~ Chapter 39: Celebrate a last Christmas. ~

(A/N: I know Christmas ended just a little while ago but I wrote this around hristmas and since a lot of you guys, including myself, are back to school/Uni, I thought it'd be nice to have a little Christmas spirit today haha! I hope you'll like it! :)

Songs for this chapter: Well, basically, every Christmas song you can think of if you're not sick of them yet, including Merry Christmas Everyone because that's the one I listened to the most!)

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        Mathew arrived before Jenny and Seth, in a plane coming from another State. When Damon spotted him, I could see he was really happy to see his friend again and they did that manly thing when they hit each other in the back while sort-of hugging, which made me laugh. He hugged me too then we sat on a bench at the airport to wait for Jenny and Seth’s plane to land. I hoped they had patched things up, I didn’t want them to arrive in the middle of a feud. Even though at first I hadn’t been all encouraging of this relation ship, I realized now that I really didn’t mind and that I was happy for them. They were a lot like each other so maybe they were perfect together. They were so weird, maybe two weird cancel one.

“How do you put up with him?” Mathew asked me, when Damon was teasing him.

“I don’t know, we just have amazing sex so that’s pretty much all I’m here for.”

They laughed and Damon punched me in the arm playfully. They talked about his exams and the girl who had broken his heart a few weeks ago, then I saw that Jenny and Seth’s plane had finally landed so we went over to the welcoming  part of the airport, where a lot of people had signs with names on them. We spotted them walking with three suitcases (Seth was carrying two and Jenny a pink one I guessed Seth insisted on not carrying himself. He could be a baby sometimes.) I waved at them and Jenny rushed to hug me.

“I missed you!” She said, still hugging me.

“Me too!”

She said hi to Damon and hugged him, after Seth had fist-bumped him. I was about to ask her if Seth and her were on good terms but then she took his hand and kissed him so I guessed it was fine between them. She chitchatted with Mathew too, and then we all embarked in the taxi that took us to the chalets and the ski station.

“I can’t believe we’re celebrating an extra Christmas, it’s so awesome!” Seth exclaimed. “But I have to warn you, I didn’t have a lot of time to buy presents so don’t expect anything good.”

“Don’t worry about that, even when you have all year you still wait for the last minute.” I answered. “You gave me a brush one time!”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t know what you needed and you were in your ‘I’m too old for Barbie now phase’!”

I laughed. I was pretty crappy at presents too sometimes so I didn’t hold it against him. I hopped Damon would like this one though. We arrived pretty quickly and Damon had already bought ski passes for all of us so we headed to the ski store to rent skis for Mathew, Seth and Jenny then headed for the slopes. It was unreal but Jenny looked really awesome in a ski suit. Ugh, I hated her sometimes! Everyone looked ridiculous but her! How did she do it!?

We started slow with an easy slope, then went on another ski lift. Mathew was really good at skiing and he explained he had been going since he was five every year with his parents. Seth was a little better than me and Jenny was pretty good too so we were able to get down pretty fast. It was all fine and amazing and fun until Damon stopped dead in his tracks and fell for what seemed like it was on purpose. I rushed to him, as did everyone else. He was grabbing his head by the sides with his gloves full of cold snow and I knew he wanted to scream just then but kept from doing so because we were in the middle of a slope and he hated the attention. I took off my skis and kneeled next to him.

“Damon, are you ok?”

Why was I always asking this stupid question?! Of course he wasn’t ok, he was in a hell of a lot of pain and trying to contain it!

“I have your pills, wait a second.” I took off my gloves and searched in my pocket for the little orange bottle. Jenny got the water from her bag pack and we gave his drugs to Damon who swallowed them painfully.

“What’s happening?” Seth asked, joining us. “Are you ok man?”

Damon didn’t answer and shut his eyes, trying to concentrate. I knew he always did that when he was trying to make the pain go away and to keep himself from screaming and crying.

“It’s alright Seth, just go down and wait for us there.” I said.

I knew Damon didn’t want an audience. He barely even wanted me there so he certainly didn’t need Seth or Jenny watch him when he was at his worst.

