Five minutes later they were standing in a quiet patch between two tents with tall, striped cups in their hands. "...How's the cocoa?" Dick asked.
"It's..." He tasted it again. "It's good," he gave in grudgingly when he couldn't find any flaws. The stuff was thick and rich without being cloying, and there was a weird peppermint stickiness to it that he couldn't place but rather liked. "What did they put in it?"
"A candy cane. They have big vats of hot chocolate inside, right? So they fill up the same size cup for everyone, and they drop a crushed mini candy cane into it. They're usually a couple of orders ahead on their prep, so when it's busy like it was the candy gets a chance to really melt in well."
"Is that why there are no size options?"
"Right. People think it's strange that you can't order more or less, but having only one serving size makes the line go quick and ensures a consistent taste. It's clever." He paused to take a sip of his drink. "They do the same thing with raspberry lemonade in the summer."
"Mm." He didn't care about lemonade, but the longer Grayson rambled the less walking they had to do. Much to his chagrin, though, the man seemed to have run out of spiel.
"Let's go check out some of these booths. Alfred asked me to pick up something neat for Tim's stocking; let's see what we can find."
Damian shot him a disbelieving look. "You're asking me to do something nice for Drake?"
"I'm asking you to help me."
"Yeah, but...oh, fine." It wasn't like there was anything else to do, and helping Grayson…he could see his way clear to doing that, he supposed.
They wandered through what seemed like miles of curving pathways lined with booths and small tents bursting with wares. Occasionally they passed Bruce or Tim or Alfred, and Dick waved. Twice they backtracked in order to get more hot chocolate from the vendor whom Damian, too, now believed was the only one worth buying from. As lunch time approached, though, they still hadn't found anything that Dick was happy with as an additive for Tim's stocking.
"That place back there was selling gag stuff," Damian suggested.
"Eh. That's not really Timmy's game. If he wants to pull a prank he generally doesn't use cheap props."
"I just figured a blob of fake dog poop would match his personality."
"Daaami...be nice."
"It's not my fault if the truth is harsh." Tipping back his cup, he drained it. "...I'm out again."
"Okay. Here, let's get something to eat, okay? You're getting mean and I'm getting frustrated; I think we both need food."
They found spots at the end of a long, crowded picnic table and worked their way through reindeer hot dogs. Damian hadn't been expecting much from his, and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Dick, on the other hand, ate while wearing a guilty expression. "What's wrong with you?" the boy asked.
"Nothing. I love reindeer. It's just that I love them alive. Unfortunately they happen to be really, really tasty when they're dead..."
"You're in a moral quandary over a hot dog?"
"Um...more or less, yes. I still eat them, obviously, but part of me kind of hurts every time I do." He took another bite, then shivered. "The rest of me melts with happiness, though. It's confusing."
"It's ridiculous."
"It's that, too, but...I can't help how I feel."
When their food had vanished Damian pressed for more hot chocolate. Dick, though, had a different idea. "Come over this way for a sec," he beckoned. "We'll get your hot chocolate, but I have an idea first."
"...What is it?" he demanded as he trudged along beside him. The crowds had thinned out a little as people stopped to fill their stomachs, but they still had to bob and weave through the masses in order to make any progress. "Where are we going?"
"There are some other booths up here past all the boats and stuff. Sometimes they're not so great, but other times there's something amazing hidden in with them. I just want to check them out super quick, then I promise we'll go get your hot cocoa. Okay?"
"Mmph...if it's quick, then I guess so."
At first it seemed that the scheme hadn't worked out. All Damian saw were political and religious groups, chintzy-looking fortune tellers – each of which Dick peered at with a searching fervency that he couldn't understand but felt was somehow inappropriate to ask about – and recruiters for the military, the unions, and more. There were a few actual vendors sprinkled in, but for the most part they were selling either cheap plastic toys or feminine-looking bags and baubles. Just as he was about to complain that this was a waste of time, Dick gave out a squeak.
"I knew we'd find something down here!"
Damian glanced towards where he was pointing. "Kaleidoscopes?" he asked, reading the sign plastered to the front of the tent. "That's your big solution?"
"Heck yes. Tim loves kaleidoscopes. He made four or five of them for a science fair project once. He won the show, but he enjoyed the kaleidoscopes themselves way more than he did the ribbon. Let's see if they have little ones; one of those would be perfect for his stocking..."
There was indeed a stock of hand-sized viewers, some with cardboard or plastic tubes, others with ornate wooden or metal exteriors. The more expensive ones were kept behind the counter, and it was these to which Dick gravitated. Damian left him to talk to the seller and began to wander idly through the cheap versions. He knew what a kaleidoscope was and how it worked, but he couldn't be certain that he'd ever looked through one; what, he wondered, was all the fuss about?
