"So what are you doing for Christmas?"

Merry seemed disinterested by the question, almost baffled. She shrugged. "Nothing really. Everywhere's gonna be closed on Christmas day, so just spending it with Matt, I guess. We may go for a few drinks if we can find a bar that's open." The idea didn't seem odd to her. She'd spent the last twelve Christmases with her uncle and the ones before that had generally been endured on her own.

But from the look on Cisco's face, she was guessing that she'd somehow given the wrong answer. "You're not doing anything? Nothing at all?" Merry just shrugged again. "Why not? What do you normally do for Christmas?"

"Nothing special, if that's what you mean." Merry failed to see what the issue was. "Last year, we went Mummering whilst we were in White Rock. Before that, we were in Australia and we spent the day as volunteer bush fire fighters. And the year before that, we were preparing for the New Year in Kazakhstan, since Christmas isn't widely celebrated over there..."

"So you don't have any Christmas traditions?" Cisco pressed, that disbelieving look still on his face.

"Not really. We've always been on the move. We've spent every Christmas somewhere different, so it's been a different culture every time. We've never really made any traditions." Cisco was now shaking his head, so when Merry responded, it was almost defensively. "Why? What do you do for Christmas that's so special?"

"It's the little things really," said Cisco vaguely, though he seemed to regard the idea quite fondly. "Being around family - especially since my brother can't make it this year - opening presents, sitting around the Christmas tree... And the food. Oh man, the food... My mom's Christmas dinner is always amazing. And there's eggnog and Christmas pudding and chocolates and more eggnog and turkey sandwiches and leftover yams and pumpkin pie..."

"So basically just all about the food?" Merry guessed amusedly, catching Cisco's dreamy look as he described the various treats of his holiday traditions. Of course, the effect was only increased by the fact that he was currently sucking on the end of a candy cane amid words.

Cisco grinned, clenching the pinstripe sweet between his teeth. "The food's always the best part."

"Somehow, I don't doubt that," Merry laughed.

Though she seemed amused, Cisco still appeared troubled by the idea. "Maybe I could ask to put an extra seat in at the table for Christmas dinner and you could join us."

Merry instantly felt awkward. "Oh, no, I couldn't... You just said it's your family's Christmas tradition. It's a lovely offer, but I couldn't impose on that."

Cisco looked thoughtful. "Then how about Christmas Eve instead? I can fill you in on as many traditions as possible. You may have gotten all the various cultural aspects down, but I bet you've never even decorated a Christmas tree yourself, have you?"

"Guilty as charged," Merry admitted, raising her hands in surrender. "Okay, stop looking at me like I'm an alien. This is the longest I've stayed in one city since I was thirteen. There's never been much point in having a Christmas tree before."

"Right, we are so doing this!" Cisco decided without hesitation. "Christmas Eve. I am going to festivitise your brains out."

Merry raised her eyebrows, amused. "Festivitise?"

"It's a word."

"Yeah, I really don't think it is... So am I going to need anything for these 'festivities'? Besides my wits about me."

"Ha ha..." Cisco gave it some consideration before coming to a quick conclusion. "A Christmas sweater. And it has to be awesome."

"Great..." Merry had no idea what would even make a Christmas sweater awesome. She didn't bother asking - she knew that Cisco would come out with something like 'you'll know awesome when you see it'. He could be so predictable sometimes.

"And some enthusiasm please," Cisco added, chastising her, his voice going up an octave, like it so often did. "I'd expect more from Miss Merry Christmas herself."

Merry gave him a sour look in response. "Promise me no more name jokes and you can have all the enthusiasm you want."

"Deal."

XXX

Shopping so close to Christmas was a pain in the ass. Merry hadn't exactly been filled with hope when Matt had bid her luck like she was off to war. Now she knew why. Braving the mall amongst all the last minute shoppers and serial bargain hunters felt like a death wish.

As she was jostled on either side by the herds of people, she wrapped her coat more tightly around herself, grumbling under her breath, whilst desperately attempting to navigate the crowds in her search. She didn't care much about brand names or price. She was sure that any clothing store would sell Christmas sweaters. All she wanted was to find one that looked like it had the shortest queues.