“Go guys, I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure you don’t need us?”

“No! Go!” I insisted.

“Ok… We’ll wait for you by the lift.”

Mathew took off with them and I sat next to Damon, taking his hand that didn’t have a glove in mine to try to warm it. Some people passing us by asked if we needed them to call someone, they probably thought he had broken an ankle or a leg, but I said no and sent them away nicely.

It took him about thirty minutes to finally let out a sigh and open his eyes. Some tears escaped that he wiped away quickly.

“Are you feeling better?” I inquired, still holding his hand.

They were both freezing cold now but I couldn’t have cared less.

“Yes. Thank you. For staying and for sending everyone away. I really didn’t want them to see this.”

“No problem. And you shouldn’t be ashamed or whatever, you have a disease it’s not like you can control it! Besides... I think we should tell Seth.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it but I just can’t bring myself to tell him. He’s my little bro, you know, I don’t know how to say it. And he will get mad at me for not telling him sooner.”

“I could tell him for you, if you want. And I love that you call him your little bro.”

He smiled. We were still sitting on the side of the slope but we didn’t really care anyway.

“I can’t put that responsibility on you. I’ll talk to him tomorrow after Christmas. I don’t want to ruin the mood.”

“Ok.” I dusted the snow out of my head and took some snowflakes from Damon’s. “We should probably go back down now. Are you feeling ok to ski or should we call someone?”

“No, I’m fine now. It’s alright.”

“Ok.”

“I’m sorry you had to get freezing cold by staying with me.”

“Don’t apologize. I got to stare at your sexy face for thirty minutes without you making any comment on how I can’t resist you.”

“Which is totally true.”

“Obviously.”

He smiled and kissed me lightly.

“I love you.”

He got up first then offered me his hand to help me get on my feet too. They hurt a lot by the way because of those damn ski shoes but I ignored it and got back on my skis. We slid down the slope and saw Seth, Mathew and Jenny in a snowball fight down by the lift. I stopped Damon before they could see us and gathered some snow in my hand to form a ball. He smiled and did the same thing and we joined them, passing behind the lift so they wouldn’t see us. When we got down, we threw our balls in the back of their heads and they turned around, surprised.

“Oh no you didn’t!” Seth exclaimed, moving his hand like a diva.

We all laughed and he quickly bent down to get snow to throw back at us. And so we joined the snowball fight. Fifteen minutes later when we were all wet from the melting snow and cold because Seth kept putting it in our suits so it would get on our skin and freeze us, we all lay down to catch our breath.

“You’re ok?” Seth asked Damon.

“Yes, it was just a headache, don’t worry.” He lied.

“Should we take the lift again before going back home?” Mathew inquired. “It only closes in thirty minutes.”

We were all a little tired but still got up back on our skis and took the lift again. We sang the whole way up and saw some people raising their heads from the slopes to try to see where the “music” came from. Then we slid down the slopes once more and got back home to prepare our early Christmas. Jenny made hot chocolate for everybody and we drank it before going to the little supermarket to buy our dinner.

By eight pm, we were all around the table with chicken in the middle of it and potatoes we could eat with it. Everything was making us feel Christmassy, especially now that it was snowing and that Merry Christmas Everyone was playing in the background. Jenny had even thought about bringing us Santa hats that we had put on. The presents were all under the improvised tree (Jenny and Seth drew one on a big piece of paper and stuck it to a wall. This was the best we could do in such little time). I felt so good for a moment, surrounded by my best friend, my brother, the love of my life and his own best friend.

“Picture time!” I exclaimed.

So we took some selfies to remember this extra Christmas and Jenny posted some online while Seth sent some by Snapchat. It struck me that I hadn’t called my parents in a while. I really needed to or they would worry. After eating our Christmas dinner, we went to pick up the cake I had bought at the bakery. It wasn’t exactly a Yule log but it was close enough and with chocolate so it sounded pretty good to me. It actually tasted very good too.

