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❄
3rd December, 1987
It’s a December morning when Rupert pulls Taggie’s name out of the hat.
The Priory living room is already overheated despite the frost clinging stubbornly to the windows, a fire roaring enthusiastically in the grate smelling faintly of whatever Caitlin had insisted on stuffing into it to make it “festive.”
This was Freddie’s idea, originally—some nonsense about morale and Christmas cheer. Secret Santa throughout December, one gift a week till Christmas Eve, and purely anonymous.
Rupert had agreed without thinking, because saying no always took more effort than he ever felt like giving. It also made December feel easier when it was already spoken for.
He tries not to think about the fact that his children won’t be with him again this year. Tries not to think about Tab and Marcus hanging stockings where his hands will never touch them. Instead, he keeps his thoughts where they belong: on the fire, the noise, and the stupid santa hat Basil currently brings around to each member of the Venturer team.
Folded slips of paper emerge from it as he goes, names scrawled in marker. Someone groans when they read theirs; someone else starts laughing. Rupert lets it all wash over him till he lets his eyes hook onto Taggie across the room, as he always finds himself doing.
She’s perched on the arm of the sofa with her knees tucked up. There’s a dusting of flour on her jumper—no doubt from something she’d been making earlier on, done entirely for the sake of other people.
He watches her dip a hand into the Santa hat when it’s offered to her, her nose wrinkling in concentration as if the slip of paper might somehow know it’s being chosen. She pulls one out and peeks at it, lips parting in an adorable little oh before she folds it quickly and tucks it into her pocket, eyes flicking up like she’s afraid she’s been caught doing something naughty.
Rupert feels the familiar pull in his chest– a quiet interest he realises he only ever feels around her. He notices how careful she is with the paper, smoothing the crease with her thumb before hiding it away. Notices the space between her eyebrows crease further as she immediately starts thinking, planning—already wondering what would make someone else happy.
She is infinitely more interesting than anything else in this room.
“Earth to Rupert.”
Basil is suddenly there with a shit-eating grin on his face as he thrusts the santa hat toward his chest, the few remaining names rustling inside.
“Your turn,” Basil says, voice pitched low. “Stop staring holes into O’Hara and pull a name.”
Rupert snorts, but reaches in anyway, fingers brushing against slips of paper. He draws one out without second-guessing and when he finally unfolds it, Taggie’s name stares right back up at him.
Of course.
He refolds the paper again and tucks it into his pocket.
Rupert sinks back into the sofa and lets himself watch her again; he finds himself pretending for a while that December isn’t something to endure, but something that might end up belonging to him.
❄
10th December , 1987
By the tenth of December, Rupert is fairly certain he’s spoken to Caitlin O’Hara more in the last week than in the entire span of her time at Rutshire put together.
She’s home from university and restless with it, consistently drifting through the Priory like she’s reclaiming territory– kitchen stools, armchairs, doorframes. She talks with her hands and her whole body, loud where her sister is quiet, careless where Taggie is precise. Rupert finds himself stalled in doorways more often than usual during the quiet moments of Venturer breaks, tea cooling in his hand, listening when he should have already moved on.
It starts innocently enough.
“Does she always hum when she cooks?” he asks one morning, eyes on the Aga, as though the question has simply occurred to him.
Caitlin grins. “Only when she’s nervous. Or happy. Or concentrating. So—yes, probably.”
He nods, commits it to memory without acknowledging that that’s what he’s doing.
Later, when Caitlin is rifling through drawers, complaining loudly about missing things, he asks, “does she listen to music much?”
Caitlin snorts. “She hates silence. Always has something on in the kitchen. Tapes, radio, whatever she can get her hands on.” She pauses, then adds, “She’s always borrowing them off people but never remembers to give them back.”
Rupert hums. He doesn’t stop to acknowledge why he feels a tightening in his chest at the idea of Taggie alone with quiet.
He asks more questions than he should. What she likes. What she doesn’t. Whether she prefers mornings or evenings. Whether she ever buys things for herself (she doesn’t). Caitlin answers them all without suspicion, pleased to be useful, pleased to talk about her sister.
Rupert tells himself it’s strategy. This is a game, after all, and he’s always been competitive.
Still, he stands in the shop longer than necessary when the time comes. Turns the Walkman over in his hands. Considers alternatives. Wonders if it’s too much, too thoughtful, too obvious? He adds the cassettes almost without thinking—soft voices, things he believes may act as familiar comforts to her.
The reveal happens back in the living room, everyone gathered as they were the week before. Names are called, paper torn, polite laughter rising and falling. Rupert keeps his expression carefully neutral as Taggie opens the box, but he watches her the way a Brit watches for weather.
