Chapter Text
One thing they had known when they moved in was that the closet turned bedroom on the second floor had no heat, and now they were discovering what a problem that is for Sara. Of course the attic doesn’t have heat either, but Kendra and Ray were able to plug in a space heater whereas doing such a thing in Sara’s tiny room would be a fire hazard, and with this group that is a particularly serious issue. So Len didn’t say anything when one of his sweaters went missing from the laundry, he knew what happened to it and she needed it more than him. Stein also left one of his extra blankets on her bed one day while she was out, knowing that she wouldn’t accept it if he offered. But it still wasn’t very helpful and so it didn’t really come as a surprise to either Len or Jax when a knock came at their door on one of the colder nights of December and Len answered it to see Sara standing on the other side, clad in sweatpants and his missing sweater.
“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked; she had her arms wrapped around herself.
“Haven’t in three days,” She replied and so with a slight smirk he ushered her inside. She nodded her thanks and crawled into his bed with him right behind her, Jax simply rolled over and went back to sleep.
“It’s that time of year,” One of the other college professors, Professor Williams, said to Ray while the two were on their lunch hour. “The holiday break is coming up and some of the students are getting sloppy, while some are working twice as hard.” He continued to muse, “Any plans for the holiday’s Raymond?” He asked; Ray froze for just a moment.
Does the team have any plans for the holidays?
No, of course not. After finally getting some snowshoes for trekking across the field to get to the Waverider they hadn’t had much time to discuss the upcoming holidays.
“Probably just stay at home with the family,” He decided to answer however the grin his friend gave him made him think that had been exactly what they other man had been hoping to hear.
“You should stop down to the community center, December 23 is the big Christmas party; everybody goes.”
Ray gave it a moment of thought, and then cracked a smile.
“Sure, why not?”
“I can give you a hundred reasons as to why not!” Rip bellowed as the entire team sat around the kitchen table eating dinner that night, leftover spaghetti and meatballs, and Ray had just brought up the idea of the town Christmas party.
“Rip, what’s the harm in going to a Christmas party?” Kendra asked; the captain’s stink eye quickly moved from her boyfriend/fake husband to her.
“One, time drift. We’ve inserted ourselves into this town enough as it is, if we start going to community events we will be that much more susceptible to time drift.” He began his lecture,
“Counter argument,” Sara butted in, her mouth half full of spaghetti. “It’ll look suspicious if we don’t go.” She said before swallowing the food in her mouth, “We keep to ourselves enough as it is, I think we’re all starting to go a little crazy.” She continued,
“I second that,” Len spoke up before looking around at the others, “You all have steady jobs, Sara and I are stuck on the Waverider with Rip all day.” He said and Sara nodded in agreement.
“True, we need a break from each other.” She said, a thought or two crossed everyone’s minds about how the two of them were currently sitting next to each other and had been sharing a bed almost every night for at least a week, but they all decided it would be best to keep their mouths shut.
“Reason number two,” Rip began, “Placing ourselves in a large public gathering such as a community holiday party would practically triple the risk of blowing our cover.” He stressed,
“With all due respect Rip, we go out into the grocery store and our separate jobs on a daily basis. I think we could handle a night celebrating the holiday season.” Stein tried to say.
“Wait, we are celebrating Christmas right?” Kendra questioned and the others all exchanged glances.
“While I do realize that I am the only one here who is a part of the Jewish faith, I was hoping that we could light a menorah in celebration of Chanukah.” Stein requested; the others all looked at him as if the idea that they wouldn’t celebrate his faith equally was insane, because quite frankly it was.
“Of course Martin,” Rip finally said before directing his attention to Kendra. “If you all would like to celebrate Christmas then I won’t stop you, but we are NOT going to that party.” He continued strictly, making himself very clear. Dinner went on like normal for another fifteen minutes before Rip became the first to excuse himself and once he was gone Jax glanced around at the others.
“We’re going to that Christmas party, right?” He asked and everyone else nodded,
“If Rip doesn’t want to go he can stay home by himself.” Kendra said.
It was later that night, long after Jax had fallen asleep, that the door to his and Len’s bedroom opened. He’s a very light sleeper, but considering that up until a few months ago he was traveling through time in an attempt to stop a psychotic immortal warlord, he has pretty good reason.
Anyway, it was the door opening that woke him. There was no light from the hallway outside, so he couldn’t see the face of the intruder; not that he didn’t already know. He could just make out the outline of the petit figure, clad in sweatpants and an oversized sweater. Her head turned, he was sure she was looking at him despite that in the dark it was hard to be sure if it was her face or the back of her head now facing him. But he rolled over, a signal to her that said he was ok with her being there, and he listened as she crawled into his roommate’s bed.
