tensions | Prompt - Christmas

"We really need to stop meeting like this," Josh says wryly, unhooking the strap of his backpack and sitting down opposite Alecto at the very familiar booth in his restaurant. "Or I'm going to have to change your text notification sound to something more ominous one of these days."

He's mostly joking (not least because his phone is basically always on silent). Pretty much all of his conversations with Alecto are very pleasant and enjoyable. But from that first day after they'd unexpectedly met at Marlow's house, they'd also had these check-ins now and again, and - if nothing else - each one forces Josh to think a little bit more deeply about what exactly his relationship with Monty (and by some eventual extension, with the rest of the Quill family, and even Alecto) really means to him.

He can't say he dislikes it. But it does mean he almost always comes out of these meetings with a little more food for thought.

Even after the whirlwind of arranging for holiday coverage at work (he had a lot of goodwill banked from previous years covering for his colleagues), the chaos of travel, and administrivia of his own personal arrangements, it somehow feels incredibly simple to settle back into Monty's space and presence again, even though he'd only stayed for a few days once before.

"Oh no you don't," he says pre-emptively, in a teasing tone, looking up from his book, as Monty wanders by a carefully and elaborately wrapped package that Josh had insisted on carrying through his entire trip and up the stairs. "You have no idea how much effort it took to get that ready and keep it looking nice on the trip. It's not for you anyway."

He bends down to inspect the package and look up at Josh from where he's sitting. "Josh," he says slowly, "I told you, you don't have to bring anything. There's no pressure. I have everything ready. Did you sign the cards?"

Honestly he is curious what's in the box, nervous about its reception later. To say that the Quills took the Christmas holiday seriously was an understatement. Although nowadays, it's mostly been reduced down to the remains of the immediate family, in the past, Monty remembers huge, hundred person potlucks, costume contests, board games that could shatter friendships, and their mother at the piano singing modified carols. Presents were also a big deal, and opened with substantial fanfare. There was no spoken judgement about a poorly selected gift but boy could Monty feel its ramifications for the next full year (he's speaking from experience. Sadly).

"...What's in it, anyway?"

He had indeed signed the cards, and left polite, if somewhat generic, greetings. At least his handwriting is decent. "I just wanted to contribute something. It's nothing big." (The package was actually sizable, but he means this sincerely.)

He really does have to wonder how much of Monty's immediately and automatically taking all the responsibility for this upon himself was due to just... never having established enough familiarity in his previous relationships ahead of the holiday season to be able to do otherwise.

It's not that Monty doesn't trust Josh, it's just that this is new for him. Specifically, he's never really ever brought anyone home more than once and certainly not anything other than casually. It's a new sort of feeling for him to have someone come around as more of a permanent fixture.

But some habits are simply hard to shake.

"You didn't answer the question," Monty observes lightly, going into the bedroom to pick out what he'd be wearing this evening. After a solid 20 or so minutes, he comes back out, his hair done for once in his life, smoothed a bit back, and his face cleanly shaven. He's wearing a dark blue button down, tucked into a tailored pair of slacks and a fine belt, both of which were a previous year's joint gift from Marlow and Alecto (who had handed the package over with a sigh and said, "It's sad looking at such a handsome man dressed like such a careless plebeian," as his brother had only gave him a timid look and a helpless shrug).

Edited 2022-03-08 17:14 (UTC)

He'd picked up a little on Monty's concern and was more or less considering his answer to the question when Monty goes to change and get ready. He shrugs mentally and decides to just get lost a bit in his book until he hears Monty coming out of the bedroom again - he would definitely remember and tell him later, since it seemed important to him, even if Josh had really been looking forward to seeing Monty's face and wondering if he'd remember...

He looks up and blinks, all his original thoughts going blank. He had come prepared to dress up, though he knew he wasn't going to be completely up to the exacting standard that Alecto had warned him about, but he'd assumed...

"Didn't you say your brother Morgan has two kids?" He asks, incredulous and more than a little bit distracted. "Ages five and nine? Something like that?" It takes a great deal of effort to focus on the matter at hand, rather than other thoughts that the sight of a very cleaned-up Montgomery Quill threatened to stir up.

