#throbin

And it’s even better this year now that he has a hobgoblin boyfriend to share it with. Right now, he’s wearing one of his dad’s old sweaters and desperately attempting to detangle the lights after they spent 326 days chilling in the attic. He frowns slightly, pulling again and again at the wire, and Theo hides his smile behind his coffee cup.

“Here,” he sighs eventually, holding his hands out. “Let me try, goblin boy.”

“You know, one of these days, your dad is going to hear you call me that,” he remarks. “You got a plan for that?”

“Oh please, my dad just puts everything he doesn’t get about my life down to ‘youths these days’ or a trans thing he doesn’t get but tries to support,” Theo explains. He tugs at the lights and maneuvers the small bulbs slightly, a little extra twist and… “Voila, bitch.” He holds up the completely tangle-free set of lights in front of Robin’s eyes and laughs as his boyfriend’s eyes widen, his mouth falling into a perfect ‘o’.

“You sure you don’t have any magic?” he asks.

“No magic. Just skills.” He hands the other end of the lights to Robin and runs over to the tree, climbing up on top of the chair to get a better vantage point, and starts wrapping the lights around them. He’s got a specific way of doing it, perfected over so many years, that means they get maximum twinkle and a perfect light-to-tinsel ratio.

Maybe he should’ve realised he wasn’t straight and cis sooner than he did.

“Okay, I think that’s the last of it,” his dad announces, stepping into the living room with two boxes in his hands. Theo recognises the handwriting. The oversized T and backwards D can only be his, from when he was about five or six and his dad let him label all the boxes with Sharpie. It might be faded now, but it still being there is a testament to how well his dad looks after everything. “Theo, are you sure you should be on the chair like that?”

“I do this every year,” Theo reminds him, pushing himself up on his toes. He props his elbow against the window for safety, and his dad and Robin share a look.

“And every year, I’m in danger of a heart attack,” he remarks. “Especially now that we’ve got someone taller, who can actually reach up there.”

“I’m offended, father,” Theo gasps. “Besides, Robin is busy holding the lights and looking good doing it.”

“It’s true, I am holding the lights,” Robin adds. His dad rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide the fond smile on his face. Something tugs in Theo’s chest, something warm and almost glowing, like the small flames his dad’s got going in their fireplace. “Okay, babe, now plug them in and… Here we go.”

Robin ducks below the tree and puts the plug in the socket, and almost immediately, the tree is lit up in a rainbow of colours, tiny dots of light dancing on the walls and ceiling. The light reflects off the tinsel on the tree, sparkling like miniature starlight. The feeling in his chest grows stronger, and he lets his family’s sentimentality take over for a second.

Especially when he crosses over to Robin’s side, and he wraps his arm around him, his cheek pressed to the top of his head. 

“Not bad,” he murmurs in his ear. He smiles and presses his face into Robin’s chest, the fluff from his sweater tickling against his cheeks.

“Okay, what else have we got?” he asks, turning to his dad. His dad coughs, chasing away the soft proudness on his face, and turns to the boxes. Theo doesn’t say anything, but he gets it. 

“Okay, we have this entire box of family ornaments,” he begins. “And then there’s the Nativity for the front hall… oh, and this box of stuff Theo made in elementary school.”

“Yeah, we don’t need to use any of that,” he says quickly, but Robin is quicker, and his dad is already handing the box to him. It’s not fair since he almost definitely used some of that hobgoblin speed to grab it, and so Theo sticks his tongue out when his dad’s back is turned. Robin just does it right back, already looking through the ghosts of Christmas art past.

“Aw babe,” he says. He lifts out a small clay Santa, or it was meant to be Santa anyway. All that gives it away is the red hat. It’s an abomination, and yet Robin looks at it like it’s hanging in the Lourve. “You made this?”

“I believe that was first grade,” he says dryly. “I think I spent most of that class throwing clay at Billy and Carl.”

“Theo Jesse Putnam,” his dad says. “Don’t make me ground you for something that happened a decade ago.

“They threw it at me first,” he says, both hands up in defense.

“Well, I, for one, think it’s adorable,” Robin says. Theo sighs and pretends the blush creeping up his cheeks is him being too warm in his stupid sweater. He also acts like his eyes don’t linger on Robin as he goes to hang it on the tree and that the sight of Robin bathed in multi-coloured lights isn’t the cause of the smile spreading across his face.

He fails at all of those. Especially when his heart flutters slightly and his breath hitches in his throat. So this is what being in love is like, huh?

