A/N: A big Merry Whatever to all of you! I hope the day treats you kindly.
The build up to Christmas is fraught with both excitement and trepidation, as well as the struggle to navigate both - often simultaneously - but they manage with their 'one day at a time' policy in place. Though, that does falter on a number of occasions leading up to the day itself. Jamie finds herself quietly making plans in her head, thinking of a future Dani has warned her not to count on. Waking up with her on Christmas morning, eating whatever the hell kind of food they can get their hands on for dinner, watching some ancient seasonal film they can barely make out through the fuzzy static that plagues one of the few channels they get on their small television, while they cuddle on the threadbare couch that had already been in the tiny one-bedroom flat they're renting when they arrived.
Jamie thinks it sounds wonderful.
As the twenty-fifth looms closer, she notices Dani letting her guard down bit by bit. She talks more about Christmas and even New Years, briefly mentions Valentine's Day and asks if Jamie likes to celebrate the 'Hallmark Holiday.'
"No idea," Jamie tells her from atop the step ladder she's standing on, arms stretched up to where she's pressing a thumbtack into the ceiling. The paint is peeling in areas and if the lease they'd signed had been for any longer than three months, Jamie might think about applying a fresh coat.
Spending Christmas in Vermont had always been the plan, tentatively, but Dani had been the one to suggest that they take a break from their Great American Road Trip. Settle in for a while, just to give themselves a chance to recharge, enjoy the Christmas season, before moving on in the new year. Jamie had been all too happy to accomodate Dani's wishes, quietly excited by the idea of playing house, even for a little while.
The tack is holding up a brightly coloured Christmas decoration that's made of shiny foil and looks like something you'd see at the end of a kaleidoscope. There are another dozen or so of the same hanging around their living room-slash-kitchen, spaced as evenly as Jamie could manage without a tape measure. She can feel Dani's eyes on her, lingering around the strip of skin that's been exposed by Jamie's shirt riding up as she reaches, and smiles privately to herself.
"I've never had a go at that one," Jamie continues, thinking back on every instance that could conceivably be even misconstrued as some kind of Valentine's Day celebration.
"Never?" Dani moves around to the front of the ladder so that she can look up at Jamie, who rests her forearms across its arched metal top and tilts her head thoughtfully.
"Not unless the screws forcing us to make Valentine's cards while I was inside counts?" Jamie asks and when Dani's brow creases into a frown, she smiles and descends. "Sorry, the wardens. They decided it'd be a good idea to pull out the arts and crafts for the inmates one year."
"Was it?" Dani asks, eyebrows raised. "A good idea? "
"There was an incident involving a pair of scissors and two of the other women on the block." Jamie folds the ladder up and leans it against the wall. "Or an attempted incident. Can't cut through much with safety scissors." Dani stares at her with wide eyes and Jamie lets out a chuckle, slipping her hands into the pockets of the flower-patterned sweatpants Dani had picked up for her while they were still on the road, travelling from place to place with very little in the way of wardrobe. "Got a bit rough in there sometimes, s'why I spent most of my free hours in the gardens or the potting shed. Needless to say, they didn't pull out the pens and paper the year after. Almost a shame, really. Might be a bit biased, but I personally think mine were stunning. Proper Hallmark quality." With Dani chuckling, Jamie crosses the small space to the sink and picks up the kettle to fill it. She fills it enough for two cups of tea, before setting it back down on its base and flicking the switch.
The silence that follows is a type that Jamie has already become familiar with. There are a few different kinds of silences that have fallen between them over the last few months and this one Jamie recognises as, 'the one where Dani is overthinking what she's about to say next.' Patiently, Jamie waits, feeling Dani's eyes hot on the back of her neck as her own dance over the knicknacks scattered across the counter. Bits and pieces they'd picked up as they'd journeyed across the country, each one carrying its own memory that fills Jamie with a kind of nice, buzzing fuzziness that she's still getting used to.
"How long…?" Dani finally says, but she trails off, clearly unsure whether or not it's okay to ask. And that's understandable, Jamie thinks, because they haven't really talked about it. Not since that night with the moonflowers.
Her stomach flips, heart skipping at the memory.
She turns around to lean against the sink so that she can look at Dani, who has taken a few steps closer but is keeping a certain amount of distance between them. Unconsciously giving Jamie space as wide eyes that are two different colours gaze at her with hopeful, if hesitant, interest. Like she cares.
Jamie's still getting used to that, too.
"Sentenced to five years," she says, slowly, ducking her head but refusing to keep her gaze down for long. "Released after three for good behaviour. Apparently I showed promise of reform early on." Jamie shrugs, only a little uneasy. She isn't fond of talking about that time in her life, largely because it feels like a story that belongs to someone else now. She isn't that person anymore. But, at the same time, she can't forget the fact that it is, undoubtedly, who she used to be. To just remove that aspect of herself, of her life, would diminish all the work she'd done to pull herself out of that place. Wouldn't be fair to the person she is now, the person who overcame all of that shit. "Just kept my head down and did what I was told really. Tamara helped a lot, as much as I'd have been loathed to admit it back then."
"I'm glad you finally started talking to her." Dani smiles at her, not a speck of judgement floating about her.
"You know you can ask me stuff, right?" Jamie holds her hands out towards Dani and wiggles her fingers in invitation. Dani goes to her, takes her hands and allows Jamie to pull her close. Lets her guide Dani's arms up around her neck as she loops her own around Dani's waist. "'Bout prison, stuff before, anything." She slides her thumbs under the back of Dani's shirt and brushes them over the skin there, as she brings their foreheads together. "Nothin's off limits, okay? Not with you."
Dani nods, lightly scratches her nails across the nape of Jamie's neck and Jamie feels the hairs on her arms stand on end. Then Dani's fingers wind into her hair and Jamie is smiling into her kiss as they stand, together, in a kitchen that might be borrowed but, for now, it's theirs.
They break away only when the kettle screeches for attention, but Jamie keeps Dani close for a few more seconds. She hums, happily, and revels in the way Dani's breathy laughter caresses her lips, fills the little bubble they've drawn around themselves until it's all Jamie can hear. And god, she'd happily spend the rest of her life surrounded by that sound.
Careful, she thinks. One day at a time.
She makes the tea, milk with two sugars for herself, just milk for Dani - "Pretty sure you're sweet enough, Poppins." - and they retire to the ratty-looking couch that serves as a divider between the kitchen and the living room. There's a small coffee table in front of it, another thrift store buy, upon which a potted plant sits. Bright yellow daffodils that make Jamie smile whenever she sees them.
Jamie sits and kicks her sock-clad feet up onto the end of the coffee table, blowing across the surface of her tea before taking a sip. Dani scoots closer, careful not to spill her own drink, and tucks her legs up against Jamie's thigh, leaning into her side. Jamie glances askance at Dani and spends a few seconds admiring her profile unnoticed, before she takes hold of her mug in her left hand and lifts it to rest, more or less steadily, on the arm of the couch, fingers curled around the handle. Then, once Dani has settled and is looking at her, Jamie makes an outrageously dramatic show of yawning and stretching, throwing her right arm into the air even as Dani rolls her eyes and grins at her. When gravity does it's thing and pulls her arm back down, she wraps it around Dani's shoulders, holding her close and comfortable.
"Smooth," Dani giggles and Jamie quirks an eyebrow at her.
"Sounds a bit on the sarcastic side, that." Jamie narrows her eyes. "Are you implying that my wooing skills are ineffective?"
Dani tips her head back until Jamie can feel it rest against her arm and blinks bright eyes at her. She's struck by Dani's smile for the millionth time, the way it lights her face as well as whatever room she's in.
"I think the fact that I'm sitting here right now finding you extremely adorable would suggest otherwise," Dani says.
"Adorable?" Jamie rolls the idea around in her mouth. " Yeah, I reckon I can live with adorable."
"I do have… other words for you, too." Dani bites at the corner of her lip and Jamie's heart gives her ribs a few extra thumps.
"That right?" She brings her mug to her mouth and takes a drink, stalling, giving herself time to think as Dani sips at her tea. "You'll have to tell me what they are sometime." She leans forward at that, hand dragging along Dani's shoulders as she places the mug down onto the coffee table, pulse jumping as she sits back and turns her head to find Dani watching her, lip still caught distractingly between her teeth.