"He does, Tessa and Teddy. It's been a while since I've seen them, since it's not every year Morgan gets them for the holidays," he says, noticing that Josh is staring and he smiles a bit. "Like what you see? You have that distracted look on your face again. It's cute."

He rolls his sleeves up a bit to the elbows as he goes to the kitchen table, taking a last minute inventory of the gifts that had been acquired. "Anyway, why do you ask? About the kids I mean."

"Well, yes, obviously," he says briskly, doing his best to push past Monty's obvious provocation, even though it was very tempting, and he was going to want credit for his self control at a future point.

"I was just. surprised," he answers eventually, after a moment. "In my experience, it's pretty much impossible to keep kids that age happy while also expecting them to remain neat and well-behaved for more than a few minutes at a time, and this is basically an all day thing." And it did not look like Monty was planning to get dirty, considering what he was wearing, all of Josh's less admirable thoughts to the contrary.

Edited 2022-03-08 18:40 (UTC)

He gets what Josh is hinting at and he wonders if he should admit the truth, that he really, doesn't get very much involved with his brother's children. And, it's not that Monty disliked children as a general rule, he really had no concrete opinion on the concept of them, personally, but that he has been lucky to be out of the splash zone at least at home due to a doting Theodore and Marlow (who honestly may just be, at his best, a large child masquerading as a man). He's never really felt the need to have to wrangle them or manage them. Plus, Morgan always seems to dislike having him interact with the kids for too long, though Monty can't for the life of him figure out why. He knows his brother is protective of them but it seems that he's under the impression that Monty would inadvertently impart upon them some traits that Morgan found distasteful ("You know what Teddy said to me the other day while I was on the phone with my ex-wife? He said, Dad maybe you should go do some self-reflection that. To my face. Gee, Monty I wonder where a 9 year old got that sort of lip from?").

...Anyway, long story short, Monty was careful not to intervene too much with his niece and nephew. They sure were adorable though.

"Well, you're right. Because Morgan absolutely does not keep them neat nor well-behaved. Don't be surprised when Alecto offers you a preemptive Advil."

Edited 2022-03-08 19:18 (UTC)

He laughs at that, shaking his head, closing the book and setting it aside, standing up from the couch and stretching his arms up over his head. "I think I'll be all right," he replies, moving past Monty towards the bedroom and his own suitcase. "Do you have a bag packed already? We're staying overnight, aren't we?"

Monty freezes a little. "Uh," he starts, "I don't normally stay overnight. I figured we'd come back here and head back in the morning." He looks at Josh with some confusion. It's clear this has been a habit of his for a while. "Honestly, my brothers are I haven't ever stayed at the house with my Dad after the party. Well, not since we were kids anyway."

"Oh, I see," he says, sounding thoughtful, but not particular suspicious, simply accepting Monty's explanation as truth. He doesn't bother to close the bedroom door as he starts to change - he does forego his more formal attire for a sweater and pack his shirt and slacks into a bag for himself anyway. Just in case.

"It was just that Alecto had mentioned something. Since Morgan's kids would be around this year."

"You and Alecto just constantly swamping family secrets out there?" He teases, watching Josh change. He goes up behind him, puts his arms around his trim waist, kisses his neck. It's chaste, and sweet, no further needs beyond just this tiny, soft moment together.

"I mean, if you'd like we can stay over but I'm warning you, my old twin bed isn't great."

He hums contentedly, unconsciously, leaning back against Monty. "I was kind of looking forward to it," he admits after a moment. "I don't typically do anything for Christmas, or at least, I haven't for the past few years." He smiles up at Monty. "Thank you for including me, regardless."

The house that Joshua had only seen in that one impulsive glimpse on a cloudy autumn morning looks completely different when they arrive early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. It's lit up bright and festive, almost picture perfect, the snow - typical, of course, for Boston, but novel and exciting for Josh, even if he'd lived in less temperate places than California before - looking only a little worse for wear. He thinks he might have actually gasped at the sight.

