Chapter Text
[December 21]
“Did I really see pictures of you at the Christmas cookie contest last night?”
“No, it was someone else,” Leonard snaps into the phone — or tries to, anyway, considering he breaks into a yawn halfway through. He splashes some cream into his coffee mug and then sits down at the island, propping his phone up. Mercifully, Jaylah didn’t start her ice sculpting until 8am this time, but it’s still far too early in Leonard’s opinion.
Meanwhile, he can see a pool in the background of Eleanor’s FaceTime call. He knows that a week ago, just the sight would’ve sent him into seething jealousy, but all he can think now is that it just doesn’t seem right, at this time of year. He glances out his own window at the familiar snowy landscape outside.
“I’m glad you’re making friends,” Eleanor says, and when Leonard turns back to his phone, she has the audacity to smirk at him. “How was the party? Did Gary win?”
“He did.” Sure, Gary’s linzer cookies were absolutely delicious, but Leonard is unable to keep a straight face. Gary was so excited about continuing his seven-year win streak that he broke into an absolutely horrendous rendition of White Christmas. Leonard and Jim had been very careful to not burst into laughter until they accidentally made eye contact. They were only saved from Gary’s subsequent wrath by Jim pretending to have made a completely unrelated joke.
Eleanor gives him a look he knows too well, that why-aren’t-you-giving-me-more-details look. Before she can press him on it, she turns to the side, and Leonard can vaguely hear David’s voice.
“Oh, yes, Leo, that’s another thing.” She looks at him again, very sternly this time. “We saw a photo of the house. You know that nutcracker is too short, don’t you?”
“I’m aware.”
“You have to do the minimum,” David calls, and just his head peeks into the frame a second later. “Did someone give you a copy of the HOA guidebook, or do you want to know where it’s shelved in the office? I might have a PDF saved somewhere, too. I can text you the code sections—”
“Why bother, when Jim’s got the whole thing memorized?” Leonard interrupts.
“Please, dear? We can barely sleep, knowing the state of things up there.” She says it very seriously, but she looks tan, well-rested, and as insufferably happy as she always is.
Leonard just scowls at her, but says, “I’ll maybe try to do the bare minimum. If I have time.”
“Perfect!”
“Oh yeah — and Gary’s been yelling at me about supplies for the, uh, snowman building contest today. Though why you’d need supplies when it’s just snow is—”
“They’re in the garage,” Eleanor interrupts. “Leo, I told you everything is in the garage.”
Leonard glares at her over the rim of his coffee mug, but he’s too tired to argue.
“Everything is labeled,” David calls from what sounds like several feet from the phone.
“It really couldn’t be easier.”
Leonard, who is no great fan of heights, remembers that all the Christmas stuff is stored in (of course) red-and-green bins on overhead shelves. He just sighs and rolls his eyes, fairly certain this won’t be easy. “I’ll take a look. No promises.”
“And how’s Jim?” Eleanor asks, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “He’s single, you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” he says dryly, forcing himself not to smile. Giddy at just the sound of his name — what stage of pathetic crush is that? He’s sure Eleanor will notice if he stays on the phone a second longer, so he quickly adds, “I’ve gotta go — Gary will murder me if I don’t find this shit.”
“Did Jim tell you about the hot tub drama?”
But he’s already in the middle of hanging up, and lets himself end the call. After all, he’s got better things to do than partake in HOA gossip. At least, gossip from Eleanor, anyway.
After refilling his coffee, he wanders into the garage. Despite David’s comment on labels, that doesn’t help the fact that the shelf is about eight feet up. He squints and tries his best to interpret his parents’ notes. Ones like ‘ornaments’ are simple enough, but a startling number are hieroglyphics or long abbreviations.
Sighing, he pulls out his phone.
[Leonard, 9:04am]
can you help me?
With that, he shoos Blitzen back into the house and opens the garage door. By the time he’s reluctantly ascended a ladder to reach the storage bins, Jim comes jogging into his garage. Leonard glances down at him, taking in his dark red coat and hat with Christmas trees on it.
