En-Lighten-Ment

Kelly Severide knew he was getting older, and he hated it. Sure, it beat the alternative, but it was slowly dawning on him that he was now at the point in his life where he started thinking all the things his parents must've thought when he was little.

He found himself laying awake in bed, trying to sleep but getting nowhere fast, and unable to figure out why. He was sure it wasn't just a random bout of insomnia, that there had to be an actual reason he couldn't sleep. He could rule out using the bathroom, of all things that could be the culprit for him staying awake, his bladder definitely wasn't one of them. His mouth was a bit dry but not enough to need a drink. So, what was it? The bed was comfortable enough, no dips in the mattress, the sheets were recently washed, the bedding was warm, soft and comfortable, so he didn't actually want to get up for anything. So what was the problem?

It started to dawn on him that he'd forgotten to do something, but he wasn't sure what. He lay there in bed and tried to remember, tried to think. He mentally counted the items off one by one, he'd locked the front door, he was sure of that. It had been warmer weather that day, but he knew he'd put the windows up in his car. The stove was turned off, it had to be because they'd just ordered in for dinner. The dishes were done...there wasn't a drip from any of the faucets. He'd gotten his bills paid, the local ones were all dropped off yesterday, so that wasn't looming over his head. He'd put the leftovers from dinner in the fridge so they wouldn't go bad overnight, he'd gotten the water ready for the coffee tomorrow, he'd gassed up his car that morning, he'd picked up the mail that afternoon...everything seemed to be accounted for.

But he couldn't sleep.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he just knew that he forgot something, and the only way he was going to find out what it was was to drag his ass out of his warm cozy bed and find out. Reluctantly he threw back the covers and opened his door.

Right away he could tell what it was. A light shined from somewhere in the apartment as soon as he opened his door. Now he remembered. He forgot to shut off the Christmas tree for the night.

He padded into the living room and was half blinded by it. Once his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he found himself staring at it for a moment. He and Casey had put it up at Thanksgiving. It had taken an hour to shape all the branches after it was folded up for a year. Then they'd put the lights on it, two 100 bulb strings of clear lights, three strings of colored, it was a little sparse in spots but it had been enough. They'd left it like that with just the lights on for a week before they decided to decorate it.

It had been Casey's idea during that week to string popcorn to put on the tree. Kelly thought it was a dumb idea and an overrated custom, but he went along with it, and it took the two of them the better part of the week to get enough stringed up to actually go around the tree enough times, and before the week was over they both had more fingers bandaged than not from sticking themselves with the needles.

They each had some ornaments they'd more or less inherited from their families, some were old and shoddy, some of them had broken in places, so they'd bought a few boxes of new ones to cover the tree. Actually putting the decorations on hadn't taken near as long as he'd thought it would, they had the whole thing done in less than an hour. They'd done it in the morning one day off-shift, in the daylight it had looked good, but not all that impressive. At night though, when the apartment was dark, and all the lights were shining, and they reflected and shone on all the other ornaments, the glass balls, some colored, some clear with glitter paint, the icicles, the silver tinsel garland, even the way the lights hit various sections of the popcorn strings, it all came together in an almost mesmerizing sight.

They'd gotten an extension cord for the lights that had a footswitch on it, so instead of unplugging the lights every single night, all he had to do was step on it. Using the light from the tree to see by, he looked along the floor and found the switch and had just raised his foot over it to shut them off.

"Don't."

The word came out of nowhere and Kelly froze for a second before he put his foot on the floor and turned around. "Casey?"

He was met with a sight he had somehow missed a moment earlier.

In the dim glowing lights from the tree, he saw Casey sitting on the floor right in front of the couch, his knees drawn up to his chest and he just sat there gazing at the tree.

"How long have you been there?" Kelly asked.

Matt didn't answer. His eyes didn't even move to acknowledge his friend, he continued to stare at the tree as if he was entranced by it, and said distantly, "Let's leave it on tonight."

Kelly walked over to him, "Are you alright, Matt?"

Getting a closer look, he saw a tired but tranquil look in Casey's eyes, and possibly the biggest smile he'd ever seen on Matt's face as he continued to stare intensely at the Christmas tree.

"You just gonna sit there watching it all night?" Kelly asked.

When he got no answer, he looked back to see if he could see whatever it was that Casey was seeing, and after a minute he nudged his friend and told him, "Move over."

Kelly woke up and he didn't know how much time had passed, if it had been a few minutes, an hour, or more. The tree was still on, still looking every bit as hypnotizing as it had all night. He realized what woke him up was Matt had fallen asleep and in doing so his whole body had slumped to the side and was pressed against Kelly's shoulder. Kelly could've woken him up, maybe he should've, but he didn't. Instead he put an arm around Casey, who didn't respond to the touch, and tiredly looked at the tree in awe again. When it was the only light on in the apartment, and there was no way to see what time it was, the night just seemed to go on forever, and in some strange way that felt comforting to Kelly.

He woke up again and this time they'd both fallen over and were on the floor, Casey laying on top of him and still oblivious to anything that was going on. Kelly could've woken him up then, they could've gone to their rooms, each crawled in their own warm bed and been comfortable, but he did not. Instead he reached up with his free hand, pulled a pillow off the couch and slipped it under his head so he wouldn't have a stiff neck in the morning, and left them there as they were. The sound of Casey's slow rhythmic breathing was the only sound Severide could hear in the apartment, and it was all he needed to hear.

"Merry Christmas, Casey," he whispered shortly before falling back asleep himself.