He has a whole host of questions - some he can guess at the answer to, and some he can't - but he keeps quiet as he helps ferry packages up to the house, including the one he'd prepared. At the front door, he tilts his head, thoughtfully. There's something different - not visually, but teasing at the edges of his senses - and he only makes the connection when the door slams open and he hears: "UNCLE MONTY!!!!!!! Where are my presents!"

Edited 2022-03-08 15:28 (UTC)

Monty laughs deeply as Morgan's two kids fling themselves at him until he has both of them more or less hanging off of his body. "Hey, Tessa, Teddy - look at you, you're getting so tall." He swings the little girl up into his arms and grins at her bizarre, lopsided and uneven pigtails. "Did Daddy do your hair today?"

"Yea!" she says with absolutely no shame, "He's bad at it."

He spares a glance at Josh but it's warm and cheery, just as Tessa yells in Josh's general direction, in a wonderful imitation of her father's booming voice, "Who's that!"

"It's very nice to meet you, Tessa," he says, in a polite, courteous tone, not overly familiar or condescending, apparently unphased by the volume of her voice. "You can call me Josh."

He glances over at Monty, apparently waiting for a cue, but the other child - Teddy, apparently - is watching him with a little more suspicion. "DAD! Uncle Monty is here!" he yells back into the house, but doesn't seem inclined to move away from the door to let them in just yet.

Morgan eventually show up at the door, looking just slightly ruffled and annoyed (so...normal). "Why's everybody yelling?" he yells back. "And do you want to freeze to death out there? Come inside already, jeez. Get in here. And close the door behind you, you're gonna give Dad pneumonia, fuck." He gestures for them to come in as his son immediately says "Daddy said a bad word" to which Morgan groans and says "If I give you 5 dollars, you promise you won't tell Mommy?"

Monty puts his niece, making sure she doesn't slip as he pounces back into the house with her brother, who occasionally throws an uncertain glance back at Josh.

"Don't worry," Monty says, a gentle hand against Josh's back. "I'm sure they'll adore you. Teddy's always just been a little more cautious and to be fair, he's never particularly liked any of my dates. So that's probably on me."

He shakes his head, laughing to himself, though he offers Monty an easy, unruffled smile. "I'm not worried," he says with absolute confidence, shrugging off his coat (temporarily, he thinks to himself) and closing the door behind them before picking up all the carefully wrapped packages. "Where should we put all this? Should we go help out Morgan and your father?"

"Sure. They're probably in the living room, fussing with the tree. Dad's really particular about it so he'll likely keep at it all night. Here," He takes some of the load from the gifts off of Josh. "Let me get these."

Once they're in the house and the presents are set down and hugs have been given, Monty goes immediately to the kitchen for a drink (to which he catches Morgan arching an eyebrow at him disapprovingly. Hypocrite, as if he isn't already three glasses in himself). "Where's Mar?" He asks, making his way into the living room and sitting down to watch the kids chase each other about in some sort of bizarre, ruleless game of tag with their grandfather. Morgan sniffs, "Late. As usual. But he called earlier today and he didn't sound like he was going to hang himself for once so I'm sure he'll show."

"God, Morgan, can you let up on that. He's doing well lately. Give him a little credit."

"Yeah, alright. The next time you text me complaining about having to get him back into rehab, I'll remind you about what you just said."

Monty closes his eyes, seeing Theodore glance at them briefly, knowingly, a silent request. "Can we just try to enjoy ourselves. I really don't want to fight."

Morgan looks away, checks his phone. "Who says we're fighting. Anyway, Marlow better come over soon, or the kids are gonna start ransacking the snack cabinet. He's said he'd cook dinner."

He's listening quietly at the side, in accordance with his usual habit of fading unobtrusively into the background at various gatherings and events for work in the past, but not saying or commenting on anything.

"What time do you all usually have dinner?" He asks thoughtfully, considering the current time. It was still early enough in the afternoon for it to be light out, but only for another hour and a half or so.