Arm around Dani once more, Jamie slides her fingertips beneath the collar of Dani's shirt and lightly traces patterns along the line of her shoulder, the side of her neck.
"Mm," Dani hums, appreciatively, eyelids fluttering. "I wouldn't want to say them in such a public place." She furrows her brow into a mock frown and gestures towards the door of the flat. "Anyone could walk in and hear."
Through their locked front door. Jamie grins, the corners ever so slightly turned down in a manner that usually means she's impressed.
"We could always," she pauses to let the sentence hang between them, to draw the moment out a bit longer, to watch Dani's throat bob with a hard swallow, "pop into the bedroom. Bit less public, we-"
"Okay, yes!" Dani's exclamation is somehow both firm and breathless, and she's standing before Jamie can start laughing. Which she does, a second later, when Dani almost drops her cup onto the coffee table and milky-brown liquid sloshes over the side. Dani doesn't notice, she's too busy grabbing Jamie's hand and dragging her towards the room where the bed lives, grinning against Jamie's laughter as she tries to kiss her.
The sun has made its way across the sky and into the afternoon when they finally take their hands off each other long enough to lie back and breathe. Jamie rolls away from where she'd been lying on top of Dani, their skin sticking together as if trying to keep them bonded, and slumps down beside her with a groan of tired pleasure.
Sweat has plastered Dani's bangs to her forehead and covered her body in a way that makes it shimmer when the light catches it. Her chest is still heaving, like she can't quite catch her breath or pull in one that's deep enough, and Jamie smothers a laugh against Dani's upper arm, presses a kiss there.
"Anyone… ever tell you," Dani manages after a few moments, in between deep breaths, "you're really… really good at that?" She turns her head to Jamie who traces every beautiful line and curve of Dani's face with her eyes.
"You might have mentioned it once or twice." There's a smugness to Jamie's tone that's intentional, purposeful in the way it makes Dani's nose crinkle when she smiles, and Jamie lifts herself up and leans over to press a light kiss to the tip of it.
"Were you going for a new record there?" Dani asks with a huff of laughter once Jamie has lain back down.
"Not intentionally," Jamie admits, then stops to ponder the question further. "Though, a bit of competition in the bedroom is healthy. Probably." She frowns. "Maybe." Then levels Dani with the kind of smouldering smile that really only belongs in filthy dreams. "I mostly just like the sounds you make when you-" she's stopped short by Dani's hand, slapped over her mouth to hold Jamie's words back, though it does nothing to diminish her grin and she kisses the soft skin of Dani's palm.
"You shush," Dani warns her, already flushed cheeks turning a darker shade of pink as she takes her hand back.
"You getting suddenly shy on me, Poppins?" Reaching across Dani, Jamie wraps her hand around the blonde's shoulder to kind of pull and shuffle herself into Dani's side so she can nuzzle her nose into the crook of her neck. "Lying naked," Jamie pinches the top of the lavender coloured sheet between her thumb and forefinger and lifts it like she's checking to make sure clothes haven't magically materialised on Dani's body. "Yep, naked in our bed after everything we just did, all those pretty swear words falling out your mouth in a way that would make a nun blush and then promptly reconsider her life choices," Dani laughs at that, "and now you're shy?"
Dani groans and pulls the sheet up over her head in an attempt to hide herself from Jamie, but the plan backfires when she ends up yanking it over both of them, effectively shrouding them in their own little purple-hued bubble. She sees the moment Dani realises this, gets to watch as her blue eye darts to the corner and spies Jamie still lying there, unmoved.
"You," Jamie starts, walking the first two fingers of her right hand from Dani's navel up to her throat, where she lets her palm curve around the back of Dani's neck. "Have nothing," she raises her eyebrow for extra emphasis, tilting her head forward, "to be shy about."
Dani rolls her lips in on themselves, then parts them with a heavy exhale, their corners already turning up and shifting her expression into something that reminds Jamie of sunny days spent sinking her fingers into black earth while surrounded by greenery.
Home.
Her chest constricts at the thought and, not wanting to say something out of turn, she leans forward and pulls Dani into another kiss to shut herself up. It's lazy and languid, much like their day so far, and Jamie sighs when she feels Dani's fingers teasing the dark curls framing her face. And it's so easy, Jamie thinks. So, so easy to fall into Dani, into another kiss and another, and another, until Jamie's breaking away gasping for breath, while Dani tries to chase her lips.
"How is it," Jamie rasps, dropping her head beside Dani's to press a kiss to her cheek, "you have the stamina of an olympic swimmer when it comes to kissing?"
Dani laughs, big and bold, bubbling up and out of her in a manner that she refers to as goofy but that Jamie insists is adorable. She doesn't try to offer an answer, though. Just gives Jamie a little half shrug of her shoulder as she gazes up from under hooded eyelids.
Lifting her arm, Jamie throws the sheet back, popping their little bubble and returning them to the bedroom once more.
"What time is it?" Dani asks, and Jamie twists her naked torso to look at the digital alarm clock on her bedside table.
"Just gone two." She turns back to Dani with a sly smile, lying down again on her front. "Time flies when you're having fun."
Dani rolls towards her, sheets slipping to reveal pale skin Jamie never tires of touching and if her eyes happen to travel south, that's fine. And if Dani happens to catch her staring, that's fine too. Worth it for the look Dani gives her.
They lie quietly for a while. Jamie's arms bent at the elbows and buried under the pillow her head rests on, while Dani runs her fingers back and forth along Jamie's back, pressing soft, sporadic kisses to her shoulder.
Jamie sighs, content. Happy.
"What do you want to do for Christmas?"
It is the very last thing Jamie expects Dani to ask.
Well, maybe not the last, but it's right down there near the bottom.
She turns onto her side to look at Dani properly and shivers when the movement drags the hand at her back over to her stomach.
"Reckon I could spend all day just doing this." Jamie grins, hooking an ankle around Dani's and pulling, twining their legs together. "Unless you've got other ideas?"
"No." Dani shakes her head gently. "I was just… thinking."
"Fancy sharing with the class, Miss Clayton?"
Dani digs her thumb into the ticklish spot beneath Jamie's ribs, earning her a squeal as Jamie tries to wriggle away, but Dani has her legs locked in place and, well, Jamie doesn't actually try all that hard.
"I guess I, I-I know how much you wanted a white Christmas and, well, we're here. In Vermont. And, I suppose, I wondered what other things you might want. Only because… It's our first Christmas." She swallows, looks away, and Jamie feels something like a steel trap go off inside her chest when she realises what's coming. "And it might, it might be- we don't know how long-"
"Poppins," Jamie interrupts as gently as she can, cradling Dani's cheek in her hand, trying to banish the fear, doubt, and sadness glistening in Dani's eyes. "One day at a time, yeah?" she reminds her and feels the trap loosen slightly when Dani lifts a hand to cover the one against her face, nodding, eyes closing.
"I just… I want it to be special." Dani sounds so fragile, her already soft voice somehow becoming moreso, causing her to radiate a sense of vulnerability that has the need to protect Dani surging from a flickering candle to raging bonfire within Jamie.
"And it will be," Jamie assures her, threading her fingers through Dani's. "Know why?" She doesn't wait for Dani to respond, already knows it'll come in the form of a slow shake of her head. "Because you'll be there."
Dani's smile overtakes her face slowly, like the newborn rays of a rising sun stretching lazily across the land, bathing everything in gold and light. Jamie doesn't think she'll ever tire of seeing it, of being the cause of such a sight. It fills her with feelings and words she thinks it's too soon to speak about out loud, so she'll keep them close to her chest. For now.
"Yeah?" Dani asks, gazing at Jamie like she's just told Dani she's the most important thing in her whole world.
Which isn't exactly wrong.
"Yeah." She brings Dani's hand to her lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles. "Reckon it might just be my best Christmas yet."
They eventually crawl back out of bed shortly after three o'clock and decide to shower - separately, lest they end up in a place similarly wonderful to where they'd spent the last few hours - before leaving the flat to take a stroll through their sleepy Vermont town.