“You reckon ‘SC’ means snowman contest?” Leonard asks by way of greeting.
“It’s classic storage configuration,” Jim says, hands on his hips, surveying the red and green bins. “Do you want me to go up there?”
Leonard glares down at him, in an effort to convey that he’s never heard the phrase ‘classic storage configuration’ in his life and would prefer to keep it that way. “Then shouldn’t you be able to tell me from there?” he asks dryly.
“Yeah, it’s probably the right one,” he admits grudgingly, hand resting on Leonard’s calf. Leonard glances down and realizes Jim looks a little worried. He would roll his eyes, but it feels oddly nice, and his own dislike of heights mostly evaporates. He can’t remember when someone worried about him — like this anyway, in the small, daily sense. Not the you-just-got-divorced-and-you-drink-too-much sense.
Leonard carefully hands the bin down to him before slowly climbing back to solid ground. By the time he gets there, Jim has the bin open and holds two pieces of coal in front of his eyes.
“I think you found it,” he says with a grin.
Leonard sits down cross-legged next to the very large box, watching silently as Jim rifles through the contents, probably crossing things off some mental list. Leonard just watches him, not sure if he’s mesmerized because he’s tired or because Jim really is a goddamn wonder.
Jim’s sleeve catches against a twig, and Leonard reaches into the box and detaches it gently, not saying anything. Jim, head still turned down, looks up at him. It’s just for a moment, but Leonard’s throat goes dry.
“Thanks for coming over,” Leonard finally says. “Want any coffee? I got gingerbread creamer when I went to the store yesterday, seems like the sorta thing you’d like.”
Jim’s eyes widen, and for once, he’s the surprised one. “Really?” he asks softly, while closing the bin back up and shoving it towards the front of the garage.
“Well, I had to run to the store yesterday anyway. If I remember right, those of us in the cul-de-sac do get barricaded in our houses — no way to get a car around all that shit. Had to get rations — can’t let Blitzen go without his lactose-free milk.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Bones. Besides, it’s for a good cause.”
“It’s a fire hazard,” Leonard says, barely managing not to smile. “I should report you.”
“Did you not read the supplemental material in the HOA handbook?” Jim asks, following him into the house. “All fire safety protocols have been followed.”
Leonard does not play in the snow.
Leonard does not like the snow. He was born in Georgia and lived there for the first nine years of his life. And yet, somehow, Leonard found himself swept up in helping Jim build a snowman. At first, it was just responding to reasonable requests like: “Can you grab me some coal for the eyes?” Unfortunately, that morphed into actually helping. Though, thank you very much, he mostly just hung around with Jim during the process.
Strangely, it seemed like everyone had a good time. Even though there aren’t a ton of kids in the neighborhood, as far as Leonard can tell, most of them brought friends. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Leonard that all the adults got very into it, too — rivaling the cookie contest. Even Gary seemed to be in better spirits. Leonard, who has no interest in understanding Gary’s mood swings, decided to chalk it up to the high from his win yesterday.
Unsurprising considering her affinity for art involving frozen water, Jaylah wins the contest.
Afterwards, Leonard and Jim sit on a relatively snow-free area of the curb, watching the last of people disperse into the neighborhood. It is, of course, only because of the limited space that they’re sitting directly next to each other, thighs touching. Leonard tilts his head down, looking at their jeans touching, and slowly looks up to Jim’s face, where he’s staring straight ahead at Leonard’s house.
Jim gestures at it, his face falling very dramatically. “Bones, just look at it.”
Leonard rolls his eyes, but he looks, too. Sure, the house sticks out like a sore thumb, and it’s apparently riddled with HOA violations. Leonard is a criminal, basically, all because there aren’t Christmas lights on every inch of roof line.
But, despite the rampant sarcasm in his brain, Leonard tries to see it like Jim does.
“I suppose the kids wouldn’t like to see only one house in the bunch looking like that,” Leonard says softly. “On Christmas Eve.”
Jim gives him an open-mouthed grin, and suddenly he grabs Leonard’s arm.
“But I can’t do all that myself,” Leonard cuts in quickly. “Or even with the two of us — I ain’t spending all night out here.”
