Here comes santa claus!

[callmeemily]

The holiday this year is so incredibly different than the last.

Last year? Raleigh was holed up in the boarding house, no one in 300 miles but her shitty boss knew her name, and she was so poor that she was eating rice, beans, and leftovers from the Seaside bakery.

This year, everything's changed. Orchard House is chugging along astoundingly well; Raleigh puts in long hours, but it's paying off. She's been able to hire somebody else to work the register, she's getting custom orders - the whole thing. She has friends. Honest to god friends, and she's got enough money that she's actually got presents for people. For a lot of people - it's a mix of cookies and things, but there's a little something for everybody piled on the table in the back corner, and one mass-text later she's humming through the bakery, music playing from the speakers, warm cider in a carafe, and everything's warm and cozy.

She looks at it, at this business that she's made with the help of this whole town, and she can't help but smile. Tonight? Spending tonight with friends and found-family? That's what this whole thing's about.

Gathering post! Raleigh will tag everyone who tags in, but feel free to tag one another, too. :) It's up to you if they have gotten a text, or just heard the music and seen the crowd. Everyone'll get something!

Comments

[doublethepain]

"I'd actually argue that I can't get away with anything because I'm me," Spencer answers softly, and it's a joke but if there's the slightest hint of bitterness in his tone, he hopes Raleigh will excuse it. He realizes it's his own fault for bringing it up at all, but he buries it back down because tonight is a time for celebration, for being with friends and enjoying the holiday season in a way he hasn't been able to in what feels like such a long time now. "I suppose that's true when it comes to Joel, though. He likes the Christmas sweaters, you should have seen how delighted he was the first time we dug up the collection from the attic."

There's certainly more where this had come from, it had become something of a tradition in the family for his mother to bring these awful things home for Spencer and Dane, though Spencer's always seemed to be a bit a worse. He thinks now that maybe she'd done it just to make him smile, she'd always loved it when he smiled, and there's a quick, sharp pang in his chest at the wish that she could see him now. Spencer has found that it's nearly impossible not to smile when he's with his husband, and he has so much more to be thankful for that he's been given in the past seven months. Being here, too, being in good company with people who've treated him far better than most in past years, is so different from what he'd expected out of another Christmas because he'd been getting used to spending the holidays alone.

"I think mugs would work just fine," he says, getting his mind back on track to the conversation at hand. "I don't think anyone would complain, at least, they'd likely just be happy to have the alcohol. I'll certainly be happy, you can lead the way."

[callmeemily]

Raleigh's brows furrow for a moment at Spencer's tone, and she looks down at her fingers for a second. She hadn't meant-- She hadn't meant to bring up anything bad, but then he just continues, talking about Joel and how much he loves Christmas sweaters, and Raleigh nods with a little more enthusiasm than she should really have.

"So, then, you're wearing them most of the winter, right?" She moves to lead the way to the mugs, her hand skimming the counter. "It doesn't just have to be Christmas fashion, you know. You could just... really, really like trees." She grabs a mug from the stack, and triumphantly passes it to him. "And I have a corkscrew!" She passes that, too, and she feels a little bit triumphant, defnitely, because she knew where it was.

[doublethepain]

He lets out an admittedly dramatic side, holding his arms out before letting them drop heavily back down at his sides. "I suppose so," he answers, though the corners of his eyes crease with a smile that shows how unopposed he really is to the idea. "Before my family passed, my mother used to buy these for us. For me and Dane, I mean, it was sort of a tradition. Some of them are significantly worse than this, this is actually a very tame sweater."

The image of himself wearing that awful one with the menage a trois of reindeers comes to mind, and Spencer can't help but let out a laugh. His mother had claimed she'd thought the reindeer were dancing, but he remembers the incredulous look he'd exchanged with his brother and that had all but confirmed his suspicion that she'd known exactly what she was doing when she'd picked up that sweater.

He takes the corkscrew from Raleigh and gets to work on the bottle, gaze flickering between her and the cork until he manages to pop it out of its hold. "I kind of like wearing them now," he admits with a shrug. "They bring back good memories. You're having some wine, aren't you?"

[callmeemily]

"They suit you," she says with a smile, even though she doesn't quite know what that statement actually means. She knows she means it, because they do - she couldn't imagine anybody else wearing that sweater without looking completely ridiculous, but somehow Spencer manages it.

