I’d absolutely love to see something Fivan and winter fete themed!!
It's definitely not like any Winter Fete celebration they've had before, whether at a feast in the glittering halls of the Little Palace or one of the many, many muddy and grubby campaigns on which they've spent a modest battlefield holiday, but then, it's definitely not like any year they've had before, either. Both of them are homesick in different ways and for different reasons, and eventually -- indeed, probably sooner than they think -- they'll end up back in Ravka, difficult as that might be while Alina Starkov sits the throne. But for now they're here, in a small house on the edges of a forest and a farm in the rural countryside of Novyi Zem, and they're doing their best to make what cheer they can. Fedyor has found some pine needles and hung a few makeshift garlands, and he stands at the window, staring vaguely out at the swirling flakes. They're keeping the Winter Fete by the Ravkan calendar, several days after their neighbors, and it feels even lonelier than usual.
"Fedya," Ivan says briskly, from behind him. "Your piroshki are burning."
With a curse, Fedyor turns away from his brooding and hurries back to the stove. They haven't had either the ambition or the heart to make a full traditional twelve-course fasting meal for the Holy Supper, instead just pulling together what odds and ends they can, but he's spent a lot of time on it, and he's not going to ruin all his hard work now. He pulls them off the heat, stirs the mushroom soup and the honey-and-barley kasha, and Ivan collects the dishes and carries them to the table. Anyone familiar with their old selves would blink to see them like this: wearing only trousers and shirtsleeves instead of the ubiquitous red keftas, alone in a small log house instead of their old apartments at the Little Palace, but at least they still do have each other, albeit scarred and considerably worn. When everything's prepared, Ivan reaches out absently and links an arm around Fedyor's waist, pulling him in for a distracted kiss. "It looks lovely."
"Thanks, Vanya," Fedyor mutters, forehead pressed against Ivan's cheek and conscious of a great weariness that always feels liable to rise up and swallow him. "I suppose we should go ahead and eat."
It's not as if they're waiting for anyone or anything else, but it's a little disconcerting to stand on such lack of ceremony, and they glance at each other diffidently, then start for the table. They're just about to sit down when there's a knock on the front door, and Ivan visibly tenses. Both of them automatically reach out with their Heartrender senses, but it's only one person, and there's no sense of a threat.
Still, it's not as Ivan ever welcomes company in the best of times, and he advances leerily on the door with the look of a man alarmed at the prospect that he might be about, Saints forbid, forced to socialize. He jerks the door open with his typically unfriendly Ivan death stare, which should send any hapless visitors scurrying. "Yes?"
"Excuse me," a man's voice says, with a soft Kaelish burr. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. Just wanted to bring these by. You boys are Ravkan, I thought you might be celebrating tonight."
While Ivan regards this display of unexpected neighborly solicitude with squiggle-eyed suspicion, Fedyor recognizes the voice and steps up with his usual running-intervention-for-his-dearly-beloved smile. "Ah," he says, reaching out to accept the plate of ginger pryaniki; it's a genuinely touching gesture to have both remembered the date of their foreign festivity and made something culturally appropriate. "Thanks so much, Colm. We are, in fact. That's very good of you."
Colm -- the kind, middle-aged, red-haired widower on whose farm they are working part-time in order to pay their keep -- looks pleased, waving a hand as if to remark that it's nothing. Ivan also grudgingly choruses his thanks, though he looks briefly alarmed that Colm might be expecting an invitation inside to stay for dinner. Fedyor is almost tempted, since it would be nice to have someone who wasn't just the two of them, but Saints forbid they do that. "Thanks," he says again. "Really. We appreciate it, Mr. ...." Embarrassingly, he draws a blank. "I'm so sorry," he says. "I've forgotten your last name."
"Fahey," Colm says heartily. "No worries, none at all. I'm glad I was able to bring them by and -- "
"Fahey?" Ivan rears back and his eyes turn to slits. He stares at the dowdy Kaelish farmer as if utterly unable to connect the dots, and then he says in a tone of deeply misleading nonchalance, "I'm sure that you don't happen to know a fucking id -- sorry, excuse me, a Zemeni sharpshooter named Jesper?"
"Jesper?" Colm lights up like a holiday cracker. "I do! I sure do! That's my son, my boy! Jesper Fahey! Do you -- do you know him, Mr. Kaminsky?"
Ivan grits his teeth so hard that Fedyor can hear them squeak. He's also slightly startled at this unpleasant revelation -- he did hear the name when they were first introduced, he recalls that now, but it's a common Kaelish surname and there was no clear impetus to connect it to, well, Ivan's Sworn Nemesis For All Time. But Colm is bursting with paternal pride while Ivan looks as if only the solemn occasion (it's still technically the Adventus Great Fast) will prevent him from committing a minor murder on the spot. But Colm Fahey, thank the Saints, is nothing like his obnoxious offspring, and it does seem like bad form. "Ah," Ivan says, stretching his lips into a patently unconvincing smile. "Yes. We have... crossed paths."
Colm looks set to demand everything they know about his son, for which Fedyor doesn't exactly blame him, but he should definitely defuse this situation now, for reasons. "Thanks again," he says, putting a hand on Colm's shoulder and not-entirely frog-marching him out, but also making sure he can get between his husband and their unsuspecting landlord. "Thanks so much. Happy Winter Fete!"
With that, still somewhat rudely, he slams the door in Colm's bewildered face, then turns around to regard Ivan still grinding his teeth like a whetstone. "Vanya," he says pointedly. "Next time you see Colm, thank him for the cookies and do not say a word."