Monty turns to him Tessa runs past, nearly knocking her forehead into Josh's shins. "Usually by 7:30." He checks his watch. "But it's fine to eat later. I mean, if Marlow doesn't show up on time we could just order something light for the kids so they don't go feral." Morgan hears this and mutters, "Don't talk about my kids like they're animals," as if he doesn't regularly joke in the same way.

Speaking of, the children rush past again, this time fully grabbing onto Josh's leg, as if begging for him to entertain them. Theodore meanwhile, pats Monty on the shoulder and asks him "Why don't you check in on Marlow for a bit? See if he needs anything," and Monty resigns himself, taking the phone and going to the hallway.

He can't help laughing this time when Tessa approaches him, catching her deftly and tossing her slightly up in the air, making her shriek with delight. He glances to both Theo and Morgan, but both of them simply look relieved not to have to mind them for the moment.

"Is it alright if I take them out for a bit? I think it might be a better use of energy than bouncing off the walls in here. We'll stay in the front yard."

Morgan seems tired and resigned, and whatever his feelings about Joshua, he seems more than happy to have the kids out of his hair. So, with Theo's blessing and assistance, Josh coaxes the children into fetching their outdoor coats, gloves, hats, scarves, and boots, and out into the lingering late-afternoon sunshine.

Edited 2022-03-08 22:50 (UTC)

By the time he finishes the call with Marlow (well, it was Alecto who picked up the phone with an annoyed, "What? We're on the way. Boston traffic is hideous. I hate it here."), he sees that Josh had taken the kids outside. He watches from the window along with Morgan as snowballs are tossed and angels were made on the ground. Next to him, his brother makes a sound like he sucking on his teeth.

"How old did you say this one was?"

"Josh," Monty emphasizes the name, "is a year or two younger than me. It's negligible. And why do you care about age? You and Natalie have practically a decade of a gap."

"Yeah well," Morgan takes a long drink. "This conversation isn't about me. And I didn't mean that as a dig, man, relax. I mean," he points with his glass at the window, "he's just really good with the kids. He's got a, what do you call it, a youthful pizzazz."

"Please never say that again." Monty's laugh is hearty. "Plus, I'm just surprised, I didn't think you liked him very much from the last time you guys met."

"What? I like him fine." Morgan swings an arm around Monty's shoulders and gestures abstractly into the air. "Listen. You hear that?"

"...Hear what?"

"Exactly. Silence." Morgan booms out a laugh. "And I fucking love it. That boy of yours is a hit with the kids, so he's my new favorite person. I don't know how he does it, but based on just the fact that I can actually hear myself think for the first time in 48 hours -"

"Oh, you think now is that right?"

"Monty shut the fuck up." Morgan moves his arm to smack Monty's instead with his hand in a fist. A gentle giant nonetheless. "I'm just saying you brought home a good one for once."

Monty decides not to comment on that and instead looks out to see headlights pulling into the street.

Edited 2022-03-09 00:57 (UTC)

It wasn't that Joshua was especially good with children - or at least, not from his perspective. He was just...genuinely interested in them as people in their own right, and generally had the energy to deal with them for extended periods of time, and could shift his mind off-kilter enough to usually follow along with their general line of thought. Both Teddy and Tessa were therefore well within his scope of expertise (and what they had to say was fascinating), and within a few minutes of being outdoors suggesting new, and being legitimately excited about, snowy activities to 'try out' since it was his first time playing in the snow for 'as long as you've been alive', they were all fast friends.

The running around in the fresh air had done wonders for their volume levels - apparently it wasn't quite as exciting to yell without the dusty echo of a house around them, and Teddy was concentrating on putting the finishing touches on a slightly collapsed wall, apparently intending to launch another offensive against Josh in their on-and-off snowball fight; Tessa was nursing a lopsided lump of snow that had, at some point, looked vaguely like a duck, and was now basically just powder between her damp gloves.

The sound of a car pulling up is a wonderful opportunity, and he motions urgently at the two children, tilting his head in the direction of the vehicle.