“Yeah, those two are getting real sick of each other.” He thought to himself as he drifted off back to sleep.
The next day Stein went walking through town with two missions in mind, one being to get a menorah and the second being to do a little Christmas shopping. He knew that aside from lighting his menorah every night, saying his prayers, and maybe making a few holiday foods, he would be celebrating Christmas this year. Of course this isn’t something that he necessarily minds, on the contrary he rather enjoys it. Clarissa had grown up celebrating Christmas and to this day one of his fondest memories comes from the first time she ever brought him along to her family Christmas party. He had always enjoyed the Christmas season even before that night, but celebrating it had been so nice. He loved how it brought everyone together; of course that might have just been Clarissa’s large and rather close family in contrast with his own, rather broken up, family. It was always just his parents and himself, he had one distant aunt whom he’d only ever met a handful of times throughout his life. So for him Chanukah, while it may bring some families together, was just another holiday that he spent at home with his parents. But Christmas, that was a time for stories to be shared and for people to gather together when they normally don’t, hence the reason he was excited when the group decided to go against Rip’s orders in regards to the community party.
“Damn,” Len cursed as Sara cracked a grin, throwing in an evil laugh for good measure as she collected her winnings.
It was currently six at night and the two of them were sitting on Snart’s bed playing poker while Jax sat at the desk working on some plans for the Waverider. They had offered to let him join in their game but once he found out they were betting actual money he declined, even if it was coins only.
“That’s three for me,” Sara gloated, Len just scowled and handed her his losing cards.
“You shuffle, I’ll be right back.” He said as he got up,
“Where are you going?” Sara asked, half believing he was going to her room to raid the shoebox under her bed where she kept some emergency money among other things, that way when he lost she would be winning her own money.
“Bathroom,” He called over his shoulder as he walked out, though it didn’t stop her from listening for the distinct click of the bathroom door.
“Hey,” She said to Jax once she was sure Len had indeed gone to the bathroom.
“Yeah?” The younger man looked up from what he was doing, watching her shuffle as the gears turned in her head.
“We should do something for Stein, over Chanukah.” She suggested and Jax nodded.
“I was thinking that too, but what?” He asked, “I think the one present each night thing is more for the kids, plus we’re doing gifts at Christmas.” He said and her eyes grew slightly.
“We’re doing gifts?” She asked, now it was Jax’s turn for his eyes to grow wide.
“Uh, I don’t know. I just figured Ray and Kendra were doing stuff for each other and I got something for Grey. I don’t think we’re doing anything like wake up at six in the morning or anything official.” He stuttered out, in the process of all this stuttering he neglected to mention that he had also gotten some little gifts for her and Snart, and he was planning on getting small stuff for the rest of the team.
Sara huffed out a breath in frustration as she realized that Jax probably had the right idea and that she was going to need to do something for Christmas. Just then Snart came back into the room but no sooner had he sat down did the sounds of happy screams find their way to the window from the front yard. However with this group a scream is never a happy thing so the three of them shared a glance before bolting over to the window.
“What the…?” Len trailed off with his question.
In the front yard, running around in the just starting to set sun, were Ray and Kendra. They were chasing each other with snowballs and laughing, continuously running past what appeared to be a half finished snowman.
“Should we leave them out there or join them?” Sara asked the two boys, Jax shrugged and after a moment of thought Len did the same.
“I kind of want to shove Raymond’s face in the snow,” The older man said before turning for the door, making sure to grab his gun as he left. Sara and Jax looked at each other briefly before they followed their friend.
Once outside Len did shove Ray’s face into the snow, but the action served to trigger a massive snowball fight. It was Sara, Len, and Jax vs. Ray and Kendra. Having three people on one team should’ve been unfair, especially since Len was making good use of his notorious ice gun, but Ray has surprisingly good aim and Kendra took to the sky in order to hit her targets from above.
“What are you doing?!” Rip’s demanding voice eventually came from the porch, ruining the fun like always.
“Snowball fight,” Ray replied with his usual grin.
Rip rolled his eyes and shook his head; he didn’t even want to pretend to want to know what had possessed his team to suddenly act like a group of five-year-olds.
“What if somebody had seen you?” He questioned Kendra, who had just landed.
“Rip, the nearest neighbors are all the way down at the other end of the street. Not to mention that I was staying pretty low,” She argued, Rip just rolled his eyes.
“If you expose yourself…” He warned with a strict finger pointed at her as he headed back into the house, Kendra only rolled her eyes.
“That guys needs a break from this house.” Jax deadpanned and the others nodded in agreement.
