wrfmlogsarchive | joy to the world, we have some peace and quiet

The amused look didn't leave his face as he set next to her.

"Chaotic order, huh? You and my brother would get along." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually, between Adam and Becks, Christmas at home was never boring - especially that one winter when Dad accidentally short-circuited the entire neighborhood trying to put up Christmas lights."

As soon as he was sitting down, she turned, catlike, and rested her head in his lap.

"Impressive," she chuckled. "We never had enough Christmas lights. That's part of why I took to improvising. Though... mostly it was just because having the same decorations every year was boring. It's the same with snow sculptures. I can't build the same thing twice."

She shifted a bit, apparently testing Josiah's usefulness as a pillow, for future reference.

"But, I'm rambling. Are you having a happy Wintereenmas?"

"We always bounced between 'oh, isn't that a tastefully decorated house' to 'oh god what have they done to Rudolph and that menorah?'" he mused with a shake of his head. It had always been in good fun though, and the neighbors would always inform them of the bets they took in the days leading up to the first snowfall. Ever since he had moved out (and the world ending), he had missed Christmas and Hanukkah at home.

He absently brushed a hand through Song's hair when he answered her question. "I haven't had to shovel. Therefore, this is the best holiday ever."

She seemed to melt at his touch, going slightly limp, and wondering vaguely how people seemed to instinctively know that her scalp was something like an erogenous zone...

"I'll make sure you don't have to do any of the shoveling to come, just don't stop petting me right there, yes..." If she could purr, she'd be doing so quite loudly.

"Maybe we should start getting you some hats if you get like this every time someone touches your hair." He grinned at her, obviously amused at her reaction. "Do I get one of those nifty snow blowers for Christmas?"

"I never wear hats. The most I'll put up with is a hood, and anyway, I'd be perfectly happy if people petted my hair more often." She rubbed her head against his hand in a sort of nuzzle to emphasize this.

"And no, actually, but I do have an equally useful present for you. It's under the tree. you'll have to dig it out yourself."

"I guess whatever makes you happy then," he teased, continuing to pet her hair. "And I guess I'll have to take that Santa hat I bought you back to the store." Though to be honest, most of the gifts that he brought back with him he had managed to retrieve the night before from the gummi ship - and a good thing too, considering the fact that it looked as if they were going to get snowed in.

He sat back slightly in the couch. "There's just one problem with that. The tree is all the way over there, and I currently have a lap full of Song."

She hummed a quiet laugh, and rolled over so that she could look up at him. Her eyes had a mischievous sparkle to them.

"If you want me to move, you may have to bribe me."

"And what do you propose?" he asked, giving her a playfully confused look.

"Oh, surely you can come up with something creative. You seem to have an amazing ability to retain most of your mental functions, despite all the head trauma you attract."

He tilted his head, pretending to be in deep thought over her comment. Then he moved quickly, half-tossing Song over his shoulder and picking her up, ignoring any protests she would make. "At the end of the day, I'll just have to go for the old Neanderthal move and drag you off."

He quickly crossed the space between the couch and the tree before setting her down. "You just want me to get a bunch of pine needles in my hair looking for this, don't you?"

"Eep!"
She didn't struggle. Well, not after the initial flail of surprise. It was hardly a comfortable position to be in, but the humor of the whole scene made it more than worth it.

By the time he set her down, she was wearing that familiar, slightly maniacal grin. "Yes, because then I'd have to pluck the needles out, and you would be at my mercy."

"That scares me more than any Heartless possibly could." He glanced at the presents beneath the tree. "Do I get a hint about where it is or do I get to open each of the presents individually and just claim whatever I like the most?"

"It's not like I'd do any permanent damage, after all the trouble I've gone through to save you," she pointed out with the usual lilt of playfulness heavy on her voice. "I had to argue with Lilith for your sake."

