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"...And then he caught fire."
"And /died/?"
"Yes. And, and died."
It was snowing—a light, powdered snow, white as milk and thin as water, had covered all of New York City on Christmas Eve. The snow, faint as it was and yet still abundant, failed however to breach the walls of a towering house smack dab in the center of suburban Manhattan.
"You tell the /worst/ stories!" Sat at one end of the house's dining table was an Audrey Cerise, currently stabbing her fork into a mess of honey ham, blue eyes wide with incredulousness. "It's insane. I can't believe you're not doing it on purpose."
Across from her, pouring himself another glass of wine, had sat a Dr. Francis Chance. "You cut me off before I could get to the good part."
"...What's the good part?"
"He died."
She let out a groan, long and agonized, slipping down under the table and toeing off her shoes in an act of casual disrespect.
"—And /then/. Then we found the body of William Murray propped up in his closet between four ironing boards."
"/Holy shit/. ...What did he need all the ironing boards for?"
"I can't tell you that, actually. Confidential."
"What, did he—did he fucking smuggle in fucking Pentagon blueprints in them?"
Chance raised a thick eyebrow, and muffled his answer in a full glass of cabernet sauvignon.
"Oh my god. Why did I let you—" Cerise slammed her knife down again, caught in-between a hiccup and a giggle. "Why did I let /you/ tell a Christmas story?"
"It's tradition. We're very traditional people."
"You're wearing eyeliner."
"Well, so are you."
She groaned again, sawing off the final part of her dinner and gnawing at it with a level of barbarity that tended to surprise people getting to know her. "...Yeah, okay, I'm not listening to you. —Hey, Dolly! DOLLY!"
"She's not home."
"/Fantastic/ dinner, Dolly. Best I've had!"
"She's gone down to the coast with Hollis."
"Merry Christmas, Dolly! Merry fucking—She's Jewish, isn't she?"
"She is Jewish."
"...Well. Let's have dessert, then."
He broke into laughter, almost knocking over the wine bottle as he stood. "Dessert it is."
"/That's/ what I like to hear."
"Hey, speaking of fire—remind me to write something down in the morning. There's someone I want you to meet."
"What?"
"Don't worry about it."
The doctor had made a point before—it /was/ tradition, after all. For the past three years they had met on the Eve, as a sort of mutual deal. Food, and company, and not a single word of current work. A form of respite, with mashed potatoes.
Chance rather liked it, although saying so was surely below him. It was nice, to see his friend—
That was what Cerise was, in the end. Not just a partner, not just a colleague—a friend. He was glad to have her. He made himself shut up and dragged himself over to the cabinet.
"Thoughts on... bourbon?"
Audrey gasped, pushing herself up from where she sat with her calves almost against the ground, and gave a round of approving applause. "Thoughts on bourbon are: /yes/, /please/, in that order."
Their dinner parties had always been the same: feast, liqueur, more feast and more liqueur, music. Gifts, of course, were supposed to come the day after, if neither was particularly hungover, and if Paul was still willing to let Cerise in the Rolls-Royce.
"Good. Hold this for me." With a grunt, Dr. Chance handed her a box of Virginia Gentleman, and staggered off.
She gasped louder, if possible, and set herself to opening it. Somewhere in-between the scrabbling at the ribbon and the prying at the cap, she gave herself a moment, to think. One might think she'd gone soft, and one would certainly get a dagger to one's throat for saying so, but certainly some sentiment remained.
There's something special about tradition, if it's the right kind. Something special about forging your own. A craft unique to you, a ritual unique to you, that means something a little more than anything widespread.
Or at least, that's what she might say if she wasn't already pouring herself brandy.
Chance returned with his arms full, and dropped an angel cake with less-than-angelic grace onto the dining room table. "/There's/ dessert. Look, it's got little frosting poinsettias."
Cerise swallowed, screwing up her face—"Tell Dolly I love her when I get back."
"Can do." He put down the second box, with a heavier clatter, and brushed off imagined dust.
She raised her gaze to drowsy-eyed stare behind spectacles, and they exchanged a few seconds of raised and waggled eyebrows. Cerise was attempting a particularly complex maneuver involving the simultaneous scrunching of the nose and arching of the eyebrows when—
"Christ on the fucking cross. Open the /box/, woman."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She stuck her tongue out, and unfurled the ribbon with one solid tug.
She pulled open the tabs of the white box, and pulled out a long, thick sweater, shaking it out.
"...You got me an ugly Christmas sweater that says 'I'm dreaming of a wine Christmas'."
"It's a few sizes too large. I don't understand Amazon yet."
"...This is /awful/, Francis, I love it so /much/."
"Merry Christmas."
"Oh my god. Oh my god. Stay right there." She went, struggling into her sweater, down the hall, retrieving her bag.
"Oh?" Chance slumped down into his chair, and flipped open the box of angel cake. He was smiling, for what it counted, happy to see her smile as well. (The same went for him, with the dagger and the knife. He had a reputation to uphold.)
He turned his head at the sound of her footsteps to get a face full of wool—he unfolded the bundle that had almost knocked his glasses off, and burst into laughter.
"Did you also get me—did you also get me an ugly Christmas sweater that says—"
"It says 'I'm dreaming of a wine Christmas', you bastard."
"We bought the same sweater."
"We bought the same goddamn sweater!"
They locked eyes, and broke into hysterics, to the point of the Virginia Gentleman almost being knocked off the table (which is, in anyone's mind, an incredibly grave situation).
"It's about a size too small," Cerise pointed out, once she had remembered how to breathe, and then remembered how to pour herself a second glass of brandy. "That's because I understand Amazon exactly."
Chance squirmed into it, creasing his collar and dragging his spectacles down his face. "...This is my favorite thing."
"Mine's this cake. At what point did you say to, at what point did you say, Francis, it's going to be cold on Christmas, I have to buy her a really just—a really /very/ bad and awful sweater for when she leaves my house."
"Same point you did, if not a few minutes earlier."
"Jesus."
A smile broke across both of their faces, and there was a little more tradition made that night, crafted out of the luck and faith both of them liked so much.
Chance raised his glass, a little more than a few drops of liqueur splashing against the hardwood flooring.
"It's a Christmas miracle!" He exclaimed.
"I thought you didn't believe in miracles?"
"Course I do. What's—if it isn't miracles. If there aren't miracles. Then what do you call me getting all this good goddamn bourbon for half goddamn off?"
"You owning half the shops in Manhattan. That's what I call it." Cerise hiccupped, propping her chin up in her hands with a smile almost sliding off her face.
He made a sound not entirely unlike what a chortle might be, and they made an undesignated toast. To friendship, maybe, or to tradition. Maybe to sweaters, or maybe to booze.
"Je/sus/. What a night. Hey, Chance?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
He paused, fork halfway into a slice of cake. "...I love you too, Audrey."
"Psh." She raised her own fork, watching him stand with apprehension.
"I love you a lot. I'm very happy you're my friend."
"I get the point, you—"
He picked her up from the chair and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing Cerise to his chest and leaving her dangling almost a foot off the ground.
She grumbled incessantly against the sweater she'd purchased, and Chance shushed her insistently.
"Shhh. Shh. Hush now. Merry Christmas."
"Mmpf. Mmmm. Hmph."
"I love youuu—"
"You are /so/ drunk. Merry Christmas, you big bastard."
He dropped her, with a resounding cheer. "Now. Mariah Carey-oke?"
"That's the worst pun I've /ever/ heard in my /whole/ life. You are so on."