Merry Christmas Everyone!
I know Christmas is over, but here's a Zevie Christmas one shot. It's late because I got stuck halfway through. It's drabbly, I know, but I'm going away tomorrow and I wont have internet most of the time so this will just have to do.
To my little munchin who keeps telling me I should post more, here you are, enjoy the refrences :)
I hope you all had a great Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!
oh, BTW, Stevie and Zander are about 21 in this and they live in New York.
It's their first Christmas in the new apartment. Stevie bakes enough Christmas cookies to feed an army. "It feels weird not to have heaps of boys to feed with them." She complains to Zander as he transfers yet another batch from the baking sheet to the cooling rack.
He chuckles softly, leaning over to kiss her flour covered cheek, "you can give them out as gifts now Steves."
Stevie sighs, dropping the spatula in to the mixing bowl with a clunk. "But it's not the same as my brothers just eating them all the time."
"I know." He says quietly, tugging gently on her hand.
She lets herself be pulled to him, somewhat in need of a hug.
"I put something up." He says as his arms circle her waist.
"Let me guess," Stevie mutters sarcastically, "coloured Christmas lights."
She thinks she sees a tiny tinge of hurt cross his face before he laughs her comment off. "No! Just come."
She does, a little begrudgingly, holding tightly to his hand because despite her irritation over his love of coloured Christmas lights, she does want to know what he's done.
He leads her through the living room and out to the balcony. The curtains are drawn but Stevie can feel the breeze coming through the open door, blowing the curtains slightly.
He gives her a little smile as he pushes them aside enough to let her through, she smiles hesitantly back before turning and realising what he's done.
The balcony's small, but it looks over the whole city. Stevie's discovered in the months since their wedding that sitting out here is incredibly calming, she's spent many a sleepless night just watching the lights and forgetting the pressures of school.
Zander's put up white Christmas lights along the edges, and blue icicle lights are dripping from the roof.
Stevie breathes in a sharp breath.
It's perfect.
She spins slowly, taking it all in, her breath leaving foggy mist clouds behind her.
"Wow." Is all she can whisper before turning to Zander. She launches herself at him, hugging him tightly.
Zander reacts almost instantly, catching her and wrapping his arms around her.
"Thank you." She mumbles into his neck.
-/
Zander knows how much she wants it to snow on Christmas. He knows how hard it is being so far away from her family.
He's lucky, his parents had moved back to New York when his sister Melody had been accepted into an elite high school here. And all his relatives were here to.
But he was the only one she had (aside from her in laws) and he knew how much she was missing California. (That's what she said, but Zander knew she really missed her family.)
She won't admit it at all, but he knows that she'd sat mournfully in the corner of their living room on the first Saturday of December, a similar spot to where she'd have put up her Christmas tree with her brothers back home. He'd been passing the door way to their living room and had seen her slowly turn around in the spot and sit down with a great big sigh. And it hurts that he can't give her what she needs.
She's always had a real Christmas tree. Always. But they were on a budget this year. They'd scrimped and saved to get this apartment and now there just wasn't enough money for a tree, or for a lot of things really.
So she hadn't said anything, not mentioning how much she missed the smell of the pine, or cleaning up the fallen needles every few days. And she'd never actually mentioned the ornaments she put up every year and how someone else would probably put them up for her. But Zander knew, and his heart ached for all the things she missed.
But if there's one thing that she might get here in New York, its snow. And Zanders praying to all the heavens above that it will come before they have to leave for California.
-/
It does snow.
The day before their flight.
Stevie can feel something different in the air as she wakes up slowly in Zanders arms, his breath tickling the back of her neck and his fingers clasped over her stomach.
She turns slightly, trying not to wake him. He's breathing deep and even, and as she's pressed up so close against him she can feel his steady, strong heartbeat. Slowly, Stevie reaches a careful finger up between them, tracing the lines and ridges of his face softly and starting to unconsciously hum Christmas carols.
The best thing about being married to Zander, Stevie's decided in the 6 months since their wedding, is how easy it is. It's so easy to be like this, to wake up in his arms and just be. It's easy to watch a movie with him and not feel the urge to make out with him in order to keep him around (she shouldn't have been so insecure about him, she knows. But she was… and admittedly still is a little). It's easy to eat left over pasta from old, reusable Chinese food containers on the floor of their living room. And it's easy to curl up in his arms after a particularly hard exam and not have to talk.
"All I want for Christmas is you." Zander sings softly her humming as he wakes up. He opens his eyes slowly, grinning cheekily at her, "I must be the envy of all New York. I wake up next to the most beautiful woman on the planet every morning."
