A/N: Since the holidays-Christmas in particular-are so central to the book and fandom, this is going to be a place for any holiday Snowbaz drabbles or short one-shots I may think of, prompted or not. (Is there something you want to see? PM me or leave it in the comments!) Check out my other ongoing series, Wake Me Up When It's Over, for more fluffy fun. **end shameless self-promotion**
All rights belong to Rainbor Rowell and St. Martin's/Macmillan.
Happy Holidays! Read and review, please, I love hearing from you!
Christmas is very important to Snow. He loves everything about it. He's spent most of December and part of November making lists of Christmas things: gifts, food, activities, food, decorations, food. We were going to have Christmas in Bunce and Snow's flat, but an unexpected leak and a surprise invitation from The American Boyfriend meant that we found ourselves, on Christmas Eve, with nowhere to go.
So we went home.
It's hard to think of it as home, because it's not the house I grew up in. It's one of the Other Houses. Still on the National Trust, though, retaining the lovely familiarity of being unable to move the furnishings or repaper the walls.
I thought it would be weird, coming here, after. I thought Father would be–I don't know what I thought he'd be, the way he'd act around Simon. He's being surprisingly tolerant. I think Daphne had a very long talk with him. He spends a lot of time in his study, which isn't all that unusual, really, but when he does emerge, at least he's polite.
He keeps calling Simon "Mr. Snow," though, and Si doesn't know what to make of that.
He's in the kitchen with Daphne now. (Simon, not my Father.) She's teaching him how to make scones. There'll be no stopping him after this.
The French door opens and my father walks out onto the patio with me, lighting a thin cigar. He's careful about the flame, one of the many ways he acknowledges my condition without ever really doing so.
We stare at the snow falling, under the lights. Flakes of gold, falling through space. I've been out here for an hour, at least. I am a master of staring at snow.
"How's university?" he asks.
"Good."
"And living with Fiona? How is that working out?"
"Fine. I don't spend a lot of time in the flat, what with classes and–" I let the sentence die.
Silence.
"Your Mr. Snow," he begins, and my stomach drops. There's a long pause, and then Father drops his cigar and grinds it out on the flagstone.
"Natasha would have liked him," he says quietly, almost thoughtfully, but I'm grinning inside now because that, that, is the highest seal of approval my father can put on anything. Mother would have liked him…
"See if you can get him to bake something else, though," he says, heading back inside. "We're all going to be dead sick of scones come New Year's."