Words Associated With Christmas

{ mine }

 

Happy holidays to every single one
of my wonderful readers!

Charles/Erik, professor AU
Fluff, Christmas
Trigger warning: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Written for: a novel writing competition)

{ soft socks }

Erik found a pair of disturbingly red and clumsily knitted socks on his table. He grimaced at them. Putting all his brain cells to use, he tried to figure out what to do with them. He was a smart man, intelligent, as would be expected from a professor after all but it seemed like this question eluded him. It definitely looked like a gift. What is one supposed to do with a gift?

He scanned the room with suspicion. It was empty. Except for the Physics teacher bent over his desk in the corner, of course, who was, seemingly, sitting there non-stop, and seemingly had been removed from contact with the outside world completely. In his most boring moments Erik came to wonder if the man actually attended his own lectures, and if so, how could he possibly get back before everyone else.

He glanced down at the pair of ugly socks. (Which, he had to admit, was a kind gesture, by the way. He admitted. But what was he supposed to do with it; besides, it was only the beginning of December so it was going to continue. Yay.) He was starting to feel the socks staring back at him.

“Oh, don’t judge,” he murmured as he threw himself into his chair. Grabbing the gift (it was soft), he was going to sweep it in the drawer but stopped mid-motion. The socks gave a rattling sound. He frowned and pulled out the thing from inside the knitted joke. As it turned out, it was a small sheet of paper, folded in two.

Dear Erik, the series of Advent gifts has hereby started. I will try to gather memories that are precious to me, in the hopes that they will prove to be interesting to you as well. Here, the first one, this is the most obvious Christmas object for me. My niece knitted this particular one because she got excited by my idea. She wishes you a merry Christmas too.

He frowned even more. He was not excited by the idea. And whose niece?

He attempted to scan his brain for the memory of his last gift ‒ he found it under thick layers of spiderwebs, long torments of the orphanage and the funeral of his parents. The picture was vague and timid, it faded quickly but he was sure of one thing: all of his gifts were sparse.

Since then, he hadn’t had a person in his life he could have learned to appreciate this kind of caring from. So Erik terminated the motion: along with the letter, he made the socks slip into his drawer, and shut it with an emotionless face; like a definite, sentence-ending period.

{ snowflake }

After a surprisingly tiring lecture, he escaped back to the teacher’s room. Beside a pile of messily scribbled lesson plans was sitting a little snow globe. He lifted it hesitantly. There was a white house behind the glass, a chubby Santa was trying to stuff himself into its chimney; its base was made of metal, and the usual Made in China line was engraved on it. Underneath the globe, on the table, a note was waiting.

Dear Erik, my parents used to try to convince me of Santa’s existence with great perseverance. I guess I’m not alone with that. At one point, they mentioned that, as opposed to popular belief, Santa does not come through the chimney, he’s too obese to be able to fit through such a narrow hole ‒ no, he happily waltzes in through the entrance door. After this, I think I might have been the child to believe in Santa for the longest time in my school. I learned from my parents later on that this is the most efficient way to lie: highlight the most realistic parts. Of course, I don’t lie ‒ but it is good to know, isn’t it?

While dropping the paper into the drawer, he couldn’t help but smile. After careful consideration, he left the snow globe on his poorly decorated desk. (To be entirely correct, there were no personal objects on it.)

He turned around. In the corner, the physician was brooding in his usual position, or whatever it was he was doing all day, the woman who taught Philosophy shot a delicate smile in his direction, and on her right ‒ the empty chair of the Genetics professor was gaping sadly ‒ (doesn’t matter, it’s not from that professor, can’t be) ‒ so on her right the Law teacher, who had multiple workplaces, was packing his stuff hurriedly.

He didn’t speak more than ten words a day with most of his colleagues, and he wasn’t friendly enough with anyone, no one could have wanted to give presents to him.

He sighed. He didn’t get closer to the solution.

{ gold }

A bouquet of painted-gold pine tree branches decorated his desk. On the small piece of paper was only a brief line: your table looked sad.

{ orange & candle }

He smelled it, lighted it, and due to a colleague’s warning look, put it out. He left it on his desk. He will take it home.

Dear Erik, for me, Christmas is the time of orange, orange is the time of Christmas; every December, our home would sop up the scent of orange, thanks to my mother: fresh orange juice in the mornings, tight lines of orange peels on the heating units, the big wooden bowl on the middle of the table always filled with oranges. And the tangerine ‒ small orange; although we liked it, it didn’t get much attention at our house. Have you tried it with walnuts? I can’t recommend it enough.

{ vanilla tea }

One week left until the beginning of winter break. After his usual, lonely weekend, Erik arrived at the campus refreshed. He was almost curious about finding a gift on his table; then he proceeded to convince himself there was not going to be a gift waiting for him this early in the morning. There was. He grabbed the letter eagerly.

