rosefreckles said: Bonebrother cuddles of the holiday variety and Rufioh forgetting Kurloz can’t eat all of those x-mas treats
I'm tired of work, it's keeping me from getting even these short things done in a reasonable amount of time.
Make Christmas over with.
Your name is Rufioh Nitram, and you are stuck at school for your Christmas break. Normally it would upset you that your father bailed on you and your younger brother for one of your favourite holidays, but this year you were actually looking forward to it. Because you weren't the only ones left behind, there was always other stragglers, in the same boat as you or orphans who didn't really have anywhere to go.
This year, you got to spend your first Christmas with your boyfriend. You couldn't think of any better way to enjoy the day, spending the first half with your brother and opening gifts, and then taking the night with Kurloz, exchanging gifts, eating sweets, and hopefully getting caught under the mistletoe. Yeah, this year's Christmas was going to be amazing.
Too bad it was still two days away.
Being left at the school over the break did have its advantages, though. There was free-range of the castle, only one ghost patrolling the halls after dark (you and Kurloz had seen each other every night for the past two weeks, it had been bliss), and the older students with permission to already go got to spend a little while in Hogsmeade every few days. You brought back sweets for Tavros, but you think he was sharing them instead of enjoying them, the generous kid he was.
You had tried setting time aside for your brother, but so far, he was either too buried in his books (he's a first year, what is he doing studying so hard already), you were busy with pretending to finish that Divination assignment due the day classes resumed, or you were both hanging out with someone else.
It was the morning a couple of days before Christmas that you walked down to the Common Room, ready to tell your brother you were going to sneak him into Hogsmeade, to find him holding your father's old broom, a Firebolt 1200 from years ago (not the latest model of Nimbus you had, far from it). He stopped when he saw you, an odd smile on his face that turned to a little guilt as he froze.
"Where are you off to, bro?" you ask, an eyebrow raised. "Especially with that?"
"Umm, the p-pitch?"
"The pitch," you repeat. He nods hesitantly. "To do what?"
"Fly?"
"You're afraid of flying," you state matter-of-factly. It was rather sad, really, how badly your brother wanted to be in the air, flying around with everyone else, but his nerves kept him from even telling his broom 'up'.
"I-I know that!" he huffs. "I was going to, uh, you know, try to get off the g-ground."
"By yourself?"
"N-no."
"Who's going with you then?"
"Umm... a f-friend?" he answered, his face turning red.
You smirk. "Is it a girl?"
"W-what? No, of course not!"
So, he was still in that 'girls are icky' stage. Nothing wrong with that. "Who is it then?"
He bit his lip, obviously nervous to answer. "P-promise not to t-tell dad?"
You don't have to be told who he's seeing with that request. "You're going to see Makara, aren't you?"
His face somehow turns redder. That was answer enough.
You pat him on the shoulder, smiling. "I won't tell pops," you assure him. Your father and the head of the Makara household had been feuding for years, since they were in school together, and you both had to deal with the aftermath. You weren't supposed to be friends with any of them, not that it stopped you from seeing the Grand Highblood's nephew. And you weren't about to stop your brother from seeing his son, that would just make you a hypocrite. "If he gets you hurt out there, though, I'll beat the shit out of him."
"Gamzee wouldn't let me get hurt," he says with a strange amount of confidence and no stutter.
You raise a brow again, but shrug it off. "If you say so, bro." You pat him on the back, ushering him to the portrait. "I expect you to be in the air by the end of the day."
"We'll, uhh, see," he says before absconding.
You watch after him a moment, a thoughtful smile on your lips. You don't know how to feel about him spending so much time with that Makara kid, but it really had nothing to do with your father's hatred of the family, more how close they'd gotten in such a little amount of time. It made you think of you and Kurloz, how you two had bonded in your first year, and now...
You'd have to keep an eye on that kid, make sure he didn't hurt your brother.
For now, though, they were too young to be thinking about those things, meaning you got to have the grown up fun without being worrying about being protective big brother. You made a quick run to your room, grabbing the sweets you had gotten from Honeydukes yesterday, before hurrying off to the observatory.
When you got up there, you thought for a moment you were alone, before you laid eyes on a figure in one of the large windows. You grin to yourself as you sneak up on the wild mess of hair, but when you're within reaching distance, he turns around, staring straight at you.