Jim bursts out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Stop inventing problems, Bones.” He stretches out his leg and pulls his red walkie-talkie out of his pocket. With a grin at Leonard, Jim presses the button and says, “Attention all available units! Rendezvous at McCoy Manor STAT. Operation: Deck the Halls is a go. Kirk out.”
Before Leonard can do more than stare incredulously, Jim jumps up. When Jim bends back down for his hand, Leonard rolls his eyes but lets Jim hoist him to his feet. By that time, people are streaming out of their houses. In all but the blink of an eye, Jaylah is pulling storage bins down from the garage shelf, Scotty is sorting through them, the Sulus are hanging up Christmas lights. Even Uhura’s elusive husband Spock is there with power tools.
It’s a whirlwind of an hour or two, and then, suddenly, it comes to a screeching halt.
Leonard goes to the curb to look, crossing his arms over his chest to try to stay warm. It’s starting to get dark, and the lights aren’t on yet, but Leonard tries to compare it to his mental picture of the house in his childhood. He thinks it looks about right — Christmas lights everywhere possible, garland wrapped around the porch rail, ‘understated but festive’ lawn ornaments (as Eleanor always called them). But it feels new, too. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen it as anything other than a painful necessity, until now.
It’s hard not to smile when that blond menace beckons him forward, holding a plug and an extension cord. “Will you do the honors?” Jim asks.
When Leonard causes everything to light up, something hits him. He really does, just for a moment, feel like a kid again. He’s not even sure he ever felt like this when he actually was a kid, but there truly does seem to be magic in the air. He even feels compelled to send an update to his parents.
[Leonard, 5:24pm]
decorations are up
He slides his phone back into his pocket as hears notifications ping, probably his parents sending celebratory emojis followed by a string of questions about the exact specifications and demands for photos. But Leonard ignores it and just turns to Jim with a smile.
Jim grins back. It doesn’t hurt Leonard’s good mood that Jim looks like that under the multicolored lights — like some sort of 1950’s dance in an old gym or something. Leonard’s not sure why it comes to mind, but he inches closer to him, and Jim takes the hint and throws an arm around his shoulder.
There was the usual Evergreen Lane-style cheering when the lights went on, but everything has gone quiet. “Looks great, huh?” Jim asks him softly.
“Not so bad.”
“You’ll come to my ugly sweater party tomorrow, right? It’s sort of a tradition.”
Leonard focuses on the house again as he says, “If you want me.”
“I do.”
Leonard, throat strangely dry, just nods. After a few seconds, he coughs and says, “I feel like I should invite everyone in for a drink or something—” Then he peeks over his shoulder, expecting the crowd that had helped him. Seeing nothing but the empty cul-de-sac, giant Christmas tree twinkling in the center, Leonard’s eyebrows shoot up. He turns all the way around to confirm, and feels Jim’s hand on his back.
“How about eggnog?” Jim suggests, laughter in his tone.
Leonard turns his raised eyebrows to him. This whole goddamn street is trying to matchmake us, isn’t it? he wants to ask, but he doesn’t. What would saying it aloud do? No, if he doesn’t acknowledge it, they can still play this game a little longer. After all, even without all the clumsy matchmaking, Leonard knows he’d still be right here, feeling exactly this way.
He knows he’ll still feel like this — and a whole lot more — when one of them confesses, when Jim kisses him, when Jim touches him. But it’s only been a couple of days, and it’s nice to be giddy and flirtatious, riding high on anticipation. He hasn’t had a beginning in a long time — let alone a beginning of something real — and it seems a shame not to enjoy it.
After all, he can’t really remember the last time he’s been so certain of something. In the last few years, he’s been beating himself up over all his mistakes, big and small. Maybe he stopped trusting himself, somewhere along the line. But he trusts this.
Jim is still smiling at him, looking a bit smug, and Leonard wonders if he’s got everything written on his face. But he just raises his eyebrows, unable to stop himself from smiling back. “How about mostly whiskey and a splash of eggnog?”
“Knew you’d say that.”