Though that was easier said than done. Everywhere seemed to be packed full of people. Some stores even had them queuing out of the doors and onto the main floor of the mall. Urgh. Merry managed to find one that at least wasn't overflowing with shoppers and quickly escaped inside, darting past the next wave of people that were flooding down from the escalators.

After twenty minutes of squeezing past people, apologising for stepping on their feet, apologising for them stepping on her feet - a British trait she'd apparently never been able to get rid of - Merry learnt that there were no Christmas sweaters on sale here. At all. The store had completely sold out. Maybe she'd have to brave one that was busier after all.

But apparently, even that wasn't good enough. Everywhere she tried - no matter how long she spent trying to fit around people and queuing just to set foot inside some of the stores - nowhere had any Christmas sweaters left. Great. Just great. She'd been given one job and she couldn't even get that right. She was definitely not feeling the Christmas spirit right now.

Merry was almost tempted to give up for the day. There were still two more days left before Christmas Eve. She'd been wandering around for hours now, reduced to moving at a snail's pace with the rest of the crowds. She was hungry, her feet hurt and if one more woman barged her with all of her shopping bags, rubbing it in even more that they'd found what they wanted, then she was going to throw a hissy fit. But she knew that if she gave up now and tried again tomorrow, it would only be even worse the closer it got to Christmas day.

So she gritted her teeth and soldiered on. After grabbing a soft cinnamon pretzel from a mercifully crowd-free snack stand, of course. She sure hoped that Cisco appreciated the effort she was putting in for this. She still didn't really know what the deal was with not having done a traditional Christmas before. Even before she'd gone off travelling with her uncle, her family had never really had time for that sort of thing, so she didn't personally feel like she was missing out.

Her persistence paid off though. Finally, in what felt like it must have been the last store on earth, Merry found a Christmas sweater. It wasn't exactly pretty. It was made to look like a Christmas pudding - brown with red and black bobbles attached and a droopy white collar with a fake piece of holly stuck to one side. She was positive that it wasn't going to be flattering to wear, but it was the only one she'd seen all day and this final sweater just so happened to be her size. She'd clearly been destined to get stuck with it.

She joined the ridiculously long queue for the cash registers, feeling somewhat better about herself. She was incredibly glad that she hadn't really had to do any Christmas shopping this year. Matt was always easy to find something for - she just had to look for the weirdest, kookiest store she could find and pretty much anything from there would do. Matt was really into all the 'new age' kinda stuff.

And everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs had agreed not to do presents and to just go out for a few rounds of festive drinks instead. Except for Dr. Wells. Apparently, he wasn't a fan of this time of year. Merry couldn't say she'd really minded his absence that night. It was still difficult for her to control her opinions of the man in the wheelchair.

Her long stint in the queue was rewarded when she discovered that the sweater was a clearance item and only cost five dollars. That certainly made up for it being ugly. Feeling quite pleased with her bargain - though still not understanding why some people would want to do all of their shopping this way - she squeezed back through the crowd. She'd only just escaped the store when something green and white was suddenly waved in front of her eye line. She hastily ducked out of the way, recognising instantly what it was, and nearly jumped on the millionth person's foot that day.

The woman responsible for her reaction cackled at her response. "Hand-made mistletoe! Don't worry, dear, we're only asking for charity donations for these - nothing else."

"Instinctive reaction," said Merry casually, the sparkle from the woman's small foldable store catching her eye. She'd always been one more for practicality than materialism, but sparkly things did tend to grab her attention. "Did you say they're hand-made?"

"Yep. Mine and my daughter-in-law's latest bonding activity," said the woman proudly. "She does all the fiddly bits and I do the painting."

Merry eyed the pieces of mistletoe admiringly. The branches were very delicate, painted in soft, but realistic colours and dusted with a light silver glitter that gave off a frosty morning effect. "They're very pretty."

"They're very cheap to make, so just a small donation if you'd like some," the woman explained, rattling a small tin so that the coins she'd already collected danced around inside. "All proceeds go to the local dog's home."

Merry liked animals. She rummaged in her pocket for some change. "Yeah, I'll take some." She put two dollars into the collection. It was at least worth what she'd already saved on the sweater.

The woman beamed at her and handed her one of the bigger sprigs of mistletoe. "Thank you, dear. Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas," Merry replied, tucking the mistletoe into her coat pocket. Let Cisco tell her she wasn't being enthusiastic about Christmas now.

