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Thomas never liked Christmas, it was obvious from when he scowled at the ads that played the day after Halloween was over -in his eyes one of the very few tolerable holidays save for Tord’s aggressive celebrating every year-, to the day Edd and Matt put up the Christmas tree; they were the tallest in the house and the only ones able to easily reach to the top of the faux tree to put the end of the makeshift “tree trunk” on. But everyone in the house seemed to at least enjoy the day. Matt was the only one in the house to seriously celebrate it every year, sometimes his folks coming over to spend the day with them while other times he was gone for the week to spend time with them. This year was the latter, the ginger having left at the beginning of the Christmas week to go visit his family and friends that lived in other parts of England and sometimes across the world with their spouses and even kids.
Taking advantage of the lanky man’s absence this year, Edd decided he was going to have a party on Christmas Eve, just like old times. Save for the fact he had no one to invite over so he invited the entire neighborhood and anyone they wanted to bring with them. It wasn’t too big of a party seeing as most people were spending Christmas Eve with friends and family and watching movies and getting presents ready for the morning after. Still a party though, hell even Eduardo, his sister Elana who was visiting for the holidays, and the rest of his gang were over having fun. Edd and the Latino had made an agreement that night that as long as they didn’t step on each other’s feet they wouldn’t have any problems and were actually giving small chat to each other whenever they passed. It was pleasant.
Until Tom and Tord decided to participate, anyway.
It’s been too long since Tom had been in his apartment where his neighbors constantly partied -a good amount he was actually invited to- so he was uncomfortably leaning in and out of being tired the entire time, his body both used to and not at all used to falling asleep to music anymore. Deciding to stop fighting it he forced himself up and made his way into the living room to, for once in his life, enjoy the party.
And by enjoying the party I mean he turned on his heel and made a beeline for the kitchen where there was a nice line of snacks and the party staple red solo cups stacked in piles of red and green colors, the gold and silver ones being used up and thrown around the house by the careless partiers crowding the living room while some Christmas remix playlist was playing on full blast around the house. While snacking on his beloved food, the black eyed male reached for the endless space that resided in his hoodie pocket, pulling out a new bottle of Smirnoff, pouring himself a glass before eyeing the eggnog. A sinister grin playing on his lips he pulled the large bowl of ‘nog over and dumped a good half of the Russian Vodka into it, concocting a liquor infused Christmas beverage.
Now he could wait for people to file in and eventually taste the spiked eggnog,,, or he could go with option B and chug the entire thing right now and regret it in the morning when he’s hogging the toilet all day because he drank way too much dairy and liquor for any man’s stomach to handle. Now that sounded like a way to fuck Christmas, and as a bonus: his insides. So of course option B was the only reasonable answer to him.
While Edd was refilling the bowl with Eggnog, and keeping an eye on Tom so he wouldn’t spike it again, Tord was having his fun with the men and (mostly) women at the party, talking, flirting, dancing maybe a little too close to them than Jesus would like, the usual shenanigans the horny bastard usually got up to at times like these. Well, this time things happened to be a little different, this one girl seemed completely uninterested, and the man was just about to move on to find a different person seeing as she wasn’t giving much of a response and he wasn’t about to push it, only he was turned around forcefully by someone else’s much stronger hand, shoving him against the wall.
Regaining his footing he looked over at the person who had shoved him and met his now terrified gaze with a much taller almost Amazonian woman who looked pissed to know he existed. Before he could even get a single word out to ask why she looked so red he was sucker punched against the wall again with a cry of pain. Alright fine, she wants to fight, she's gonna get a fight. Tord started hurling punches and kicks back, and it didn’t last too long before it started making a ruckus and Edd had to come between the two, the feral bastard biting and scratching at Edd's arm for him to let him go only to have him just pick him up by his hoodie and immediately stop his attacks as the red cloth was pulled nearly over his head.