"- at Uncle Marlow?!" Tessa is saying excitedly, hopping up and down (destroying the duck) before almost slipping in the snow; he catches her up in his arms before she falls down, shushing her, and she settles comfortably in the cradle of his arms, eyes bright with mischief. Teddy is eyeing the previously cleanly shoveled sidewalk leading up to the front door of the house with the calculation of a seasoned general.

"We can take him," he says gravely, and Josh has to wonder briefly if he'd made a mistake.

"It's already pretty dark, so we'll have to go inside after this," he warns - too little too late, perhaps, as Teddy grabs his hand and pulls him (carrying Tessa) urgently behind the snow barrier he'd been working on. Crouching down behind with him at his urging, Josh notes the impressive cache of already prepared snowballs with mixed feelings. Probably it was a good thing he wasn't flying back with Marlow and Alecto...

"We'll make it count." Teddy salutes him solemnly.

...As expected, it's entirely one-sided. Alecto more or less abandons Marlow to his fate and runs inside, and when there are no snowballs left, both Teddy and Tessa charge at Marlow, knocking him back into what was - luckily - a very thick pile of snow. Marlow looks surprised and a bit bewildered, but gamely lets the children crawl all over him until Joshua offers him a hand up.

"Let's let your uncle get inside, okay?" He says, as though he hadn't partially instigated the attack. "And both of you are going to need to dry off before dinner." The expected complaints start up, and he eyes them both sternly. "Or I'm not going to show you what the 'Tim Tam Slam' is after you finish eating."

Edited 2022-03-09 03:28 (UTC)

Now that Marlow and Alecto have both arrived (and been greeted... enthusiastically), Joshua does his level best to herd the children into the house again with a mix of cajoling, the thrill of the unknown, and bribery. Theo directs him (with a look of relief) to the primary bedroom, where their belongings had been left in anticipation of an overnight stay, sharing the room with their father; the kids are apparently both old enough to wash up and change clothes themselves, and bounce eagerly into the room and bathroom to handle that themselves to some unknown degree. He had intended to leave them to it, but then Tessa yelled for him through the door and made him promise to stay, so he spends a not insignificant interval of time leaning back against the railing of the stairs, wryly contemplating his life.

Tessa emerges first wearing a sparkly blue dress and with her hair - already a bit lopsided - now completely askew. "Josh! This is my Elsa dress!" He makes appropriately impressed sounds and asks, naively: "Do you want me to give you Elsa hair too?"

Her answering scream of delight can probably be heard outside, and Joshua's eardrums would likely never recover.

So when Teddy emerges wearing his own clothes for the evening and frowning at the clip-on bowtie that went with his suit, it's to see Josh sitting at the top of the stairs with Tessa settled on the step beneath him while he deftly sorts her hair into separate strands, bringing them together into the aforementioned braid, close to her head at the top, and then gently tighter, little by little, until she can look down and see the bright pink hairtie she'd selected when putting her outfit on, holding the ends of her braid together over her shoulder. She's off like a shot down the stairs, leaving Josh looking at a blank space bemusedly.

"I guess we should head down," he observes to Teddy, who nods with unasked for solemnity.

Edited (<i>[[At some point presumably Alecto and Marlow finally show up and they have a conversation about sleeping arrangements]]</i>) 2022-03-09 06:08 (UTC)

The evening proceeds with a sense of careful warmth, enough that Josh hadn't quite realized he'd missed these kinds of seasonal gatherings in the years since he'd moved farther and farther away from all his surrogate families; not all at once, and never for any reason, just the natural current of life and change proceeding along expected lines.

While Christmas with the Quill family was clearly still fraught in many ways - he truly appreciates now, more than before, what Alecto had meant - in this room and space he can really see that past all those difficulties, at the heart of things, they valued each other and the process of being together, whatever ghosts might drift between them.