XXX

Cisco was definitely pleased with the find she'd made regarding her Christmas sweater. Merry personally thought it was even uglier on than it had been just on the store hanger, but Cisco didn't seem to think so at all. Then again, Merry already knew that he didn't particularly have the best taste in shirts. She'd witnessed at least three different Star Trek ones. But he was still happy, so at least she'd fulfilled the one job she'd been given.

She'd gotten to his apartment early afternoon, as planned. They'd decided to carry out these supposed festivities at Cisco's apartment, since Matt would be at his and Merry's temporary place. Despite Merry's elongated effort with her Christmas sweater search, Cisco still won with a navy festive-themed Space Invaders sweater. Merry was just glad that she hadn't been beaten by something Star Trek.

Most of Cisco's apartment was already decorated for the holidays, with strings of tinsel and silly singing turkeys and snowmen. A small, fully-trimmed tree sat on the coffee table and a bigger, empty tree stood in the corner next to the TV - the decorations for it tossed haphazardly across the couch. Merry highly suspected that the second tree had already been decorated and that Cisco had taken everything back off for her to help re-do it. She still didn't know why he was going to such lengths, but she had to admit that the effort was sweet.

Amongst the decorations, she found a faded, poorly cut gold star with 'Cisco' scrawled across it in messy red block capitals. She held it up amusedly. "How old were you when you made this; six?"

Cisco gave her a baleful look from around the other side of the tree, where he was busy attaching red LED lights. "I'll have you know it was last year."

Merry just looked at him. "Are you for real?"

"No. I was five." Cisco grinned. "I think we can both agree I'm much better at making things now."

"Yeah, I wouldn't ever wear the suit you made me if it looked anything like this," Merry laughed. She was definitely grateful that Cisco's design skills were now much more improved. Even so, she still hung the shoddy star on one of the branches.

Cisco watched and nodded, seeming to approve. "I don't really have much choice if I want something that's personalised. You never find things in the stores with my name on it."

Merry had to agree. "I know the feeling."

As they worked, they were accompanied by the background music of Christmas songs that Cisco had playing from his phone through a Spotify playlist. Now this was one aspect of the holidays that Merry was definitely familiar with. No matter what country you were in or how much you intended to celebrate Christmas, whenever you turned on the radio, the TV, went into a store, opened the door to carol singers... The songs were there.

Though one thing Merry was surprised to learn she was sad about was that it was apparently unlikely for her to hear all of the songs that she was used to, seeing as quite a few of them were British. It didn't seem that Shakin' Stevens, Slade, Wizard - the Christmas songs that she'd go as far as to say that she actually liked - had made it over here in the states. Somehow, it didn't seem the same just listening to the American classics.

By the time they'd finished the tree, Merry had to admit that Cisco's side looked way better. Hers looked like an explosion of tinsel and baubles had hit it. Nothing was even close to being properly spaced out, a lot of the tinsel was already drooping off the branches and she'd weaved the lights too far in so that you couldn't see them properly behind the branches and other decorations - it looked like only half of the tree lit up. Though it was most likely because she had nowhere near as good an eye for anything creative, she insisted it was just down to a severe lack of practice.

That then seemed to be her ongoing excuse for the majority of the day. After the tree, they made eggnog. Well, Cisco made eggnog. Merry made some kind of semi-alcoholic, barely edible - let alone drinkable - gloop. She'd never even tried eggnog before, let alone tried to make it. So again, the absence of her experience was her reasoning behind her shoddiness. She made the most out of sampling Cisco's instead, who had clearly ignored the recommended ratio of rum to everything else.

Following the eggnog fiasco was making paper snowflakes. Whereas Cisco was able to produce dozens of perfect snowflakes, each with a completely different design, all but one of Merry's fell apart after she'd cut them too close to the edges. Since she had actually made paper snowflakes before when she'd been in school, she couldn't use her usual excuse and had to just concede that she'd never been any good with her hands.

"I can't believe you're going to keep your tree like that," Merry commented, eyeing her handiwork distastefully. She'd been pleased to have had even the one paper snowflake to donate, but there was really nothing good she could say about her decorating skills with the Christmas tree.

