Work Text:
It was exactly twenty-six hours before Christmas officially hit Harrisburg, but it wasn’t like Claude was really counting. His extended family had hit the airport that morning, and his roommate had stuck around just long enough to hand off the spare key.
Claude generally liked his family, but he also generally liked his job, and he was finding it hard to like both of those things at this point in time. He had a personal longform that needed polishing and an inbox full of columns and reviews that needed clearance for publishing before he could take four whole days off. He could technically pass it off to MacDonald, but the man had a newborn baby and had nearly cried at the sight of fifteen movie and theater reviews written by their newest arts and culture intern.
He scrubbed at his eyes--ten at night was officially too late to be at work on December 23rd--and got up to find out if someone had left the Keurig plugged in.
There were a handful of people still in the office. He waved at Nolan Patrick, the editorial intern. He wasn’t sure the kid wasn’t living under his desk and haunting the office, Phantom of the Opera style. Kid had a massive crush on one of the receptionists at the sports mag across the hall and went bright red every time he looked through their glass office double-doors.
“You going home for Christmas?” he asked Patrick, slowing as he passed the bank of intern desks. “Or are you going to harass the Entertainment writers about their crossword again?”
Patrick groaned. “I’m waiting until the overseas reporters send in their pieces before I go home, and if you have magic powers to make Danny Briere meet deadlines, I could use them. My couch and twelve straight hours of Skyrim await me once he gets his piece in.”
“Just send him sad emojis repeatedly,” Claude advised, remembering the year he served as the editorial intern and had to chase Briere for deadlines. He was half certain it was his Briere track record that had gotten him hired permanently, and by extension, the eventual promotion to head of Arts & Culture. “His phone doesn’t do emoji, and the little box icons drive him nuts.”
Patrick shot him a thumbs-up and set about doing that, presumably.
Claude made it to the kitchen and claimed the last peppermint mocha Keurig pod and set about coaxing the machine into action. As he waited, he surveyed his remaining journalistic compatriots. Layout and printing were there, night-owls the lot of them. There was a representative from at least each department hunched over their computers, but mostly everyone was in the process of closing up shop for the night. There’d be a skeleton crew in over the holidays, but anyone who could put out a stockpiled piece was doing it.
Across the office, Crosby was bitching to Fleury, the loudest noise in the office other than the melancholy Latin carols their Metro editor was playing at an unreasonable volume.
Though, it was better than when Draisaitl had been stuck in the office over the Fourth of July and had decided to play loud German metal to assert his particular brand of patriotism. The next four weeks had been hell as every single international writer had brought in their own bizarre music. The Tibetan throat rap was a sound that still haunted Claude’s dreams.
“Turn that down,” Claude called and got flipped off by Burns, though the volume did decrease. Fleury waved, then made a grimace at Crosby.
Claude liked Fleury well enough; he had a sharp, snarky sense of humor and was prone to muttering insults at their editor-in-chief under his breath in French, and his photography was better than just about anyone else on staff. Claude even liked Crosby well enough, when he didn’t have to see him face-to-face. His hockey knowledge was solid for a reporter who covered Pittsburgh sports and did occasional in-depth research articles into veterans’ health, but he could be a little obtuse at times. He liked Crosby well enough to have gone on a date or two with him, and they were now in that weird space where they could either break it off and not be totally awkward for the rest of forever, or they could turn it into something more serious.
He wasn’t even totally comfortable calling Crosby Sidney, like a date instead of a coworker. The sex had been fantastic, though, so maybe Claude should start working on the first name thing.
Claude shot off a text to Simmonds--you fucker, why did you abandon me in my time of need--and got back a string of text smileys. Not even emojis.
Fucking Simmonds, making off for the Bahamas and leaving Claude to fend off cranky co-workers and invading relatives all at once. Simmonds was a great housemate: he didn’t mind Claude transcribing interviews in the living room at odd hours, and he was willing to trade off dish duty even if his opinions on the Oxford comma were wrong.
Claude collected his coffee and headed back to his desk. Maybe he could channel some of that rage into productivity, and choose the handful of articles that layout and printing were hounding him about.
He let himself message Crosby after he got the most urgent layer of his inbox handled. Their interoffice chat client was generally shit, but it was good for quick responses without fucking around with the inbox. He had a history of messaging Crosby snarky comments similar to what he’d send Fleury, so he felt comfortable asking Crosby what was going on to make him bitch at Fleury in the first place.
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Everything ok over there?
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Did malkin get traded or smth
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
Don’t even joke about that
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
I was going to go with Flower to his xmas dinner,
but his in-laws dropped in
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
And they are not a fan of non-family being there,
apparently
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
So you’ve got nowhere to go
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
About the long and short of it, yeah
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
No last minute trips up to nova scotia?