Jim grabs his hand, entwining their fingers together, and heads up the front porch. Just as they’re about to open the door — Blitzen staring at them from the front bay window — Leonard freezes.
“We forgot something!” he says, and lets go of Jim. Without another word, he darts off the porch and over to the still-open garage. There, in one of the many storage bins strewn about the garage floor, he sees the head of a very tall nutcracker poking up.
He tucks the nutcracker under his arm and heads back to the front porch. Jim, sitting on the bench covered in Christmas pillows, bursts out laughing when he sees. Leonard, very serious look on his face, sets the nutcracker next to the doormat. “I think this should bring me up to code,” Leonard says in a formal tone.
“We’ll see about that.” Jim grins and pulls out his omnipresent tape measure out. As dramatically as before, he measures it and declares, “Forty-two inches. Looks like someone has been reading the handbook.”
“Why bother, when you’re always here?”
It’s an echo of something he said to his father this morning, but he doesn’t mind. Maybe it’s worth being trite sometimes. After all, that smile from Jim is blinding, and for a second Leonard can’t even feel the cold.
Just for a second, though. “Let’s get inside,” Leonard says, pressing on Jim’s back. “It’s freezing out here.”
[December 22]
“That sweater is barely even ugly,” Jim says when he opens the door. He leans against the doorjamb, keeping Leonard out in the cold.
“It’s a 1985 classic, as far as I know,” Leonard says, pulling his coat aside to look down at his forest green sweater, with a log cabin and a snowman on it. He regrets it as the cold wind gusts through him. So he pulls his coat more tightly across him, but he reaches forward for the green tinsel adorning Jim’s bright green sweater. There are even small ornaments hanging from the tinsel, like he’s supposed to be a Christmas tree.
Jim makes a disapproving noise in his throat and looks Leonard up and down more slowly before stepping aside to let him in the house.
Leonard, meanwhile, flushes and wishes they had the evening to themselves.
The itinerary consists of food, drinking, Christmas karaoke, Christmas-themed charades, and ‘anything else that might happen’ — as Jim adds with a smirk, but then immediately admits that nothing particularly crazy has happened since the first year he moved in.
“Scotty ended up on the roof,” Jim adds, by way of explanation. “Something about Santa, I have no idea. Anyway, Bones, you really don’t have to help set up.”
Considering Jim has already put his coat away and brought him into the kitchen, Leonard is sure Jim very much wants him to stay. “What else would I be doing?” he asks, not wanting to admit that waiting a couple of hours for the party had seemed like far too long of a time to go without seeing Jim.
“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, house-hunting for your new job?”
“Right before Christmas?”
Jim grins at him, and suddenly Leonard feels as transparent as glass. How many arguments has he had, with Jocelyn and his couple of relationships before her, about communication and never saying what he means? And sure, he knows he could be better, but Jim sees straight through him.
He and Jim set off to work on party prep, with Jim doing most of the cooking and delegating other tasks to Leonard. When it comes time to decorate, Leonard says he’s “sure as hell not doing that” and Jim amiably switches jobs with him.
All in all, they’re ready with plenty of time to spare — enough time to settle into a sofa by the fireplace with glasses of whiskey.
“Look, Bones, I know I can be… intense,” Jim says. “And if you don’t want to, like, do Christmas charades or something at the party, I get it. Some people just hide in the kitchen and start their own mini-party.”
“Trust me, if I really hated all this, I would’ve locked myself in my house and had you arrested for trespassing on day one.”
“Well, I’m glad we avoided that.” After his laughter dies down, he adds more seriously, “Also, it isn’t trespassing for an HOA president to ensure that all bylaws are being—”
“Jim, shut up.” He’s not entirely sure how it happened, but suddenly he’s set his whiskey down and buried his hands in Jim’s stupid sweater. Kissing him would sure feel a hell of a lot more eloquent than this. Fuck, meaning seems to be buzzing in the small space between them.
Leonard tries to remember the last time he kissed someone and it really meant something. Years, maybe. Kissing Jim seems like the sort of thing that might change him permanently. And how often does a person get to change for the better, with absolute certainty?
