Blue's cold fingers are at her lips before she can even get close, stopping the prospective kiss in its tracks.
"Ah. No."
"Aw, c'mon-"
"Charlie, I love you, but that stuff's nasty."
She draws back, and so does he. A small smile is fixed in place on her face, and she can see the edge of the good side of his mouth trying not to draw up as well.
"What," she says, teasing, "Don't like eggnog?"
Blue snorts. "Being able to keep anything but human blood down for any length of time longer than a minute is so fucking rare, and you waste it on this crap."
"Hmph. Grinch."
"Someone has to be."
Below them, in the square of one of the boroughs of the city, the lights flickered across the snow. Lines of slush under the rushing cars, mounds of it grey and grit-filled lining the sidewalks. Black ice lurked in the places one was most likely to set an unsuspecting foot, and icicles like expertly carved stakes hung from the edges of buildings where the warmth of the inside leaked out. The electronic red and green and blue and yellows colored it all in merry garlands, making the dark of the night a little less so.
The wind lashes up here, on the top of the water tower, with nothing stopping it. Charlie scoots herself closer to Blue, a gesture futile in practicality but warm for even the undead heart. She takes another sip from her thermos and smiles a little more genuinely.
"Thanks for coming anyway."
Blue glances at her, and then reaches out. Charlie fits herself under his arm.
"It beats anything else I'd be doing tonight."
"Well, don't put me on too high a pedestal, now."
His arm tightens. "It's true," he says quietly.
Despite the fact that they are alone, there is always the tenseness that creeps up her spine when he confirms it aloud. When either of them do things like this. Especially topside. She knows he can feel it, in her shoulders, under his hand.
He doesn't take it back, though.
"I know," Charlie replies.
Neither will she.
Before Blue can stop her, even begin to realize what she's doing, Charlie is surging up, and lands a kiss laced with the ghost of cinnamon, nutmeg, cream and sticky, whipped, uncooked egg right on his cheek - the bad one. Blue jolts, coughing out an aborted sound of disgust.
"I hope you realize me not chucking that off the edge is your present from me this year."
Charlie snuggles into his side, taking another sip.
"And yet, I don't see you wiping it away."
Under the distant lights, edging his the mismatched, twisted lines of his face with warm colors against the icy blackness behind them, Blue smiles.
"And throw away a gift from you? Never."
"Merry Christmas, Blue."
"Merry Christmas, Charlie.