That was all the time that Tom needed to be left alone so that he could continue pouring his vodka into the eggnog yet again, already guzzling half of it down by the time Edd got around to looking back over to the young man.
“DAMN IT TOM NOT AGAIN- IT’S ALWAYS YOU TWO!” Edd scorned, rushing over to try and pry the bowl away from the alcoholic.
As Edd dropped Tord in favor of berating Tom, the butch lady had picked Tord up instead and was about to start beating him once more before the green hooded man had shouted above all the noise.
“STOP IT!! EVERYONE OUT, NOW!” He seethed, shoving everyone out, apologizing in an angry tone but still making an effort to as he shoved them out so he could scorn the two trouble makers that had ruined this party in the first place.
Before they could even make their excuses and poorly thought reasons why they shouldn’t be punished Edd had already dragged them to the couch and pretty much threw them onto it. The boys quickly scrambled to sit upright, guilty and anxious looks on their faces at the expected lecture they were going to get from him like always when they do something stupid like crash a party Edd had been planning for weeks now.
“You two, are insufferable . At least Tom has an excuse this time of year, doesn’t mean you can still spike the fucking BEVERAGES! I CAN GET SUED FOR THAT SORT OF THING! I even asked you to keep the Vodka away from the bowl this time! And you Tord, I don’t know why I did but I expected at least SOME restraint out there and look at you now! Those bruises are never gonna go away! Beat half to death because, let me guess, you were flirting with her girlfriend?” Edd scorned, steam practically coming out of his ears.
“... To be fair, getting beat half to death by a butch lesbian is one hell of a way to die if you ask me.” Tord admitted, testing fate with this one.
“Both of you out. NOW.” Edd ordered, finger aggressively jabbing towards the door as his face turned a beat red.
“But Edd it’s Chr-” Tord was interrupted by the green hooded male already pushing them out and slamming the door behind them.
“OUT!” He shouted from behind the door before beginning to clean up the place in hopes of distracting himself enough to calm down.
Tom sighed heavily, watching his white breath float away before beginning to mope about the streets with nothing better to do. Tord, not wanting to be bored all night while he waited for Edd to calm down enough to let them back in, decided he’d just follow the other, staying a bit behind him but close enough so that they didn’t end up getting separated. Not that you wouldn’t be able to hear them crunching their feet in the snow miles away from each other with how dense the powdery frozen water was this time of year.
“Why are you following me you horned dickweed?” Tom spat, obviously not liking the fact that he was being followed by the other male when he was just trying to be alone and cool off from all the “excitement” in the house tonight.
“I got literally nothing better to do than annoy you with my mere presence so why not. Besides, I'm probably just gonna be listening to music the entire time.” Tord admitted, pulling out a pair of earbuds and plugging them into his phone in the meantime.
“Gee, thanks.” Tom sighed to which Tord only gave a pleased hum in reply to while he was busy finding what music to play.
They stayed like that for the majority of their time outside in the snow, though Tom was beginning to break out in a small shiver due to how cold it was. Tord on the other hand was loving it, Autumn and Winter were his favorite seasons and being from up north in Norway where there pretty much if not literally no sun he was beyond used to the cold. He pretty much was the cold at this point.
Soon that would change though, even if for a moment, as Tord’s attention was taken by a convenience store that just so happened to be placed on their path, a 24 hour one too seeing as it was past midnight at this point. The red hooded man grabbed Tom’s arm and began pulling him with him into the store much to the other’s dismay.
“What the fuck are we doing here?” He groaned, pulling from Tord’s grasp but making no attempt to go back outside into the cold, it was much warmer in the store so he just decided to follow Tord as he had pretty much nothing else to do but be bored and mope.
"Doesn't matter, pick out something you want." Tord instructed, walking around the store pretty aimlessly, hoping Tom would see something that caught his eye and instead take the lead.