It's getting much later in the evening now, and Morgan had - mostly successfully - turned off screens and soothed sparking tempers from the alarming level of volume and emotional investment in competitive board games. Tessa and Teddy weren't quite running around anymore, but were still far too keyed up to just fall asleep, even curled in front of the crackling fire, shoving at each other for more space on the rug. He knows Christmas is a tradition for all the Quills, but he doesn't think they quite know how to navigate this, the presence of the children stifling tempers, perhaps papering over old hurts, but without knowing how else to handle things without the softening guiding influences that used to be there.

Joshua wasn't too bad at it though.

He reaches out for Monty's hand, stroking the back of it, and tilts his head towards the shape of the piano, clearly lovingly maintained, but uncovered today and clad in the trappings of the holiday. "Do you play?" He asks softly, cautious of old hurts.

Edited ([[Wrapping up for the night and putting the kids to sleep! GOOD LUCK]]) 2022-03-11 17:22 (UTC)

[[Placeholder: Whatever the sleeping arrangements end up being, a whispered DTR]]

They opted to stay at the house after all. And in his old room, to boot, combining the two twin beds to make a slightly larger surface to sleep on. It wasn't comfortable, but it was enough for now. Monty notices that since last time, the room has been significantly cleaned up. He wonders if it was his brother's doing (which is amusing, thinking of how Morgan would have tidied it with extreme displeasure) or his Dad's. Either way as he gets into the bed, the moon looming down upon them through the skylight window, Monty groans a bit. This was gonna be rough on his back.

"You know, I haven't slept in this room since I was 18."

He shifts on the bed - carefully, so he doesn't fall off - turning over onto his stomach on top of the blankets so he can prop his head up on his hands and grin at Monty, his feet kicked up in the air in an imitation of every teenaged girl on a sleepover in popular media.

"It definitely looked like that when we were here last," he says, with a mix of curiosity and amusement; he knows where that particular segment of the conversation could go, but at the moment, he's open to keeping things as lighthearted as possible.

"Who do you think did the cleaning?"

He snorts a little at Josh’s posturing. He’s trying to settle himself but it’s comical how he’s obviously too tall for this bed frame.

“I would say, seeing how things are actually organized, it would be my Dad. Or maybe he came in looking for something. That man can’t leave a mess if he tried so the tidying may have just been a secondhand thought and unintentional.”

He leans down, closes his eyes a bit. Suddenly, apropos of nothing, “It was really sweet how you were with Morgan’s kids.”

"Hm?" He makes an inquisitive noise, barely an answer, as he turns over onto his back and burrows under the covers, making no attempt to avoid pressing up against Monty in the meantime.

"They're both really great," he says with a smile. "Definitely a handful though." He sighs deeply, though it is a contented sound, rather than a tired or exasperated one. "Though two is still pretty manageable, I guess. Once you get past five, things get a little more... Hm." He cuts himself off with a laugh this time, the side of his face pressed against the pillow as he looks at Monty in the light of the moon streaming in through the skylight.

He clicks his tongue at that. “I’d say, I draw the line at three, max. Five would run us into the ground.”

He doesn’t entirely realize how he’s phrasing it, though the idea of an “us” sounds so ideal to him especially in this minor daydream. He really doesn’t mean anything by it but looking at Josh, and gently brushing a hand through his hair, kissed by moonlight, Monty has no issue imagining for a little longer.

He snorts, the inelegant sound in contrast to the way his eyelids flutter shut a little bit under the gentle stroking of Monty's fingers through his hair.

"Even with just three, to be honest. People aren't meant to raise children entirely in isolation."

His eyes open, his gaze soft as he looks at Monty. "Have you thought about it a lot?" He's not sure if he means the abstract thought of raising children in general or the - perhaps - more concrete notion of raising a family with...someone in particular.

He’s not sure how to answer and it shows on his face. From the way Josh is choosing his words, Monty can surmise he asking about something beyond that. So, he clarifies.

“About having kids? Not really. But,” he looks directly at Josh now, the both of them on their sides. “I guess recently it’s been more relevant.”

He nods, though he looks - not wary, but tentative. In all honesty, he had been anticipating this conversation, and he thinks it's an important one to have. But...

"The holidays do tend to do that," he says lightly, but his expression is sincere and thoughtful.