There's a chill in the air that keeps Dani pressed close, her arm brushing Jamie's through her thick purple coat as they walk side by side down Main Street. They aren't really in the market for anything specific, but after wandering down a sidestreet Jamie stops short in front of a secondhand shop that looks like Christmas has thrown up all over its front windows.
"Let's have a look in here." She holds the door open for Dani, who smiles in that way she does whenever she thinks Jamie is being cute, and they enter into a world of other people's things.
The shop isn't very big, but it manages to pack a lot into the small space. There are clothes, books, toys, kitchen appliances, and even an armchair near the back. There's a shelf of cassette tapes that draws Dani's attention and Jamie lets her eyes linger as Dani walks away, then turns her attention to the massive amount of Christmas paraphernalia she'd seen from outside. Fake garland, tinsel, strings of lights, two artificial trees bunched into one corner. There are so many generic things stamped with various images associated with the season, Jamie doesn't know what to look at first.
They have very few decorations, save for the ones currently hanging from their ceiling that they'd found in the back of a closet not long after first moving in. The various decorations in front of her are of varying colours and, as she starts picking through, Jamie tries to keep to some kind of coordination, settling on the traditional green and red since there was so much of it. She loops ropes of tinsel over her arm as she goes, hooking the odd tree decoration onto the end of a finger before she realises she's run out of room. She turns, eyes searching - sees Dani idly looking through a rack of clothes now - until she spots an older gentleman sitting behind a small counter.
"Don't suppose you've got a box, mate?" She holds up her arms to brandish the various lengths of tinsel and fake garland she's got draped over them, and he blinks at her, looking a little startled. "Something I can shove this lot into?" His mustache - grey and not quite as lush as Owen's - twitches as he tells her he'll go check in the back. Dani shuffles over to her once he's gone and curls her fingers into the pockets of Jamie's jacket. Jamie's hands automatically close around Dani's elbows, just needing the contact, as Dani glances towards the door of the shop over Jamie's shoulder.
"Careful," Dani warns, playfully. "You're going to give old men heart attacks if you keep talking like that around them."
"Like what?" Jamie frowns at her and Dani's lips part into a lopsided smile that makes Jamie's heartbeat flutter.
"All British and charming." Dani's hands are pulling at her, but not enough to actually force Jamie any closer, aware that they're in public but being unable to stop herself regardless.
"I just asked him for a box!" Jamie rebuffs with a muted yell.
"Yeah, but like…" Dani leans in closer, whispering, "sexily." Then she's pulling back and putting some distance between them again as the man returns, though not before she throws Jamie a wink that has hazel eyes rolling heavenward.
"How's this?" He offers her a box that's actually probably just the right size and Jamie accepts it with a nod of her head.
"Think this'll do, yeah. Cheers." When he steps away from Jamie, Dani is looking at her with one eyebrow raised and Jamie has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying anything.
They spend the better part of half an hour combing through the store and leave with a little less money in their pockets, but a box packed with enough Christmas stuff to turn their flat into a winter wonderland, as well as decorate one of the trees - the very top of which Dani is carrying - that Jamie has promised they'll be back to pick up the rest of tomorrow. Dani had also dropped in a couple of tapes and snuck a few things into the box that she'd told Jamie she wasn't allowed to look at, which had definitely piqued her interest and tugged at her curiosity, but she didn't ask. Clearly, Dani has something planned and Jamie won't ruin that with guessing.
They make it back home in one piece and, miraculously, without dropping anything. Dani immediately sets the tree top aside and steals the box away from Jamie, spiriting it away into the bedroom where she can dig out her mysterious items in privacy. Jamie puts the kettle on while she waits for her to reemerge with her loot.
"All done with your secret plotting?" she asks, as Dani strides back into the room and puts the box down onto the coffee table, smiling at Jamie like an innocent little black sheep.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Dani starts idly picking through the box, giving herself a reason to not look at Jamie, who squints her eyes at the blonde anyway and lets out a sound of unconvinced suspicion. "Where exactly are we going to put all this stuff?" Dani picks up a tangled ball of fairy lights in one hand and a mess of tinsel in the other. "Is that," she pauses, frowning down into the box, and then lifts her gaze to Jamie, eyebrows and mouth lifting in kind. "Is there a sign in here that says 'Santa Please Stop Here'?"
Jamie's expression doesn't change, doesn't so much as twitch, and she shrugs.
"Might be. Grabbed a lot of stuff, didn't I?"
"After carefully combing through everything," Dani points out, moving towards where Jamie is leaning with her back against the worktop, waiting for the teabags she'd poured boiling water over about a minute ago to steep in their mugs. She hooks her index fingers through Jamie's belt loops once she's close enough and curls them tight, pulling herself into Jamie rather than the other way around.
"Well," Jamie starts, calculating her next words as she loops her arms around Dani's shoulders. "We haven't been here long, got to make sure he knows this place ain't empty anymore. Can't have him missing us, can we?" It's said with such sincerity that it makes Dani giggle and push herself in closer to Jamie, who draws Dani down with her arms and presses a kiss to her smiling mouth.
Later, once they've gone through the box of decorations and separated them into different piles - "We'll put stuff to go on the tree here, miscellaneous decorations over here, and ornamental stuff over- what?" Jamie stops, realising Dani is staring at her. "Nothing. I just don't think I've ever seen you so organised," Dani points out with a shrug. "Eh, excuse you, I am extremely organised. When I want to be." - they sit together on the couch, television set turned on low, while Jamie attempts to untangle the various strings of lights that seem to have fused together to become one and Dani writes in one of the five Christmas Cards she's pulled out of a pack of twelve they bought as a last minute addition to Jamie's box of goodies. Dani had spied them sitting in front of the till and, seeing that they were individually handmade by local school children, had excitedly showed them to Jamie. So, in the box they'd gone.
"You sending one to your mum?" Jamie ventures, eyes sliding to their corners to glance quickly at Dani before she turns her attention back to the lights.
"I-I think so." Dani is chewing at her lip; Jamie can practically hear it. "Unless you think I shouldn't? Do you think I should?"
"I think," Jamie pauses as she frees a strand of lights and sets them aside, "you should do whatever feels right. What's your gut saying?" She looks at Dani properly then and finds she's already being looked at. Sure enough, Dani's got her lip snared between her teeth. With a small smile, Jamie reaches out and brushes her thumb across the line of Dani's bottom lip, gently pressing down in a way that makes Dani release her hold.
"That I should send one." Dani leans into Jamie's hand, at her cheek now, and closes her eyes for a few seconds.
"There you go, then. You've got good instincts, Dani. Listen to them, trust them." Jamie swipes the pad of her thumb across Dani's cheekbone a few times before letting her hand fall away. "And give us a hand untangling this bloody mess, would you?"
They post the cards two days later. One bound for Owen, one each for Miles, Flora, and Mister Wingrave - Jamie supposes she should probably call him Henry now, but the name feels strange on her tongue - and one addressed to Dani's mother. Jamie stands by, nose pink from the cold and wooly hat pulled down almost over her eyes, and quietly watches as Dani drops the first four into the mail slot and lingers on the last. Doesn't say anything, just waits, a solid presence of reassurance at Dani's side. Eventually, Dani lets the card fall in with the rest and closes the slot, turning to Jamie with an uncertain smile.
And still, Jamie doesn't say anything. Not with her words. Her eyes, though, they tell Dani she's brave and that Jamie is proud, and when Jamie catches Dani's mitten-clad hand in her own to give it a brief squeeze, Dani squeezes right back. Smiles at Jamie over top of the scarf she's wearing.
And Jamie feels warm despite the chill.
She's spent the better part of the day fixing up the tiling in an elderly couple's bathroom - they're expecting family for the holidays and want things looking nice - and has arrived home grimy with grout and the sweat of a good few hours of hard work. She's been doing this a lot, helping people around town. She'd put up flyers sometime into their second week, offering her services as a gardener and handyman, and she's been getting a fairly steady stream of people calling. Even had a few repeat customers.
Dani greets her with a smile that makes Jamie feel like she's been missed and approaches her as Jamie leans against the wall to unlace and pull off her work boots.
"I stink," is the only warning Jamie gets out before Dani's arms are wrapping around her, pulling her close as though it's been days since they last saw each other.