Her fingers pause over the Walkman, hovering as though she isn’t sure she’s allowed to touch it. Then she lifts it out, turning it over, brows knitting as she takes it in. The cassettes follow—one by one—stacked neatly beneath.
“Oh,” she breathes.
It’s barely a sound, but Rupert hears it anyway. Hears the way her voice softens around the edges, the way something in her shoulders loosens. She smiles then, and Christ, she's so beautiful.
She presses the Walkman to her chest without realizing she’s doing it.
“This is… this is lovely,” she says, glancing around the room, searching instinctively for a face she won’t find. “Thank you—whoever you are.”
Her smile widens, eyes shining just a bit, and Rupert has to look down at his hands before anyone notices the way his mouth betrays him—pulling upward, as if his body is trying to make him look like a gleeful idiot.
Around them, the room carries on. Wesley groans dramatically over socks whilst Declan seems to be genuinely grateful for the jarringly bright green ones he’s gifted.
Rupert’s gaze drops then to the box sitting abandoned near his own feet. He’d forgotten about it entirely.
With a quiet huff of breath, he leans forward and flips the lid open. A riding crop gleams up at him, and he already knows it’s not for his horse. Black leather, polished handle, unapologetic in its intent. There’s a beat of pure disbelief before he exhales sharply through his nose and lets out something between a laugh and a curse.
He doesn’t need to look up to know who his Secret Santa is. Basil’s smug satisfaction is practically a physical presence in the room, a low hum of chaos Rupert has learned to endure over the years.
“Well,” Rupert smiles under his breath, lifting it just long enough to confirm his suspicions. “Festive.”
A ripple of laughter breaks out in the group. Freddie whistles. Someone else says something about it being “on brand.”
Rupert sets the crop back in the box and closes the lid with deliberate care, as though containing it might also contain Basil’s glee as if it’s Pandora’s box. He rubs at his jaw and shakes his head faintly, but when he looks up again, his eyes find Taggie without effort.
She’s still smiling to herself, fingers tracing the edge of the box, utterly oblivious to the spectacle happening across the room. Her world, for the moment, is small and contained and full of quiet pleasure; he realises he’ll do whatever he can to keep it that way.
Rupert leans back into his chair, the ridiculous gift at his feet and the real one of Taggie’s happiness still echoing in his chest.
December, it seems, has a sense of humor after all.
❄
December 16th, 1987
Throughout the week, Rupert finds himself looking for the Walkman in Taggie’s presence.
Not consciously—he thinks. He doesn’t search so much as he notices absences: Taggie moving through the Priory unaccompanied by sound, her hands empty when he half-expects to see the thin line of headphones trailing from her jumper pocket. He clocks her passing in the Priory corridors, her quiet presence in rooms he enters moments too late.
He watches without being seen, and hopes that it stays that way.
The first time he catches her wearing them, he tries to ignore the grotesque relief that washes over him.
She’s in the kitchen standing beside the kettle that’s just started to boil. The headphones sit snug over her ears, hair tucked behind them, and she sways faintly where she stands—just enough to suggest she’s listening to one of the music tapes he’d bought and not one of the audiobooks.
Rupert stops short in the doorway and debates on whether he should announce himself. Instead, he stands there and watches the rise and fall of her shoulders, the gentle tilt of her head, the way she hums along.
She turns suddenly, nearly colliding with him, and startles—hands flying to her chest as she pulls the headphones down around her neck.
“Oh, Rupert! I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I thought you were still with Daddy and Freddie.”
“Just taking a break,” he replies, and is faintly proud of how even his voice sounds when it feels anything but. His eyes flick down again to the Walkman like it’s a tether between them. “I see you’re getting on well with your Secret Santa gift.”
Her smile blooms instantly—unmistakably pleased in a way that hits him square in the chest. Gorgeous girl, his mind supplies automatically.
“It was just so thoughtful,” she says, fingers brushing the plastic casing absently, as if reassuring herself it’s still there. “I love it.” Then, curiosity lighting her eyes, tipping her head just slightly, “What did you get?”
“A riding crop.”
He says it mildly, thinking it best not to spend much time elaborating on what type of riding crop it was.
She laughs then– entirely unaware of how closely he’s watching the way her mouth curves, the warmth in her eyes. “I would’ve thought you’d have lots of those already.”
“I suppose,” he says dryly, though the corner of his mouth tugs despite himself. He likes making her laugh.
Before either of them can find their footing again, Gertrude hurtles into the room like a force of nature– nails scrabbling uselessly against the floor as she makes a straight line for Rupert. He barely has time to brace before the little mongrel collides with him, pressing herself against his legs as if anchoring there, her curled tail wagging so hard it seems to move her whole back end.
