in a red ribbon and Lovino had to admit, it was a nice look on the man.
Once the lights were on they moved on to garland and tinsel. They had long strands of garland in shimmery silver, red, and blue. It brought back a childish excitement to Lovino and he hissed when he heard all three of his idiot lovers cooing at him.
The ornaments had no particular order, which Lovino was thankful for. It was tradition they just do whatever, like every other family would. The nicer ones went up higher, of course, to avoid being knocked off and broken. The Italian didn't bring any of his own decorations (he didn't own any; he had told Feliciano to keep whatever they had left). He could, however, tell which third of their (their) ornaments had been given by whom.
The glittery ones had to be Antonio's—it just seemed like an Antonio thing to own. Something bright and colorful an eye-catching. Something other men might be embarrassed to have.
There were solid-colored ornaments in two different shapes: basic spheres and pear-shaped. They were matte and didn't sparkle or shine, yet held a warmer appearance for the holiday. Lovino had noticed they kept a few of those separated in another box. He was told in the kitchen, and out of earshot, that Gilbert didn't like having an odd number of them so they removed one for every broken counter-part to keep them in even numbers.
Francis's were the antique-looking glass ones they had to keep higher up on the tree with tightly-pinched hooks to prevent falling. Some were blown-glass and rather heavy, needing to rest on branches to help support the weight.
It didn't feel right, though. Antonio surveyed the tree with his eyes and contemplated what was missing.
"What now, the star?" Lovino asked, putting away the last of the tissue paper and ornament boxes.
"No," Antonio said to the surprise of Gilbert and Francis. "The star goes on last. It's not done yet. It's missing something."
"What?" Gilbert asked, almost offended at the implication he missed a step in his delicate process. He picked up the way Antonio's soft eyes flickered to the Italian picking at glitter stuck around his nails. "Oh. I see."
Their tree had everything. Everything but Lovino.
Later that day Francis grabbed Lovino by the hand and dragged him out the door.
"I need help with last minute shopping!" He said, voice heightened by stress. Lovino could only groan and go along with the man, knowing he'll get something in return for helping.
Sometimes it was blow-jobs. Sometimes it was breadsticks.
Goddamn, I love breadsticks.
The men rushed to the car parked not too far from the apartment entrance. It was a rather warm December but they still bundled up for the random gusts of freezing wind that could double as needles.
They both took a minute after finding safety in the car to check out their hair in the car mirrors and to check their skin hadn't become too reddened by the wind.
Francis started the car and turned the vents off until it was warm enough not to shoot out more freezing air at them. "We can leave in a minute. We'll never get good parking," he muttered.
Lovino rolled his eyes and reached out an icy hand to smooth down some fly-away strands to come loose from Francis's hair ribbon. "You're going out on Christmas Eve, idiot. Who waits until Christmas Eve to shop for anything?"
Francis pouted and tapped his fingers as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. "Gilbert has issues with peeking and Antonio is forgetful when we run out of things."
"Peeking? You didn't get him anything yet?"
"I usually like to pick out a few food items for him that I keep secret until tonight or tomorrow. He's pretty easy to find food for."
"And Antonio?"
"He likes anything he's given. He gets excited for all of it."
"What about you?" Lovino asked with genuine curiosity. "You're a shopaholic. You buy yourself everything and leave nothing for them to buy."
"Them?"
"I'm still paying off student loans," he growled. Fuck student loans.
A smile stretched across the blonde man's face and a new idea planted itself in his mind. "Then I have a new idea for this Christmas. Fret not, my petite amour! I know the perfect way to add you to the festivities!"
Christmas music jingled in the background as Antonio hopped around their kitchen with flour flying every which way. Gilbert took his time doing his holiday disinfecting of their bathroom and bedroom (Ludwig would be a terror if he showed up on Christmas day to a home even slightly dirty).
There were already three cookie trays with dough ready to go into the oven. Antonio went all out and made sugar cookies in the shapes of snowmen, trees, globes, and penguins. There were actual gingerbread men cooling on a rack and he had the mix for the icing ready at any moment, along with various colored food dyes.
When he was done with cookies he had plans to make a cake with peppermint and chocolate.
The boys had been gone for a couple hours at this point and Antonio was happy to have the majority of the apartment to himself, with the entirety of the kitchen totally his. He was normally happy to be surrounded by his family but, let's be real, he wasn't perfect and didn't want to blow up on the boys. It wasn't that he was hard to anger, he was just amazing at anger management.
Thank God his poor little Lovi wouldn't have to see that side of him: the side that will murder your entire family in front of you if you got in his way and burnt his cookies.
"How's the baking going, babe?"
Antonio glanced up from his mixing bowl to see Gilbert's reddened cheeks peeking into the kitchen.
