[fic] Merry Christmas
"How do all the lights get like this, Lucky?"
Max's voice calls Lucky away from the end section of the lights which have tangled so much that he cannot find the start or the finish of them. Lucky moves over to where Max is at one section of the lights. He has them between his small hands, trying to untangle them.
He laughs gently before he shakes his head, resting his hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment. "Y'know, I really don't know. I think it's one of those Christmas mysteries, Max."
Max seems to consider this for a moment. His face gains that thoughtful expression that it sometimes does. "Like how Santa fits down a chimney?" He asks without another moment's hesitation.
Lucky nods in response with a small smile on his face. He reaches for the lights again, managing to get some of the lights untangled this time. "It's exactly like that. What a great way to put it, Max. You're a smart guy. We can try for years and years to understand, but some things just are."
It never fails to make him happy being able to hang out with Max. It makes the pain of losing his own sons, easier to deal with. There's less of an empty ache to deal with. It helps to to know that they're alive, his sons. He lost them, but they're with their mother and they're okay. He misses them everyday, but it helps to spend time with Max, to be able to be a father figure to him.
"Do you think we should go check on Aunt Lena?" Max asks as he gets to his feet and walks over to the counter where is tiny, Spiderman cup waits him. It's filled with milk.
He laughs softly, shaking his head. Lena ragequitted at these lights and their tangles. "Not just yet, buddy. We'll go check in on her with some cookies and milk in a little bit, okay? We can't really celebrate without her, huh?"
"No way!" Max declares firmly, raising a fist up as if to emphasize the point before he rushes back to Lucky's side. Together, Lucky works him through getting half the lights untangled, and they lay those out in a line behind Lucky stretching all the way over to the counter on the other side.
Max is playing with them and making sure they're all laid out straight, just like Lucky told him to do. Lucky smiles over at him, nodding at him when Max looks at him with that look kids get sometimes, Am I doing this right? Are you proud of me? It's likely not what they're thinking, but it's what they're asking with their eyes.
"You're doing a great job," he say as he moves up to finish the rest of the sections of lights with care. There's Christmas music playing across the room that they're in. There's always music in Lucky and Lena's apartment, and Christmas is no exception at all. There's no way that it could be.
Lucky and Lena both love this time of the year, love celebrating it, love that they can celebrate it together. Their first official Christmas together in their own apartment.
"How'd you get so good at lights?" Max asks as he watches with wonder a Lucky untangles another section in no time flat.
That makes Lucky pause for a moment, not in a bad way but he does pause and then looks over at Max with a small smile. "I used to live somewhere else, that I can't get back to now. I had two sons there, and we'd unstring the lights all together," he answers. "It made me very good at it."
"Oh."
Max takes this, and he's silent for awhile yet before he walks over to Lucky and wraps his arms around him in a tight, tight hug. Lucky smiles down at him, feeling his throat clench up as he reaches around him and hugs him so tight that he lifts Max right off of the floor. Max buries his face against his side.
"You must miss 'em a lot, huh?"
"Yeah, I do."
"I miss my Dad too." It's said so, so quietly, but Lucky is listening to him. He's got him close, and he's listening to everything that Max says. It's something that someone who is in tune with children knows how to do, knows when they're about to talk about something they really need to talk about.
Lucky swallows thickly before he nods. "I know you do, buddy. I'm sad I never got to meet him. He must have been pretty awesome to make a kid like you," he says very firmly, keeping him close still.
"Yeah, he was great." Max frowns, wiping at his eyes. Maybe he's tired, maybe he's sad. Lucky bets it's a combination of them both. "I don't wanna forget him."
"You know what? You never will," Lucky insists, hugging him tightly. "You've got all these people who knew and loved him too, and they remember him. You can ask them about him so you'll never forget, okay?"
Max nods against his chest.
Lucky picks him up, moving over to a chair and settling him on his lap. "What's one thing that you remember about him?"
"I remember... that he was really funny," Max says with a tiny smile, rubbing at his eyes till. "He made me laugh."
"And I have heard that he loved you very much, and he could eat more food than Mark or John."
"He could?"
Lucky nods, laughing softly. "Yeah, he could."
"What do you... remember about your sons?"
It takes Lucky a moment. It's not because he remembers nothing about them, but it's because it was unexpected. Max is a kid like that though that somehow gets death by being surrounded by it so much. It hurts though. It hurts that this tiny kid who loves so much has lost so much too... and that he's so compassionate already, because he understands as much as any kid could.
"Lets see... Cameron loved to read stories. He reminds me a lot of you in a lot of ways. You're both really nice kids who could grow up to be superheroes," Lucky says with a small smile, but he means it. They're both very perceptive for children. "And... Jake, he loved playing with trucks and he laughed at just about anything."
Max smiles at the answers, and Lucky shoves back the pain in his chest, the empty ache of missing his kids.
"They would have liked you a lot," Lucky say, and Max nods and says in answer, "I woulda liked them too."
Lucky doesn't mention that if he hadn't fallen through, he never would have met Max, Lena, the whole of the Crowbar. He'd still have his sons, but he wouldn't have all these other people that he loves. Lucky can't regret falling through.
He never will regret it.
This is where he belongs as much as he'll always miss the sons that he left behind.
"So, Max, do you think we should go check on Aunt Lena now? We can show her how we fixed almost all the lights," Lucky says as he gets to his feet, letting Max hop down to the ground.
The kid rushes over straight for the container of cookies, picking out ones that he thinks will be Aunt Lena's favorites out of all the ones in the container. Lucky pours a glass of milk for each of them, refilling Max's. Max rushes off ahead of him with the plate in his hand.
"Don't be sad, Aunt Lena! We've got those lights beat!"
Lucky can hear Max proclaim that loudly from his spot in the hallway and when he moves to the doorway, he leans against it, smiling at Lena and Max who has his arms wrapped around her. Warmth and happiness fills him whole as he stands there, leaning against the doorway.
"Get over here, Lucas Lorenzo Spencer."
Max laughs and grins. "Yeah! Lucas Lorenzo!"
And he walks over to them, his family.
And it's Christmas and they're happy.
And it's right.