"Mm, don't care." Dani nuzzles her nose into Jamie's neck, just below her ear, and sighs happily. Jamie leans into it, closes her eyes at the sound Dani makes and lets it curl around in her chest, which tightens even as she feels herself relax. Something about hearing how Dani is glad to see her, wants Jamie there, wants to be near her.
Wants Jamie.
It's more than that, though. It's seeing Dani in a good mood, seemingly having had a good day, and god, that's all Jamie wants. For Dani to be happy.
"You do stink, though," Dani says after a long moment, pulling back and stepping away with a cheeky grin. Jamie throws a hand up, a silent 'I told you so.'
"Have I ever lied to you?" Jamie raises a questioning eyebrow and Dani scrunches her nose up, shaking her head. "But, since you've deemed me too disgusting to touch, I 'spose I'll jump in the shower." The sigh she emits is overly dramatic and it pulls a laugh from Dani that follows Jamie down the hall and into the bathroom.
She peels off her favourite paint-splattered dungarees and kicks them aside before bending to turn the taps on. She finishes stripping off and checks the temperature of the water, adjusting it slightly when it scalds her fingers, and finally steps into the bathtub and under the stream.
Jamie has always enjoyed a good shower after a long day of work. There's something heavenly in the feeling of hot water washing away the muck, coercing sore muscles into loosening, though she's never been one for hour long sessions. Ten, fifteen minutes, she's good to go. Suds up - with fancy, season-appropriate cinnamon and gingerbread scented body wash - and hair scrubbed, she's rinsing the soap off her body when a shadow moves at the corner of her vision, and she turns in time to have the living daylights scared out of her as the plastic curtain is pulled back.
"Jesus, Dani, you scared the shit out of me!" Jamie snaps, heart jackhammering, consumed with spiked fear and fleeting irritation. Fleeting, she thinks, because there's a naked Dani Clayton stepping into the shower with her, smiling a bit too innocently for it to be sincere.
"Sorry," Dani says, like she isn't at all, eyes already drifting, roving, as she puts herself in Jamie's space. "You were taking too long." Her hands alight on Jamie's hips, then slip over soapy skin as she presses closer, one sliding up to lie between Jamie's shoulder blades, the other resting firmly at the small of her back.
"That right?" Jamie manages to murmur, as Dani drops kisses across her shoulder and then against her neck, moving up along the line of Jamie's jaw and towards her ear, until their cheeks are pressed together. Jamie's hands curve around Dani's ribs, thumbs dancing across dips and arches, and she shivers under the hot water as their hips bump.
And it's exquisite, the sensation of Dani naked against her like this, chests pressed together and knees knocking, as the water falls in rivulets along their bodies. Jamie could stand here forever. Until the water turns to ice and even then, she'd be hard pressed to leave this space. Any space that Dani occupies, really. But there's something more to those moments that find them naked and wrapped up in one another, in more ways than one, that feel so grounding to Jamie. Like the veil draped over life is pulled back to reveal its inner workings, secrets, and the sight settles her because it's during those moments that she understands. That things make sense.
There's no past, no pain, no grief in those moments. They're theirs and theirs alone, lacking the room for any would-be intruder that might try to weasel their way in.
There's only Dani.
And Jamie has never wanted anyone, anything, more. In every sense of the word.
"Wanted to see if you needed a hand." Dani's words are hot where they drift by Jamie's ear and they pull a strangled kind of laugh from her. She's torn between simply listening to the way her body is thrumming to an orchestral-sized crescendo and teasing Dani for such an obvious line.
She decides that there's no point in teasing, not when it's so obviously worked.
Dani's head is moving again, tilting back until there's just enough space for her to duck forward again and cover Jamie's lips with her own.
It hadn't taken nearly as long as Jamie had expected it might for Dani to work up to initiating things in the bedroom - or shower, or the kitchen, living room - had taken to it like a duck to water fairly early on, but it still makes Jamie's heart race whenever she does.
Her hand flexes at the back of Dani's neck, the other lightly gripping the other woman's waist now, and when the kiss finally breaks, Jamie pulls in a ragged breath and nods.
"Reckon I could probably use a hand."
Dani's grin is borderline salacious and when she drags her fingers down Jamie's torso, then slips them easily between her thighs, Jamie's knees nearly buckle.
Yeah, Jamie's always enjoyed a good shower after a hard day's work. But they are infinitely more enjoyable with Dani around.
"Oven isn't working again, so I made sandwiches," Dani tells her later that night, as Jamie enters the living room fresh from her - their - very long shower, dressed in pajama bottoms and a baggy long sleeve tee. "Hope that's okay?" She's sitting on the couch with a newspaper forgotten in her lap, also dressed for bed, looking lazily content. Almost as if, Jamie thinks, someone had managed to tease three orgasms out of her less than fifteen minutes ago.
"Poppins," Jamie walks around to the front of the couch and then tips her body sideways so that she lands horizontally across its cushions and Dani's lap. Lifting the paper, Dani looks down at her, one side of her mouth curling up into a half-smile. "You know you're not a nineteen-fifties housewife, right?" She waits for Dani to set the paper aside and then reaches for her hand, idly playing with her fingers as she speaks. "You don't have to have dinner ready for me when I come home. Don't tell anyone, but I can probably even make it myself."
"I don't know, Jamie." Dani wrinkles her nose, running the fingers of her free hand over Jamie's damp curls. "You and kitchens don't really… get along."
An undignified noise of disapproval works itself free from the back of Jamie's throat.
"Least I know how to work a kettle," she grumbles, then lets out a surprised squeal when Dani pulls her hand away from Jamie's and pinches her side, almost causing her to roll sideways off the couch. But Dani, laughing, snakes an arm under Jamie's shirt and around her middle to pull her back, holding her tightly even as Jamie pretends to squirm away. The squirming doesn't last long, though, not with Dani's skin pressed to Jamie's as it is, fingers gliding back and forth along her side from hip to the curve of her breast. It's too easy for Jamie's eyelids to flutter shut and for her to sigh, content, and relax into the touch. Let it wrap her up as the lights from their crooked Christmas tree throw multicoloured hues around the otherwise dimly lit room.
Dani, Jamie has learned, quite enjoys sitting with nothing but the tree to light the space around her. That first night, once they were done decorating it and sorting through which strands of lights were burnt out, stringing the good ones around its slightly misshapen body, Dani had shut off all other sources of illumination and curled up beside Jamie on the couch. She'd watched the lights twinkle as Jamie slung an arm around her shoulder and pressed kisses to the top of her head.
This moment isn't terribly different from that one. They're moments that Dani clearly enjoys and Jamie, well. Jamie is more than happy to give them to her.
"My dad loved Christmas." Dani's voice is soft, fragile in a way that pulls effortlessly at Jamie's heartstrings, and Jamie doesn't want to open her eyes for fear of breaking something, but she does. Finds that she has to, to make sure Dani knows she's listening, that what she's saying is important, and when she does open them she sees Dani staring off into the corner where they'd set the tree up. "He, um, I have this memory of him coming home carrying a box he'd covered with a blanket. I wanted to look but he wouldn't let me. Just grinned and told me it was a surprise, that I'd have to wait until Christmas Day and not a minute sooner." Jamie slips a hand beneath her own shirt until she finds Dani's and tangles their fingers together overtop of her ribs. Dani glances down at her with a small smile. "Christmas Eve morning, he wakes me up, throws a sweater on me and hauls me up onto his shoulders. Asks if I can keep a secret and tells me that we have to be really quiet. I remember thinking how dark the house was, except for the lights on the tree, and couldn't decide if it was early or late."
Jamie's lips curve at the mental image Dani is painting; she can just picture a young, bleary-eyed Dani Clayton holding onto her father's head as they creep through the house.
"He took me into the living room and put me down right in front of the tree." Dani stops to tuck her hair back behind her ears. "He was so excited," she says, so full of fond warmth and the lingering pain of losing someone too soon. "He covered my eyes with his hands and they seemed so big. Like he could have covered my whole head with just one of them." Dani's eyes are glistening now, catching the reds, greens, and yellows glowing in the corner. "I remember him laughing, deep and-and uneven, but like a song."
Sounds familiar, Jamie thinks, but doesn't interrupt.