"Because it's hilarious," Cisco declared, whose attention was more on the new activity at hand. "Now pick one of these to watch."

They were both sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, where Cisco had pulled a variety of DVDs out of the cabinet from underneath. They were all Christmas themed, of course. Merry hadn't even realised there were that many Christmas movies in existence. There were some names she recognised, even less that she'd actually seen and then most were just alien to her eyes. Apparently, as a kid, she'd been a big movie watcher, but she couldn't remember much from those days and things had changed a lot since then.

She obligingly looked through all of them, sorting them into separate piles and instinctively going more for titles that she at least knew of. Bad Santa, The Grinch, Elf, Jingle All The Way, A Christmas Carol... "Die Hard?" she questioned. "Even I've seen that. How is that a Christmas film?"

Cisco didn't even correct her on using the word 'film' this time, like he had several times already. Instead, he just gave her a sardonic look. "Because it's set on Christmas Eve. Duh."

"Solid reasoning," Merry replied dryly. She flipped one of the DVDs over. "I kinda remember this one... Isn't it more Halloween themed, rather than Christmas?"

"That's the beauty of Nightmare Before Christmas. It's appropriate for both Christmas and Halloween," Cisco claimed.

"I see." Resisting the urge to shake her head, Merry picked up another DVD. "I'll go for this one. I think I remember the gist of it, but not really what happens..."

Cisco grinned widely when he saw her choice. "Home Alone! Best Christmas movie ever. Great choice!"

Whilst Cisco set up the DVD, Merry's gaze trailed around the various decorations of the room, purposely overlooking the mess she'd made of the Christmas tree. Cisco didn't have a fireplace, but a red and blue stocking hung from a bookcase near the door, pinned to the edge of the highest shelf. Merry had never had a stocking before, but she understood that people would fill them with sweets and small presents.

With Cisco still distracted, Merry quickly snuck round the back of the couch and to the table to grab her bag. She always had a stash of sweets in there. She found a couple of lollipops, a pack of fruity bubblegum and a handful of hard-boiled sweets and hastily slipped them all into the hanging stocking whilst Cisco still wasn't looking. She felt quite pleased with herself at the thought of his reaction when he found them.

She returned to the couch and was just about to sit down when Cisco straightened up and turned round. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing," Merry replied, putting on her best innocent face.

Cisco gave her what was probably supposed to have been a suspicious look, but was more of an exaggerated squint. "Sit down and wait here. I've got just one more thing..."

Merry did as she was told, but peered curiously over the back of the couch as Cisco disappeared into the small attached kitchen, trying to see what he was doing. Whilst he was gone, the DVD that he'd already put in had loaded up until it reached the title screen. Just the short piece of theme music that was on repeat whilst the root menu was displayed rewarded Merry with a sharp pang of nostalgia, bringing her attention back to the TV.

Cisco came back with two tumblers of a bubbly, tangerine-coloured liquid and his usual silly grin on his face. "Sorry; I don't have champagne flutes, so these will have to do."

"What is it?" Merry asked interestedly, as he handed her one of the tumblers and sat down next to her.

"Just try it."

Merry raised the tumbler to her lips and took a sip. It tasted like fizzy orange juice with a slight infusion of champagne. She'd never tried it before, but she had a good guess from the taste as to what it was. "Bucks Fizz!"

Cisco beamed. "Yeah! It's a British tradition, right?"

Merry smiled back, realising that he must have purposely looked into that one for her. "Right." She decided not to mention that it was traditionally drank with breakfast, rather than on an evening. But tomato, tomato...

As they settled down to watch the movie, Merry found it hitting the memories from her childhood again. She remembered a lot more than she thought she did and even though it wasn't new to her, it was still laugh out loud funny. It had been a long time since she'd smiled and laughed so much. Since she'd smiled properly anyway. Over the last few years, she'd just gotten used to the fake smile that she'd always used to please people and get what she wanted.

Not today though. Today had been the most fun she'd had in a long time. She'd never had much interest in the holidays before, but now she realised that Christmas was all about doing things together. Most of her Christmases had been spent around a bunch of strangers - learning about other cultures, since they'd spent every Christmas somewhere new. But it was the parts with Matt at the end that she'd always liked the most. Heading down to a bar or a pub afterwards, sharing a tin of sweets - even though Matt always insisted that he didn't like sweet things - or sometimes just sitting somewhere warm and chatting about things as if their family wasn't abnormal...

