"What's that for, Blue?"
The breath from Piper's mouth fogged slightly as she entered the metal house, the New England cold outside turning her cheeks a shade of red not unlike her coat. Will turned his head over his shoulder as he finished nailing the small pine tree into the floorboards, a smile beaming over the leather coat he had taken to wearing since the weather had really gotten cold. He hit his last nail with a few hard strokes before standing up to admire his handiwork, the small tree sitting at a slight angle from its uneven felling, but amidst the shack it hardly looked out of place. As he stepped back, he felt a hand fall on his right shoulder and Piper lean to the side, looking at the tree. He placed a small kiss on her ruddy nose before replying, turning away with a wide smile to fetch a box from their newly constructed storage room.
"It's a Christmas Tree, Pipes. Come on, I know you celebrate Christmas, I've seen the lights in Diamond City."
Piper followed with a slight skip as she took the scarf off and placed it on the nail next to the door, talking to Will as she followed.
"Of course we celebrate Christmas! But not by bringing more flammable wood into our primarily fire-heated house."
Will bent down to open up the drawer of the beaten up Filing Cabinet, attempting to wrestle its contents into his hands before realizing the attempt's futility and removing the entire drawer and walking through the short hallway that separated the storage room, filled wall to wall with filing Cabinets and Dressers, from the rest of the house. As he passed Piper, her arms crossed and hips thrown to the right, he stopped, raising an eyebrow and devilish grin as he readjusted the box.
"Well, given what you think of baseball, I can't say I have much faith in your rendition of Christmas."
An exasperated huff followed him as he set the drawer down next to the tree, Piper's voice floating over his Shoulder as he began untangling the contents in earnest.
"For the record, I never thought it was that violent…" Will had to listen carefully as the next part was spoken under her breath. "Admittedly, I thought it involved three balls, five goals, and a dog…" Soft chuckling from Will coaxed her voice back to full volume. "But we do at least get Christmas right."
Low chuckles sounded from Will as he stood up, Piper sauntering to his left, a string of Christmas lights held in his right hand. Handing the end of the strand to Piper, she grabbed it and held it down while he began circling the tree, spiraling the lights upwards as he spoke.
"Alright then, Ms. Festive, how do you celebrate Christmas?"
"Well, on the 24th we put lights up all around the city, and a few trees are put up around the Noodle Stand…' She caught the glare from around the tree from Will. 'But they stay outside, where they're supposed to. Then, that night, everybody has parties where you have to wear the ugliest clothes you have. I heard somebody say that started as sweaters, probably true, but sweaters are kind of hard to come by, so now it's just the ugliest clothes you own. Then everybody leaves food by the fireplace, preferably something sweet, for the game of "Nick". During the night, a few people dress in all red and try to sneak into houses to get the food. But if they get caught, they become 'Snow Men', and have to spend the rest of the night outside, until morning. Then on the 25th we all stay home and have a giant meal."
About halfway through the story Will paused in his tree-lighting, leaning from behind the tree with expressively inquisitive eyebrows to listen to Piper's story, biting back laughter as he listened. Once she was finished Piper looked up, a slightly self-satisfied expression on her face as Will laughed slightly, shaking his head while he finished wrapping the tree.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. Just funny to see how the yuletide has changed."
"Alright, Blue, then how did you celebrate Christmas?"
"Screw these lights into that power connector and I'll tell you."
As Piper took the cord of the Christmas lights Will hung up his leather jacket before he took two coffee cups off of the hot plate on the table, grabbing a blanket from the bed and draping it over the couch, waiting for Piper to finish. After the lights lit up he heard a small victorious "Ha!" from the reporter and she walked over, hanging her trench coat next to his, taking the warm cup from his hand and joining him under the blanket, the two snuggling together under the chilled blanket quickly. Two soft sips of hot chocolate were heard before he spoke, both of them admiring the tree.
"Alright, so Christmas. First off, Christmas season was a lot longer pre-war, probably start right after Thanksgiving. That was when all the…"
"Blue. Thanksgiving?"
"No thanksgiving here?"
"Not that I've ever celebrated, no."
"Well that'll have to change. So sometime in mid-November. Anyways, that's when all the Christmas music would start, and the stores would start selling Christmas themed everything. Food, decorations, you name it. There were some Christmas Trees outside, yeah, but the ones that really mattered were the ones inside, each family had one in their homes. And they wouldn't just have lights, there'd be little decorations on them too, mostly just these small glass balls, but other ones too. Under the tree, everybody would put presents for each other, wrapped in this special paper…"
"I do know what wrapping paper is, old-timer."
"Alright alright, didn't know what had gotten lost to your three-ball, five-goaled madness. Anyways, There'd be all kinds of parties and whatnot up to the 24th, but usually the 24th was spent with Family. No parties, and we'd tell kids that Santa, or St. Nicholas, would come on Christmas Eve. Yes, he wore red, but he was just one guy, and very old. And he wasn't there just to steal snacks, though it was a tradition to leave cookies and milk out for him. He was a giver, and brought children presents if they were nice, and lumps of coal if they were naughty."
"You scammed your kids with that? How'd he know what they were doing for the entire year? Don't tell me they were told there was this weird guy in a red suit watching them year round…"
Will's blush gave him away as he sipped blatantly non-chalantly from his hot-chocolate.
"So much for teaching your kids the truth about the world."
"What can I say, different times. Anyways, on Christmas Even Santa would come in the middle of the night and eat all the milk and cookies, and leave the kids presents. Then on Christmas Morning, the family would go down and open presents together, and that night they'd usually have a big meal. The entire thing was centered around giving. Though if you asked a salesperson, he'd probably say profit."
"So, I can see where our whole 'Nick' thing comes from, but where'd we get the ugly clothes or sweaters from?"
"Oh, Ugly Christmas Sweaters definitely existed before the war. We'd have entire parties dedicated to them, and everybody would come wearing the ugliest sweater they could find. And let me tell you, some of them would put a Super-Mutant's face to shame for ugly."
Piper sat up, shoving Will playfully while they both laughed as he struggled to balance his hot chocolate.
"Now you're just pulling my leg."
"I swear on my ancient honor, that's the truth."
Piper smiled, leaning closer to Will's face.
"Maybe not ancient…" a small kiss landed on his nose. "just retro. And my retro, at that."
"And nobody else's."
Piper hummed contently as she lay back against Will, the two of them sipping from their hot Chocolate, admiring the tree. The lights twinkled as they heard an ominous pop from one of the generators outside, followed by a string of curses from Sturges. Chuckling, Piper was the one who spoke first.
"So Christmas was all about giving gifts to each other? Kindness and Generosity?"
"More or less, yeah."
"Well then I gotta come clean, Blue, I didn't get you anything."
"You're here, that's enough for me. All I want for Christmas is you."
"Get outta here." Piper playfully shoved Will, a smile dancing on both of their lips while her cheeks blushed furiously. Softly, under her breath she spoke, making Will smile and kiss her on the forehead.
"You're all I want too."