“Well,” he murmurs, already crouching, hands instinctively finding her coarse fur, “hello to you too.” A corner of his mouth lifts. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a gift for you this time.”
Gertrude answers by licking his chin with wholehearted approval, clearly unbothered by the oversight.
Taggie groans affectionately. “She’s been like this all week. Haven’t you?”
As if to prove the point, Gertrude wriggles closer and climbs halfway into Rupert’s lap, settling there with the unquestioning certainty of something that knows exactly where it belongs.
“She doesn’t like being left,” Taggie says softly. “And with it being Christmas and everything, I’ve had to pop into town more often.”
Rupert’s fingers work slowly over the dog’s ears, feeling the steady warmth of her, the way she leans into his touch without hesitation. He understands it too well—that quiet distress absence brings, the way some presences become necessary without ever announcing themselves.
“I don’t blame her,” the words leave him before he’s had a chance to weigh them.
Taggie glances at him then. Something flickers across her face before she exhales softly.
“I don’t like leaving her either,” she admits. “I worry she’ll think I’m not coming back.”
Rupert’s gaze drops to Gertrude, to the way she presses close to him yet keeps one eye fixed on Taggie, alert and watchful even in her comfort. Loyal to a fault.
That night, alone, he finds himself lingering outside the jeweller’s longer than he intends to.
The locket catches his eye immediately—simple silver, edged with a thin whisper of red. He thinks of his brave, beautiful lady in red, and of the comfort he hopes it’ll give her when she has to leave. He doesn’t hesitate when he asks to see it opened; he already knows what will go inside.
When he tucks Gertrude’s photograph into place, there’s a soft click– not just the hinge, but something else slotting neatly where it belongs.
This is what she keeps close. This is what she loves.
And Rupert, it seems, has begun to love things by proxy.
❄
December 17th 1987
The following evening, the living room is quieter than it was the week before—most of the noise siphoned off toward the television, Freddie and Declan arguing amicably over something Rupert pointedly refuses to care about.
Taggie sits cross-legged on the rug near the coffee table, Gertrude curled against her thigh like a second heartbeat. Rupert occupies the armchair opposite, a drink cooling untouched in his hand, posture relaxed in a way that he hopes fools everyone around him.
Taggie doesn’t open the box straight away. It sits on the coffee table among mugs and crumbs and the easy sprawl of the evening, forgotten while the room moves on around it—Basil loud with his laughter, Caitlin drifting around the room.
Rupert tells himself not to watch, and then does anyway, because he usually finds himself failing when Taggie’s involved.
When she finally reaches for it, it’s absentminded, as if she’s remembered something halfway through another thought. She lifts the lid and goes still, and Rupert feels the drop in his stomach immediately– an unmistakable jolt of panic that tells him he’s gone too far.
The locket lies quietly in the velvet lining, silver catching the lamplight. Taggie lifts it out and turns it in her hands, thumb tracing the faint edge of red, her brow creasing as if she tries to place the feeling it gives her. Then she’s pressing on the clasp to open it.
Whatever she says then doesn’t quite reach him. Her voice is there- soft and suddenly animated—but Rupert is watching her face too closely to follow the words. Surprise breaks first, eyes widening as she leans closer, and then an unguarded delight, her mouth curving into a smile that seems to take over her whole expression.
“Oh—Gertie,” she laughs, and this time he hears it, the warmth in her voice unmistakable.
She lowers the locket instinctively, holding it out in front of Gertrude’s face as if the mongrel herself needs to see, needs to be included (he’s no better clearly, desperately finding a way to be included in Taggie’s excitement). Gertrude responds at once, tail thumping, nose pressing forward to investigate, clearly pleased with her own likeness. Taggie laughs again, utterly charmed, and Rupert feels something twist low in his chest at the sight of it.
He watches the way her fingers cradle the locket, how carefully she holds it open, as though closing it too soon might be a kind of loss. He watches the ease with which she shares it around, animatedly bringing it to Caitlin to start giggling amongst themselves. He realises with a faint clarity that he could watch this forever and still want more.
She glances at him then, catching him in the act.
For a moment, he thinks he’s fucked it. Taggie must know it’s from him, that the intention is written too plainly on his face before he’s had time to conceal it. But Taggie only smiles at him, eyes bright, flushed with excitement, and lifts the locket slightly, as if to show him too.
“Look at this Rupert,” she says, entirely unaware of how close she’s come to undoing him. “I mean—isn’t it beautiful?”
Rupert manages a nod, though the words tangle somewhere behind his teeth.