The mood was so light and carefree, it was just perfect. Jenny and Seth were really cute together and Damon would sometimes take my hand under the table, and I would search for his, just to feel his touch and warmth and if I had to take a picture of the most perfect time with my friends and boyfriend/husband in my heart, this would have been it. I knew Damon was especially happy to see Mathew again. He had told me once he was afraid he wouldn’t get to before it’d be too late or he would have to have him visit him at the hospital while he was just waiting for the fatal hour, which wouldn’t be a happy time at all. This wasn’t it and he was able to just laugh with him about anything and they were teasing each other with ease, which I guessed wouldn’t have happened if Damon had been on a hospital bed.

“Come on, I want to open the presents!” Jenny exclaimed, getting up.

I had bought the presents for Jenny, Seth and Mathew just before going to the airport to pick them up. We had all agreed to buy only non-expensive stuff, that it was just for the gesture and a cupcake would do the trick. We went to pick up our presents under the “tree” and sat back around the table.

“Ok, Mathew, you start.” Damon said. “And then we’ll do it clockwise.”

Mathew tear up his first present, one from Seth and Jenny. Mackelmore’s CD. He smiled and thanked them then opened his other presents. The next one was from Damon. This was actually a two-part present. He opened the first one that looked like a little box. Then he laughed.

“What the hell?”

Jenny snatched the packet from his hands and laughed.

“Why would you buy your best friend peppermint flavored condoms?” Jenny asked, frowning her nose. “They do not sound tasty at all.”

“It’s because of the one time I made you eat peppermint and you almost chocked on it, right?” Mathew smiled.

“You little fucker.”

He grinned and then opened the other present. It was bigger. Mathew unwrapped the present and laughed again.

“Ok so this is not exactly a gift for you, more like one for your girlfriend, but you’ll thank me later.” Damon explained.

In the box, there was a sexy nurse outfit, so sexy it looked like it was coming out of a porn magazine with the girl on the packet wearing it.

“It’s always been his one of his weird fantasies so I wanted to do a good deed and give him a way to make it happen.”

“We did not need to know that.” Seth pointed out.

We laughed. It was now Jenny’s turn to open her gifts. A sweater that looked very expensive from Damon, a portable charger for Iphone from Mathew (Jenny had complained about her phone battery at Damon’s birthday dinner and had threatened to throw it out in an excess of anger, I guess it had been remembered by Mathew). Seth said he would give her her present in private so either it was something too dirty for us to unpack at a dining table, or it was something else that I did not want to imagine. She unwrapped my present last. It was a snow globe with a picture of Jenny and me sticking our tongues out and laughing and little heart snowflakes were falling when you shook the snow globe.

“It’s so beautiful!” She exclaimed! “I was wondering why you wanted me to bring a photo of you and me!”

I smiled. Seth unwrapped his presents next (Jenny also had something to give him in private. These two were really made for each other, weren’t they?) and finally it was Damon’s turn to get his gifts.

“I’ll go bring out yours. Matt, can you help me?”

He followed me in the bedroom and I took the map out of under the bed. I had stuck the pictures earlier while everyone was still asleep and I hoped they were still in place and not too rumpled. We brought the map in the living room and unfolded it on the table Jenny had cleared for us.

“This is a little weird.” I warned.

Damon bended over the table to look at it, as did everyone else. On France, I had stuck a picture of Damon and me on the boat and a little one in front of the Eiffel Tower (I didn’t want this one in big because it looked a little bit too cliché for me and the one where we were eating on the boat with our eyes full of love seemed much better to me.), then one on the beach in Hawaii, one in the Reunion Island, many along the USA with one specifically placed where Norwood was, and another where we had passed the auditions for the X Factor. Basically, it retraced every place we had visited for the Bucket List, with so many wonderful memories.

“Woah, Leah that’s…” Damon started, his fingers almost brushing on the photo of him and me kissing but not touching it, and then laughing when he saw our fairy and gorilla costume from when we had made an utter and complete fool of ourselves. “I love it so much, thank you.”

He wrapped me in his arms and kissed me, brushing his lips against mine slowly then in such a passionate way I thought I was going to melt right here, right there. And I completely forgot we had an audience, and one that included my brother.