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
My sister has a tournament in vancouver so no
one’s there
Before he could really let himself think about it, Claude typed out a message, and then flicked over to his mail inbox, determined to finish proofing another review before he let himself check Crosby’s reply. This one was written by Ghost, so it wasn’t overly sprinkled with typos and extra punctuation. He approved it and sent it over to layout, who responded with a gif of a dancing cat.
Claude was really starting to wonder where the professionalism in this office had gone. Probably the same direction that Briere’s attitude towards deadlines had gone, if the entirely uncapitalized email in his inbox from Patrick was any indication. He sent a text smiley to Briere and tabbed back over to his chat with Sidney, who’d replied with a single message.
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
If you’re really that hard up my roommate bailed
so i’ve got an extra place setting
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
You serious??
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
My family are all nosy french-canadians
why do you think my roommate bailed
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
It might be kind of soon for xmas with the
family though so that’s up to you if you
want to come
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
My best friend is Flower, i can handle nosy
French-canadiens
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
I will also remind you that our first date was at
Olive garden and i personally watched you eat
like four baskets of breadsticks, I want to see
what sort of family could have possibly raised
that as a norm
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
You ate literally three plates of their endless
pasta, i am not the weird one here
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
If you’re serious i will absolutely take you up
on that. Anything beats leftovers and netflix,
which is what i’d be doing otherwise.
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Okay then.
From: SCrosby (Sports)
I’m putting together a piece on the Winter Classic
between Philly and Pittsburgh, and Flower’s editorial
opinions are wrong, so I might here for a while
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
I’m probably pulling an all-nighter, just looking
at the state of my inbox, but my family is in
town so we’re attending noon mass and then
doing dinner after. Up for that?
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
Sounds a million times better than leftovers
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
Send me the church address? I’ll meet you
there at noon.
--
Crosby cleaned up well, but Claude had already known that. He met them at the Episcopal church Claude only attended for holidays and when he was feeling randomly pious.
He greeted Claude’s parents with kisses on both cheeks, and hugged Grandmere and Isabelle warmly, as if this wasn’t the first time he was meeting them.
Claude found himself weirdly charmed. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Crosby was good with people when the scope of his interaction with him was usually an argument over why his opinion on their style guide was wrong, and also that his taste in beer was shit.
He shook his head, and offered his elbow to Crosby, ignoring Isabelle making a funny face at him over Maman’s shoulder. Some things never changed with sisters.
Crosby fumbled a little as he followed along with the service; Christmas Mass was sung in Latin, first of all, and the church was fuller than a usual Sunday. It was really the after service that Claude liked, talking to other people and drinking the free coffee. The adjacent Sunday School had put on a little Mary and Joseph tableau, complete with a live donkey.
Claude and Crosby stared at it for a minute while Claude’s mother took Grandmere and Isabelle to the bathroom, and Papa had gone to fetch coffee.
“That’s--something, isn’t it?”
“I don’t even know how they got that in here.”
“Well, it probably walked.” Crosby shrugged. “Thanks again for letting me crash your Christmas.”
“It’s just mass and dinner, not exactly exciting.”
“It’s still being around people that’s nice,” Crosby said. “Sorry if your family thinks we’re more serious than we are. I don’t mean to make it messier for you.”
Claude snorted. “They put up with me bitching about you taking over Sports for long enough. My sister’s been gloating since I admitted we went on a date.”
That made Crosby laugh. “Well, mine has been too. Maybe they’d get along.”
“Isabelle doesn’t get along with anyone.”
“That is a lie,” Isabelle said from right behind Claude, and Claude wasn’t afraid to use Crosby as a human shield. “So, we’ve got an issue.”
Claude darted a glance at Crosby, who politely excused himself to find a drinking fountain or a cup of water, or really, anything.
Maman leaned over to Claude, looking worried.
“Your Mimi is having a memory lapse,” she said, then jerked her shoulder at Crosby. “She thinks he’s Carter.”
Claude felt his jaw drop. “You’re joking.”
Maman shook her head. “Mimi is convinced he grew up nice, and she’s glad you settled down with your high school sweetheart.”
Isabelle was snickering until Claude elbowed her. “This is hell. I’ve stumbled into a new circle of hell. I’ve been on three dates with him and invited him because his friend had to cancel plans. You want me to tell him he needs to pretend to have been dating him for twelve years, and oh, we’re probably going to get harassed for not having gotten married already?”
Maman patted him on the shoulder. “Just sit next to him at dinner, and we’ll steer Mimi away as much as possible.”
“I’m telling her Isabelle is pregnant if you let it go on too long,” he threatened and slunk off to inform Crosby of their...situation.
Crosby looked charmed rather than horrified when Claude outlined the problem.
“So we pretend to be dating for longer than we have been?” Sidney rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, and then back on his heels.