He feels one of Jim’s hands go to his back, and those blue eyes are even more intense up close. There isn’t any skin-on-skin contact yet, but Leonard’s heart is already hammering. They’re leaning into each other, Jim’s hand urging him closer, and Leonard’s eyes on Jim’s perfect fucking lips—
“Jim!” Scotty’s voice calls from the front of the house.
Leonard practically jumps out of his skin, letting go of Jim’s sweater and sitting up ramrod straight on the couch. He takes a deep breath, only just realizing that he’d been holding it. Jim’s hand hasn’t left him yet, now resting on his hip. They look at each other, Leonard flushed and stunned and furious it didn’t happen.
“Does he always just barge in like that?” Leonard asks, tone a level of bitchiness that even Gary Mitchell would aspire to.
Jim lets out a laugh, but it doesn’t sound quite the same as usual — Leonard is certain that Jim is just as impacted as he is. Jim finally slides his hand off, only to grab Leonard’s hand. Unexpectedly, he brings it up to his lips for a brief kiss before he gracefully climbs off the couch. He doesn’t even look at Leonard again — doesn’t try to play it off with a smirk or a comment.
“We’re in here!” Jim calls, and heads towards the entryway.
He just leaves Leonard sitting there, skin prickling from the contact. He can’t even remember feeling like this as a teenager: driven to the brink of insanity at just the thought of a kiss.
Leonard takes a deep breath, drains his forgotten whiskey glass, and then goes to join the beginning of the party.
Mini-party. When Jim had used the phrase in passing, Leonard hadn’t thought much of it. Maybe he was too drunk on some subconscious image of him and Jim spending every second of the party together, laughing and almost holding hands and all that shit.
But, unfortunately, like most things in Jim’s life, he takes hosting very seriously. Too seriously. Sure, Jim’s hosting duties do include regular check-ins on Leonard, not to mention that he ate his ultra-fast dinner with Leonard, but other than that, he’s been running around all night.
Once the phrase Christmas karaoke got thrown around, Leonard quickly retreated into the kitchen, where Uhura and Scotty were sitting. Scotty got up to pour Leonard some spiked mulled cider, and they’ve been sitting here ever since. They have a perfect vantage point to the living room, and can just hear the sounds of very off-key Christmas carols, without actually being in danger of being pulled in.
“You wouldn’t know it, but Jim’s stressed out right now,” Uhura says, eyeing the doorway. Scotty nods solemnly in agreement.
“Why?” Leonard asks, looking at Jim talking and laughing with Spock, whose small smile is more than Leonard has seen from him before. Plus, he’s wearing a Hanukkah sweater, so he’s more festive than Leonard would’ve expected.
“The Santa he hired is having a wardrobe malfunction,” Scotty says, in a tone that implies this is an actual problem and not a joke, as Leonard would take that statement under any other circumstance.
“We just found out a couple hours ago,” Uhura puts in.
Leonard looks between them, waiting another second for one of them to burst out laughing. When that doesn’t happen, he slowly says, “That seems very… fixable.”
Uhura rolls her eyes. “We need Santa for Christmas Eve — that’s not exactly easy. Especially when it’s already almost the twenty-third. Santa isn’t sure he’ll be able to find a new costume. It really might end up being a disaster.”
“Jim hates when he doesn’t have a contingency plan,” Scotty adds.
Leonard, at the very least, can agree with that. He takes a long drink of his cider, still looking at Jim from the corner of his eye. “Seems like this one means a lot to him.”
“I give him a lot of shit, but he’s a good guy,” Uhura says. “The block party on Christmas Eve is the only thing he really cares about — all those kids.”
“Maybe my parents would have an idea.”
Uhura smiles at him, and Scotty beams. A couple of minutes later, Jaylah’s voice echoes over the speaker in a rendition of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, and the three of them get up to go watch.
[December 23]
“What do you mean, Santa’s having a wardrobe malfunction?”
Leonard has barely had time to sit up in bed, let alone be at adequate mental capacity to answer a question. Great, just what he needs — a conversation before dawn to go with his hangover. But he just flicks on the bedside lamp and runs a hand through his messy hair. He squints at FaceTime, which he answered for some unknown reason.