"Told me to keep my eyes closed and then moved away. It felt like forever before he told me I could open them. I think he did that on purpose," Dani's lips twitch upward, "drew out the suspense until I threw a tiny tantrum and demanded to be allowed to look." Jamie allows herself to laugh at that. "He was kneeling on the floor in front of me, in front of the tree, and next to him," Dani pauses here, takes a long, shuddering breath, and Jamie squeezes her hand in a manner that she hopes is encouraging. Comforting. That says, 'you're okay, I'm here.' "Next to him, he'd set up a brand new Lite-Brite. Had taken it out of the box and spent who knows how long arranging the pegs into the shape of a flower."
Something inside Jamie freezes, but she doesn't feel cold. Quite the opposite, really. Dani's eyes flick to hers and she offers Jamie a small smile along with a half shrug.
"He insisted it was a buttercup, but I argued that he'd used all kinds of colours, not just yellow, so it couldn't be." Dani chuckles and the sound lingers for a few seconds before falling along with her face. "That's what... he used to call me that. Buttercup."
Jamie swallows down rising emotion and wants to tell Dani how honoured she is that she decided to share such a special memory with her. But the words aren't there and so, instead, she reaches up and swipes her thumb across Dani's cheek, brushing away an errant tear that's escaped. Dani jumps a little, surprised by the dampness, and wipes at her other cheek.
"I don't, um, think we had too many more Christmases together after that, but every Christmas Eve he'd sneak me away and give me one of my gifts early. Short-lived tradition," Dani sniffs, "but they're some of the best memories I have of him."
"Sounds like he was one of the good ones," Jamie says, hoping her tone conveys what her words might not.
She remembers what it was like to want that. A parent who cared, who loved her, but that had been something destined to elude her and she'd made peace with that a long time ago. So, although she remembers what it felt like to want that, it isn't something she's been familiar with in twenty years. Isn't sure how to properly sympathise with missing something she never had.
"He was." Dani is quiet after that and as they sit in companionable silence, Jamie begins to think.
Dennis and Louise hadn't been much for tradition in any sense of the word, and certainly not at Christmas time. Jamie doesn't like thinking back on those times, avoids it as much as she can. She thinks about them now, though. About the lack of gifts and how there was barely enough food to go around, but a miraculous abundance of cheap alcohol. She remembers the air being so thick with cigarette smoke that it dulled the lights hung with flimsy care across the mantle. She remembers the sound of Mikey screaming, a door slamming under the weight of Denny's hand, and the shine of tears in the otherwise empty eyes of her dad.
She remembers feeling utterly alone and how nothing changed even after she was placed in foster care.
Christmas, to her, has never been a holiday to put much stock into. Working at Bly had changed that a bit, Owen being annoyingly charming in his persistence and Hannah's ability to get anyone to come around to her way of thinking with nothing more than an archly raised eyebrow. Still, there were more bad memories than there were good and even after years of mandated therapy and moving on from a life that you don't consider to be yours anymore, Jamie sometimes found herself pulled backward through time.
But things are different now. There's a brightly lit tree in a flat she calls her own - theirs - that she'd decorated with a woman she's travelled hundreds of miles with, and Jamie remembers a point in her life - many points, really, most of them - where she couldn't stand being in the same room with someone for longer than ten minutes. Other people, their noise, their attention and, often, lack of consideration made her skin itch.
Again, Bly had been different, but Owen, Hannah, Dominic and Charlotte, the kids; she hadn't spent previously unimaginable hours talking and laughing, and sitting in pleasant silence only to find herself craving even more time to spend in their company.
So, she's got a flat done up to the nines, in a town she's dreamt about visiting since she was a kid, and she's lying across a couch, staring up at the most kind hearted, selfless, beautiful person she's ever met, who somehow wants to spend just as much time with Jamie as Jamie does with her.
Who tells Jamie things without speaking, the emotion in pretty, mismatched eyes one that is unnamed but not unknown and makes Jamie feel like she could fly. Could do anything, as long as Dani's there to watch. Smiling at her like every single thing Jamie does, no matter how simple, is a feat of Herculean proportion. Like Jamie hung the moon and stars.
And Jamie looks at Dani just the same, because if she had, in fact, hung those things in the sky, it would be Dani that she'd done it for.
Christmas, Jamie thinks, might just be a bit different this year.
"Did, uh, did your family have any other Christmas traditions?" Jamie asks, as she's squeezing into the twin bed that barely fits into the bedroom and which forces her - how awful - to cuddle up close to Dani. Dani's arms are around her in a second and Jamie rests her head in the dip below Dani's shoulder. She can practically hear Dani thinking as she drops her head to rest her chin atop Jamie's crown. Can feel the wheels turning almost, in the way she inhales and how her body shifts.
"Hot chocolate." Dani's fingers run back and forth along Jamie's forearm where it's lying across her middle, the touch light enough to raise goosebumps.
"Another hot drink for you to masacre?" Jamie's joke is met with the tender skin of her inner arm being pinched as punishment.
"I'll have you know, my hot chocolate is delectable."
"Is that right?" Jamie drawls, unconvinced. After all, Dani doesn't have the best track record in this area.
"Mmhmm." Dani's fingers go back to their gentle stroking. "An O'Mara family recipe. Judy, Eddie's mom, used to make it every year, but only Christmas Day. Said it stayed special that way."
Jamie knows that Dani spent the majority of her time at Eddie's house, that Judy had become a surrogate mother, her own more often than not lost to the dregs of drink and depression. She doesn't much like what she's heard about Karen Clayton, but it's not her place to say anything. Would never, not unless Dani expressly asked for her opinion on the woman.
"She did make it for my birthday one year, though. Just me." She sounds almost childlike as she recalls the memory. "Eddie had been so jealous, but Judy told him that it was my special day and so I could have anything I wanted. And that's what I asked for."
"Should have asked for a car," Jamie says and Dani's chest shakes with silent laughter beneath her.
"Yeah, maybe." Dani is quiet for a few beats of Jamie's heart and then, "She taught me how to make it when I was fifteen. Never forgot the recipe."
"Well, you'll have to make it sometime." Jamie tilts her head back until she can place a kiss to Dani's neck. Smiles when she hears her sigh at the contact. "Then I can write Owen and tell him there might be hope for you yet in the beverage department."
"Oh, shush." The admonishment only serves to pull a chuckle from Jamie, who rests her head back down at Dani's next question. "What about you? Any tradi'ions from jolly ol' England?" The truly terrible accent takes any sting the query might have caused right out of it.
"Jesus, will you please stop doing that."
"I'll stop doing it when it stops making you smile like that."
"You can't even see my face right now!"
"Oh, so you're not smiling?"
"Shut up," Jamie mutters, hot on the heels of a harrumph that has Dani squawking in victory. "No, no traditions. Not any good ones, anyway. I never really…" she hesitates, staring at a small stain on the wall opposite the bed. Thinks she can see a flower in its brown-green pattern. "I don't 'spose I've ever really had a proper Christmas."
Things are quiet for a long while after that, but Dani's fingers never stop moving, and eventually Jamie hears her, voice so soft, so full of something, say, "Well, then I'm glad I'll get to be here for your first."
The morning of the twenty-fourth finds Jamie alone in their flat, an absent Dani Clayton having announced she was, madly, going to the shops a good forty-five minutes ago, and then forbade Jamie from coming along. And then, knowing her to not be fond of secrets, had told her, "It's a surprise."
Jamie's never thought about the difference between the words before. Wonders if the difference is Dani herself.
She turns the radio to a station that seems to play nothing but Christmas music and putters about, watering the two small houseplants she had managed to fit into the kitchen and the ficus that is steadily growing in their living room. She wipes down the bathroom mirror and cleans the toilet and the sink. Then, realising she has a rare - which she's fine with - moment to herself, she slips into the bedroom and pulls a box out from under the bed. Lifting off the lid, she separates the pink tissue paper from the purple to reveal what's hidden beneath.