“Not usually for me,” he replies. “The holidays have mostly been just a blur. But this year it’s been…well, so far, pretty memorable.”

And maybe it’s the alcohol or the warmth of the fire or the way Josh was with his family all night filling Monty’s chest up with adoration every time he looked his way —

For once Montgomery Quill feels like he doesn’t know the right words to say.

Joshua watches Monty, and - well, maybe he understands. He hopes he does, at any rate, or things were going to get incredibly uncomfortable. But given every single interaction he's had with people familiar with Monty over the last 6 months or so, he thinks - knows - he doesn't have the luxury of just waiting for certainty.

So perhaps it would be better to just. Say it.

"I...really hope this doesn't come as a surprise to you." He starts - not an auspicious beginning, but in this particular instance, he really doesn't want to second guess or dance around the issue, considering his words carefully or forecasting their impact first. If this wasn't what he thought it was, better to know now.

He's recovered from a broken heart before.

"You are - and this is -" he gestures vaguely to the limited space between them, unable to come up with all the right words, "- very special to me. I really love being with you, getting to know you, spending time with you. I find myself always wanting more of all of those things, whatever that ends up being, looking for ways to do so whenever and however I can."

He takes a deep breath, half waiting for an interruption, watching Monty closely.

Monty's heart clenches a little and he's not sure exactly why. It is excitement? Fear? It's not like he hasn't experienced similar confessions before. In fact, he's had plenty. Some of them were simple, some were dramatic gestures. And for each of them, he's always felt the same - a sort of dread.

But this time...something feels different.

So he decides to pursue it a little for once. "...Me too," he says, hand coming down to cup Josh's face, thumbing his cheekbone. He ventures, "...but?"

He can't help it - he leans into Monty's hand, the touch, taking immediate pleasure and comfort in the physical connection between them, however slight.

"I know there are things in your past that... you aren't ready for me to see or touch. Maybe you never will. That you've already shown more - shared more - of yourself with me than -" he pauses, considers the conditions of his wording - "you have for some time. I -" he stops again, knowing that the words are utterly inadequate for the depth and breadth of his feelings about this, "I really appreciate that. I'm... honored, in all honesty, that you trust me enough to do so, to the extent that you have."

"And I want that," he says, slow, considered, steady. "I really, really do. To continue to learn more of you, to share more of myself, to be good for each other, to see what that 'us' might become, in the future."

"But..." He reaches up for Monty's hand, twining their fingers together to rest on the bed between their heads. "Only if that's something you think you could come to want. That you would be willing to work towards."

He listens, and right before Josh finishes his last sentence, Monty leans forward, kissing him deeply, inhaling in those final words. This moment, he tries to convey all that he's feeling, however complex, however difficult, through this intimacy of touch. He knows it isn't enough, but it's a start.

"Then let's be good for each other," he murmurs, solidly conveying his willingness to try if anything else. "I'd like that."

Monty is uncertain if he's able to promise anything further now, but he squeezes Josh's hand in his, a quiet commitment.

He leans in immediately, returning the kiss. This had always been so easy (almost too easy) between them - this falling into each other so naturally that it feels almost unreal - the undeniable physical chemistry between them apparent even on the same day they'd initially met by chance.

He's a little breathless when they part, barely moving, their faces still close, their hands linked between them serving as a bridge over the span of space between them. "Okay," he says, words utterly failing him for the moment as he looks at Monty, moonlight softening the already unfairly attractive lines of his face, and leans in for another kiss.

Prompt - Christmas

[Preparing for the holidays] - Don't say I didn't warn you - Alecto, Josh, ??

[Just before the holidays] - all the lights are shining - Monty, Josh

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[Getting to know you] - and the sound of children's laughter - + Morgan, Theo, Teresa, Thaddeus

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[Late arrivals] - been hoping that you'd drop in - + Alecto, Marlow

[Time for bed] - whisper what you'll bring to me - Teresa, Thaddeus, and their uncles

[Getting ready for bed] - well maybe just a half a drink more - Monty, Josh

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