"I still think we should lock the boys out," Lyla said, raising her eyebrows as she put a package of pasta into a pot of boiling water just as Denise had asked. "We don't need the boys coming in and trying to get a sneak preview of everything. I don't know about anyone else but Kenny's at that growing-boy-age where he'll eat anything. Everything," Lyla groaned. Denise and Wendy glanced at one another - with everything that had happened lately, the three, who at any other point in their lives would have never been able to be friends, seemed to have come together nicely.
Wendy, in particular, seemed to be trying hard to pay her dues and be there for Denise in any way possible, because while Denise was unable to do a lot of things, Jax gave Wendy a chance to jump in a play a bigger role. It didn't evade anyone's notice that she had been staying over at the Teller house more often.
Sofia was perched happily in a high chair, watching the ol' ladies prepare dinner, and Denise was often distracted by something particularly adorable her daughter was doing - considering she had missed a whole two weeks, which was practically eternity for a baby who grew and learned so much by the day, everyone felt compelled to cut her a little slack. Thomas, too, was sitting in a high chair, though he was quickly becoming too big to need it. But he still enjoyed it, because he liked doing the same thing as Sofia.
"Shit - this is amazing. This is -"
"Out, Tig!" Denise said, raising her eyebrows and pointing at the door, realizing that while they were busy on one side of the kitchen, some of the men had started sneaking over. Tig in particular had pinched off a small piece of ham that Denise had just finished preparing. "That's your last freebie -"
"Hap! Put the creamed spinach down or one of us is gonna shoot your di-"
"Lyla."
Lyla clapped a hand over her mouth abruptly - she always found Denise's obsession with not swearing around her baby amusing, and by the way her face quickly reddened, she was trying hard to keep from laughing.
Denise laughed, rolling her eyes. "Jesus Christ -"
"- was born this night, sweetheart," Tig smirked, sneaking off one last small piece of ham before leaving the kitchen area with Happy and rejoining the other men outside on the patio.
"Get Brucey and Flick in here for me," Denise called after him. "I need the prospects on potato peeling duty."
"Yes, Ma'am," Tig smirked as he dipped out the door, shutting the door behind him. When the two prospects didn't come inside within a few minutes, however, Denise frowned slightly and excused herself to go head outside and check on what was happening. It turned out, the boys had already had a few drinks. Abel was attempting to play football with Bobby, who must have drawn the short straw and as punishment, was forced to spend Christmas Eve trying to keep up with a six-year-old. Denise grinned when she realized that Nero had arrived, bearing gifts of tequila and a platter of food that they had already started digging into. They had started playing poker at a pop-up table on the porch, but he put his cards down and got to his feet to greet Denise, kissing the side of her head and squeezing her around the shoulders.
"I'm glad you came," she said, reaching out and hugging the older man back. Denise knew, of course, that it was hard for Nero to come around often, with the situation with Gemma being what it was.
"Couldn't miss your first big family dinner, Chinita," he chuckled, his speech already slightly slurred. "Hope you're not tirin' yourself out too bad."
"Nah," she Denise went around to check up on everyone, making sure to shove Brucey and Flick towards the door to go inside. However, as she went along and took a census of everyone outside, she realized that there was one face missing from the festivities. "Where's Chibs?" she asked aloud.
The men paused and glanced at one another, and Denise felt highly out of the loop until finally, Juice was the one to speak up and answer his wife's question.
"Chibs doesn't do Christmas," he said matter-of-factly. Denise frowned, and looked to the others for confirmation, receiving a few nods.
"Well," Denise said resolutely, crossing her arms, an expression crossing her face that Juice knew all too well. That expression could only mean that she'd decided on something and had no intention of not getting it. "He's going to do Christmas this year. I'll be back."
People knew to leave Chibs be when it came to the holidays - he was more than content, he claimed, to stay holed up in a dormitory in the clubhouse with a bottle of scotch. Multiple, usually. So, it came as a surprise indeed when a knock came to his door, and he hesitated before standing up to open it.
"You're terrible at hiding."
