For kaitlia777
“I don’t know why we have to get the stupid tree,” Parker complained, kicking up snow with her foot as they wandered through the tree farm.
Eliot sized up a small blue spruce. “Because Nate’s got it in his head that he can get Sophie to come home for Christmas.”
“Well what does that have to do with us? If he wants it, he should get the tree.” Parker sniffed, crossing her arms irritably.
“Hey. I thought you wanted Sophie home.” He moved around a cedar, frowning at several dead branches.
“I do. But who cares about Christmas?”
Eliot’s eyebrows shot up. “I figured you would be the type to leave cookies out for Santa or something.”
Shrugging, Parker looked away. “I never really celebrated it.”
“Never?” He supposed it shouldn’t surprise him. This was Parker after all, when had she ever made sense?
“Nope. Never.”
A small Parker plugged two cords together, excitement on her face as she expected the lights she had haphazardly thrown on a tree to come on. A blast shook the house instead and when the smoke cleared all that was left of her little Charlie Brown Christmas tree was a charred trunk and some blackened pine needles.
“Okay, once. But it wasn’t successful.”
“So you mean you’ve never gone hunting for a Christmas tree or made gingerbread cookies or-” Eliot paused, grinding his teeth against a blush. “Never?”
Parker raised an eyebrow. “I take it you have.”
“Yeah. I mean-back in Kentucky. Aimee, you know, she never missed an opportunity to throw a party. She’s really a girl under all that tough exterior,” Eliot admitted ruefully, shrugging a shoulder as he turned away from her.
Parker followed him, frowning in annoyance. “So, what, because I don’t like Christmas, I’m not a girl? I’ve got everything else that makes me a girl.”
Flushing at the implication, Eliot ran a hand over his face. “What do you mean, you don’t like Christmas? That’s just crazy.”
“That’s what you keep telling me. What about this one?” Parker pointed to a scrawny tree that couldn’t have been much higher than his shoulder.
“This one? Really, Parker? Who taught you how to pick out a Christmas tree, Charles Schultz?” Eliot rolled his eyes, walking right passed the little tree. “Besides, what’s not to like about Christmas? People give you free stuff. Sounds right up your alley to me.”
“If you don’t get to steal it, what’s the point?” Parker stared longingly over her shoulder at the pathetic tree but followed him anyway.
---
Eliot handed her a box of cookie cutters. “Here. I, uh, dug them out of a box in one of my attics,” he said, looking away sheepishly, so grateful Hardison wasn’t there to see this.
“What are they?” Parker inspected the items warily. “Little… torture devices?”
Eliot yanked the box back indignantly and set them on the counter. “They’re cookie cutters, Parker. Not everything I do involves blood, you know,” he snarled.
Parker leaned on the counter beside him, resting her chin in her hand. “So what do you do with them?”
“You cut out cookies, what do you think?” Eliot shook his head, pulling open the fridge and retrieving a package wrapped in seran. “Gingerbread cookies.” He set the dough on the counter and carefully unwrapped it.
“So, what? You’re educating me on Christmas?” Parker stared at him with that heavy, unblinking stare that always unnerved him.
Eliot debated on whether to give her the cutters, the rolling pin or the flour, not sure he liked the idea of any of them. Finally, he handed her the flour. “Don’t get it everywhere,” he growled, ignoring her question.
“What do I do with it?” He showed her how to take the flour between her fingers to sprinkle it on the countertop, his hand wrapped around hers.
“Now put some on your hands, like this,” Eliot murmured in her ear, dusting her hands with flour and patting them together. “And on the rolling pin.”
He handed the floured pin to her and patted half of the dough down. “Then you roll it out, just like this.” Standing behind her, he placed her hands on the two handles and guided her back and forth over the dough. He probably could have stepped back long before he did (Parker was always a fast learner) but she felt so sweet and warm in his arms and her hair smelled like jasmine.
“I got it, Eliot,” she said suddenly, elbowing him out of the way. He stepped back, quickly hiding the dazed look on his face and shook his head to clear it.
“You want trees, snowmen, or reindeer?” Eliot asked, pausing between words to hold up each cookie cutter.
Parker glanced over into the box, oblivious to his sudden surliness. “That one.” She pointed to a bright pink bunny head.
“That’s a rabbit, Parker.” Eliot shook his head slightly, changing his mind on arguing with her. “Fine. We’ll have Christmas Easter bunnies.”
---
It wasn’t until Christmas morning that Parker finally appreciated Eliot’s attempts to draw her into the Christmas spirit. Even she was in bed, asleep, at two a.m., though any visions dancing in her head were most likely not of sugarplums. Twinkling lights slowly pulled her out of her dreams and from her mattress on the floor. She stood, rubbing sleep out of her eyes as she wandered to the window to see what was going on.
A very Charlie Brown Christmas tree dangled from one of her pulley systems from the roof of her apartment building outside her window. It sat on a plank of wood and strands of colored lights were wrapped haphazardly around it and up the wires to a plug somewhere on the roof, she supposed. Eliot never quite copped to the little Christmas miracle - nor how he managed to steal one of her systems without her knowledge - but she appreciated it more than she would ever have admitted to his face or anyone else’s.