Work Text:
It was the year you finally scraped together the extra cash for one of them PVC Christmas trees. It stood proud in the apartement, bright and warm with tinsel and string lights and the ornaments from last year which had survived Alma Jr.'s curious hands.
He doesn't seem too happy about it, though it's been a long time since you've seen him happy about anything. If he'd been watching, he would've noticed the same thing for you.
But right now, he's only watching the ceramic lamb displayed on the mantle, nestled between the donkey and little Jesus' manger. The animals he likes. He makes an effort not to look at the whole Jesuit business. Religious Del Mar is a Del Mar of long ago, before he'd met a shepherd he was more keen to follow.
He misses the smell of real pine. Misses coarse, damp sheep's wool, misses spitting fire-remnants and unguarded embraces. Misses those goddamn beans and the scratchy bedroll, misses the flannel he knows Jack has hidden somewhere and the man he was when he wore it. He misses the man who was brave enough to love, even if only for a few months— before he'd surrendered himself to his fate.
You had watched him wind the golden lights around the tree the evening prior, the string of cables easily looped in his left hand. He walked around that damn tree like he wished it was a horse he was reining and you know his mind has been far from your home and your bed for a long, long time.
It's been five years since his head went up in the Wyoming summerclouds and you doubt it ever came back down.
You and him are unhappy. You both know.
You and Alma wrap presents (you do, she tries to help) and he laps around the tree, letting the closest thing he has left of a lasso slip through his hands, between the strands of plastic. Neither of you will fix it, neither of you will even talk about it; this much you know.
On Christmas Eve, you get a salt-and-pepper-shaker. He gets new socks. Jack gets a card.