Chibs smirked, shaking his head at Denise's greeting as she slid past him into the dorm room, taking a seat on the chair by his bed. Normally, he would have stopped someone barging in on him this way, but considering the sense of debt he still carried on his shoulders towards the girl, and the fact that she looked exhausted and in need of a seat, was enough to convince him to change his standard reaction to being barged in upon.
Denise's eyes flitted slowly over to the bottle of scotch sitting half-empty on the dresser, and then on the photo that sat on the bed. The photo was one of two women that Denise had never seen before, and she glanced over at Chibs questioningly. He gave a gruff chuckle before walking over to the bed, sitting back down and resting his elbows on his knees.
"My girls," he said simply. Denise nodded in comprehension - she'd heard from Juice before that Chibs had a wife and daughter, a family whose lives he had never really been a part of, save for a few fleeting encounters. "What were your Christmases like, growing up? With your family?" Chibs asked, his brow furrowing. Denise had to stop and think - a time when she'd spent the holiday with her family, with Charles, her father, and her grandfather, felt like they had no longer even been in the same lifetime.
"It depended on the year. Sometimes we were at home. Sometimes, we were as far away from home as we could get," Denise said with a distant smile. "Baba - my father," she corrected quickly, realizing she hadn't called her father by the old Chinese term of endearment for many years now. "He always tried so hard at Christmas because, well, Charles and I didn't have a mother to cook us nice dinners, to tuck us into bed, to tell us stories. He was very... professional," Denise admitted with a laugh. "Baba and Grandfather, they loved us so much, but they didn't know how they were supposed to show it. So, they made up for it by making Christmas this... this enormous spectacle."
Denise allowed her eyes to drift shut, and for the first time in years, she realized that she had allowed herself to feel sad, to miss her father and grandfather's Christmases. Chibs chuckled, reaching out and placing a hand on the young woman's shoulder.
"Christmas in Ireland was always somethin' else," he said, now mirroring the sad smile on Denise's face, his voice drawling slightly from the scotch he'd already partaken in. "For a while, I promised myself, one day I'd go legit. Clean myself up. Let my girls experience a real Christmas, with our family together the way it ought've been. Never happened," he shrugged. Denise nodded, and for a short few moments, they fell silent. Chibs withdrew his hand, putting on a familiar show of clamming up, so familiar that Denise practically knew his question before he was able to ask it.
"Wha' about your last Christmas?" he asked. The question didn't need answering, however. He knew that Denise had spent in pregnant, without Juice, all because of him. Not only had he failed his own family on Christmas, he'd now had to live with the fact that he'd torn another family apart on what ought to have been a precious, special time for them. The softness of Denise's expression, however, revealed to Chibs that since she didn't need to say anything, she wasn't going to - she wasn't going to rub those mistakes in further. "I don't deserve this kindness from you," he added. At this, Denise gave a small laugh.
"That's the thing about that stuff. Kindness. Forgiveness," she shrugged, now leaning forward closer to Chibs. "You don't decide whether or not you get it. You only decide whether or not you give it."
Chibs laughed throatily, looking up at the ceiling upon hearing the statement from her. "Please, come over for Christmas dinner," Denise said simply. "I almost died, I think you can afford to humor me a little."
"Poor little rich girl, so used to getting her way," Chibs chuckled, shaking his head, but the change in his eyes brought about a smile from Denise, as she realized that she'd somehow convinced him. "Let's go."
"Good. Hopefully Happy hasn't eaten everything," Denise smirked, getting up from her seat and opening the door, nodding out to her car - she wasn't about to have him take his bike with half a bottle of scotch sitting in his stomach.
The change in Chibs' demeanor just from the simple fact that someone had actually reached out to him and not taken no for an answer was clear - now, rather than a weary, doleful expression, he drunked wailed along with the Christmas songs Denise flipped onto the car radio, still mumbling through the verses of 'Good King Wenceslaus' as they pulled up and got out of the car in front of the Ortiz home.
"Chibbie!" Juice barked out, standing up from the poker game they were currently in. "Looks like the Grinch's heart finally grew it's ten sizes -"
"Uncle Chibs is the Grinch?" Abel asked in confusion, distracted from his attempts to pull Bobby up off of the ground, where he'd decided to lay down in exhaustion from still being forced to play football for hours with the little boy. Seemingly in the Christmas spirit, Happy finally got up and helped the older man to his feet, ready to take a turn at entertaining Abel. Denise noticed with a comical scowl, however, that he had in fact helped himself to a bowl of creamed spinach while she was gone.