“I’m going to go set this up in the hallway,” his dad says softly. He gently nudges Theo’s shoulder, a knowing look in his eyes. “You two call if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah.” His dad leaves then, just as Robin finishes hanging Theo’s little monstrosity. There’s a brightness in his eyes, a sparkle Theo doesn’t think he’s seen before. They’ve talked about this before, Robin’s family life with the Pagans, even before Theo knew what he really was. They’ve talked about the whole Christmas thing too, about bringing Robin into their traditions even if he doesn’t celebrate it. He doesn’t need to ask what this means to him. He knows.

“Here.” He grabs the box of Putnam family ornaments and carries it over too. It’s mostly all keepsakes that his family never wanted to get rid of. The music changes as they start decorating, Shakin’ Steven’s ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ bouncing from the cassette player. Robin bobs along as he works, his shoulders shaking almost in time with the beat, and it’s one of the cutest things Theo has ever seen. Aside from well, most things Robin does.

Holy shit, he’s in deep.

As he hangs another one of the ornaments-one that he thinks was his grandma’s back in the day-the finds a stray piece of red tinsel nestled among the branches. He swiftly picks it out with a grin and tucks it behind Robin’s ear. It looks oddly charming against his green hair, even with his confused expression.

“Just giving you some extra sparkle,” he says. Robin chuckles and briefly checks himself in the mirror, his grin widening as he does.

“I think it works,” he says.

“It most definitely does.” They go on hanging ornaments, briefly taking a cookie break, and then taking a slightly-less-brief dancing break at one point. His dad walks in just as Robin is twirling him under his arm and tries to slip out as quietly as possible with the box of kitchen decorations in hand. Almost as if he was worried about interrupting something.

They break apart, and Theo stumbles over to the box, running his hand through his hair as his heart slows back down. The tree is almost fully done, her branches weighed down by the old and new ornaments. The box is nearly empty now, and what remains in it is either broken or torn, or the paint has all faded off. So there’s only one thing left to put on, and a small, childish thrill of excitement runs through him when he pulls it out.

It’s his thing, putting the star on the tree. It always has been since he was in footie pyjamas and had jam in his hair. There’s proof of it too; a photo of him aged one, his dad standing on a chair on holding him up as he places it haphazardly on top. Despite him cutting off the caption at the bottom, he loves that photo. It still sits stuck to his pinboard, right next to old concert tickets and his first day of high school photo. 

“You sure that’s safe enough?” Robin asks. He stands just a little bit behind him as he climbs up on the chair. His arms are folded across his chest, and he wears an expression that’s equal parts worried and bemused.

“I’ll be fine,” he sighs. “I’ve done this like a hundred times.”

“And yet you wonder why we worry about you so much,” Robin replies. Theo ignores him and instead tries to reach over to the top of the tree. Pine needles scratch his arms as he goes, his legs stretching as far as he can, but the top remains just out of reach. He hops down from the chair, not hiding the disappointed pout on his face, and shakes out his sore limbs. 

He’s not giving up. He never would. 

“Okay, maybe if I move the chair around,” he thinks aloud. “I’d have an easier time climbing up. Maybe in front…”

“Maybe,” Robin agrees. “Although… I do have better, and possibly safer, idea.”

“You do?” Theo turns to him. “What is it?”

There’s a moment of silence and a grin that links Robin to his literary counterpart. And then Robin’s arms are around his waist, and Theo lets out a gasp of surprise. In what must be less than a second, he’s perched carefully on Robin’s shoulders, his clutching his boyfriend’s shirt and his heart about to burst out of his chest.

“You couldn’t have warned me you were going to do that?” he asks breathlessly.

“It was more fun this way,” he reasons. “And can you reach now?”

“Well…” He sighs, but when he looks up and stretches out his hand, he gets his answer. “Yeah. I can.”

He doesn’t need to look down to see Robin’s smile as he places the star on top. Knowing now that he’s safe with Robin, he lets go of his shirt and instead runs his hand through Robin’s hair, absent-mindedly toying with his bangs. It’s the same decorations, more or less the same size tree (though maybe slightly bigger) that they have every year. The same background music, the same cookies, even the same damn sweater. But it feels different this time. More magical. And that, Theo decides, he’ll put to the boy whose shoulders he’s sitting on, whose thumbs trace tiny circles on his jeans.

“Happy Solstice, Robin,” he says quietly. Robin hums, dimples forming in his cheeks as he smiles.