Picking one up at random, he put it to his eye. "Whoa," escaped him as he turned the wheel at the end of the housing. Sparkling reds, greens, and golds – Christmas colors, he realized with a wry grimace – shifted and merged in ever-changing patterns. It wasn't the most amazing thing he'd ever seen, but there was something about the fleetingness of each arrangement that made it oddly mesmerizing. Putting down the first tube, he picked up a second, then a third. Each one made his breath catch a little. It was foolish to have such a reaction, he felt, but it came anyway, over and over again.
"...Ready, Dami?" Grayson's voice spoke beside him before he'd gone through much more than a dozen different designs.
He almost said no. Just in time he realized that that would give away that he was having fun, and he bit it back. "...All that, and you didn't even get anything?" he accused.
"I got something," Dick said, patting his coat pocket gently. "Relax. We can go get your hot chocolate now. Then we should head to where we're meeting the others; it's getting close to that time."
As good as a departure from the crowds sounded, if he'd been given the option he would have preferred to take a kaleidoscope home with him instead of cocoa. He kept his mouth shut, however, and simply nodded. "Good. Let's get out of here."
They stepped back out into the throngs of holiday shoppers. Before they'd gone far, Damian turned and looked back over his shoulder. The sign reading 'kaleidoscopes' was still visible, but the wares it promised were not. Setting his mouth, he faced front again and stomped after Grayson. What did he need something like that for, anyway? It was namby-pamby nonsense, with all those colors and shapes dancing around each other. Drake could stare into a tube all day if he wanted, but he had better things to do with his time.
But he still fired one last, longing stare behind him just before they rounded the corner.
…...
He was particularly unpleasant towards Tim over the next week, and as Saturday morning dawned he expected that there would be some extremely nasty holiday activity he had to take part in as payback. When the morning passed without any mention of singing carols or feeding the homeless, though, he grew curious. Finding Dick alone in the dining room, he approached slowly. "...Grayson?"
"Hmm?" Dick asked without looking up from the tiny bow he was tying. Two hundred identical packages covered the table before him, evidence of the size of his project.
"Are...aren't we doing something stupid today?"
"There's no time today," he answered, having apparently missed the judging adjective in the question. "Tonight's the ball."
"...The ball," Damian repeated. A tendril of dread unfolded in his stomach. He'd only been to a couple of high-class events since coming to Gotham, and he had heartily disliked both of them. A Christmas ball was far worse than any punishment he'd imagined receiving for his recent behavior. "I don't have to go to this thing, do I?" he asked, crossing his arms.
"No. You can't go, actually."
That was a different story all together. "What do you mean I can't go?!"
Dick finally met his narrowed gaze. "I mean you have to be sixteen to go. It's Bruce's law; he didn't want me around all the drinking that goes on at these things when I was little, so he made it a house rule. Jason didn't get to go until he was sixteen, either, and last year was Tim's first time."
"What if I want to go?" He didn't, of course, but that wasn't the point.
"You can't, Dami. I'm sorry, but that's the rule. You'd be bored anyway," Dick insisted. "Honestly, you're not being left out of anything. You're actually kind of lucky; the rest of us got drafted into helping Alfred get ready – hence the stiff fingers," he joked, nodding to all of the knots he'd tied, "– but you got let off the hook. He said it wasn't fair to make you help when you couldn't attend. I agree, don't get me wrong, but frankly I'd rather not be decorating hundreds of tiny party favors in exchange for the so-called privilege of being stuck in a tuxedo all night."
Irked but able to tell that arguing wasn't going to get him anywhere, Damian simply huffed. "Fine. Go to your stupid party. I'll just sit in my room all night."
"Well...yeah, actually. That's...that's pretty much what you have to do. Sorry, little brother. I know it's not much fun to hear a party and know you aren't invited, but-"
"Whatever, Grayson." Whirling around, Damian began to stomp away.
"Dami! Look, I'll arrange a big snowball fight tomorrow, okay? You can throw as many as you want at me."
"Good," he snarked back just before he exited the room. "...I hope your hangover is insufferable."
"Aw, Dami..."
But he blocked out whatever came after that sad moan and headed towards the stairs. "…Don't want to go to their stupid Christmas ball anyway," he griped as he slammed his bedroom door shut. Locking it, he stalked to the bed and threw himself down. "I hope they all choke on the punch," he added in a hiss. "Especially Drake." Maybe if that happened Grayson would let him have the kaleidoscope that had been purchased for the older boy's stocking…
Raging silently at the ceiling, he drifted into sleep. The Manor's ballroom appeared below him, the gowns and jackets of its hundreds of occupants looking like tiny jewels from his height. The room fractured suddenly, as if it had been nothing more than a mirror and someone had just dropped it to the floor. Then the splintered sections began to spin, and the ladies and gentlemen of Gotham were cloned over and over again only to disappear just as quickly. They moved in ways that no normal humans had ever managed before, passing through one another and coming out the other side, sliding off of the edges of the room and reappearing on the far side, blooming into being in what had been naught but blankness a moment before.