Because yes—it’s beautiful, but so is she. He can’t get enough of this: her joy, her openness, the way she lets what she loves spill so freely into the world when she’s given the opportunity. It frightens him, how much he wants to keep watching this happen.
“Could you—would you mind helping me put it on?”
The room seems to rearrange itself to give them space. Rupert sets his glass aside and stands, his movements careful because he knows he’s crossing uncertain ground here.
“Of course,” he says, and is faintly relieved to hear how smooth his voice comes out.
Up close, the locket is warm from her hand. He turns it once before lifting the chain, taking in the way the silver catches the light, the brief, intimate flash of red when it shifts. Beautiful, he thinks, and not for the first time finds himself startled by how easily the word comes to him when it’s about her.
She lifts her hair without prompting, baring the back of her neck, and Rupert’s breath hitches despite his best efforts. He steps closer, painfully aware of every inch of space between them as he fastens the clasp.
When she lets her hair fall again, she turns slightly, catching her reflection in the darkened window. The locket settles neatly at her throat, silver bright against her skin, the red lining flashing briefly as it comes to rest. Colour rises in her cheeks then, blooming nearly the same shade as the locket’s lining.
“It suits you,” Rupert says, before he has time to stop himself.
She smiles, shy and pleased, and ducks her head, her fingertips coming up to rest over the locket as though now, it will never be coming off.
Rupert sits back down slowly, heart still uncomfortably present in his throat, and realises with a strange, steady certainty that this was never really about the gift at all. Whenever she wears it, she will carry something of him with her. And part of him finds the thought both terrifying and impossible to give up.
❄
December 24th, 1987
He’s gone all out for his final gift.
The idea comes to him slowly, the way most of his dangerous ones do—unassuming at first, almost reasonable. A photograph here, another there. Nothing posed, nothing asked for. Just moments, caught and kept.
He tells himself it’s harmless. That it’s only because Taggie never seems to notice herself in the good bits, because she’s always facing outward. Whether that’s toward her family, the kitchen, Gertrude, anyone who might need her. He tells himself he’s doing her a favour, preserving what she would otherwise give away and forget.
Still, he’s careful.
He keeps the camera tucked away in his coat pocket during Venturer meetings, fingers brushing against it when conversation lulls, waiting for the exact moment she turns her head or laughs at something Caitlin’s said. He photographs her at the edges of rooms, half-lit by doorways, framed by bannisters and windowpanes. In the kitchen, he waits until her back is turned, until she’s reaching for something high or bending to greet Gertrude, before lifting the camera and pressing the shutter, heart hammering like he’s committing a crime.
More than once, she almost catches him. And truly, he’s no idea how he hasn’t been caught yet.
A glance thrown over her shoulder, or a pause that lasts a fraction too long. Each time, Rupert feels the cold jolt of it, already scrambling for an explanation he doesn’t have. I just thought the light was nice sounds insufficient. You looked happy sounds worse. He never quite gets caught, but the near-misses leave him with nerves alive in a way he doesn’t entirely dislike.
The photographs accumulate quietly.
Taggie at the table with Declan and Freddie, listening intently, face resting adorably in her palm. Taggie laughing with Lizzie, head tipped back, beautiful and unguarded. Taggie kneeling on the floor with Gertrude sprawled bonelessly across her lap, her expression soft with devotion. Rupert realises, somewhere in the middle of it all, that he’s stopped taking photographs of events entirely. What he’s collecting are moments of her.
He chooses the best of them late at night when he’s sitting at his desk in the coldness of Penscombe. He arranges them carefully, not chronologically but emotionally, letting the little photobook he picked out take shape in his hands. Each image keeps him a little warmer.
By Christmas Eve, the photobook rests wrapped beneath the Priory Christmas tree taped with a note he’d written the night before:
He just hopes she’ll finally see what he sees.
It seemed strange, but he actually is rather enjoying tonight. The realisation comes as a surprise, arriving midway through dinner like an unexpected gift he hadn’t known to brace himself against. The long table is crowded, noisy with cutlery and conversation, the Venturer team packed in elbow to elbow, passing dishes and wine and opinions with equal enthusiasm. Candlelight pools between them, catching on glass and silver and faces made softer by the season.
For once, the persistent ache he usually carries at Christmas– the awareness of who is missing, of stockings that won’t be filled by his hands - stays mercifully quiet. He doesn’t think about his children. Or rather, he does, but the thought doesn’t snag the way it normally does. It passes through him without drawing blood.
Instead, as always, his attention finds Taggie. She sits across from him between Caitlin and Declan’s empty place, cheeks warm from the heat of the room, hair pulled back loosely, laughter coming easily tonight. Lizzie is beside Rupert, leaning close as she talks animatedly over the table, but he listens with only half an ear, eyes drifting back to Taggie without effort or apology.