Claude raised an eyebrow. “We don’t say anything otherwise, and let her draw her own conclusions.”
“Why?”
Claude shrugged, then sighed. “She’s got dementia. It’s...advancing. Sometimes she’s fine, but sometimes she latches onto an idea and there’s no convincing her otherwise. She was having a good week, was apparently great until we landed, and then Maman says she was having one of her delusions while they were waiting in line for the bathroom.”
“Really?”
“Do I look like a doctor to you? Maman says the doctor generally says to play along and alleviate the underlying concerns. She’s probably just worried about her kids and grandkids having good relationships, and it’s not something we really push her on.”
Sidney nodded. “Anything else I should mind?”
“She might call you Carter.” Claude grimaced. “High school boyfriend.”
Sidney gave him a thumbs-up and then looped his arm through Claude’s elbow. “Want to drive with me, and your family can follow?”
--
Claude’s apartment wasn’t big, but it felt even smaller when he had his parents, sister, and grandmother there, taking up Simmond’s room and the foldaway couch. Isabelle was sharing his room with him, the two of them sleeping in the same bed like they had as little kids. At least now Isabelle was less prone to kicking him awake for the hell of it.
Crosby fit right into their Christmas dinner routine, as if he’d always been part of their traditions. He helped Maman put the ham in the oven, and stirred the corn chowder when Isabelle made an escape to help walk Claude’s dogs. All the while he chatted merrily with Mimi and let himself be affectionate with Claude. For a while, Claude thought they might get through dinner without Mimi saying anything, but he should have known better.
They were all settled around the table, Papa filling plates and Maman refreshing drinks when Mimi made her move.
“How long have you been together now?” Mimi demanded in French, and Claude closed his eyes. “You’re twenty-four now, Claude, yes?”
“I’m twenty-nine, Mimi.”
Mimi flapped her hand dismissively. “Details. So you’ve been together twelve years, then?”
There was a quiet around the table as everyone tried to figure out how to handle this without encouraging her.
To Claude’s surprise, it was Sidney who spoke up, in creaky but serviceable French. “We’ve only started dating again recently,” he explained. “But we’re so far from home I couldn’t resist hearing familiar accents, and I’m so glad to be back here for Christmas.”
Mimi seemed to take that at face value and nodded, already turning to interrogate Isabelle.
Claude let his hand drop below the table and squeezed Sidney’s hand in thanks. Sidney just tangled their fingers together and ate one-handed, a little smug.
Sidney stuck around long enough to finish off two plates of dessert and watch It’s a Wonderful Life with them, dubbed in French, but he bowed out when Isabelle started singing carols in French. It was probably less the French and more the fact that Isabelle was horribly off-key, but still.
Claude offered to walk him down to his car, ignoring the suggestive gesture Isabelle made and the wink Mimi sent his way.
Sidney held his hand as they took the elevator down, but pulled away on the walk to his car, pulling his gloves on.
“I guess this is where we say goodbye,” Claude said, just to fill the quiet.”
Sidney shoved his hands into his pockets. “Okay, so--I’ll see you at work after Christmas? Or, uh, earlier, if you want to get dinner. Just the two of us this time.”
“You met the shitshow that is my family, and you still think going out with me is a good idea?”
“I wish my family was half the shitshow yours was, then,” Sidney said. “They’re good people.”
“You think?”
“None of them tripped me in the stairwell their first day of work--”
Claude shoved at Sidney a little. “Let it go, would you--”
“That’s not an answer, though!”
Claude ducked his head, then leaned forward and kissed the corner of Sidney’s mouth. “I suppose, if I can forgive you pushing me down the stairs--”
“It was an accident, and you did it to me first anyway--”
“If I can forgive you pushing me down the stairs,” Claude repeated. “Then I suppose I could handle another date with you.”
Sidney laughed and pulled Claude in for a long, lingering kiss. By the time Claude made it back upstairs to his family, he was thoroughly chilled from being outside so long, and his mouth felt a little swollen from kissing.
Isabelle only made a few kissy faces at him, which he felt he could excuse for the sake of Christmas.
--
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
Mayday mayday
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Did malkin actually get traded??
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
God, don’t joke about that
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
My parents are visiting and they want to
meet my “nice young man”
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
We’ve been on a total of four dates
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
And one of them Fleury and Simmonds crashed
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Five if you count christmas, which i don't
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
But i spent christmas with you so they think
It must be majorly serious already
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
So what would this entail? Dinner?
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
Probably, yeah
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
I’m so sorry
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
Not like you haven’t met my trainreck of a
family so you’re okay
From: CGIROUX (Arts & Culture)
You think i could wrangle some baby photos
out of them
From: SCROSBY (Sports)
I’d like to keep you around, thanks