The kitchen timer went off with a ting.
Naminé only slightly reluctantly uncurled herself from the couch where she had been curled with a blanket around her shoulders and a slowly cooling mug of eggnog in her hands. Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring… until she heard the thunderous sound of footsteps racing down the stairs to join her in the kitchen.
She grinned at the sight of the disheveled blond boy looking like he had picked a fight with some ribbons, wrapping paper, and tape—and lost. "Are you sure you don't need any help?" she asked again.
Roxas shook his head. "I almost got it now," he said with a pump of his fist. "Axel and Xion's presents look pretty decent if I do say so myself."
"And Isa's?"
"...Still looks like the tree sat on it."
And he probably wouldn't be rewrapping that one anytime in the ten hours between now and, oh, December 25. Equally amused and disapproving of her boyfriend's passive-aggressive ways of getting back at the former Luna Diviner, Naminé resisted the urge to giggle.
"Besides, the cookies are ready."
And they were. She crossed her fingers and muttered a silent prayer to Santa Claus that this would be the batch. They were running low on ingredients and it would only be a matter of time before the others returned and Isa burst a vein when he saw what they did to his precious kitchen.
"Hey! They don't look half bad!"
Compared to their previous attempts, this one really wasn't. A darker edge here and there, not enough to be overwhelming among the gold. Naminé grinned as she held the tray in gloved hands, the artist in her ready to apply frosting to cookies as she applied pencil to paper as soon as their baked treats were ready to cool.
Roxas began humming a Christmas tune as he retrieved the (store-bought) frosting from the refrigerator and before long, Naminé found herself humming alongside him.
It was oddly… domestic. The house they shared with Axel, Xion and Isa was all theirs for the day and they spent it baking cookies for their friends to share on Christmas Day. She knew Roxas wanted to eventually move out and into their own place, just the two of them, one day ("The less opportunity for Axel to tease me, the better"), so this, she thought, was a lovely taste of what was to come.
Eighteen cookies were in the shape of people, three of which were modified to resemble a mouse, duck, and dog respectively. Naminé had thought it would be cute to frost them to make them resemble their friends ("Even Sora?" "Especially Sora"). Those were her responsibility to decorate, while Roxas took the others—snowflakes and Christmas trees.
A bump of elbows there, a smear of frosting there… It was the most content Naminé has felt in a long time. Sora was still missing, sure, but…
"His light is strong. It will guide him back."
"Now then… would you like to know if you are on the Nice List?"
"...Why the ever not?
Roxas gently touched her shoulder. "Are you alright?" he asked softly.
Naminé startled. Then she nodded. "I am," she answered with a small smile. "I just hope everyone likes the cookies."
"I'm sure they will." He gently nudged one cookie—the only one that was not decorated like one of their friends, but rather with a red hat, red clothes, and a long white beard.
"...Listen to me very carefully, young lady. You are not a bad person. You were a child then. Isolated and put into an impossible situation by the adults around you. You simply did what you had to do to survive."
She smiled at the memory, remembering how liberating those words had been, how different Christmas Town had seemed from when she entered and when she left. Cheerier. More festive. More… magical. Sora's memories of the Christmases of his childhood—even those after he allegedly stopped believing in Santa—always felt like such an abstract concept to her. Friends, family, celebration…. Who would want to give her a present? Who would want to sing a carol with her?
Roxas nudged her again. "Naminé," he said. She noticed his lips breaking into a playful smile before she saw the object he was holding up into the air.
Who would want to kiss a witch beneath the mistletoe?
"I thought we all vetoed Axel's plans for those?" she asked in a semi-frantic attempt to recover from her mental stumble.
"We did. Axel's plans, that is."
He has a point there… Axel was not allowed to hang mistletoe anywhere, but such conditions were issued to anyone else… because they assumed that no one else was interested in kicking up snow in that particular method.
But Roxas wasn't exactly doing this for the sake of a good laugh, was he?
Smiling, Naminé placed a hand on the kitchen island and placed a kiss on his cheek.
"Merry Christmas, Roxas."
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This is actually not a new fic. I wrote this a couple years ago as a Secret Santa gift to RayeoftheSunshine. I decided to share it with everyone this year!
Merry Christmas if you celebrate it or Happy Holidays if you do not.