Dear Erik, I would like to surprise you with this box of vanilla tea this time ‒ it became a huge favorite for me. I know you were born in Germany, however, as I haven’t been there yet, I can only offer you a souvenir from Vienna. I have visited the city once where I happened to get lost, and I had the pleasure of stumbling into the Naschmarkt. I found this great little tea stand where I purchased a few kinds, and from all of them, I liked the vanilla flavour most ‒ and most importantly, this is the one that reminds me of the Christmas spirit, so from then on, it turned into a habit for me to drink vanilla tea all through December. I hope it will be of your liking as well.

Erik’s heart filled with warmth. He grabbed the box and went into the little teacher’s kitchen. He boiled water. Picked up a random mug. Sipped the tea curiously. He discovered with satisfaction that it did, in fact, have some kind of festive taste. Then he also discovered a silver-patterned mug on the countertop which contained liquid of similar color. With excitement, he leaned over and smelled the drink. Scent of vanilla. His face lit up with victory, and he rushed to the teacher’s room, grabbing the mug.

“Whose is this?”

The professor of Philosophy squinted. “Jean’s. I think.”

Erik backed out, placed the mug where it belonged, and took his own in his hands, going for a quest with it to find the Psychology teacher. He roamed through the whole building when he finally located her in the yard. The woman with red hair and an overall stern look was leaning against the wall, smoking.

“Jean?”

“Erik.”

“I didn’t imagine you as the sentimental type.”

Jean was staring at him with confusion. “I am not.”

“…you sent me gifts, right?”

Jean was staring at him with more confusion. “I did not.”

Now Erik, too, was staring with confusion. “But your mug had vanilla tea in it…”

“Yup,” said Jean. Talkative was her middle name.

Erik didn’t know how to form a question from the bubble of question marks in his head. He tried nonetheless. “Where is the tea from?”

“I got it.”

“Yes, from who?”

“The Genetics professor insisted.”

Warmth crept into Erik’s heart. The Genetics professor.

{ acceptance; love }

He was watching the professor from the end of the hallway; he was trying to convince myself, his heart especially, that these presents didn’t mean anything. It was impossible for him to imagine that this wonderful‒ Erik didn’t have problems with his self-esteem, make no mistake, he was perfectly aware of how handsome he was, and that his level of intelligence was also a positive trait; the problem started with the aforementioned professor being one of the most likeable, most caring person he had ever met ‒ and Erik was far from all that.

He shook his head and walked the other way.

At the end of the day, he was plodding out of the building, deciding that he had missed his last chance. In the parking lot, however, in the trunk of the car next to his, the professor of Genetics was waiting. Erik smiled and walked over there.

“Hi.”

“Well hello.”

Erik’s lips turned into a teasing grin. “Are you waiting for me?”

“I didn’t want to leave for the winter break until I said goodbye to everyone.”

(Nice, too nice.)

“I hear you’ve traced back the leads to me,” said the professor, and Erik nodded. “See, my undercover assets know everything…”

Erik laughed. “You didn’t make my job easy.”

“I did not intend to.”

An unwelcome silence brazenly crept around them so Erik asked the first question he could think of: “Home for the holidays?” Well, that was an undoubtedly stupid question, he congratulated himself.

“Yes. I still have a great amount of preparation to do at home to create the true Christmas spirit. Every year, I spend this time with friends, and they all have very specific ideas of decoration.”

“That’s good, that’s good.”

“How are you going to spend the break?”

“Reading essays, probably.” He saw pity on the face of the professor ‒ or was it compassion? ‒, and Erik started his next sentence with a self-respecting throat-clearing. “Look, thanks for the presents.”

The professor downright glowed up. Then blushed. “Oh, you’re very welcome.”

“It’s just that‒ I don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m Jewish.”

“Hmm,” the professor chuckled. “I know. That was the plan. I thought that this way you’d want to try to find me anyway.”

Erik raised an eyebrow, then admitted: “Cunning.” After a few moments, he clarified: “But I’m keeping them.”

“Nice of you.”

(No-not nice.)

“They are from you, after all.”

Erik looked down, Charles’ eyes (sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes / or Cytherea’s breath) were glistening ‒ and Erik curled his fingers under the man’s chin, pushed his lips against the man’s, and he drank, drank what he thought he couldn’t ever get ‒ or get enough of ‒, and he still wasn’t sure, but he thought, he felt, ‒ he was happy.

“Would you like to,” Charles panted, and he could only say so much with one breath.

(Yes, anything.)

He started again: “Would you like to spend Christmas with me and my friends instead of the essays?”

“As an outside observer,” Erik affirmed.

“Yes. If you want, I’ll light candles for you.”

“Alright.”