theresalwayshope | meet the (grand)parents...

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meet the (grand)parents...

Allison felt a little like she was going insane.

She started out just planning to invite Aramis and Porthos over to meet Jason. Dinner and drinks, nothing big. Then she realized she didn't just feel obligated to invite Athos, she wanted to. So, if she did that, she obviously had to invite D'artagnan, and she really wanted to meet Constance...and she'd promised Grey a chance to help her bake a cake, so if she did something more than dinner, she could let him come over at some point...

The small family dinner became a small dinner party, and with a few more additions morphed into an impromptu potluck for the whole building...or anyone that wanted to show up. She told the family about it privately, asking Porthos and Aramis to make sure the others at least stopped by (with a subtle warning that Jason would be there), told everyone else she knew in the city, and for the rest of the building she posted a couple of handmade fliers: one in the elevator, and another in the laundry room announcing that, with either a main course or appetizer offering, an invitation to the holiday celebration taking place in apartment #39...dressy casual to formalwear welcome, bring your favorite Christmas CD as a bonus.

And, of course, she told Jason...and told him her family would be there.

By the night of the party, Allison was ready...she just felt a little like she was going insane.

She kept her outfit cute, but simple, and took care of dessert by baking some cupcakes, gingerbread cookies, and a two layer chocolate cake which she invited Grey over to help her bake. With a little careful scheduling, she also managed to contribute to the food on hand with her second ever attempt at beef bourguignon: rich, hearty, and sort of impressive under the right circumstances. By party time, she had her front door standing open, some Trans Siberian Orchestra carols playing on her stereo, and while she didn't yet have a tree, she'd gotten some cute plastic holly garland to hang around the apartment, and for fun had ringed her whole living room ceiling in multicolor Christmas lights for good measure.

The party was good to go. The place smelled good, the food came out okay with more to come...the evening was good to go.

And when Jason showed up, her family would show up...and they'd all meet each other...

While she waited for her guests, loved ones, and boyfriend to start arriving, Allison puttered around in her kitchen, swore to herself she was not hiding, and tried to pretend that she wasn't having visions of someone either drawing a sword or a knife by the end of the evening.

Tonight had to be perfect.

(HOLIDAY GATHERING POST! Treat it thusly. :P Front door's open, come and go as you please, anyone in the Bramford Building is welcome, and if you know Allison even remotely she told you about the party. Gather at will, and leave a call for Allison in your subject line if you want to play with her directly! Open eternally, will probably be linked near the end of the month. :D)

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She'd read somewhere that she gets to be considered a newlywed for two whole years after the wedding, which Kate has taken to mean she can be totally forgiven for two years for making a beeline for her totally hot husband at any and every party she ends up at. It's not her fault she's in love with him and finds him super adorable, that's the lovestruck newlywed brain talking, and she's allowed to have it for two years.

"Ugh, can I quit school?" she asks when she arrives at his side, slipping her arm around his waist. "Because studying is kind of the worst." And it's way too close to Christmas to be thinking about exams and tests and papers. She's supposed to be thinking about Christmas trees and presents and how many ways she can pummel Newt with snowballs this winter.

"You can totally quit school," he tells her, trying to hold back his excitement at seeing her--because yeah, he definitely still gets all jittery when he watches her walk into a room--in favor of mock sincerity, "but then you'll remember that it only means you wasted all your time and money the last few months so..."

He knows she's not being serious--well, not that serious--but he gives her a sympathetic smile anyway before kissing her on the forehead. He's been trying to help as much as he can but the thing about Newt is that he'd actually really enjoyed being in school. Sure, some semesters he'd been bored out of his mind because he'd been lightyears ahead of everyone else but in the classes that had actually been stimulating, he'd had the time of his life. He's never been a very good teacher, though, considering how short his patience can be, and it's not like he's going to snap at Kate over her studies or anything but at the same time, it's possible so he figures it's best to just leave it alone unless she asks.

Besides, he's been busy enough trying to match up thank you cards to the people who'd attended their wedding and the ones who'd left gifts, and he's pretty sure there's nothing in the world more hellishly frustrating than that task. He'd finally gotten the last of the cards out in the mail just the other day, and he realizes that it's been like, a full month since their wedding, thanks, but he's got shit to do that does not involve writing things that he could just say to people when he sees them.