“We bringing him to the town Christmas party?” Ray asked, knowing the answer.
“Even if we have to tie him to the roof of the car,” Sara replied.
The first ‘break’ Rip ended up taking from the house was forced, no surprise there, and he went with the rest of the team when they decided it was as good a day as any to go pick out a Christmas tree. They went to one of those “cut your own” places, something that excited that excited Sara because her family had always used a plastic tree. Ray had also been using a plastic tree the past few years and so he too was excited to return to getting a real tree for the holiday.
So they walked around the rather large outdoor lot scanning for a tree that they could all agree on as a group. Some of them were more vocal than others, for example Ray was calling out suggestions every two minutes while Len kept his mouth shut nearly the entire time and just walked around with the saw, waiting for someone to tell him which tree he was cutting down.
“What about this one?” Kendra suggested as she looked a tree up and down; Sara, Len, Rip, and Stein came over to see what she was looking at.
“It has good height,” Stein agreed as he looked the tree up and down, however that was when Sara stuck her head out from where she was behind the tree.
“Giant hole in the back,” she warned, the others came around to notice that she was right and there was a rather large, gaping hole of missing branches in the back of the tree.
“Hey guys!” Ray’s voice came shouting from somewhere far off, they all looked around until they spotted the sight of flailing arms bobbing up and down among the trees way at the other end of the lot.
“How old is he again?” Len sneered in annoyance as they headed over to the overly excited man.
“Well considering he was born in 1979, he’s technically seven.” Kendra jokingly replied.
“That explains a lot,” Len agreed, a few minutes later they reached the man in question and found Jax already standing with him.
“I found one,” Ray proudly exclaimed, the exuberance on his face definitely resembling that of a seven-year-old.
“It’s actually not bad,” Jax said to the others.
The tree was slightly taller than Ray himself, and wasn’t too wide but not too scrawny either.
“Looks nice,” Rip approved,
“Am I cutting it down?” Len asked, holding up the saw.
The others all gave a mix of nods and so Len got down and began cutting at the tree. While he was working everybody but Rip seemed to notice which way the tree was going to fall and had the sense to step back.
“Um-” Ray began but he was too late, the tree fell down and took Rip with it. Everyone, included Ray despite his attempt at warning Rip, laughed at the sight of their captain pinned to the ground by a tree.
“Could somebody PLEASE get this tree off me?” The Englishman requested once he managed to get his head free.
“Alright,” Len conceded, taking hold of the bottom end of the tree while Jax moved for the top half. The two of them lifted the tree off Rip and Stein offered a hand to the captain to help him up. During all this Sara, Kendra, and Ray kept laughing; Rip just huffed and dusted himself off.
“We didn’t think this through,” Sara observed when they returned to the house and got the tree through the door, but that’s where it ended.
It had been unanimously decided that they would set up the Christmas tree in the living room but they had failed to clear a space for it before leaving.
“So what now?” Len drawled from where he and Ray stood in the hall, holding the tree up.
Kendra moved to join Sara in the living room while the others hung back, no one really sure about what to do.
“We could put it in front of the window,” Sara suggested, turning to Kendra for approval, but the other woman shook her head.
“It’ll be too close to the door,” She argued, “Unless we move the chair,” she suggested and Sara nodded.
“Sounds good,” She said, moving for the folding chair.
“Wait, where are you going to put it?” Kendra asked and Sara shrugged,
“Back in the kitchen where we found it?” She suggested,
“It takes up to much space in there,” she said,
While the girls argued back and fourth over the chair, the tree, and at one point even the couch, Len just leaned his head back against the wall and groaned in frustration.
“How badly do you think Sara will hurt me for making a comment about women over thinking things?” He questioned, he was asking Ray because the boy scout was the nearest person but he didn’t answer at first, mostly because he couldn’t believe that the crook was trying to make small talk with him.
“I don’t know, she can’t get too mad considering it’s your bed she crawls into at two in the morning.” He finally replied and when he did Len quirked an eyebrow, wondering how it was that Raymond knows about that. He decided it wouldn’t be worth getting into, it’s not like it’s supposed to be a secret that Sara can’t handle the cold temperatures of her room and she’s long since stopped complaining about it, so they probably all know about her “solution” to the problem by now.
“Good point,” he said to Ray before directing his attention to the girls. “Just put the chair in the kitchen for now and figure the rest out later, we’ve got a tree in the middle of the hallway at the moment and I think that’s a little more problematic than a folding chair.” He snapped and although both women rolled their eyes at him Kendra did in fact give up the argument and allow for Sara to go and bring the folding chair into the kitchen.