At some point, Caitlin thrusts a Christmas cracker toward him with a grin, challenging in the way she always is. Rupert obliges, fingers closing around the cardboard as they pull in unison. The cracker snaps loudly, scattering paper and amusement, and Rupert emerges with the prize in hand.
He reads the joke aloud— "What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite”
It’s catastrophically bad, but Caitlin snorts immediately, loud enough to draw groans from the others. Rupert allows himself a small smile at that.
He then places the paper crown on his head without much finesse. It sits poorly, slipping forward almost at once, and before he can adjust it himself, Taggie is leaning across the table, fingers light as she nudges it back into place.
“Hm,” she hums softly, laughing a little at how ridiculous he must look. “I think your head’s too big for it.”
There’s a ripple of laughter, but Rupert barely hears it. He meets her eyes, close enough now to see the flecks of colour in them, and feels something warm and foolish bloom in his chest.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says dryly, enjoying the blush that spreads to her neck when she catches the double meaning.
She laughs again, and he decides that the stupid crown can stay. He ignores the absurdity of it and keeps it on simply because she seems pleased.
Then Freddie claps his hands together sharply, cutting through the room. “Right,” he announces, grinning like a man about to detonate something. “Before pudding, we’ve one last thing to do. Secret Santa.”
Declan reappears from the kitchen, arms full and distributing parcels down the table until each person has one placed neatly in front of them. Rupert watches as Taggie’s is set down before her, recognises his shit attempt at wrapping immediately; he hopes the gift will make up for it.
“And this time,” Freddie adds, leaning back against the sideboard, “you should all have a note. Afterward, if you feel like it, you can reveal yourselves.”
Rupert’s pulse kicks up. He folds his hands loosely in his lap and looks across the table at Taggie, at the way she studies the gift in front of her with that familiar concentration, but this time with a purely excited smile to accompany it.
He finds himself absurdly grateful for the noise, the company, the warmth of the room. Grateful that tonight, at least, he can sit here and feel anchored, but keep his attention fixed exactly where it wants to be.
He watches her reach for the note first, silently grateful for her impeccable timing—Declan has gone back into the kitchen for a rubbish bag, meaning he won’t be able to hover over her shoulder and react explosively once he realises it’s from him.
Still, the nerves don’t subside as he watches her read through the handwriting he’d altered just for the sake of her dyslexia. The crease between her brows deepens as she reads, mouth tugging into a thoughtful line. She doesn’t look up straight away, and that—somehow—is worse. He catalogues every second by the way her thumb rubs the edge of the paper as if it might soften under persistence.
She exhales through her nose and finally moves her gaze to the parcel.
Declan reappears then, plastic bag crackling loudly as he wrestles it open, and the moment fractures just enough for him to remember how to breathe.
Taggie slips her finger beneath the tape and peels it back. Caitlin immediately leans over her shoulder, chin nearly resting there, eyes bright with nosy delight.
“Oooh,” she murmurs, already smiling. “That’s pretty.”
Rupert watches from across the table, as the paper falls away and the photobook emerges into Taggie’s hands. She doesn’t open it straight away. Instead, she runs her fingers over the cover. Lizzie notices too—she shifts closer, peering down with a softness Rupert rarely sees on her face unless it’s reserved for Freddie.
Taggie finally opens it and he watches how her smile fades into something akin to focus, but also entirely deeper. She analyses the first page, then another, each time her smile getting a little larger. Caitlin lets out a low sound from beside her.
“Oh, Tag,” she says softly. “That’s… that’s really sweet.”
Taggie swallows. Her hand lingers on one photograph longer than the rest—Rupert can see it even from here with the way her thumb rests at the corner. She blinks, once, then again, eyes bright and slightly glazed over now.
Declan’s voice cuts in from the other end of the table. “Rupert—can you give me a hand with this?”
It takes him a second to realise he’s being addressed. He tears his gaze away from Taggie with real effort, the physical sensation of it almost painful, and nods. “Yes. Of course.”
He stands, chair scraping back, heart still thudding far too fast. He moves quickly, grabs the bag Declan’s holding out, and makes for the kitchen with single-minded purpose. Drop it and get back to the table.
The kitchen is cooler, quieter. A slight reprieve to the heat of the dining room. He tips the rubbish into the bin a little too forcefully, the rustle of plastic echoing in the silence. His hands shake now that there’s nothing left to occupy them, the adrenaline with nowhere to go.
He braces his palms on the counter and exhales through his nose. This is ridiculous. He’s handled worse than a crowded table before. He straightens, schooling his face into something neutral, and turns, nearly colling straight into Taggie.