“Guys! This is the private part of the gift! Stick to the thank you please!” Seth interrupted us.

I rolled my eyes at him, breaking our kiss very reluctantly. He opened his other gifts, then it was my turn. I opened Seth’s first. It was a Barbie doll but he had stuck a picture of me on her face and had dressed her with Peter Pan pajamas and there was a mini computer that was stuck to her hand and a pen in the other. I laughed. This was so me.

“The computer isn’t just because you’re kind of a series geek, but it’s also because you like to write and everything… Hence the pen also.” Seth explained.

“I love it, thank you!”

I hugged him, even tough he didn’t like it when I did that and put the Barbie down to unwrap my next present. Mathew’s. It was a piece of paper, that I started reading. It said that I was now subscribed to Netflix services and could access all TV series.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “I have wanted to get an account for so long!!! Thank you so much!”

“Told you she was a geek.” Seth smiled.

I kind of was. Well, who doesn’t like Netflix, right? When I was back at college before Damon arrived and before we started this crazy bucket list, the perfect day for me consisted in watching series but in low quality streaming because I couldn’t afford to pay for Netflix every months, while eating Chipotle or some other goodie that I was addicted to like ice-cream or mug cakes. Yeah… my life wasn’t that exciting.

“Come on, open mine!” Jenny urged.

So I did, a little afraid of what it might contain and praying it wasn’t a sex toy or something like that because it would be awkward. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw it wasn’t anything like that. It was two tickets to go to Disneyland.

“Jenny! We said we’d keep the price low!” I exclaimed.

“I had a low price thanks to my dad’s company.”

“Thank you! It’s awesome and I can’t wait to go.”

I hugged her too then looked at the present left. Damon’s. I unwrapped the present found a piece of paper in a frame. While I was reading it, Damon explained:

“I found out a few days ago that you could name a star. So now, there’s a star that has your name. There’s a map for you to find it in the back of the paper.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“You got me a star?” I asked, shocked and overwhelmed.

He nodded, smiling.

“Oh my god! Seriously?”

He laughed, still nodding and I jumped to his neck to kiss him.

“I love you so much, thank you!”

I wrapped my legs around his and he kissed me while carrying me.

“Ok, guys, seriously, this is getting too much now, I’m gonna puke all of my dinner!” Seth complained.

I had been about to take Damon’s shirt off but, right, we weren’t alone and couldn’t exactly do what we wanted right now. Ugh! I couldn’t wait for us to be alone again so that I could take off his clothes and mine whenever I wanted, no matter how much I loved my friends and brother. We put all of our gifts on the side of the table and talked while watching a rerun of an Orange is the new black episode that Damon had downloaded on his computer.

“This has been the best extra Christmas ever!” Jenny exclaimed when the episode was over and it was already one in the morning. “But Seth and I have to go give each other our presents. In private.” She added.

“Ok, well we’ll see you guys tomorrow then.”

“If Jenny’s not too sore from tonight…” Seth grinned at her and she punched him playfully.

“You’ll be the one who’s sore asshole! Now come on, I’m getting horny and I do not like to wait!” Jenny exclaimed, grabbing him by the shirt to lead him to the door. “Bye guys! Thanks for this awesome idea of an extra Christmas and I love the presents and the tree!”

She didn’t even leave us time to answer that she was already slamming the door behind her. Typical Jenny.

“I’m wondering if I should go to sleep or just stay awake cause I have to leave for the airport in two hours.” Mathew said.

“Yeah same for us cause we need to say goodbye to you before you leave…” I answered.

“Maybe we should try to sleep a little. I’m exhausted.” Damon proposed. “But we’ll wake up to say goodbye.”

“Alright. I’ll go on the couch and I’ll set an alarm clock.” Mathew said. “This was really an amazing idea guys. I’m sad Jeremy couldn’t be there but I had a great time and cool presents!”

We smiled, talked a little then went to bed to try to get a little sleep before we’d have to wake up only an hour and a half later.