She'd gone back to that secondhand shop without Dani, under the guise of telling her they needed milk and that she'd just pop out and pick some up. The same man from the other day sat behind the counter and he offered her a smile in greeting. After about fifteen minutes of looking around, Jamie had settled on a few small items, paid, popped them in a bag and jogged to the supermarket so that Dani wouldn't be too suspicious of how long she'd been gone. Then, over the next week or so, she spent a few extra minutes in the bathroom every day after her shower, surreptitiously putting bits and pieces together with some glue and a prayer, and would have to sneak it out beneath a towel or only once Dani was suitably distracted by something else.
Looking at the finished product, she frowns and purses her lips. She doesn't particularly enjoy using artificial flowers in any project, but she supposes they'll have to do in a pinch. She'll rectify it later, she tells herself. Make something for Dani with the prettiest flowers she can find. Or grow herself.
Hearing the grate of a key in a lock that likes to stick, Jamie quickly puts the lid back on the box and shoves it under the bed behind some storage containers. She pushes herself to her feet and wanders out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, finding Dani standing at the counter, unpacking things from a canvas tote bag that bore words in Italian which Jamie couldn't read and that Dani could not remember the translation of.
"What you got there, then?" Jamie asks, pretending to sneak up on Dani to try and take a peek, but purposefully keeping her distance, knowing how disappointed Dani would be if she spoiled the surprise now.
"You," Dani spins tightly on the spot, not giving Jamie even the slightest chance of seeing the contents of the bag, "go watch T.V. or something."
Jamie hikes her eyebrows to her hairline.
"That an order, Miss Clayton?" she keeps her voice low, lets one eyebrow fall, and delights in the way Dani's cheeks colour as she bites her lip. However, determined not to be distracted, Dani clears her throat and informs Jamie that yes, it is indeed an order, and that she's not to come anywhere near the kitchen until Dani says so.
Jamie saunters away with an amused chuckle, shaking her head to make her curls bounce, and deposits herself on the living room couch. She turns the television on, but mutes the sound so she can hear Dani's off-key humming when it inevitably starts, and she waits.
Of course, there's nothing to stop the smell from eventually reaching her and Dani hadn't told her to plug her nose, so the sweet scent of chocolate wafts its way out from the kitchen after about ten minutes. Finds Jamie on the couch and sweeps a smile across her face as she stares at the wall, picturing Dani puttering about on the other side of it.
Dani makes her feel so much, in so many different ways, that Jamie sometimes finds it overwhelming. Very nearly difficult to cope with, in that she's never in her life felt like this before.
Yeah, she's familiar with lust and teenage adoration, obsession, whatever you want to call it. She remembers clammy hands and racing heartbeats, remembers the yearning, the wanting. Jesus, so much wanting.
She's never needed anyone before, though.
Prided herself on the exact opposite, actually. Made it so that she was quite happy to be alone with her plants, free from the drama of relationships and untethered from the desire to engage in one, however brief. Bly wasn't exactly flush with opportunities of that kind anyway.
Dani had turned Jamie's entire world upside down.
Thinking about it now, Jamie smiles.
Lately, having things right side up seems dreadfully overrated.
"Okay!" She hears Dani say, her voice wearing that breathless quality that had endeared Jamie so much, and Jamie is about to get up when Dani appears. She's staring down at the mugs she's holding, one in each hand, and walking gingerly towards Jamie. She's biting her lip in concentration and when Jamie's eyes flick down from Dani's mouth, she sees the way the whipped cream is wobbling across the surface of the drink. She stands to meet Dani half way and takes one of the mugs between her hands.
"Is this it?" Jamie throws a smattering of awe over the words, like Dani's giving her a look inside the ark of the covenant. It makes Dani grin, all teeth, and butterflies flutter around inside Jamie's chest.
"Yeah, it- Oh!" Dani abruptly cuts herself off, looking panicked. "Wait, I forgot!" She sets her drink down on the coffee table and walks back to the kitchen in a manner that has Jamie thinking back to Bly; speedily. "Candy canes!" She announces, reappearing with two of the aforementioned treats, one of which she slides into her hot chocolate before reaching to do the same to Jamie's. Pauses, waits for Jamie's okay, then drops it in with a sound that's half giggle, half guffaw, and one-hundred percent Dani.
Marshmallows peek out from beneath the whipped cream, their cylindrical forms melting and melding against the heat of the drink, becoming one. There are shaved chocolate sprinkles decorating the tiny white mountain and it is, Jamie tells her, a very visually appealing drink, though she doesn't use those exact words.
Jamie sits back down and Dani curls in beside her, pulling her legs up before reaching for her mug. She wraps her fingers around the handle, then cradles the opposite side with her palm. Her eyes are wide and bright, and focused entirely on Jamie who, after a few seconds of pretending not to notice she's been waited on, takes a sip.
It's hot, burns her lip, but she fights back the instinctive wince that usually accompanies such incidents, knowing Dani might read it wrong, and takes another sip instead, ready for the temperature this time.
"This…" she furrows her brow and licks at the whipped cream mustache that's hanging out on her upper lip. Beside her, Dani's expression has turned nervously hopeful and she wonders if the effect Dani has on her will ever wane. Doesn't want it to. "This is really good, Dani."
Dani lights up like a Christmas tree.
"Really?" Her smile is so wide she can barely speak and there's such an eagerness to please shining in her eyes that it's almost painful to look into them.
Of course, the chance of Jamie being able to look anywhere else now that contact has been made is slim to none.
"Best hot chocolate I've ever had. Honest." Jamie holds up a hand, palm flat and facing Dani, fingertips pointing towards the ceiling in a silent swear of promise.
Dani practically glows.
"The recipe doesn't actually call for candy canes but…" Using the thumb belonging to the hand currently wound around the handle, Dani idly rubs along the lip of the mug. "I thought I'd try and put my own spin on it."
"I'd say it was a smashing success." Swiping a finger across the top, Jamie gathers up some of the whipped cream and brings it to her mouth. Aware of Dani's gaze on her, she closes her lips around the digit and sucks it clean, before releasing it with a pop of sound that tugs up on Dani's shoulders. Jamie flashes a knowing smile before swiftly turning back to the conversation. "Not the twenty-fifth yet, though," she points out, harkening back to Dani's tale of Judy.
"No, it isn't." Dani's hand flexes around the mug as she looks down at the mess of sweetness melting into the chocolatey liquid. "But that was Judy's tradition," she continues, looking back up and at Jamie, a smile that's so much more than hope-filled or shy, warm or happy. It's a smile that's, well, it's everything. "I thought this could be ours."
Jamie's stomach pulls off an impressive somersault, kicking her heart up into her throat.
The moment feels huge, monumental, because Dani is talking about carrying a tradition over into next year. She's looking ahead.
And after every promise that's gone unsaid, every edge of something permanent they've skirted around, here's Dani offering Jamie something Jamie hadn't quite let herself hope for.
A future.
"Yeah?" Jamie asks, sounding suddenly hoarse as the back of her eyes begin to sting. Dani bobs her head, ponytail bouncing, and Jamie reaches out with her empty hand to cup Dani's cheek. Strokes her thumb softly over pale skin and blows out a breath when Dani's smile grows even further, pushing into Jamie's hand. "Think I'd like that."
A few minutes later, after she's shifted her body close enough to rest her head on Jamie's shoulder, Dani tells her, "There's a theater in town." She tells her this with the kind of calm hesitancy that Jamie has come to learn belongs to a Dani that is nervous about something she knows she has no real reason to be nervous about. So, Jamie prompts her with a hum of interest and squeezes her free hand between Dani's knees, where they're resting together tucked towards Jamie, and curves it comfortably around Dani's thigh. "Just a small one." Dani's still holding her mug with both hands and she lifts it to take a sip. Well, Jamie knows what she's really doing is buying herself more time. "They're playing White Christmas tonight and-" right in the middle of Dani's sentence, Jamie's stomach tries to throw itself from her body and she silently tells it to stop acting up, "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go?"
Dani, of course, knows why they decided to spend Christmas in Vermont in the first place. Jamie had told her while they were sitting in a diner near the beginning of their travels and Dani stole chips off her plate. And it's not that she thought Dani hadn't been paying attention at the time, it's just that Jamie isn't used to people remembering things about her. Remembering her at all. Faced with it now, it winds her a bit. Buying her own time, she bends forward to set her drink down on the coffee table and smiles to herself when she leans back and Dani immediately resettles herself.