Well, he knows the reason: a terminally bad crush.
He texted his parents about the Santa Emergency during the party last night — early enough in the night that he’s pretty sure it was coherent. But it was well past their bedtime of 10pm, so they didn’t respond.
Until the extremely unreasonable hour of 6am.
“You know we’re in different time zones, right?” Leonard asks with a yawn, but his parents just roll their eyes.
“Leo — Santa,” Eleanor says sharply.
“Maybe he tore it going down a goddamn chimney. How the hell should I know?”
“It’s only the twenty-third, dear,” Eleanor says with a sigh, her tone concerningly serious.
Leonard glares at her, in no mood to deal with whimsy — and that’s pretty much the entirety of what this shit is. “I’m just repeating what I was told.”
On screen, his parents exchange a very serious look. “This sounds like an absolute disaster,” David says gravely. David is a retired doctor, who has surely heard much, much more disastrous news than this.
“We should never have left,” Eleanor agrees, beginning to pace in and out of the camera frame.
“Don’t you have, like, a tailor on call?” Leonard asks dryly. “Maybe we can send it to the North Pole?”
“We’ll ask around,” David says, and Eleanor pokes back into frame to nod frantically. “We may have to resort to bribery.”
“If it comes to that. I’ve got a couple of ideas first,” Eleanor puts in. “Don’t forget, Christmas magic is on our side.”
Leonard tries to keep a straight face. “Favored by the gods, huh?” he says blandly. “I’m gonna go back to bed.”
By then, his parents are entirely focused on the problem at hand and barely seem to hear him. Leonard hangs up, and he would never admit that he is relieved to have them deal with this. God knows they’re nothing if not thorough. So guilt-free and deciding his hangover really isn’t anything a few more hours’ sleep won’t cure, Leonard lays back down.
“Hey — Jim!” Leonard calls, dodging people as he walks across the cul-de-sac. The entire area is full of neighbors and other volunteers, unloading boxes and otherwise setting up for the winter wonderland tomorrow. About a half-dozen people are constructing an elaborate-looking stage in the center, presumably for Santa.
Trusty clipboard in hand, Jim glances at Leonard with a smile. It’s not the same as usual, though; his eyes go back to darting around the area, and he shifts on his feet. Leonard puts a hand on his arm without thinking, and Jim blinks and focuses on him. “Hey, Bones,” he says, then, smiling wider this time and taking off his reading glasses. Maybe Leonard’s becoming a sap, because he thinks Jim really does look calmer, just leaning into his touch.
“How’s the checklist?” he asks, tapping Jim’s clipboard.
“Well, there are still about a dozen empty boxes, but—” he breaks off, shaking his head.
“Speaking of all that — about the Santa issue. My parents asked around, and apparently Gary Mitchell used to do costumes at some theater in Chicago? So, anyway, he’s ready to help Santa out. My parents already called the Santa and everything, so you can check that one off.”
Jim looks at him, mouth falling open. “How did you even know about that?” he asks sharply.
“Uhura was talking about it. I figured my parents would know someone to ask — you know how they are.”
Jim lets out a laugh — a very stilted laugh. “Yeah, they do know everything about everyone around here.”
“Yeah,” Leonard says lamely.
Jim puts on his reading glasses and looks back down at his list. His posture is stiff again, and he takes a step away from Leonard. “Great, great,” Jim says, and starts walking in the opposite direction.
Leonard bolts after him, but hesitates before catching his arm. He just stands next to him and asks, “Hey, why do you seem pissed?”
“Pissed?” Jim doesn’t even look up from his clipboard. “No one gets pissed on Christmas Eve Eve.”
Leonard stares at him, mouth falling open. He has the urge to grab Jim’s shoulders and force a conversation, but, fuck, he knows Jim is stressed and won’t respond well. Besides, there’s a little voice in his head telling him that maybe this hasn’t been the fairytale romantic beginning he’s been envisioning. So this time, when Jim wanders off, Leonard doesn’t follow.