Eventually he did take the lead and began wandering around the store only to make his way over to the freezer section of the small store, pulling out a large glass bottle of hard liquor of course. With how high the liquor concentration was it might as well be absinthe and it probably was had he read the label but all he really read was the alcohol content and the flavoring,, a nice big yellow "Pineapple" plastered on the front of the bottle in a fancy design, oddly enough it was accompanied by a summertime decoration on the label rather than a more festive one despite it being literal Christmas Eve.
When Tord saw that the other had found something he liked and was inspecting it he walked over, asking what he was looking at only for his face to pale midway as Tom turned his head towards him with a large shit eating grin on his face, proudly showing him the bottle of Pineapple flavored Smirnoff.
"Really- THAT’S what you want?" Tord asked, needing a bit of clarification, though knowing his liking towards Gold Monsters he really shouldn’t be surprised, especially since he was the one who introduced him to said Energy Drink in the first place.
Tom's slow nod and unwavering, if not growing, grin was all the horrific confirmation he needed. Stifling an uncomfortably induced shudder, he reluctantly grabbed the bottle and led Tom back to the checkout area. Seeing as there was no line, Tord quickly paid for the drink and turned to the blue hooded male with the change that was handed back to him in one hand and the bottle of alcoholic pineapple juice in the other.
"Merry Christmas, Thomas." Tord wished him, a small grin on his face as he dropped the change into the man’s hand and dropped the plastic bag of vodka into his other. A genuine grin too, nothing big or flashy but enough to make Tom do a double take.
"You make me sick." He spat, shoving his handful of change into his pocket.
"Oh my God- what did you want me to say? Happy birthday? Happy Hanukkah? Guten dag?" Tord rhetorically hissed.
"Piss off." The other groaned, walking out of the store, the red one in toe behind him.
They returned to their silent walk for a while as they just mindlessly went about, subconsciously making their way back to the house as Tom was leading and freezing his ass off whereas Tord continued to be perfectly fine, sweating even in such hot weather for the Northerner.
"Why'd you buy me this shit?" Tom asked suddenly, breaking the somewhat comfortable silence they had.
"... I dunno, felt like it." Tord shrugged, answering simply and pretty honestly actually after thinking about it for a moment.
"That can't be all of it, what did you want out of this? Empathy sex?" Tom stopped walking, turning to Tord with an accusing look on his face, honestly wouldn’t be the first and he doubted it would be the last.
"... I mean if you want-"
"Tord."
"Alright, fine! Fucking hell, what a buzzkill,,, still not why I did it though." Tord huffed, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets, a subconscious thing he did to hide himself fidgeting with his hands and scratching his cuticles.
"Then why did you? Cause I don't owe you I hope you know." Tom reminded, now slinking the bag from his hand onto the crease of his arm to instead stick it into his hoodie pocket as well, his hand becoming unbearably cold now.
"I know, I just,,, genuinely don't know. Guess I felt like getting you something, and rather than guess what you liked why not buy it straight from your mouth? Besides, if I got you a present and put it under the tree it would just burn when you eventually burn the house down to kill the tree." Tord admitted.
"Hahaha, yeah." Tom grinned, fondly remembering the many years of burned trees they've had, Tord sighing in annoyance at that same memory.
As they continued the rest of the walk it was silent, consisting of them just looking around at the pretty lights strung up across the street lamps and holiday decorations nailed to business doors since early November, silently taking in the scenery as they walked along the concrete path by the pitch black road that would’ve blended into the surroundings had it not been for the stark white snow piled on top of it.
When they did arrive home, Tord tried to open the door, giving the handle a good jiggle and eventually kicking next to said door knob before he just resorted to shouting.
“EDD! OPEN THE DAMN DOOR WE LEARNED OUR LESSON!” Tord called, scowling at the door. “IF YOU DON’T LET US IN THOMAS IS GONNA START BURNING ME TO GET WARM! I DON’T WANT HIM LIVING INSIDE MY FLESH LIKE A DEER CARCASS TO SURVIVE, EDD!” He continued.