But whatever, it's done and they're married and work has been kind of chill lately and maybe he has that skin louse from their wedding saved as a hush hush pet at the lab so everything's kind of just good right now. It's nice to take a breather after months of craziness.

"Now that you're here, though, you can pretend like school doesn't even exist, okay? Think of..." His eyes dart around the room until he spots the food and drinks. "Think of eggnog. Or beer. Also, whatever Allison made because if we don't try her cooking, I think she might murder us and nobody wants that at a Christmas party."

"Ugh, it's just this stats class, it's so boring," she complains and it's not even like it's hard. She gets it, she's doing well enough, she's not stressed out by it, but it's incredibly boring that even just trying to study for it feels like a chore. But everyone had told her it would be bad and that's why she's taking it now, so she can get it out of the way and just go on with the rest of her business degree which might not be fun, exactly, but at least it won't be as awful and boring as statistics.

"Allison would never murder me, she thinks I'm wonderful, and she's even less likely to murder you," she points out, relaxing into a smile. It's totally true, Allison thinks Newt is like, the greatest ever, which is completely accurate, so it's not like Kate is inclined to disagree with her or argue in any way. Besides, she kind of loves that Newt has someone like Allison looking out for him, since she knows she has a tendency to encourage his bad habits, like drinking eighteen thousand cups of coffee. Mostly because she's guilty of it herself.

"She went all out, though, huh?" Kate asks, looking around. The place looks great and it smells great and she knows she's biased, she sort of loves Christmas, but she's totally getting into the spirit now. "Are we supposed to be meeting and grilling her boyfriend, though? He's too cute to grill, I don't know if I can do it."

Besides, she's fairly certain Allison can take care of herself and probably doesn't need anyone to grill him. Still, that's like, Newt's job.

"I don't know, is that a thing that's cliche? I mean, I'm going to do it anyway, but I hate being cliche."

It's not like Allison needs Newt to actually threaten to break anybody's legs or whatever if they hurt her because she's about a thousand times more capable of taking care of herself than Newt could ever be, but he kind of like the idea of doing it because that's not the sort of thing that had been expected of him on the regular anywhere else. He's not sure that it's necessarily expected of him here but whatever, he can pretend for five seconds that Allison's dude could be intimidated by him.

He turns to Kate, grinning. "You think she would have tried to grill either one of us if she'd showed up before we got together? Not even going to lie, I kinda would've liked to see that."

He tugs on her hand, leading Kate toward the refreshments because if he's going to do this thing with this guy who's apparently just too cute, he wants to at prep himself with at least one alcoholic beverage because maybe it'll harden his resolve.

"By the way, we're so playing strip statistics later. One articles of clothing removed for each correct study guide answer, works wonders. You'll retain everything."

"Oh, god, she totally would've grilled me," Kate says with a nod. "I'm not the adopted sibling." And she's not good at the whole being grilled thing, she probably would have just gotten pissy and refused to answer any questions, which probably isn't the best way to make an impression, but she's sort of never care about that kind of thing. Either people like her or they don't and if they don't, it's not like she's going to start pretending to be someone else so that they do like her. If they don't like her, then that's their deal and they can do whatever the hell they want with it.

Because she's awesome. And she changes for no man. Or woman.

Her expression brightens when Newt mentions strip statistics, though, because she's like, totally certain she can get on board with something like that. They're going to get totally distracted, but she doesn't even care, so long as it means she gets to spend the night getting naked with her seriously amazing husband. "I like this plan, you're full of good plans," she tells him as she lets Newt lead her over toward the refreshments. She stops in front and turns to him, leaning in for a long kiss, because newlyweds and then she pulls back to smile at him properly. "I should always come to you whenever I'm having a hard time."

She's doing fine, she's passing all her classes, but she gets bored easily. There are too many distractions in a place like this. On the island studying had been easy because a lot of the time there hadn't been anything else to do, but here she can do almost anything.