Damian didn't want to join the movement, but he ached to know if the illusion was spoiled at ground level. Struggling, he tried to free himself from the bindings that were holding him high above the show. It was a useless effort; they were well-made and well-tested, having been used on three others before him. His predecessors hadn't escaped either, he knew, and it would be six more years before the ropes let him go of their own accord. Six long years of exclusion, when all he wanted was to be included…
"Damian?"
He twisted around, searching for the speaker of his name. Maybe whoever it was could help him get down, get to the party. It hadn't sounded like Grayson, but he hoped that was who he would find. The man had already told him no once today, but if anyone would lend him aid it was Dick.
As if in response to that thought, he felt his harness give way. It happened without warning, and he plunged down into the beautiful array below completely devoid of control. The picture shattered into a million pieces, which fell alongside him into blackness. He tried to cover his head lest the shards of glass cut him, but they were still morphing, softening and paling until they looked for all the world like snowflakes drifting gently towards the earth.
There was a jolt as he landed on his stomach. He had exactly enough time to register that he was on a bright plastic sled before the thing took off beneath him, plummeting down a hill he hadn't realized he was atop of. Trees came into view ahead, and he braced himself for action. Left, right, left, left, right…he shifted to the best of his ability, but the land was still throwing him downward. It was too fast, much too fast, and he wasn't even wearing a helmet…
He crashed with horrifying speed. For a moment he felt himself flying through the air, and then the ground caught up with him and everything faded away.
"Daaami…"
He couldn't move to respond. His arms and legs and mouth were dead, useless, severed. The world was blackness, and he was alone, alone and hurt and sorry.
"Dami…you okay, little brother?"
A hand landed on his arm, and miraculously he could feel again. Gasping, he opened his eyes. "…Grayson?" he muttered, recognizing the concerned face above him despite the man's formal get-up.
"Hey. What are you doing on the floor? That's not a very comfortable place to sleep."
"Um…" He must have fallen off of the mattress at some point during his long, confusing dream, but that was too embarrassing to admit. Rather than answer he sat up and changed the subject. "What are you doing here?" he growled, his earlier upset flooding back in as he remembered why he was clad in a t-shirt while Dick was wearing a tie. "I don't want your pity, Grayson. Just go to your stupid party and leave me alone."
"The stupid party's over," Dick informed him gently. "Which I'm glad about, believe me. I just wanted to check on you. You missed dinner, you know."
"Who cares?"
"I do. Bruce let himself in with his key and tried to wake you up to eat, but apparently all you did was roll over and flail at him to go away. He thought it was best to just leave you alone. But," he went on before Damian could rudely inform him that Bruce had been correct and ought to be emulated, "I didn't think it was fair that you miss out on everything about the party, especially when you didn't even get dinner, so I snagged a few things for you from downstairs." He bounced his eyebrows suggestively. "Are you hungry, little brother?"
"No," he jabbed, but his stomach immediately and loudly contradicted him.
Dick laughed. "Heh. Somehow I don't believe you. Here." Standing up, he retrieved a small plate from the dresser. "I left off the hors d'oeuvres I didn't think you'd like. And for dessert…" A long, thick rod of striped candy appeared from where he'd hidden it up his sleeve. "Ta-da!"
"…They had all this stuff at the ball?"
"Yeah. That's why I thought you might want some. You know, since…since you couldn't go."
The gesture both aggravated and gentled Damian's anger. On the one hand, he wanted people to think that he had no interest in attending something as absurd as a Christmas ball; on the other hand, he would have preferred to be there instead of shut away in his room. He would have complained the entire time and asserted afterwards that it had been the worst waste of time he'd ever experienced, but at least he wouldn't have felt left out. The emotion that rose above all of that, though, was gratitude that someone had remembered him, all alone upstairs in his chamber. "Um…thanks," he mumbled awkwardly.
"You bet, Dami."
He tried to make it look like he was eating without any pleasure, but he was so hungry and the food was so good that he couldn't manage the trick. The appetizers he'd been brought vanished, and in the space of a few minutes he had moved on to the candy cane. "…Did the party have any redeeming features?" he ground out, interested despite himself.
"Eh. It was typical. Tim and Bruce and I made bad jokes when no one could hear us and saved each other from some of the clingier attendees." He paused. "It would have been better if you'd been there."