"And anything that brings back good memories? I'm all for it." She smiled as she said that, and she nodded when he asked about the wine. "It's Christmas Eve, and there's no way I'm not having wine," she said with a laugh. "It'd be rude of me not to, right?" She's clearly kidding - she knows he wouldn't be offended if she wasn't drinking.

[doublethepain]

Spencer returns the smile, figuring it for as good a compliment as it can really be considering how foolish the sweater is, but he's ready to move on from the subject because if he stays on the subject of his family while drinking, he knows he'll run the risk of simply becoming maudlin. That had been fine when he was sitting at home alone, nursing a glass of whiskey and trying to keep himself from staring into the fireplace by reading a good book but now, Spencer has all the reasons not to do that anymore. He has friends, family, a good life he hadn't expected, and some days, he's finding that he's still trying to adjust, but for the most part, he's happy to embrace what he's been given.

Having Raleigh here, smiling brightly at him in the midst of the enormous turnout to the impromptu bakery gathering, is no exception.

"It would absolutely be rude of you," Spencer agrees, already pouring a generous portion of wine into one of the mugs and holding it out to her. "Besides, you said you wanted to see me get drunk and giggly one day, didn't you? Here's your chance to be both those things with me."

[callmeemily]

Raleigh laughed. "Have you ever seen me drunk?" She made a face even as she asked. "I mean, not tipsy, but drunk? I.... am an idiot," she admits ruefully. "Not that it's not fun," she says as she takes a swallow of wine, "But I'm just warning you. I giggle and am sort of an idiot and hug people and lose my filter."

As long as he was on board with all of that? It probably wouldn't be a bad thing for Spencer to unwind. God knows Raleigh's needed it for herself, over the last couple of months.

[doublethepain]

Spencer's fairly certain he hasn't seen her with more than just a drink or two in her, so he shakes his head with a small, amused smile. He hasn't been outright drunk himself since the night Joel had come over to the house the first time, the night they'd spent sharing a bottle of whiskey, the night Spencer had started to think that maybe being alone all the time wasn't what he was meant for after all. He certainly doesn't plan on having too much tonight, but he might just have enough to get him to a state that nobody here has seen him in before and there's something strangely exciting about that.

"That's all right, I'll likely just blush and get awfully sentimental. The giggling will happen if Joel comes up, that's all I know." He takes a long sip of wine from his mug, smiling over the rim at the dryness of the red and the sweet taste of the cherry on his tongue. It's one of his favorites, this wine, and his mother's, too. It's what she'd always take to dinners they'd be invited to or what she'd set out for guests at their home, and it had never disappointed.

[callmeemily]

"Oh, I just giggle because it's a day of the week," she says with a laugh. "When I drink, anyway." She honestly isn't picky when it comes to wine - wine's wine, and she doesn't really note the difference in it since she usually doesn't even drink it. But it's nice, what he's brought, and the thought of just hanging out with him, having a good time-- that's nice, too.

"It's nice of you to have brought it - want to set up shop over there?" She nods over towards the couch.

[doublethepain]

He follows her toward the couch and settles down on the cushions with a satisfied sigh, leaning back with a content smile as he brings his mug to his lips to take a sip of the wine. It's a relaxing evening, in spite of all the activity around them, and he's relieved that it isn't as large a gathering as Mira's party had been--though he suspects that's mostly because Orchard House hardly allows for as many people in it at one time as Watersong does.

Spencer's needed something relaxing, especially because he's been doing his best to run the store while Joel's still healing, while his own shoulder had still been healing, and Charlotte's been helping but Spencer can't ask her to spend all her free time working at the store because that simply wouldn't be fair. Besides that, Ellie and Brian will be joining them for the holidays and that's why Joel had stayed behind, to make sure his parents settle in well enough for the evening in the guest room--the one that will soon enough become the nursery.

He turns his head to look at Raleigh, trying to get an idea of how she's doing just by looking at her and upon finding that he can't get quite a good enough reading, he opts instead to just ask. "Is there anything new with you? You haven't run off and gotten married while we weren't looking, right? There's been so much going on lately that it seems almost impossible to keep up with much of anything."