Newt only makes it through about ten seconds of imagining a Kate-Allison grilling session because he's pretty damn sure that it wouldn't end well. Kate's not really the grillable type, she'd probably end up either silently seething or skipping straight to a full rant; and Allison's one of those people nobody can ever actively dislike but she'd still made her first appearance in Darrow at the train station wielding knives in each hand. Little aggressive. In general, neither one of them are people Newt would want to piss off, so he's grateful that both of them like him a whole bunch because he can admit that he's a notably cool dude but there hadn't been people like Kate or Allison back at the 'Dome. Nobody in Hong Kong would have been able to say they'd loved him.

He's not in Hong Kong anymore, though, it's been over a here since he'd arrived in Darrow and in that year, pretty much everything has changed. He has more friends than he's probably ever had, not in one of those ways that make him feel sorry for himself but in a way that makes him feel awesome because it only validates the fact that he's totally worth the time people spend on him. His job keeps him crazy busy sometimes but it's a hell of a steady paycheck and also, there's that part where he doesn't have to worry about the world coming to an end via kaiju attack on the daily so that's kind of a plus, depending on how he looks at it. The best part, obviously, is the fact that he gets to say he's married to Kate. It's not even just that she wants to date him, be with him, live with him. No, she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, and Newt hadn't even known he could be capable of feeling that way about someone in return.

"You should," he agrees with a nod, "because it's basically my job as your husband to make you feel better when you're having a rough day. Or, y'know, for whatever you feel like." That's not exactly true, he never feels obligated to help Kate with anything, but they're married now and that only makes Newt want to make sure as many moments of her day are as fantastic as they should be that much more. "Speaking of husbandry, what would you say is an appropriate gift for a guy to get his wife for their first Christmas as a married couple? Asking for a friend."

"That's totally your job now," Kate agrees with a grin, although if there's anyone in this city who can always make her feel better even before they'd gotten married, it's Newt. She loves Darrow with all its weird shit and she loves her friends here. She knows how lucky she is to have met so many amazing people, ones she can call her friends, people she knows will totally have her back no matter what, but she'd never expected to meet the man who'd actually make her want to get married.

Boyfriends have always been fine. It turned out, after thinking she'd be terrible at it, that Kate's actually a pretty awesome girlfriend, but being a wife had seemed a little daunting. Her parents had gotten married just because they'd gotten knocked up with her and she remembers the trouble they'd had sometimes. She knows she'll never be like Tara, Newt will never be like Max, but sometimes it's hard not to remember the bad times her parents had.

But that won't happen here, she's sure of it, and when Newt asks what he's supposed to get for Christmas, her eyes widen and her smile brightens. "I think super expensive jewellery is what you get for the first Christmas as a married couple," she teases. "That's what I heard anyway. I'm talking like, serious rock, dude. A big necklace with my name spelled in diamonds."

If that is going to be his job, he'll take it. There are few things in this Darrow life worth doing without Kate by his side, and he's pretty sure he'd still be driving himself crazy trying to figure out how the hell to get out of here if it hadn't been for her. Day one, he'd been smitten like he's never really been before and yeah, he'd dated a lot in college and not so much once he'd been recruited by Pentecost, but he knows that he'd never felt for anyone else what he'd felt for Kate. What he feels for Kate.

She gets him, she gets that sometimes he doesn't have his head screwed on straight and that he has a hard time not saying literally all the things he wants to say because keeping his mouth shut is, at best, an impossible task. She's never once judged him for who he is or what he likes to do, not even when he'd run off to save a goddamn kaiju skin louse on their wedding day. Newt's a loudmouth, he'll talk at anyone who's willing or has no choice but to listen, but with Kate, it's different. He trusts her implicitly, more than anyone else in this town, and the things he says to her mean something. The thing that's the most remarkable, though, is that he loves her, and she actually loves him back. This holiday season doesn't feel very different from last year's, with the one glaring exception being that they're married this time around, but Newt's just glad that he's made it to another one with the person he wants to spend every season with.

"Okay, so bling, lots of bling, roger that," he teases, though he's nodding like she's making total sense with this outrageous talk about giant diamond necklaces. "Y'know, I never did get the whole name necklace thing, what's that all about? Is it in case you forget who you are? Like, amnesia or Alzheimer's or something? Because if you ever get Alzheimer's, I'm totally just going to cure it so the name necklace isn't even necessary anymore."