"Yeah, right."
"It would have been. You're not afraid to say the things that the rest of us only think. Sometimes you take it too far, but…it would have been fun to hear what you were thinking, provided that you kept your voice down." A beat passed. "…I kind of got the feeling you were mad at me earlier, you know."
"…Yeah, well…"
"I guess I got you kind of used to being 'dragged out'," he grinned knowingly as he made air quotes with his fingers, "to do Christmas stuff every day this month and then switched it up without notice, huh? I left you hanging."
"…Kind of."
"Well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that to you, honestly, little brother. Look…I know you'll never admit it, but…have you been having fun with the stuff we've been doing? The Christmas stuff? I know you liked sledding, and the hot chocolate last weekend, but…was anything else okay for you?"
Damian considered him for a long moment. Most of what they'd done had sounded stupid and overblown and boring at the beginning, but once he'd gotten started each activity had usually turned out at least mildly amusing. "It's been…okay," he confessed. "Mostly…" Mostly because of you, he held back.
"Mostly what?"
"…Nothing. Just…I don't mind some of it, I guess."
"What was the best part?"
"Sledding," he said without hesitation.
"…Did you like it enough to do it again tomorrow?"
He frowned. "I thought I was going to get to pummel you with snowballs tomorrow!"
Dick laughed again. "You will, I promise. I meant after that."
"…You want to do two things in one day?"
"Sure. Except…look, would you please wear a helmet if you're going to go into the woods while we sled? I know helmets aren't cool, or whatever, but…please? I just don't want you to get hurt."
Damian recalled the brief bolt of fear he'd felt in his dream in the instant before he'd crashed, and the paralysis that had overwhelmed him afterward. "You won't take any pictures, right?" he verified. "And you won't tell anyone about it?"
"I won't."
"Then…then okay. I guess if that's what it takes for me to go sledding in the woods…"
An arm wrapped itself around his shoulders and squeezed. "Thanks, Dami. I really appreciate it."
"Whatever," he shrugged, secretly relieved. "Are we done, or…?"
"There's one more thing. You've been really mean to Tim this week – more than usual, even – and…well, I was wondering…are you jealous of him for something?"
"Jealous? You're joking. It's Drake. What does he have for me to be jealous of?"
"Maybe nothing yet," Dick said secretively. "…But maybe you're jealous of something he's going to have in another week or so?"
Damian started, surprised at the accuracy of the man's suggestion. "What are you talking about?" he challenged.
Dick sighed. "Look, I was saving this for Christmas but I think we'll all have a more pleasant rest of the season if I give it to you now. I don't want you to think I'm rewarding your treatment of Timmy, because I'm not, but I also don't want him to suffer between now and then because you're jealous. So…" A wrapped package appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Here."
"…What is it?"
"Open it and see."
He undid the taped seams slowly, hoping against hope that Dick had somehow fathomed his sentiments of a week earlier. A plain white box came into view, increasing his urgency to see what was inside. His fingers fumbled their way beneath the end flap, and a round tube of dark wood inlaid with mother of pearl slipped into his palm. He gulped. "Is…is it?"
"Yup. Your very own kaleidoscope. I picked it out at the same time I was getting Tim's. I hadn't planned to get you one, but you seemed to like them once you started checking them out. I thought maybe it was something you two could…I don't know, bond over? Or have in common, at least. Anyway…I would really appreciate it if you didn't let Timmy know you have it until he gets his on Christmas. I don't want him to think that I forgot how much he likes them. And maybe now that you don't have any reason to be jealous of him – and by your own admission, remember – you'll be a little nicer. Do you think you can make that happen for me?"
Damian stared down at the apparatus in his hand. "Um…yeah. I can…I can try and do that." For you.
An arm wrapped around his shoulders again. "…Thanks, Dami. No one's going out on patrol tonight," Dick shared, "but don't stay up too late anyway, okay? We've got a lot of rolling in the snow to do tomorrow; you don't want to be too tired for that."
"Okay," he agreed. The weight on the mattress beside him lifted. "...Grayson?"
"Hmm?"
"Uh…don't tell anybody I said this, but…I guess Christmas is pretty okay. I mean, it's not all annoying. There are…there are some good parts."
Dick gave him a warm smile. "Sure there are, little brother," he agreed. "You just had to learn about them in order to appreciate them. By next year you'll be a pro."
"…Yeah…"
"Yeah. Anyway…good night, Dami. See you at breakfast."
The door closed, but Damian didn't get up to lock it. Instead, he raised his gift to his eye and let his hand turn the end of the tube. The dancers inside spun impossibly into each other again, and the boy hovering above them smiled.
Learning Christmas really wasn't so bad, after all.