Just Like the Ones I Used to Know

By Rhino7

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. I also don't own any of the songs mentioned in this. This little ditty is mine, as is Duke. So, this semester drank my river of creativity dry, and I've been nursing my remaining little brook back to full health. It's too early to tell if it'll make a full recovery, but I'm not giving up on it.

Meanwhile, gasp, did I actually write a Christmas ditty for Christmas? Wow. So for the past few holiday seasons, I've honestly tried to write a warm and fuzzy Christmas thing, but ended up with only angst. Le sigh. But Hark! I believe this time I have succeeded in writing something actually cheerful…in a silly, maybe cliché, alcoholic-Cid kind of way…Enjoy!

..:-X-:..

Chapter One: No Dinky Tinker Toy

Aerith thumbed through the dozens of vinyl records that lined the lower shelf of Merlin's bookshelf. The small house had been the headquarters for the Restoration Committee for the past three years. This was the third Christmas back home in Radiant Garden, and Aerith and Yuffie were determined to make a big deal about it.

Merlin had warmed up to the idea quickly, and soon the spark had taken hold into a flame that burned the house in reds, greens, golds, and garland. Cid had never been much of a holiday person, but they had convinced Tifa Lockhart to join them, and that girl mixed a mean drink, so Cid decided to stick around.

The mood was infectious too.

Chewing on his toothpick, Cid watched Aerith as she merrily picked out what he predicted to be the most cheerful and spirited album of the collection and slid it into the antique record player against the wall.

Merlin was standing in the middle of the room, levitating streams of lights and streamers up to the rafters and hanging them from the top of the walls and the ceiling. Little paper snowflakes were hanging from string all around the computer and the cabinets in the tiny kitchen. Aerith and Yuffie had worked on those all morning. Well, Aerith had worked on them painstakingly: cutting very intricate little designs into the paper flakes. Yuffie had quickly grown impatient and just started hacking at the folds with scissors until Leon banned her from that station for fear of her losing her fingers.

Yuffie had quickly rebounded, and was now enthusiastically decorating the large pine tree that Aerith had conned, threatened, and evil-eyed Leon into cutting down and dragging in for them. Speaking of, where had Mr. Christmas Spirit ran off to?

"Like a little egg nog with your alcohol?" Tifa interrupted his thoughts.

Cid glanced over at her, having forgotten the martial artist was there. She nearly blended into all the cut out snowflakes with her white jacket.

"Hm." He grunted, removing his toothpick just long enough to take a swig from the cup of whiskey-flavored drink. "I pick my own poison."

She smirked, shaking her head as she sipped at her own concoction. Cid gave the drink a suspiciously raised eyebrow and she shoved his shoulder.

"Shut up. It's milk." She defended.

"Yeah, sure, the new codename for hard rum." Cid chuckled, but didn't press her too hard. If anybody had reason to drink…

"IIIIII want a hippopotamus for Christmas!" The record player sang. "Only a hippopotamus will DO!"

Cid and Tifa both looked sideways over to Aerith, who was grinning like a little girl as she put the records back on the shelf, joining Yuffie by the tree. Duke, the reddish golden retriever that Leon had more or less adopted a few months ago, padded in, tongue lolling at all the colors and excitement. Her bright red collar showed about all the festive imagination that Leon could muster for the season.

The song continued to roll on and Cid absently watched Merlin dance around as he enchanted the decorations to glide up onto the walls and shelves and every other surface of their own accord. They had gotten a merry little fire crackling in the hearth. The little house was as warm and cheery as it had been since…well, ever really.

Smelling Aerith's baking in the oven, Duke barked and followed the smell, knocking against the step stool that Yuffie was standing on to decorate the tree. Yuffie yelped in surprise, grabbing at the wall to steady herself. Aerith, standing on the floor to hang ornaments on the lower branches, looked up.

"You all right there, Yuffie?" She asked.

"Silly dog! She knows she can't have those cookies!" Yuffie brandished a fist.

"Oh, leave her alone, Yuffie." Tifa laughed. "Where's your Christmas spirit?"

"MY Christmas spirit?" Yuffie balked. "Leon's the one being a boob!"

Cid snorted into his drink and Aerith lifted a hand to her mouth, stifling the giggle. He set his glass aside and went to tug Duke away from the oven. The dog keened at him, weaving around his legs, eager for a treat.