“Taggie, I—” he starts, already reaching for her without thinking, hand coming up to steady her shoulders, to move her back, to put space between them before his mouth ruins everything.
But she doesn’t let him finish. She steps into him and closes the last inch of distance he’s been fighting all evening, and then her mouth is on his.
Her hands come up to his face, fingers curling there and Rupert freezes for half a heartbeat, shock flaring through him– mind scrambling uselessly for the rule he’s just broken, for the line she’s crossed, for the reason he should stop this.
But her hands move to the nape of his neck and something in him gives.
The restraint he’s built brick by careful brick– a year of being the man who doesn’t take from her—fractures clean through. He hears a groan leave him helplessly as his body responds before his conscience can catch up. He melts into her, hand sliding instinctively to her waist, anchoring her there because he’s not sure what he’d do if she let go now.
Her mouth is soft and certain against his, and Christ, how long has he wanted this? Wanted her? Not just to soothe, not just to carry the weight for her—but to be chosen like this, to be pulled into need instead of standing watch over it.
The world narrows to the warmth of her mouth, and the way she sighs against him as though this has been inevitable. When she pulls back he feels it like a physical loss– an almost petulant want. Her hands are on his face and he has the absurd urge to lean into them like a boy being soothed. She looks at him as if she’s just confirmed something privately satisfying.
“Thank you,” she says softly.
For a second he’s genuinely at sea. His head feels light, his pulse unhelpfully loud. Gratitude seems wildly inadequate for what’s just happened.
“For…?” he asks, because something has to come out of his mouth, and he’d very much like it to be back on hers again.
Her mouth curves, small and knowing. “It’s you,” she says. “You’re my Secret Santa.”
Ah. That. He lets out a breath that turns into a laugh before he can stop it. “Yes,” he says. No point pretending now. “Yes, it’s me.”
Her smile deepens at that, and she lifts her hands again—not to kiss him this time, but to the ridiculous paper crown still perched crookedly on his head. She adjusts it, fingers brushing his hair, deliberately slow.
“It wasn’t too much?” he asks, suddenly uncertain again, watching her face for any flicker of regret.
She shakes her head at once. “No,” she says firmly. Her thumb lingers at his temple, grounding him. “I’ve never been given something so thoughtful, I should've guessed it was you.”
He swallows. “I wanted you to have something that you could keep,” he says quietly.
Her lashes lift, her colour deepening visibly, a slow bloom of pink spreading across her cheeks. Her mouth parts, just slightly, like she might speak and then decides not to. There’s this open, flushed softness, the way she’s standing there with her hands still hovering between them as if she’s braced for him to disappear.
It’s that expression again. The one she’s always worn with him. His girl, looking at him like that, and he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. His composure—never known for being terribly robust—simply gives up.
Something feral curls low in his stomach, sharp and hungry and wholly unsuited to the careful man he’s been pretending to be around her. He closes the distance again without asking.
This kiss isn’t tentative. It’s heat and intention and the quiet, dangerous certainty that he’s done pretending he doesn’t want this and hopes to God, it won’t scare her off. His hand cups her jaw, thumb slipping beneath her ear as he kisses her hard enough to steal the breath from her lungs, and she makes a sound—soft, startled, needy—that goes straight through him.
Christ.
She melds into it, fingers clutching at his jumper like she might anchor herself there, and Rupert feels the visceral weight of the months of restraint, the watching, the wanting, the ache he’s disciplined into something almost noble, hit him all at once.
He crowds her back until her hips bump the counter behind her, the dull clink of crockery an irrelevant sound. His body slots between her thighs instinctively, knee nudging hers apart just enough to make the point. He breaks the kiss only to breathe her in, forehead dropping briefly to hers.
“Taggie,” he murmurs, warning threaded thin through the sound of her name.
She answers by tilting her head, offering him her mouth again, and that’s that.
He kisses her like he’s starving. Slow at first, he doesn’t want to scare her off after all—tongue tracing the seam of her lips, coaxing—before it turns messy and wanting, her sigh swallowed by his mouth. His hand slides back to her waist, fingers digging in just enough to make her gasp, and he feels the tremor that runs through her like a reward.
His other hand finds the counter beside her, caging her in. He knows exactly how it looks. Knows the path that they're treading.
He kisses down her jaw, leaves her mouth swollen and shining, and she arches into him. He presses his lips to the soft place beneath her ear, inhales sharply when he feels her pulse jump against his mouth.
“So responsive,” he murmurs against her skin, half-amused, half-undone. “You’ve no idea what you do to me, angel.”
Her fingers slide up into his hair, tugging just enough to make his groan turn rough and unmistakably needy. And truly, she really does have no idea what she does to him.