"Are you asking me out?" Jamie asks, one side of her mouth twisting up into a smirk as she adds, "Again?" It stretches into an actual smile when Dani abruptly straights and stares at Jamie as though deeply offended. She can see a pinched brow in her periphery and lets her eyes slide to the side. In the time it takes to do that, Dani's expression has changed into one of playful mischief that delights Jamie whenever she's lucky enough to witness it.
"You do still owe me a drink," Dani says around the mouth of her mug, eyes never leaving Jamie's as she drinks.
"Oh, I do, do I?" Jamie raises her eyebrows. "Reckon it's you that owes me the drink, since I seem to recall it being your idea…"
Jamie remembers the way Dani had asked if there was a pub in Bly, had known the very second the question drifted through the air between them that Dani was holding her cards close to her chest. Had an ace up her sleeve she thought Jamie didn't know about.
Except Jamie had told Dani, weeks prior to that morning in the greenhouse, that Bly was host to a small public house that she, in fact, lived right above. A rush of excitement and giddy happiness sweeps through her at the memory and Jamie starts chuckling.
"See where that takes us." The moment she says the words, quotes them from perfectly clear memory, colour blooms across Dani's cheeks. A pretty shade of pink. "Know exactly where you were hoping it would take us. Dani Clayton, gagging for a good-" She's cut off by Dani slapping a hand over her mouth and Jamie just grins, laughs, against her palm, even as Dani levels her with a look that probably made eight year olds stop whatever annoying shit they were doing and sit at attention.
Doesn't quite have the same effect on Jamie.
Though, it does indeed have an effect.
"If you keep talking, I will rescind my offer and just go by myself," she warns, face burning. Jamie kisses her palm, still laughing but is otherwise silent and, after a few seconds, Dani pries her hand away, slowly, in case Jamie starts again.
She doesn't. Chooses instead to take in Dani's blush, the perfect shape of her mouth, and the twinkle in her eyes. The blush isn't embarrassment, not completely, because Dani isn't shy about how much she enjoys sex with Jamie. Had barely been chagrined during the moment in question, having been caught plotting and called out; she'd just pressed her lips together and smiled. Hadn't even bothered to argue.
Fondness blossoms behind Jamie's ribs as she says, "I'd love to go on a date with you." And Dani beams, mouth working around silence for a moment.
"Good." She averts her gaze and sheepishly ducks her head, lifting her mug again. "Because I already got the tickets."
Dani had been right in saying that the theater was small. It is. It's nice though, classic, all red velvets and gold chrome and, Jamie notes happily, the floor isn't even slightly sticky.
Dani's wardrobe change had seen her sliding into a pair of jeans that they both knew Jamie was particularly fond of. She'd pulled on a fuzzy jumper and disappeared into the bathroom to fix her hair, despite the fact that it has never once looked like it needs fixing whenever she does this. It had left Jamie alone to change and, yes, okay, she'd done it on purpose but Dani started it. Can she really be blamed if the first thing her hand alighted on was a deep burgundy silk shirt that Dani enjoyed seeing Jamie in almost as much as she enjoyed taking it off her? Jamie didn't think so.
In the end, they wound up arriving two minutes late instead of the fifteen minutes early Dani had insisted upon. Dani didn't seem to mind though and Jamie certainly wasn't complaining.
There had been popcorn and candy and in truth, Jamie had spent most of the film glancing at Dani to see if she was enjoying it.
"You're supposed to be watching the movie," Dani whispers, turning her head to look at Jamie. Who, with elbow propped on the arm beside her and her head resting on a closed fist, regarded Dani with an easy smile. She'd turned her upper body towards the other woman, all pretence of doing anything other than just watching her lost.
"Seen it a few times."
"Well, you've seen me a few times, too."
"Not enough, though." Jamie's answer had been whip-sharp, but gentle, firing from her with neither thought nor a desire to retract the words. "Don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at you, Poppins."
Darkness surrounded them in the mostly empty screening room and Dani glanced at the shadows before she leant over the arm to kiss Jamie. Quick, but with the promise of more.
They watched the rest of the film with their pinkies linked.
It's chilly when they emerge back out onto the street and Dani audibly shivers as she pulls her jacket closed around her body. Their walk isn't far, about ten minutes, but there's a bite to the breeze blowing its way through town and Dani loops her arm through Jamie's, pulling her tight against her side before they even set off.
They talk about the film as they take the journey back to their flat at a brisk pace and Jamie is kept toasty by the knowledge that Dani had indeed enjoyed herself. Something that is always immensely important to Jamie, even when whatever they're doing is Dani's idea.
At some point, Dani's hand slips from where it's been tucked around Jamie's bicep and Jamie only realises their fingers are interlocked when Dani playfully swings their arms back and forth. Jamie glances down, surprised but happy, and when she looks up again she finds herself tugging Dani to a stop as her head keeps going.
She can feel Dani about to question her when the first snowflake lands on Jamie's cheek.
"It's snowing," Dani breathes out, looking skyward now too, and Jamie can hear the smile in the words even if she can't see it directly.
Maybe they really were going to get a white Christmas after all.
"Got something for you." Jamie places the box she's had hidden under the bed up until now across Dani's thighs. Curious eyes, one blue, one brown, glance up at Jamie from the couch. "Well, it's the only thing I got you, really."
"But it's not Christmas Day." Dani's brow is pinched in confusion and Jamie is filled with the sudden urge to kiss it away. Later, maybe.
"It's not." She nods, dropping down into the corner opposite Dani, stretching one arm across the back of the couch. "It's Christmas Eve," she says, as though it explains everything. Which it does, she just has to wait for Dani to realise that.
"Oh…." It comes out as a breathy exhale and Dani's eyes are glassy now, but she doesn't cry. What she does do is get up, dash to the bedroom, and then returns with a smaller, immaculately wrapped box that she places in Jamie's hands before sitting back down. She thumbs the edges of the present, taps the tips against the sides and then says, "Can I open it now?"
Jamie laughs, wants to tell her that that's kind of the point, but instead she goes with, "Only if I can open mine." And she grins at Dani's enthusiastic head bob, then the sound of paper being torn rips through the room. Dani is faster than she is and Jamie ends up waiting, fingers poised to take the lid off her box as she watches Dani open hers. Watches her move the tissue paper aside and-
"Jamie." And it's amazing how many different ways Dani can say her name. It's all awe and reverence this time, and it does something to Jamie that does not happen very often.
It makes her babble.
"I know it's- I wanted everything to be real, but I couldn't, didn't have the stuff I needed to grow it all. So, I tried to make do, and it's just a token really. Make you a better one when I can and then-"
"Jamie, I love it." Dani's sincere assurance cuts through Jamie's nonsense to settle her jumping nerves.
Inside, Jamie had placed a decorative grape vine wreath that had been shaped into a heart. Around it, she'd affixed a number of fake flowers in various shades of red and green, and inside the frame just above the point at the bottom of the heart, she'd balanced the two wooden blocks she'd found in the kids' section of the secondhand store one on top of the other, using glue to make them solid. Paint-chipped and imperfect; one bearing the letter 'D', the other a 'J'.
She lets out a shaky breath, relief coursing through her, and turns her attention to Dani's gift for her. With a hand that isn't trembling quite as much as it had been a minute ago, Jamie lifts off the lid and feels her mouth split into a wide smile.
Sitting in the box are a pair of festive salt and pepper shakers. Only, instead of Mr and Mrs Claus, there are two of the female options, each painted a little different. One with blondish coloured hair, the other sporting a recently done brown dye job.
"They had two of the same sets at that shop, Santa and Mrs Claus. And I thought, I thought this would be cute," Dani explains. "My painting skills aren't up to the standard of some of the kids I've taught but…." She trails off, leaving it there, and Jamie is so tickled, so joyful, she could probably bounce around the room if she tried.
"These are amazing." She holds the box steady with one hand and reaches for Dani with the other, pulling her into a kiss. "You're amazing."
They spend the rest of the evening in bed, alternating between lounging and lazily exploring territories already mapped, but endlessly enticing. It's still snowing - she can see that it is through the window, even around the 'Santa Please Stop Here' sign she'd balanced precariously within the frame - when Jamie drops into an easy slumber, burrowed into Dani's naked chest, Dani's bare arms around her, holding her in a way that Jamie should find too tight and restrictive. Would have felt that, with anyone else. With Dani, she just feels safe. Happy. Loved.