"Ah, no jumping." He warned her off.

Merlin finished streaming lights and opened another box. "Ah, found the tinsel."

Yuffie's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Dibs on the tinsel!"

"Oh, Kingdom Hearts help us all." Cid ran a hand over his face.

Aerith stepped aside to let Yuffie at the box of shiny strings, opting for taking over the station on the step stool. Merlin began to levitate some of the ornaments onto the tree too.

"Okay, what does everybody want to drink?" Tifa asked, looking restless from not helping.

Merlin glanced over, "I got rid of all the alcohol."

"That's what you think." Cid muttered

"The holidays are no time for hard drinks." Merlin tutted.

"The holidays are the prime time for hard drinks." Cid chuckled.

Aerith cast him a look. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

Cid lifted his shoulders, "Makes it a lot more fun, at least."

Tifa snickered, stirring some actual egg nog. "I've never seen the house so decked out. It looks really nice, guys."

"Thank you, dear." Merlin beamed.

"Yeah, first real Christmas back home!" Yuffie chirped.

Cid saw Tifa's puzzled expression. "First one back was kinda lost in the mess of restoring Hollow—Radiant Garden." He held up one finger. "Second one…well, you remember that quarantine situation." He held up a second finger.

Tifa's cheeks went slightly pink. "Oh, yeah, I remember that."

"So, that makes this," He held up a third finger, "The first real Christmas that these guys have gotten to celebrate."

"Hey, I thought our Christmas last year was pretty cool!" Yuffie snapped.

"Leon, Tifa, and Cloud were stuck in here for almost ten hours." Cid pointed out.

Yuffie balked, "Well…I meant AFTER that, silly!" She put her hands on her hips, tinsel dangling from her shoulder.

"Right, right." Cid waved her off, glancing at the window.

It had been snowing most of the day, layering a health blanket of white across Radiant Garden. After bringing in a tree to appease Aerith and Yuffie, Leon had retreated somewhere, probably to just be all…Leon…and avoid happy things. Cid drank from his 'egg nog' again, watching the quarter-sized flakes drift down and gather on the sills.

Aerith was singing with the record now. "I can see me now on Christmas morning, creeping down the stairs…"

Duke's ears perked at the new noise and Yuffie looked at the dog. Cid recognized that mischievous look in her eyes.

"You know what would be ADORABLE?" She snapped her fingers.

Merlin adjusted his spectacles, "An enchanted angel on the tree that dances?"

"What? No!" Yuffie waved her arms, "I was thinking antlers on Duke!"

Cid groaned, "Why would you think that was a good idea?"

"I can see it!" Yuffie made a frame with her fingers, putting the dog in her crosshairs. "And some tinsel to make her…dazzle!" She gave a mini-jazz hands gesture.

Even Merlin looked a little bewildered at that thought.

"It'll be cute, just you wait!" Yuffie knelt down, a fistful of tinsel in one hand, reaching toward the golden retriever with her other hand. "Here, girl." She whistled.

Duke looked at her, tilted her head, and eyed the silvery mass in the ninja girl's hand.

"Run, pooch. Run while you can." Tifa urged with a grin.

"No crocodiles! No rhinosceroses! I only like hippopotamuses!" The record played on.

Yuffie lunged for the dog. Duke barked and ducked out of the way, bumping into Merlin, who had been in the middle of casting a spell. Off balanced, the spell ricocheted off the wall and hit the front door, causing it to spring open.

"Make a break for it from the tinsel terror!" Aerith laughed.

Cid watched as the dog immediately bolted for the door like there was a cat on the other side of it. He grinned as Yuffie made a mad dash after Duke, throwing the tinsel at her in a desperate attempt to decorate the canine.

As the door swung open and Duke sprinted through, Cid spotted Leon leaning against the outside wall. The other man looked only mildly surprised at the tinsel-draped dog as she bolted out into the snow, nearly disappearing in a drift.

Yuffie clenched her fists as though to chase after her, but Aerith called her over to help hang the rest of the decorations. She begrudgingly went to help, and was easily distracted by hanging the little baubles from the branches.

Cid and Leon exchanged a raised eyebrow look, and then Leon subtly reached over, closing the door again. Behind Cid, Tifa snorted and mixed another drink.

"I'll go corral the canine." She remarked, taking the drink with her.

"Oh! Oh, Cid, could you get the oven for me." Aerith called, standing on the step stool. "They might be burning."