It's the little things, Matt had always told her. The little things were what meant the most. She'd never quite appreciated the value of that before. Over the last decade, her life had been quite big and extravagant. It had been all about travelling - seeing new places, trying new things, all the while moving onto the next thing that was new and different to distract herself. Nothing in her life had really been 'small'. She'd never found those little things to appreciate before.

Only now she got it. Today had definitely been all about the little things and it was the happiest she'd been since she could remember. At some point during the movie, she'd huddled closer to Cisco on the couch until her head was resting against where his arm stretched out along the length of the headrest. Recently, they'd gotten closer to one another, even though they'd never actually talked about it, and today had only helped that. Unspoken or not, it made Merry happy.

Thanks to Cisco, she now had new memories to treasure. And they really did revolve around the simplest things. Not only that, she had reason to want to try Christmas traditions more from now on. She had new memories to make.

As it started to get late, she reluctantly conceded that it was time to leave. Matt had suggested going for a drink that night once she was free and she knew that Cisco was getting up early in the morning to head to his parents' house with the rest of his family. He'd offered to walk her back, but she'd politely declined, after thanking him several times for such a fun day. He'd done way too much for her already. She was really starting to reconsider her motive behind seeking out S.T.A.R. Labs in the first place.

Cisco insisted on at least walking her down to the main door to the apartment building. A bitterly cold air blasted in from outside. "You sure you don't want me to walk with you?"

"I'm positive," Merry smiled, fastening her coat and slinging her bag over her shoulder. "You've already gone out of your way for me today."

Cisco grinned. "So are we feeling more of that Christmas spirit now?"

"After a day like today, how could I say no?" Merry laughed, rubbing her hands together before slipping them into her coat pockets. "Thanks again, but it's freezing out here, so you should go back inside and..." She trailed off as her fingers closed around something. Of course...

"What's up?" Cisco asked, watching as her expression changed to something he couldn't read.

"I forgot I had this," said Merry absently, producing the piece of mistletoe from her pocket.

"...What is it?"

Merry was certain that Cisco knew exactly what it was and that his question was meant to be more 'what are you going to do with it?' For someone who was super smart, he could sure be dumb about some things. She clutched the mistletoe gently in her hand, suddenly feeling bold. "What do you say to trying just one more Christmas tradition?"

Before Cisco could reply, she'd stretched up on her tiptoes, one hand steadying herself against his shoulder and the other half holding the mistletoe above their heads, and lightly pressed her lips against his for just a few short seconds. When she drew back, he looked a little shell-shocked and, if it was even possible, Merry was sure she could see a light blush tingeing his dark skin.

She smiled. "How's that for Christmas spirit?"

When Cisco eventually managed to compose himself, he just gave her his usual goofy grin. "Now that's what I call a Merry Christmas."

Merry rolled her eyes. "You couldn't resist just one more, could you?"

"Well, who do you think you're talking to?"

XXX

Author's Note!

Ahh fanfiction, it's been a while... This is the first piece I've done since October since I've been working completely on my NaNoWriMo project (which is still overdue. I cry). But as it's my Christmas tradition to do some festive one-shots I figured I had to try at least one! Then it's back to my original stuff until that's finally finished, then I'll be all over the fanfiction again. One of the New Year's resolutions is already not to procrastinate so much!

Anyway, this is my first time at writing a one-shot about a couple before actually posting a fair chunk of main storyline first! So Merry's gonna be a new one to all of you. Few facts you might like to know: she's Welsh, she's a meta-human, she has some very sneaky reasoning behind originally befriending the peeps from S.T.A.R. Labs and she travels around with her bounty hunter/detective and favourite person uncle Matt :)

I totally wanted to do this as my Christmassy one-shot after all the crazy Flash/Arrow stuff going on over the last several weeks (lord, those mid-season finales!) even if I've done the writing for Merry's character in an unusual order. I did start her main story, which is gonna be called "Good Vibrations" (kudos if you can pick out at least one of the references I've used there), back in the end of October but obviously then NaNoWriMo took over and I haven't had chance to revisit it since. Hope you all have a fabby Christmas, guys!