She does question that love when she wakes to the gentle pressure of a hand on her shoulder and the vague sensation of being shaken at god knows what time. She blinks bleary eyes open, sees that the room is still dark, and lets out a grunt.
"Jamie." Dani's voice, Dani's hand on her shoulder, Dani sounding quietly excited rather than panicked.
So, nothing's wrong, Jamie surmises. Then wonders how grumpy she can get away with being without actually upsetting Dani.
She buries her head back into her pillow and lets out a muffled string of unintelligible sounds, then glances at the clock. She knits her brows together and grinds out a groan.
"Dani, it's not even six yet." Early riser though she is, Jamie sometimes enjoys the odd lie-in. Especially on mornings where she doesn't strictly have to get up with the sun and that had seen her spend the previous night engaging in pleasantly strenuous activities.
The bed dips and a moment later she feels Dani's fingers playing with her hair, something that will do the exact opposite of what Dani is wanting. Which she apparently knows because she stops almost as soon as she starts, catching herself.
"I want to show you something." The information, as well as the way Dani delivers it - all soft and sweet - convinces Jamie's body to turn until she's on her back.
"Is it a strip tease? Because that might be the only thing that'll get me out of this bed." Jamie uses the heel of her palm to rub her eyes and Dani rolls her own in exasperation. "And just for the record, hundred percent okay with that being my Christmas present."
"Will you please just come with me?" Dani's impatience is starting to show and even though there's a retort teetering on the tip of Jamie's tongue, flirty and filthy, she refrains.
She tosses the covers back and swings her legs over the side of the bed, shivering dramatically when her bare legs meet the cool air of the room. But then Dani's hand is in hers and she's tugging Jamie towards the window, all previous annoyance melted away by the warmth of her excitement. under the cozy warmth of her excitement.
Jamie's eyes are still trying to focus and she blinks against the faint early morning light that is still somehow too bright after so little sleep. When everything does finally shift from blurry to sharp, there's nothing on the planet strong enough to stop the half-gasp, half-squeal she involuntarily releases upon seeing snow spread out like a blanket across everything beyond their flat. It must have carried on throughout the night, leaving well over a foot of Christmas magic coating all surfaces like crisp icing sugar.
She must be staring because Dani is tugging on her arm to try and get her attention and it's only when Jamie turns her head to look at her girlfriend that she realises her mouth is hanging open. She snaps it shut, teeth clicking audibly, and can't even be annoyed by the way Dani is looking at her like, well, like she's adorable. Because Dani is already dressed, her purple coat zipped closed and its fluffy hood ready and waiting to be pulled up to shield her from the chill outside. There are mittens dangling out from the sleeves, connected by one long thread and a pair of pastel-pink earmuffs are hooked around her neck.
Her smile is so wide and her eyes are wrinkling at the corners, and Jamie is suddenly hit with a tidal wave of emotion that almost knocks her off her feet.
It takes a little extra effort for her to swallow, even more to actually think of something coherent to say, but thankfully Dani sweeps in to rescue her.
"Get dressed," she tells Jamie, giddy both in expression and movement as she lets go of Jamie's hand, walking to the foot of the bed where she's already laid out clothes for Jamie to change into. She bundles them in her arms and walks back over to the window, depositing the jeans, t-shirt, thick jumper and a warm pair of socks into Jamie's hands. "We're going out."
Not that she'd ever admit it to anyone - other than Dani, maybe - but Jamie is so excited she almost falls flat on her face three times while changing. She manages to make it out of the bedroom unscathed, however, and finds Dani waiting for her by the front door, one of Jamie's heavier coats held between her hands. She looks nervous until she catches sight of Jamie and then that smile is back.
She holds the jacket out for Jamie and helps her slip into it, then tugs a knit cap out of one of the pockets and pulls it down over messy curls, giggling when she pulls it too far and it ends up covering Jamie's eyes. Jamie lifts a hand to adjust it, pushing the front up until she can see Dani again.
And she can't believe she's about to walk out into the snow shortly after six on Christmas morning.
But then, she supposes, that's Dani Clayton in a nutshell. Making the impossible seem ordinary.
"Ready?" Dani asks her and, when Jamie nods, she pulls open the front door and holds it for Jamie to walk through first. Which she does, or tries to, but quickly finds herself being halted right on the threshold.
She looks back to Dani, confused, and sees that she's pulling her lower lip between her teeth and looking up.
Jamie follows her gaze.
Lets out a bark of surprised, happy laughter, and looks back at her.
"That an artificial plant you've weaseled into this flat?" Her tone is mildly accusatory and Dani rolls her eyes for the second time that morning.
"It's mistletoe," Dani drawls, teasingly. "Or do you not have that in-"
Jamie silences her with a kiss, slow and sweet, fingers buried in blonde tresses, holding her close.
Walking outside is very much like entering a scene from a Christmas card. No one else seems to be awake, the snow is smooth and untouched, and they could be the only two people in the world as they walk down the street. They're headed for the park, Jamie realises, an area flush with bushes and trees, and home to a few walking paths. It's nice, she likes it there. Likes anywhere that's stuffed with nature.
Dani's mittened hand is curled around her own gloved one and they're both wearing the scarves Dani had run back into the apartment to grab just as they were about to step out. All necessary, Jamie thinks, ducking her head down behind her scarf as an unpleasant gust of wind catches them from the side, tries to work its way under her clothes.
There's no wind once they make it inside the park, trees and shrubbery breaking it up before it can reach them.
"S'like a goddamn winter wonderland," Jamie breathes out, staring at the picturesque landscape before her. It's beautiful, magical even. She's never seen so much snow in her life, has trudged through it in her Doc's to get here and while her ankles aren't fond of the clumps that have made their way over the mouths and down inside, she can't bring herself to care.
Beside her, Dani agrees and then waits patiently as Jamie takes it all in. Waits until Jamie looks to her and nods her head towards the path ahead of them.
"Fancy a walk?" Jamie is the one to ask, but it's Dani that leads them forward.
It is, perhaps, the most magical morning of Jamie's life up until that point. There will be others, though she doesn't know their circumstances yet, but this one?
"Maybe we could make this another one of our traditions?" Dani's eyes, full of light and hope, her cheeks rosy from the cold; this moment and the ones that immediately follow it?
Absolute magic.
"Can we make it a little later in the day wherever we are next year?" Jamie chuckles. "Or you let me get some sleep the night before."
"Is that, are you complaining right now?" Dani mock-gasps, feigning offence
"Not in the slightest," Jamie is quick to confirm. "Might make your job of waking me up easier is all."
Dani hums, unconvinced, and the for a while the only sound that disturbs the silence is the chirping of birds.
"What if…" Dani starts, stops, clears her throat and tries again. "What if we came to this park every year?"
"Probably have to plan that a bit in advance," Jamie tells her, eyebrows knitting together as she tries to work out the logistics of that, "depending on where we are."
"Right, okay." Dani's nod is resolute and yes, "But-but what if we were here? Still here, next Christmas. And the one after that."
Dani isn't joking. Jamie actually doesn't think she's ever seen her this shade of serious before, and Jamie's breath hitches in her throat when Dani stops them again, placing herself so that she's only inches away.
"I've just, I've been thinking. I saw an ad in the paper the other day, retail space for sale, and I thought it looked like it might make a good home for maybe a-a florist or something. If, I mean, if staying here is something you want. That you want with me." And there it is, the nervous uncertainty rearing its unwanted head and practically begging to be put down.
So, Jamie squashes it by taking Dani's face between her fleece-covered hands, brushing her thumbs across lovely cheekbones and pressing her forehead to Dani's.
And there's an 'I love you' hovering at the back of Jamie's throat that she can't say, not yet. Still scares her a little, the strength and enormity of it.
"Want everything with you," she decides to say instead, which is somehow easier to manage, "for as long as you'll have me."
Dani breathes the promise of forever against Jamie's lips, sweeps a longing for eternity into her mouth, and Jamie drinks it all in thinking, yeah.
Absolute magic.