Usually she'd snort and roll her eves, brushing of his cheesy romance before she can let it get to her. But she's in a good mood this morning, maybe because there were only a few days left to Christmas, so she giggles and blushes slightly, wrapping her legs round his waist.
Zander pushes her flat on her back and surveys her from his new vantage point, she looks up at him, biting her lip softly.
Zander leans down brushing his lips against hers in the teasing manner he always had, his fingers skimming with feather light touch over her waist and stomach. Stevie gave a small whine as she tries to pull him down on top of her, it was useless though, despite her best efforts.
She ends up pouting pitifully up at him, making little whimpering noises. Zander laughs, finally leaning down to press a long kiss against her lips. She tries to deepen it again, but he pulls away chuckling slightly.
It takes him a moment to register what he's seeing out the window in the corner of his eye.
Snow.
He practically pulls her to the window, watching her carefully so as to not miss her reaction.
"Zander!" She whines, and then she stops, staring over his shoulder with wide, innocent eyes.
She swallows thickly and practically flattens herself against the window.
At least she gets one thing she wants for Christmas, Zander muses as he watches Stevie scooping up handfuls of the stuff later that day, and then he gets hit with a snow ball, so he stops thinking.
-\
Stevie's asleep on Zanders shoulder by the time their plane lands, he's been uncomfortable for the past hour or so, but he just can't bring himself to move.
"Steves." He whispers, "V? C'mon, we've landed. You're home."
She mutters something incoherent and grabs his arm, re-settling herself. Zander sighs, maybe he can allow her a few more minutes, and then he really will have to wake her up.
Zander waits for everyone else to get off the plane before he tries again, gently shaking her this time. Nothing.
He moves her enough to get his lips to her pulse point, gently sucking the skin. He can feel her heart beat increase and she breathes out his name as she wakes up. Zander smirks and kisses her cheek. "We're here." He tells her, pulling her to her feet and grabbing the luggage.
She just sort of stumbles after him, still groggy from sleep, as Zander tries to manoeuvre all the bags to one hand so he can wrap his arm around her.
Her brother takes the bag from him when he picks them up, giving Zander two free hands to help along the still sleepy Stevie. At least, Zander thinks she wants to believe that she's still half asleep, but Zander's more sure she just doesn't want him to let go of her.
-/
Stevie shakes him awake at five AM on Christmas morning. She's in one of his shirts- he should be used to it by now, but he probably never will be- and she's bouncing next to him like an excited child.
"Z! It's Christmas! Merry Christmas!" she giggles out.
Zander puts his hands behind his head and watches her for a moment before he tackles her on to the bed, moving fast enough that she lets out a surprised shriek as he does. "Merry Christmas Steves." He mutters out between kisses.
-/
She still hasn't changed out of his shirt by the time they go down for the traditional Baskara Christmas breakfast. Nobody's commented yet, but Zander can see all four of her brothers giving him suspicious looks.
Stevie's artfully decorated her pancakes with fruit, and she shows it to him with a big grin. Zander kisses her cheek and then tries to swap their plates. (What? He wants pretty pancakes to!) Stevie pegs a bit of pineapple at him in response.
Her four brothers have managed to eat the majority of the food on the table and Zanders fairly sure they've been sitting down a total of five minutes. It's lucky that Mrs Baskara has an extra plate of pancakes waiting for this exact situation, not that he gets much of a go at them either because apparently Stevie's even hungrier than usual.
It's a good hour later before one of the boys comments on Stevie's attire. "Is it usual for you two to wear each other's clothes?"
"Were married." Stevie replies, "It's usual for us to wear no clothes at all." Before she saunters off to refill her cup of tea. Her four brothers glare at Zander until she comes back, sitting herself on his lap and kissing him rather deeply just to annoy them.
-/
Presents come not long after, and according to Mrs Baskara, they used to do them after lunch but SOMEONE (Stevie) was always to impatient and couldn't wait, so it had become a tradition to do them before lunch.
Stevie's the Christmas elf, scuttling around and handing out all the presents from under the tree. She gives him a couple, but he's not really interested in them, he's interested in her, so when Stevie eventually stops running around she clicks her tongue playfully at him and opens all the presents for him.
He saves her present to last, waiting till everyone else is clearing away the wrapping paper to give it to her.
It's taken him the last 4 months to track down the perfect one and he just hopes she'll like it.
He fastens the necklace around her neck while she's not looking, whispering, "Merry Christmas" In her ear.
She picks it up and smiles, kissing him firmly.
Now she'll always have a Christmas tree no matter what.