When the alarm clock rang, the first thought I had was “Why????!!!” and then the immediately following one was “we shouldn’t have fallen asleep, I feel even more exhausted now.” I rolled out of bed nonetheless and found Mathew closing his bag in the living room.

“You’re all set?” I asked him.

He turned around, a little surprised.

“You scared me! Yeah, I think I have everything.”

I sat next to him and yawned.

“Ok, prepare yourself mentally for a cheesy thing to say but I just wanted to tell you that I’m really happy Damon found you before it was too late.” Mathew whispered, because Damon was still sleeping.

I smiled.

“He has never been happier than when he was with you and I don’t know if it’s destiny or luck or whatever but finding you on his last year was the best thing that could have happened to him and I know for a fact that he never loved anybody as much as he loves you.”

“Thank you for saying that. And I’m glad he got a best friend like you, you’re pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool? I’m awesome!” He corrected.

“Right, that’s what I meant to say.”

He smiled.

“I hope things get better with you and Lily.”

“Yeah, me too. If it was meant to happen, then it will. Just like you and Damon.

“I don’t know if it works that way, I never believed it did but I truly hope it does and that you’ll get to be with the girl you love. And if it’s someone other than Lily then so be it.”

He smiled than checked the time on his phone. The cab was supposed to arrive in ten minutes.

“It’s a shame you can’t stay longer. But I hope you’ll do good on your exams.”

“Thanks! Law school sucks though.”

“Yeah, you won’t say that when you’ll be a famous and successful lawyer, all this hard work will have paid off.” I got up. “I’ll go wake Damon up.”

“Ok.”

I sneaked into the bedroom and got inside the bed. I kissed Damon slightly on the lips then down to his neck. I heard him moan and I smiled against his skin.

“Mathew is supposed to leave in 10 minutes.” I told him.

“Ok, I’ll be up in a minute.”

I kissed him again then got out of the bed and back inside the living room. Damon joined us a little minute later and passed his hand through his hair, which I found incredibly sexy, as usual. Why was I so horny lately?! Maybe it was because I wanted to enjoy Damon as much as I could before he’d die. Wow, it must have been one of the first times I had said that so bluntly. I let Damon and Mathew go outside first because I had guessed Damon wanted to say goodbye to him properly since he didn’t know if he’d get to see him again. I put on my fury coat and joined them outside a couple minutes later. They were properly hugging this time and I think I saw them both wiping tears.

“Next time I’ll see you, I’ll probably be in a hospital bed. So I’ll understand if you don’t want to come. This could be goodbye for good.” I heard Damon say.

“I will come as soon as they call me. I’ll be there.”

“Ok. But just so you know, I won’t be offended if you don’t, I’ll completely understand.”

“Stop it.”

The cab arrived and parked in front of Mathew. The driver helped him get his bag in the trunk then Damon smiled a little.

“Well… Bye then. And I know it’s like the least manly thing to say to another bro but I don’t care, I love you Matt.”

“Can’t believe I’m saying that either: Love you too bro’.”

“The bro’ made it a little less girly I think.”

They laughed. Then Mathew looked at me so I stepped forward and hugged him too.

“I’m so glad you’re Damon’s sort of wife.” Matt said as he hugged me.

I laughed. “Me too.”

“Promise me to call even if Damon tells you not to bother me or something. I know him and he will try to talk you into not contacting me but I want to be there ok? No matter how bad it is. He’s my best bro’ and I want to be there for him.”

“I promise.”

“Have a safe trip.” Damon added before Mathew could get in the cab.

“Don’t worry. Say bye to Jenny and Seth for me.”

“Will do.”

He got in the cab and we watched it drive away. I took Damon’s hand in mine instinctively, knowing that it was a little hard for him to know that it was probably the last time he would get to see his best friend without being on a hospital bed, waiting to die.

“Come on, let’s go back inside, your hand is frozen.” I told him.

He nodded and followed me in. We went back to bed and I feel asleep quickly, even though I knew Damon wasn’t sleeping yet. He was probably thinking and would surely stay up all night. I wanted to stay to talk but my eyes closed and there was nothing I could do to fight off Morpheus’ arms that took me in.