Soon after his shouting match with the door the lights inside turned off and an audible, albeit muffled, sound of a door slamming shut echoed from Edd’s room as he turned in for the night. Groaning and growling in frustration as he tried at the door yet again, it refusing to turn with his hand and giving him some small blisters from how cold it was and the friction between the metal and his skin. He sneered, eventually giving up and walking away from the door with his usual angered look back to Tom, who was still trying to warm up his hands, this time rubbing them together.
"The one fucking time he actually locks the door and it's on Christmas Eve. How bah humbug of him." Tord grumbled, kicking up a dust cloud of loose snow from the ground in his anger. A nice release for him as he watched the small flakes of snow gracefully fall to the ground, instantly distracting the man.
Tom just ignored him for the most part, looking up at the roof of their house before grabbing Tord by his hood and dragging him around to the back of the house through the snow. Said red clad man gagged as his hoodie was pulled against his neck by the other, struggling to keep up as he was forced to walk backwards with Tom leading, a trust exercise he was not ready for, only to stop as they rounded the corner.
"What the fuck are you-"
"Matt left the ladder out." Tom noted, pointing his thumb to the metal ladder still leaning against their house from when they strung their Christmas lights up a couple weeks prior to the party.
"Why did we let him string them up in the first place? He was hanging from them for a good hour before we even noticed last year." Needless to say Matt stayed by the heater all day.
Tom just made a gesture of "rolling" his eyes before grabbing Tord’s hoodie again and leading him up the ladder to the roof of the house.
"Again- Tom-" He struggled to get a sentence out while trying to not get choked by him and climb the ladder at the same time. "Please leave this for the bedroom-" And Tom immediately let go of the hoodie. It was that easy.
Soon enough the two men were on top of Edd's roof, sitting in the cold and wet snow that honestly was begging to get shoveled off before Tord got buried under it again.
"Wwhyyy did you bring me up here?" Tord quizzed, an eyebrow raised as he turned to look at Tom.
The other didn't reply, only grabbed two shot glasses from what seemed to be his endless void of a hoodie pocket, setting them down to unscrew the bottle.
"Why do you have shot glasses just in your hoodie pocket?" Tord continued to interrogate.
"Pff, you don't?" Tom spat, looking at him finally.
"No Tom, because unlike you, I'm actually somewhat normal." Tord said with a condescendingly soft tone, holding Tom's shoulder.
"Piss off before I push you off, dickweed." He grunted, shoving Tord's hand off his shoulder with a shrug before getting back to pouring them the two glasses full of the Pineapple liquor.
Screwing the cap back on he set the bottle securely in the dense snow before handing Tord one of the small glasses full of yellow tinted alcohol. They clinked their glasses together and tossed their heads back together before they cringed at the sour taste the usually sweet pineapple gave to the alcohol.
“Oh my god that tastes like shit.” Tord comment, giving a sour look to complement the tang of the aftertaste the drink gave.
“Yeah-” Tom agreed, furrowing his brows in distaste before both the boys set their empty shot glasses upside down in the snow. While they got over the intrusive taste that continued to linger on their tongue, Tom said something he hasn't said, well,, ever.
"Merry Christmas, commie bastard." He hummed, looking over the town in front of him with a somber smile, probably only letting it slip from how shitfaced he was from drinking two bowls worth of spiked eggnog.
Tord didn't bother interrogating him about his comment nor the smile, knowing he'd only get worse bruises and cuts on him if he dared to acknowledge what he was doing, instead just giving him a small smile yet again. Two in one night, whoa, better take a picture before you never see it again.
"Whatever, Jehovah's."
Now, Tom sat at the island of the kitchen, two shot glasses next to him. One of the mini glasses was full and while another was turned over and empty. This was the first Christmas Eve after Tord had left for the army and he was laying his head on the cold counter while staring at the two small glasses in front of him.
"Yeah,, whatever."