Then, in a matter-of-fact voice that sounded downright emotionless after her teasing tone, she said, "small box with your name on it, wrapped in brown paper covered in doodles. It's hard to miss once you see it."

"She can be stubborn like that," he replied, and it almost sounded as if there were a faint accent coloring his words. But he didn't seem to notice as he ducked down, peering beneath the tree for a few seconds before quietly murmuring "a-ha" and reaching for something.

He nearly lost his balanced overreaching for it, but managed to come away mostly unscathed except for a few pine needles that had fallen when he tried to catch himself. He laughed as he looked at the little box, turning it over in his hands before beginning to unwrap it. "You definitely had too much fun decorating."

The accent didn't quite surprised her... but she did eye him carefully for a moment, while he was busy going after the present.

"It seemed more interesting than regular old wrapping paper." Each little doodle was something different. Some made sense, and some seemed to have been done at random. A bird, a sailing ship, a kitten, a heart formed out of spirals, a wolf howling at the moon...

Under the paper was a white cardboard box without any markings, and inside the box was an orb of glass ringed by a thick band of copper, with a copper dragon inside the orb and some sort of slot on the band with tiny buttons on either side.
The whole thing could be held in Josiah's palm.

He unfolded the paper carefully, a small, leftover trait from his family of never destroying the wrapping paper. When he opened the box, he blinked at the small glass orb inside and then grinned.

"Is this your way of saying that I need a bubble too?" he asked before wrapping an arm around Song's waist and pulling her close. "Thank you."

She smiled and leaned into the one-armed hug.

"Funnily enough, I hadn't thought of that. It's a world compass. My world compass. You travel more than I do now, and much farther, so it'll be more use to you than it is to me."

She took it carefully from him and held it so that he could see as she pushed buttons and turned knobs, demonstrating how to select the names of worlds in the slot, and how to make the dragon turn to point in different directions.

He watched as she demonstrated how the world compass worked, taking mental notes so he wouldn't be left confused later on how to get the thing to work. Fortunately, the little device wasn't one of those new gadgets that always seemed to break around him (or just left him in an eternal state of frustrated confusion).

He liked it - in all honesty, it was easy enough to use, big enough not to lose, and since it was from Song, he was going to try his damnedest not to break it.

He glanced back down at her. "Looks like I'll have to do better than a Santa hat now."

"I have enough junk and random gadgets. Presents of that sort are unimportant. Now... if you want to give me something that I'll really enjoy, you could stay a while longer," she said boldly.

Josiah frowned and pulled away just slightly. "Song..." he began, ready to give her a number of reasons why he couldn't stay. But hadn't Chase already asked him to stay awhile longer too? For all of his arguments, he really couldn't find a solid reason not to stay for a week or two longer. Well, other than his own personal objections.

He sighed, resting his chin on top of Song's head. "Somehow, I get the feeling if I say yes, it'll be harder to leave when it does come time for me to."

She echoed his sigh and closed her eyes, enjoying his closeness. This, for once, felt the same as a moment with Orpheus. It was one more detail for her to contemplate later, but she was beginning to think that it had something to do with feelings of certainty and uncertainty, among other things. Her own heart never ceased to present her with puzzles...

"... It might be easier, though, once you're gone. More memories of your own to sustain you." And to bring you back, she didn't say.

"Heh, I guess that's true," he said quietly. He paused for just a few moments before adding, "I guess another week or two wouldn't hurt. Lilith probably wouldn't mind either."

Her lips curved in a faint smile. "Thank you. I wanted to spend some time with Lilith anyway. But for now..."

She slipped around behind him and plucked a pine needle from his hair. "I have a little job to do, don't I?"
She waved the needle in front of him before tossing it against the trunk of the tree, where it would hopefully stay out of the way.

He blinked when she pulled a pine needle of his hair. "Dammit, I thought I had managed to avoid those," he grumbled. He ran a hand through his hair, causing a few more of the pine needles to come tumbling out. "Now this is just ridiculous."

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