"I think it's mostly so that everyone knows who you are and knows you're super important. Just like... Newt, but rather than being Newt, you're Newt. You know, with capital letters and bold typeface and big ass sparkling diamonds. It makes you about eighty times more important than you were before." She says it all firmly, as if she's the last authority on the subject, but then he says he'll cure Alzheimer's for her and she melts into a big smile as she reaches for his hands.

"Yeah, I know you will," she says and she's seriously never loved anyone like this. Which was probably the whole point behind marrying him. He's the best person she knows and he's more suited to her than anyone else she's ever met and he's so good to her. Every time she thinks about him, something inside her chest feels like it's all twisted up and she knows it's never going to get untwisted again.

"You're a pretty goddamn amazing husband," she tells him. "I just decided. You're definitely the only one I know who can cure any diseases I might get and that definitely makes you the best. I think there's a set of rules all husbands get measured against and that one's right at the top. Very few of them ever reach that point, but you have already have. Not even two months after we got married, that's super impressive."

"Everyone should already know who I am, I'm super badass and also a rock star." He follows the statement with a firm nod, as if that's the be all, end all of it, and honestly, it really should be. Newt's pretty sure that if there's an alterna-Newt still running around in his world, he'd probably been on every news channel and on the cover of every magazine and in all the history books by now. There's probably action figures of him, cool ones that have him in his leather jacket and come in sets with kaiju so kids can use him to save the world all over again and collectors can cover the value that is a toy Newt.

Okay, so maybe that's not the most realistic thing he's ever thought but there's probably a good chance that alterna-Newt has been on the news a lot. Not so much here, not when there's so many other extraordinary things going on for the local news to give a shit much about how much incredible stuff is happening within the walls of Darrow Amalgamated, but the crazy thing about is that he doesn't even care. He's got attention where he needs it--though that's not to say that he won't gladly take more--and that's right here, among his friends and his wife.

"You're not such a terrible wife yourself," he teases, linking his fingers through hers and leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek. "Is there a word that means 'better than the best' because whatever that word is, you're it. But that only makes sense because the best husband deserves the best wife, right?"

"Totally makes sense that the two most clearly awesome people in this city found each other and are even more amazing together," she agrees, giving his hand a squeeze. And, okay, so many neither of them are super good with the whole modesty thing, but that works, too. Kate's not sure she could be with someone who didn't think he was the absolute best at everything, because she thinks that she is the absolute best at everything and anyone she spends her life with has to be able to put up with that. Which means he needs to have an ego of his own. Which she totally digs.

Men with healthy egos are by far her favourite.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure no one else could make me think even for a second that getting married was a good idea and here we are, married for a whole month already and it's still just as great as I thought it would be," she teases. She's making a joke out of it, but it's true. Newt really is the only person she'd want to be married to. For such a long time it had just seemed like such a terrible idea, something she'd never be cut out for, but with him, it all seems alright. Better than alright. It seems like the sort of thing she's meant to be doing with him.

Because he's the right guy for her. They fit in each others' lives in a way she'd been certain was total bullshit fairy tale stuff, but here they are. And she wouldn't trade him for anything.

He remembers Christmas Eve of last year, being crazy nervous about spending his first holiday season with a girlfriend and super paranoid that she'd hate the gift he'd gotten for her--the key, the stars he'd named after them, the telescope he'd set up on the roof that's still up there for community sharing even though they know what it's really meant for--but there's nothing to be nervous or paranoid about now. That doesn't make spending Christmas with Kate any less exciting, it doesn't make their lives boring because he doesn't think their lives could ever be boring; it just makes him happier.

This is what they get to do now, he realizes. They get to spend this Christmas and every Christmas after it together, married and in love and without wishing things could be different because they have each other. Christmastime at the 'Dome had always been so goddamn depressing, if only because most people there had never really had it in them to celebrate. Newt can understand why, a lot of people in the Resistance had joined because they'd lost their family and loved ones to the destruction the kaiju had caused, but he hadn't. He'd wanted more than to be forced to watch all the grim faces pass him by in the hallways, to be met with something other than an eye roll when he'd wished someone a merry Christmas. Hermann had tried to give that to him--though he'd put more into it some years than others--and Pentecost had always met him with a firm pat on the back, most often accompanied by nothing more than silence; but Newt had missed what Christmas had been like when he'd been a kid, when he'd still been living in Berlin with his family.