There was something nice about being whole on Christmas - as whole as they could possibly get, anyway. It was loud, and Denise had quite a job ahead of her, trying to keep Sofia's ears covered from their coarser language, but there was something particularly endearing about Tig's attempts to speak completely in euphemism in front of the babies, and Happy's insistence on simply spelling out all of his curse words. Ellie, in particular, had taken over the role of policing the others, while Kenny seemed dead set on trying to sneak in curse words when he could, just because he could
Chibs even went as far to say a blessing over the food once everything was finished, and once everyone had loaded up their plates, Denise was lingering around the kitchen to keep seats free for everyone else. Surveying the room, things simply seemed... calm. Jax and Wendy were sitting together with the boys on one sofa, laughing and smiling. Brucey and Flick had been tasked with feeding mashed potatoes to Sofia, who was now dressed in a Santa hat. However, when she happened to dribble most of it out, Happy came over and snatched the spoon from Brucey, proceeding to feed the baby proper-sized bites himself.
Juice came over to the kitchen with his plate and leaned against the counter next to her, fishing something out of his pockets. Denise looked up to find him smirking and holding up a piece of mistletoe up over their heads. Denise laughed, rolling her eyes and gently socking him in the shoulder before grabbing a fistful of the front of his shirt and yanking him forward to kiss him deeply. Juice pulled back and rested his forehead against hers with a smirk.
"You're such a cheeseball," Denise laughed. "But I love you anyway."
"This is amazing, baby. I still can't believe you got Chibs to come to a Christmas party," he muttered. "I mean, Jesus Christ -"
"- was born this night," Denise smirked, echoing Tig's taunt from earlier in the evening. "It looks like about time to put the kids to bed -"
"No!" Abel moaned, jabbing his finger in the direction of the Christmas tree. "But what about presents?"
"Presents are for Christmas morning, because Santa hasn't brought the rest of 'em yet," Denise pointed out. "So you're gonna watch over Fifi and Tommy and go to bed. You and Kenny and Ellie, becausey you're the big kids."
"Fine," Abel groused. "Can you and Auntie Lyla come with us? And Mommy?"
Wendy immediately sat up straight - Mommy. Just Mommy. Not "Wendy", not "Mommy Wendy". Though the difference was subtle, it was so strongly felt that she immediately had to reach up and wipe at her eyes, while Jax wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing gently.
"Alright, sweetie," Lyla spoke up. "All the mamas will hang out with you guys, and these old geezers will go back to playing cards and keeping watch for Santa on the porch." Or, in truth, the old geezers would be going to pick up the presents from Santa that they'd hidden away to place under the tree.
Satisfied with the arrangement, Abel walked over to the tree and picked up the book he had placed down there - 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Wendy, Lyla, and Denise glanced among one another, knowing that this meant one of them would have to read it to him. Finally, their gaze landed on Ellie, who sighed in resignation. It looked like she was going to be put on storytime duty.
If this was what Christmas was going to be from here on out, Juice decided as he watched the women happily herd the kids into the bedroom, then new things weren't so bad after all.
A/N's
And that's Christmas! Or, at least, the first part. I hope you guys didn't mind semi-Grinch Chibs! The next chapter picks up just shortly after this one, and is going to be a reminder that even on Christmas, the outside world still exists.
I'm definitely hoping to have the next chapter up before Christmas, but it might happen shortly after, just because work and family stuff over the holidays will probably come down in an avalanche, and my time may be limited. But just in case I'm not able to update or reply, I hope all of you have the happiest of happy holidays, and your readership is one of my best presents this year! This is the first time I've been really active in updating a story around the holidays, and it's been amazing having all of my readers and reviewers be a part of my holiday season.
After the holiday fun, the club's mess with Marks and the Triads is going to pick back up and shake up a lot of the fluffy fun we've been having here, so be prepared. This is still the Sons of Anarchy universe, after all! Until next time, cheers!