The sounds she makes—God, the sounds—they only spur him on as he kisses lower down her neck, teeth grazing skin before his mouth soothes it. He lingers there, drawing out every quiet sound she makes like he’s collecting them. His hips press forward without permission, and the friction is enough to make him curse under his breath.
His cock is hard. Painfully so. There’s no mistaking how his body has betrayed every sensible instinct he owns.
Dimly, inconveniently, the world intrudes. The kitchen—the kitchen—asserts itself around them: the faint smell of pine from the fire drifting in, the low hum of the house settling around them like it always does. A space meant for hands dusted in flour, for mugs and morning light and people wandering in without warning.
Anyone could walk in. Freddie, Basil, Caitlin—Declan with some forgotten errand, and he’ll be damned before letting anyone else see her like this. The thought lands sharp and belated, a spike of sense cutting through the heat. This isn’t some shadowed corner or locked room. This is the heart of the house, open and exposed, and he’s got her pinned there like he’s forgotten how walls work.
The knowledge only tightens everything in him and he just manages to stop mouthing at her neck.
The moment stretches. He presses his forehead to her shoulder, breath harsh in her ear. His fingers flex at her waist because he’s physically restraining himself here, and he’s never been known for his abilities in the field.
“This is a bad idea,” he says hoarsely, though his body remains very much in disagreement. “We should—” he lets out a breath he doesn’t quite manage. “We should stop.”
But his Taggie is persistent, and still warm between her thighs where she subtly grinds against his thigh. He thinks he quite likes it when she gets like this.
She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she turns her head just enough to look at him, cheeks flushed, lips parted and swollen, eyes dark in a way that makes his chest ache. One hand slips from his hair to his chest, palm flattening there as if she can feel how fast his heart’s going.
“Rupert,” she says softly, and somehow that’s worse than if she’d begged.
He forces himself to meet her gaze, to really look—to check for doubt, for hesitation, for anything that might save him from himself. There’s none.
“Come upstairs,” she says quietly.
His breath leaves him in a sharp exhale, something almost like a laugh tearing free at the edges. She knows what she wants– she wants to be fucked and God, he wants to give her that.
He searches her face one last time, desperate for an out he doesn’t truly want. “You’re sure?” he asks, voice low and wrecked.
Her thumb strokes the line of his jaw, a touch so gentle it nearly undoes him completely. “Yes,” she says.
He captures her mouth again. “Lead the way, darling,” he breathes against her lips, and follows her out of the kitchen, the paper crown still somehow sitting on his head and absolutely no intention of removing it.
❄
Rupert’s got Taggie sat on his cock, and Christ she's a fucking natural.
It’s somewhere between the first slow roll of her hips and the way her breath had stuttered against his chest, when he became dimly aware that he’d stopped thinking in anything like coherent sentences.
There is only the consuming heat of her cunt and the devastating weight of her settled directly on his cock. He almost can’t believe it, that he’s finally got his angel like this.
With Taggie, his girl who still colours when she’s looked at too closely, who chooses her words as though afraid of taking up too much room with them. Taggie, who watches the world from across the valley like it might notice her if she isn’t careful. He’s always thought of her as something gentle, something to be handled with care (which although he knows isn’t exactly false), the knowledge still sits uneasily alongside the way she moves now, sliding over his cock with an almost fierce intensity, as though her body has always known exactly how to take him, exactly how to make him come.
There is nothing tentative about how she rides him now.
Rupert leans back against the headboard, neck corded with strain as he fights himself for something like composure. His hands are fixed on her hips, thumbs digging in, not so much guiding as anchoring—because if he lets go, if he gives her even an inch more freedom, he’s certain he’ll lose himself entirely. She feels so fucking good– wrapped around his cock with a deliberate pressure that sends his mind into a haze of her.
“Christ, Tag. So fucking pretty taking me like this.”
He means it. Even through the haze behind his heavy-lidded eyes, the world shrinks to the wet, devastating vision of her pretty cunt sucking his cock in; the image alone has him teetering on the edge of himself.
Her face is just as gorgeous; the lamplight catches her face in soft shadow, the faint parting of her lips, the broken sounds she makes when she forgets herself for half a second too long. She isn’t loud—she would never allow herself to be here—but the room fills with sound all the same: the quiet wet slide of her pussy swallowing him in and the whimpers she tries to swallow back. Rupert can’t look away, but he doesn’t want to anyway.
“Rupert—” she moans, his name slipping out like she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
She seems to move with increasing urgency, sinking down harder, faster, and the sensation wipes his mind clean, stealing breath from his lungs and any lingering illusion of control with it.
He can feel her everywhere—can feel how sure she is now, how unashamed—how she’s stopped holding herself back. Perfect.