"Sure." Cid waited until Tifa closed the door after herself before opening the oven door.

No billowing smoke cloud or immediately screaming smoke alarms…that was a good sign. Pulling the cookie tray out of the oven, he set the sheet on the stove top and closed the oven, spying Aerith's creations. Tree and star shaped cookies, surprisingly detailed.

Now that he was inside the kitchen, he peeked under the counter to the drawer where Tifa had been mixing drinks. Vodka, rum, martini mix, whiskey, and bourbon. Ooh, she had been holding out on them all. Ah, he didn't need a drink THAT badly though…Probably a smoke in a while, but not right—

Yuffie had emptied half the box of tinsel on the tree, and the other half on Aerith, who was pulling the stuff off herself and throwing it back at Yuffie.

Then again, a smoke right now might not be uncalled for.

"Aren't you going to help?" Merlin finally nagged him. "You've been a regular Scrooge over there sulking in your egg nog."

"Hey, I gotta duck selling ice cream in the Marketplace that would take offense to that." Cid commented. "As it is…I'm supervising you all. How's that for doing something?"

"Excuses." Merlin rolled his eyes, opening more boxes.

" 'Sides." Cid said, "Looks like you all have it pretty well covered."

The record had gone quiet, and as soon as Aerith noticed this, she reset it so that it played that song again. Must have sparked her fancy there. Cid had to chuckle at that. Without Aerith's persistent, and sometimes frightening, enthusiasm, this old house would look like a shack…a man shack, with no color and no warmth. And without Yuffie…Well, there would probably les holes in the wall and less gray hair on Cid's head.

Tifa had been outside for a while. Probably enjoying the quiet out there with Leon. Huh, 'enjoying' and 'Leon' in the same sentence, an odd combo. Cid had noticed that they had become more friends than the occasional 'hey, you' that they had been before the little incident last year. Misery and company and all that, probably.

Speaking of…

"Going for a smoke." He announced, grabbing his pack from the counter and shuffling over to the door.

"Drag Tifa and Leon back in here when you're done!" Aerith called.

"And Duke!" Yuffie waved a fist. "I wasn't done with her yet!"

"Yeah, yeah." Cid said, opening the door and stepping outside.

One thing he'd forgotten since the last snow in Radiant Garden…Snow equaled cold.

"Hot damn." He wheezed, closing the door and hunching his shoulders in his coat.

"Odd choice of words." Leon remarked, leaning against the wall by the door.

Standing beside him with her mug of 'milk', Tifa chuckled. "Finally threw in the towel, eh?"

Cid snorted, tugging out a cigarette and sliding it between his teeth, patting his pockets for his lighter. "Yeah, you're no better." He retorted, then looked to Leon, "And you're the worst."

Leon wasn't looking at him; he was watching Duke. The dog was strewn with tinsel and bounding from snow dune to snow dune, barking as she kicked up the white powder. "How do you figure?" He asked flatly.

"Dude," Cid looked him up and down, "You look like Jack Frost with dandruff."

Leon rolled his eyes and briefly attempted to bat the snow from his hair, gave up, and went back to watching the dog. "Then what are you? Ghost of Christmas Lung Cancer?"

Cid looked up from the cigarette he was lighting. "Smart ass." He remarked, puffing lightly on the stick. "Seriously, you anti-Christmas this year or what?"

"Not anti-Christmas." Leon shrugged, "Just thinking, that's all."

Tifa tsked, shaking her head. "Dangerous habit."

Leon remained deadpan and the three of them fell quiet, watching the dog romp through the snow, leaving sets of pawprints in the white quilt. Cid inhaled from his cigarette, exhaling a wisp of dark smoke to mingle with the falling white snow.

Tifa was relatively new to the Restoration Committee. Hell, she'd only actually been running missions for them for the past few months. It was nice to have another set of hands on board. Definitely helped that the woman could punch through a solid brick wall. Definitely a little scary too.

Aerith certainly was happy to have her around. Even ribbed her good naturedly in that Aerith-way about how much time Tifa was hanging out with Leon. Cid could tell Tifa wasn't completely comfortable around Aerith, even without the playful teasing, and he couldn't put his finger on why. Might have had something to do with Blondie.