It's different now. He wishes he could see his parents again, just once, even if it's just for a second so he knows how they're doing. Newt wonders if there's a version of him who can go home for the holidays now that the kaiju are gone and the world can rebuild; or maybe alternate him is just as busy making sure it never happens again. Either way, it doesn't really matter now because he's here. He has friends, chosen family, and he has Kate.

"It is great," he says, his tone soft and sincere, and he gives her an earnest smile because they can joke, they can tease, but in the end, he really fucking loves this woman. She's the reason he'd stopped looking for a way out of here, after all, the only person in Darrow who could have convinced him--even if she hadn't really been trying--that being here isn't so bad. "It's great, and I love being married to you, and I just really love you. Don't let it go to your head, though."

"Too late, it's already gone to my head," she says, grinning at him before she leans forward and kisses him, long and slow. So they're in public, whatever, it's not like they've ever shied away from public displays of affection before and she sees no reason to start now. Besides, if anyone comments on it, she'll just say she thought she say mistletoe or something, and she's pretty sure that if you see mistletoe, you're supposed to kiss. It's a rule and one they're definitely not allowed to break just for the sake of propriety. Not that either of them have ever really been concerned with being proper. Right from the start, it's one of the things she's always loved about Newt. There's no pretense with him, no pretending to be someone he's not, and after a lifetime of never knowing who she might come home to, she needs someone like that.

"I just really love you, too," she says when they part and she smiles again, her cheeks a little red. Not from embarrassment, not at all, but it's warm in the apartment and kissing Newt always gives her a little rush, which she figures is going to be the sort of thing that happens for the rest of her life. If she's lucky enough to stay here with him, if she's lucky enough to never lose him to whatever it is that takes people away, she'll get to feel that every day for the rest of her life. She knows it's a long shot, trusting this place to let them stay together, but she doesn't see any reason to let herself worry about that. If it comes, it comes, but for as long as she can, she's just going to be happy here with him.

"Come on, I need to sample like, every last Christmas dessert that's being offered here," she says, slipping her hand into his and leading him toward the table. "I'm pretty sure that's still what Christmas is about even after you get married, right? Eating as many cookies as possible until you feel kind of sick and your husband has to carry your dumb ass home?" It wouldn't be the first time, although when he'd had to sort of carry her home that one time they hadn't been married yet and her ankle had been the one to blame, not too many cookies.

He's pretty sure Allison would punch him in the head if she were to catch them making out in the middle of her party right now but to hell with it. This is his wife, they're still pretty much newlyweds, and if his wife wants to kiss him then goddamn it, she can kiss him. He threads his fingers through her hair, twirling one of the silky strands as he smiles into the kiss and rests his free hand on her hip. It's a damn good time of year, he thinks, and they'd made the perfect choice getting married at the start of the holiday season. The fact that it had been Halloween and their one-year-anniversay had been awesome enough but getting to say that this is their first Christmas together as a married couple--Newt pretty much considers that a gift in itself.

"Don't even talk to me about sampling all this dessert, holy shit," he answers once he's pulled away from her, letting Kate take his hand and tug him toward the table covered with food. Every last inch of the surface is taken up with cookies and cupcakes and candy canes, and Newt doesn't even really know where to begin because it's always like being in heaven when someone else does the cooking and baking. He's good at it, he does it for Kate as often as he can, but on the nights that he's home late from work or she's busy with studying, it's just junk food and take-out. Being treated to something like this is always one of Newt's favorite things about going to a party.

"Um, I thought it was about feeling sick so your wife has to carry your dumb ass home, maybe we're reading different marriage manuals." He's torn between picking up a cookie or a cupcake first until he eventually figures that nobody should have to make a decision like that and grabs one of both. It's just better that way, and he would challenge anyone to try to prove him wrong.

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meet the (grand)parents...

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