<You're not as quiet as you'd like to think,> he signs to you, a smirk on his scarred lips.
"Maybe I wasn't trying to be quiet?" you fib. He gives you a pointed look, not at all convinced. You shrug, saying, "Or maybe it's just your freakish hearing letting you cheat."
Kurloz rolls his dark eyes, a small smile on his painted face. He grabs you by your collar, pulling you close so he can kiss your cheek. You grin, kissing his forehead before sitting down next to him in the large window sill that over looked the gardens below, setting your box of treats down on the other side of you. You can't help but love the deserted look of the castle, that there were no prying eyes watching you both. You slung your arm around Kurloz's shoulder, pulling him tight to your side and nuzzling his thick mess of dark hair. You hear the sound of his chuckle, an odd chortle in the back of his throat, but it's a sound you've come to love, just like the rest of his quirks and oddities.
<I thought you were going to spend time with Baby Bull today?> he asks.
"He apparently would rather spend time with your cousin than his big brother," you answer, mock hurt in your voice.
Kurloz cocks an eyebrow, his lips in a straight line before he holds up his hand again to say, <Those two spend a lot of time together.>
"Augh, I'm trying not to think about it," you groan, burying your head in his neck. "I came up here to see you, don't bring up our relatives."
He presses a hand to your chest, signing into your vest since your face was firmly against the side of his neck. <You technically brought up Gamzee, I didn't ask where your brother had run off to.>
You grunt into his flesh, no real come back coming to mind. Instead you nip at his throat, smiling at the little sound he makes when you bite him.
You snicker as he pushes you off of him, sending you to the other corner of the window sill. You put out a hand to grip onto the stone side so you don't crush your box of treats. You settle yourself against the edge, putting the box in your lap. He eyes you questioningly before pointing at the package and drawing a question mark in the air.
"I brought some goods with me," you say, opening the box and taking out one of the pastries. "Thought we could share."
The smile Kurloz gives you is unsure, his eyebrows knitted a bit. He doesn't take the confection you offer him, and you raise a brow.
"What's wrong? These are the ones I sent you for Christmas, you said they were delicious."
He looks between the pastry to you, back to the pastry and stays on you. He hesitates before signing, <I can't taste it.>
You frown. "What do you mean? You still got a bit of your tongue left, I thought you could taste things." You hate to bring these things up, but there was no other way to ask.
<The front of the tongue is where you get sweetness,> he tells you.
"Wait, so... you haven't been able to eat any of the stuff I bring you?" He nods solemnly. "Then... then why do you eat them, if you can't enjoy them?"
Kurloz smiles warmly. He takes the box from your hands, putting it on the floor so he can scoot closer to you. <You hoard your sweets like a dragon does gold. I've only ever seen you share them with one other person than Baby Bull, and that's me.> He leans in to rub your noses together. <I just liked knowing I was special to you.>
You just stare at him for a moment, speechless. He raises his hand again to say something else, but you grab his wrist, pulling him to you for a kiss. He grips your sweater vest as you put a hand in the base of his hair, keeping him tight to you, pressing your lips tight to his.
When you both lean back a bit to catch your breath, he kisses your nose, a large smile on his painted lips. You rest your forehead against his, grinning. "You don't have to eat them, you know." You wrap your arms around him, holding him close. "You are special to me, trust me."
He nods into your chest as he settles into your arms. He flattens his palm against your chest before making a specific sign. You smile as you hold up your hand, extending your thumb, index, and pinky, and holding it where he can see it. You two stay still like that for several moments, the embrace sliding from something loving to just keeping warm in the harsh winds of winter.
"We should probably go downstairs," you tell him with a squeeze. "We could spend time in the Room of Requirement, get a fire going in there, something nice."
He nods before pulling away, standing up and giving you room to get off the window. "Shame, though," you mutter as you pick up the box of sweets.
<Why?> he asks.
You grin, taking out a specific chocolate shaped like a leaf with a couple of red dots on it. "I really wanted to try this one."
He raises a brow before he takes the sweet from you. He eyes it a moment before popping it into his mouth, chewing it a moment before a light sparked in his mouth. There was a trail of lights that came from Kurloz's head, exploding in the air like a tiny bit of fireworks, until there was an after image left.
Kurloz looked up at the little display, an eyebrow raised. He looked back at you, asking, <Mistletoe, really?>
You grin, putting your arms around him and leaning in for another kiss.