Glancing about the little square outside Merlin's house, Cid wondered briefly if Cloud was even aware of how much both the women here missed him. Why they did, he couldn't fathom. The kid was a bucket of angst and a bottle of hair gel away from a breakdown. Well, he wasn't much to judge, and Leon wasn't exactly a posterboy for stability, but at least they weren't running off after phantoms all the time.

Bah, enough of that nonsense. Train of thought wasn't helping nobody.

A little army of snowflakes had staked claim on his shoulders and in his hair by this point, and his nose and ears were starting to tingle with the cold. Tifa's jacket looked too thin to handle this kind of snow, and Leon was so warm natured that Cid bet he could stand out here in just boots and not complain.

He grimaced at THAT mental image and puffed on his cigarette again, glancing over at the two. Neither saying anything or making chatter, just watching a dog play in the snow. Oddly amusing. Leon might be a certifiable Scrooge, but Duke seemed to be loosening him up, if just a little. Tifa was harder to gauge, since he hadn't known her as long.

As if on cue, Tifa set her drink on the window sill and wandered over to Duke, ruffling the fur around her shoulders and dislodging snow and tinsel along the way.

"Aerith made cookies." Cid said.

He was comfortable with silence, craved it sometimes even, but Leon Silence was slightly awkward after a while.

The other man grunted as Duke jumped on Tifa, tackling her to the snow, where she temporarily disappeared. Tifa rolled and suddenly sprang up to her feet, arm reeled back, swinging her leg forward.

Cid stood there, watching her, thinking 'what is she doin—'

Then the little ball of snow was flung from her perfectly-executed pitching stance. The ball soared through the air and with a splat, nailed Leon squarely in the chest. Cid snorted at Leon's lax expression, looking down at the snow and back at Tifa, who did a little fist pump.

"Gotcha!" She chirped.

Duke barked, as though she shared in the victory.

"You gonna let her get away with that?" Cid said quietly, exhaling more smoke.

Leon sighed.

"Some reflexes." Tifa was trash talking, hands on her hips, "Give you some Heartless to slash apart, and you're like a lion on the prowl, but throw some snow in there and you turn into a—"

She immediately ducked and stepped to the side like a dancer as a ball of snow sailed across the air where she had been just seconds earlier. Cid was surprised Leon had actually retaliated with a thrown snowball.

"Ha!" Tifa pointed, "Bad reflexes, and bad aim—"

A second snowball splattered across her face, taking her by surprise.

Cid had almost forgotten: Leon wasn't technically ambidextrous, but he could throw well enough with both arms. He also looked very pleased with himself for hitting her: almost a whole half a grin.

Tifa recovered quickly, Duke barking beside her, and began to put together another snowball.

Oh, this was going to escalate quickly. They were both too competitive for this to end well. Cid put out his cigarette and made to light another.

"Count me out of this." He said.

Leon snorted, "Relax. I was just trying to prove a point—"

A snowball the size of a soccer ball nailed him in the side of the head hard enough to make him smack into the wall. Cid's eyebrows went up together at the sight of the younger swordsman staggering away from the wall, half of his face caked in snowy powder.

Spitting out a mouthful of it, Leon glared over at Tifa, who was sniggering as she put together Snowball of Doom. He looked incredulously to Cid, as if to say: Did you see what she did to me? He looked so indignant that Cid let out a full throated laugh, plucking the cigarette from his mouth.

"I like her." He tutted as Duke bounded over to Leon, shaking snow from her fur and weaving around his legs, eager for petting.

Leon looked distracted by revenge, however.

"I'll let you kids at it." Cid said, grasping the knob of the door. "Just don't track that stuff all over the house when you're done."

With that, he went back inside, back to the warmth and the fireplace and the tree and the record music and the smell of fresh cookies and alcoholic egg nog.

Merry Christmas to all, he grinned as he heard snowball carnage unleashing itself behind him. And welcome home, Restoration Committee.

"And hippopotamuses like me toooo!"

..:-X-:..

A/N 1: The 'quarantine' and 'incident' mentioned briefly are from last year's attempt at a Christmas fic called Dante's Tenth Circle, and it's every bit as charming as it sounds.

A/N 2: I'd like to write a second chapter for this, a romantic oneshot, maybe connected, maybe not connected, to this chapter. I'm open to pairings. Leaning toward Leon/Tifa, but I'm open to writing anybody else. Preferably Restoration Committee-related. Let me know in a review!

Merry Christmas, everybody!