"It's good," he smiled. "Why is your face red?"
"I found a major ball of hair in the shower drain. It took forever to get out." Gilbert shivered.
"Blonde?"
"I'm withholding sex from that French son of a bitch."
The albino went back to finish his work and catch a shower before he was expected to help with unloading groceries or wrapping presents. Antonio pulled out his cookies and put in the last batch before starting on icing the cooled cookies.
He had time alone and hated the way he was losing ways to distract himself. Holidays were always amazing and fun and exciting… but he couldn't stop the flashes of faded memory of his old life. The way Christmas was picture-perfect with his family. The way they all wore neat sweaters and the way his mom scolded him for his curly hair never staying flat for pictures.
There were the baskets of old Christmas cards and the plates of store-bought cookies because baking would be too messy this close to their annual party. There were trash bags in their basement filled with used cleaning supplies from making their home sparkle beyond the snow. He remembered the way his fingers cramped up from replacing all the impossibly miniature colored lights for their tree.
Then there was the silent crying in his bedroom once the party was over and he had to go let it all out from the stress of the day. He remembered he disappointment of his parents giving away most of his presents and the way they said he should be proud to have given someone less fortunate something.
He'd have liked to have his own fucking presents and a day that wasn't lies covered in plastic poinsettias and a manger scene. Yeah, it would have been just chill if Antonio actually had presents at the end of the day to distract him from the itchy sweater he had to wear.
The oven timer went off and he took a breath before pulling on his oven mitts.
The trunk of their road-salted was filled with bags upon bags of whatever they could find at the stores they'd been hitting up all day. They had a system worked out in which Francis would drop Lovino off in front then drive around the block until Lovino had found whatever vague items Francis wrote down on his shopping list.
Lovino was given an envelope of money and the lined yellow paper of things he should try to find.
The fuck is this shit? I didn't sign up for this! I signed up for fucking three hot men!
The list included batteries (with no specifications what kind), condoms, marshmallows, socks, tape, ribbons, soap, towels, and other weird and unrelated items. Then, at the bottom of the page, were the words, "dealer's choice."
Which meant Lovino had total control and could say fuck it and buy whatever.
He returned from two of their stores with the weirdest things he could find. It was disappointing when Francis didn't even bat an eye at "I bought thirty-two packets of sea monkeys."
They did eventually make it to their local grocery store where the parking was so horrendous that they had to park across the street at some local coffee shop. They were nearly hit a handful of times on their way to the store, where there were no carts or baskets left.
Lovino was told to pick what they would eat for lunch the next day and Francis would prepare their dinner. The little Italian was pleased to finally get his goddamn Italian food. It was this day that Francis finally saw the side of Lovino he'd only heard stories of:
The overly-enthusiastic Lovino who would push an old lady down a set of stairs if it meant he could get the last can of tomato sauce.
Francis had his speculations that Lovino had social anxiety or some form of aversion to the public or social events. He knew the man didn't do well with crowds… he just had no idea it was the crowd that was in danger, not Lovino himself.
He watched in terror as Lovino dashed between carts and screaming kids to get to the shelves with the last remaining cans or boxes of what he needed. He hopped over a puddle of vomit on the ground to make it to the last box of candy canes before an old lady on a motorized cart could.
"Lovino!"
The Italian turned to face Francis with the box tucked securely in his arms. The noise he made resembled a hiss.
Mine mine mine.
"Let's… go check out."
Christmas morning. Lovino hadn't expected it to be so… homey. The presents, old and last-minute, were wrapped and waiting under the tree with shiny bows and neatly-written nametags. There were stockings hung on the wall with their first initial stitched on in gold.
There was a blush threatening to break out when Lovino noticed the tree had been finished, the star in place on top, and the green branches now adorned by the candy canes he picked out himself.
They had agreed before that they wouldn't have company or any parties. Gilbert and Francis knew about Antonio's aversion to parties and formal gatherings, while none of them knew how to deal with the awkwardness that was Ludwig and Feliciano knowing about their arrangement.
Their TV played a non-stop video of a fireplace and there was faint music still in the background. Around the tree they sat and opened the boxes, laughing at the gag gifts Lovino found ("Lovi, why did you give me eleven packets of sea monkeys?"), aweing at the cashmere sweaters and socks.
No one brought any attention to the fact Lovino had the most presents, nor did they turn down the cookies Antonio offered when their stomachs felt like bursting.
Lovino spent hours working on the perfect lunch of Italian food. No one turned that down either, even when Gilbert was choking down a cookie trying to escape.
Finally they finished their food and settled down to watch the only movie they could agree on: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It was Lovino's favorite "Christmas" movie.
Then, later that night when their stomachs had settled, they had the craziest sex involving a very inappropriate use of candy canes.