“Look at you,” he hears himself murmur, his voice rough with awe. “You’re—fuck—”
She opens her eyes then, heavy and fixed on him; she’s not hiding anymore. Rupert watches her like a man memorising the last solid thing he’ll ever know, already aware—already doomed by the certainty—that this is the image he’ll return to again and again when he’s missing her and has his cock in his hand.
He slides his hands from her hips up along her sides, feeling the curve of her ribs beneath his palms, the gentle weight of her breasts. He kisses her hard, not caring about how desperate it seems, and swallows the louder sound he feels building in her because if she lets it escape, if she gives voice to what he knows she’s feeling, he won’t be able to stop himself from coaxing every last one of them out of her, Venturer downstairs—and anyone listening—be damned.
He doesn’t wait for her to move again. He takes over, drawing her down the length of him in a slow, punishing grind before lifting her just enough that she slides over the aching head of him. Again. And again. His pace quickens despite himself, control slipping as he silently prays it isn’t too much, too soon—because he wants this to stay hers, to follow her lead.
The absurd paper crown slips then, tilting awkwardly over his ear, and he reaches up on instinct to tear it away—only for her to catch his wrist.
Her grip is firm, unexpectedly strong, and what’s worse, she doesn’t stop moving.
“No,” she breathes. “Don’t.”
She shifts her weight with deliberate intent, and the sensation lands sharp, tearing another helpless groan from his chest before he can stop it.
“It looks… hot.”
The sound that escapes him is a helpless, half-groan, half-disbelieving laugh, the ridiculousness of it colliding headlong with the white-hot intensity flooding him. He abandons the thought entirely, grips her harder, thrusts up into her like punishment for daring to distract him like that.
She tightens around him without warning, the sudden, perfect clench pulling him under as she tips over the edge. He feels it happen—the shudder that tears through her, the way she clings to him, the impossibility of her pussy somehow clenching tighter than it already is, around his cock.
“Shhh… that’s it. Just like that,” he rasps, trying to soothe her through it even as his own body betrays him. “So good, angel. Giving me your all, just like I knew you would.”
Her moans break free now, sounds of surrender that he tries to swallow, and echoes in his own guttural response. She’s gorgeous, utterly wrecked beneath him, giving him everything with an unselfconscious trust that makes his chest ache as much as it makes him lose himself.
“My gorgeous girl, coming so nicely on my cock,” he murmurs, feeling her cling tighter, riding the wave of her climax as though it’s the only thing that matters in the world. He won’t get enough of this, and he just hopes she’ll let him have her like this again.
The “Rupert” she makes is muffled against him but it finishes him off.
Release crashes through him, leaving him shaking, his last sound buried into the heat of her neck because even now, even like this, some distant part of him is thinking about the house. About being heard.
When the world finally steadies, he’s still inside her, breath ragged, hands locked around her waist as though she might disappear if he lets go.
She folds against his chest, heart racing in frantic counterpoint to his own. He registers it absently, another detail his mind files away without permission, another thing he knows he’ll remember far too clearly.
She lifts her head, soft and flushed, and presses a light kiss to his chin. She’s perfect.
He buries his face in her hair, inhaling, still caught somewhere between need and awe.
“You’re perfect,” he murmurs, repeating his earlier thought, fingertips tracing the curve of her waist as if he can map her completely just by touch. She hums softly, a tired, satisfied sound that makes the corner of his mouth lift into a small smile.
“I wish you’d been my Secret Santa,” he adds in the quiet.
She laughs softly then, and it shakes some of the tension from his shoulders. “That’s… random, Rupert. Why?” she teases, eyes glittering with playful curiosity.
“Because,” he says slowly, “I would have asked for this every week. Or every day, if you were feeling so inclined.”
Her laugh is bright and he feels a warm ache of contentment that he hasn’t felt in years. “I don’t think that’s how Secret Santa works, Rupert,” she murmurs, shaking her head with a grin.
He pouts slightly, exaggerating it for effect, letting a corner of humor slip through his exhaustion. “Shame,” he mutters, voice fond.
She leans up and brushes her lips against his cheek. “Maybe next year,” she says quietly.
He presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head, arms still wrapped around her, heart finally slowing in the comfort of her warmth. “Next year… or we could just start tomorrow," he adds, the attempt at a joke barely concealing the conviction solidifying in his own mind.
There’s only her, only them, only this perfect pocket of time he knows he’ll come back to in his thoughts again and again, long after the paper crown has fallen and Christmas has passed.
She leans into him further, and he lets the quiet settle around them, an unspoken promise, as sweet and inevitable as the first snow outside of her window.
❄
fin.