BlamePraise Tusia. All her fault.
F/HAish. I dunno, I’m not paying much attention to the logistics here.
Channeling Victorique from Gosick here. If you want adorable kuudere-ish-tsundere moments, look no further. Also, Christmas.
A Very Dere Christmas
She snuck into his room to surprise him; it was the morning of Christmas Eve, after all. Saber knew that in these parts, the day had significance for couples, though what exactly she did not quite understand. In her time, the days of the Winter Solstice were more about butchering cattle and the like in preparation for the rest of the season. Here, it apparently meant bright lights, eating cake, and spending time with lovers in what Shirou called a “date.”
He was curled up to one side when she entered, the slow rise and fall of his shoulders steady. He did not stir when she crept beneath the cover of his futon, did not react even as her feet slipped up against his.
Watching him breathe evenly, Saber lulled half asleep herself, the warmth beneath the comforter getting to her more than any kotatsu had managed to before. She hoped that he would not mind when he woke and found her…
Shirou shifted in his sleep, rolling onto his back and toward her, his arm coming up for her head. Saber ducked her head to avoid being smacked by his elbow—
His unconscious attack caught her hair, plucked the strand that always stood at the crown.
Shirou felt wakefulness creep up on him, rolled onto his side to catch sight of the clock and the time—
Golden eyes stared up at him.
The boy catapulted out of his futon like he were suffering a terrible nightmare, was to the corner of the room faster than any Servant with A-rank agility could manage. He tried at once to catch his breath, force his heart to stop pumping like a faucet on full, and get his gooseflesh to go down.
Saber pursed her lips, her tongue clearly going to one cheek in annoyance at the sudden disturbance. With the cover thrown off, she now lay only in one of Shirou’s button-ups, trying not to show that the cold air could affect her in any fashion. “What a rude greeting, Master.”
“S-S-S-S-Saber! What are…how…just what’s going on?!” Shirou stuttered out.
Saber looked absolutely put out. “I should think it obvious, Master. Today is Christmas Eve, is it not? I had thought to let you enjoy my company the moment you woke.”
Palm to his face, Shirou held in a woeful groan. That wasn’t what he meant. “I mean,” he said, shaking his head furiously, “why are you like that?!”
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous levels, narrowed to make everything from the tips of his hair to the ends of his toenails quiver. “Is my appearance unappealing, Master?” Before Shirou could answer, she shot up in place, her shoulders tensed, her fists clenched at her sides. “I will have to reconsider my show of gallantry to you this day, Shirou,” she said, storming out, seemingly unconcerned by the view she offered him of her milky legs and the curve of skin peeking out just beyond the bottom hem of the shirt. She flung the door closed behind her, hard enough that the thing rebounded in place.
Shirou crouched in place, hands running through his hair, trying to comprehend what all had just happened.
“So,” Rin summarized, “she came in, tried to seduce you, and, like a true man…you ran into the corner and cried like a baby.” She stared at him, long and hard, then broke out into a giggling fit.
Shirou scowled, unhappily planted his chin in his hands and leaned forward on the table. He was unable to reply, though, as he could hear even Sakura laughing from the kitchen. He looked to Rider for help, but the tall woman sat stoically next to Rin, sipping her tea, though Shirou thought for a moment he might have spied an amused smile being covered with her cup.
“Y-you seriously have a p-problem!” Rin said, fighting back her amusement. “Isn’t…isn’t the saying ‘I’d hit that’? Not, ‘I’m scared of that’!”
“I was surprised is all! Dammit, she snuck in and was different again, how was I supposed to know what to do? The last time she was like this she ended up drop-kicking Archer right off of the roof, remember?”
Sakura brought the rice cooker over and started setting out bowls to forestall any further teasing. Shirou, for his part, continued to frown unhappily, glaring at Rin the entire time even as the witch ignored him in favor of the meal.
Footsteps alerted them of Saber’s approach, and Shirou inwardly cringed. He had a feeling the proud Servant would still feel the necessity to take the perceived slight out on him and he still had little to no idea what the heck was going on. He looked to Rin now for help, but she seemed plenty fine with scooping up rice like he didn’t exist now. His gaze shifted to Sakura, but the other girl gave him a don’t look at me sort of helpless widening of the eyes.
The door slid open and Shirou said, “Saber, I don’t know what I did, buuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—”
Saber’s Alter persona stood there, a glorious sight in red and black. The stockings she wore seemed trimmed with lace, her skirt was frilly without jutting out unnaturally from her hips, the red fabric hugged her slender body. Her hair was down, though a black bow decorated the back and a red bow matching her dress hung from her left temple in what was both cute and elegant somehow at the same time. The only thing that seemed to mar the perfection of it all was the dull look in her eyes.
Everyone in the room froze in place, staring up at the blond Servant. Rin’s chopsticks clattered to the table.
“What?” Saber asked, glaring at them all.
Shirou tried to untangle his tongue to speak, but Rin beat him to it. “That…is so damn hot,” the witch muttered.
Sakura and Rider nodded in tandem.
“Hmf.” Saber nodded, as if that were an acceptable reaction, jutting her chin out proudly. But from the corner of her eye, she watched Shirou continue to stare up at her, and the faintest of color went to her cheeks. “What is for breakfast?”
Shirou really didn’t know what to do. His plan of course had been to take her into town, into the stuffed animal shop and see if they couldn’t find another lion to match up with the one she already had. He would then show her the Christmas tree they’d erected in Shinto and take a look at the lights, before returning home to eat dinner with everyone else after picking up a cake on the way home.
Of course, he was constantly distracted from his plans as they wandered through the city, people stopping to stare after them. Not only was the dress eye-catching and Saber’s foreign appearance striking, Saber herself obviously exuded quite the different feeling when walking about, head somehow above everyone else even if she paid no attention to their stares.
“Shirou,” Saber crossed her arms. “We have passed this building once already, so unless you intend to parade around as means of this ‘date,’ I do not see a point. At all.”
Sighing, Shirou scratched the back of his head. They had indeed passed the shop already, as he still felt nervous attempting to enter it. Now, with Saber as she was, he felt doubly so. “Alright, we’re going in here, I…uh, wanted to see if you were paying attention.”
“I always pay attention to my surroundings,” she said.
The doors slid open to admit them, and Shirou glanced around. Additional kiosks were set up to house seasonal items, while even the regular shelves seemed to overflow with new items. Unlike the last time they had been in here, Shirou spotted a greater number of men combing the aisles, probably attempting last-minute shopping for their loved ones. “It’s, uh, customary for friends and family to exchange gifts,” he explained. “I already got Tohsaka and Sakura and everyone else things, but…you’re kind of difficult to shop for.”
Saber frowned—well, frowned more. “I see, I am difficult.”
Shirou bit down on his tongue. He really was doing a brilliant job with wording things today. “Just…please, I wanted to see if you might like anything they have here today.”
“Fine.” She stepped off into one aisle herself, head turning this way and that, and he followed after her. Admittedly, he found that he could not exactly concentrate on spotting any individual toy himself, as he kept staring at how slender her shoulders appeared in that dress, or how the skirt fluttered around as she walked. Even her hair, flying around as she moved, something he was not used to seeing out in the open like this.
They wandered for a while, up and down one aisle, then through to the next. Saber would carefully scan each shelf, each display, pausing only briefly to confirm something she seemed content to keep to herself. While she did, he would take a moment to fret over what her mind was conjuring up even as he admired the way her porcelain features seemed to fit in this place. An odd juxtaposition, that Alter would be more suited to this childish location than her generally more subdued and gentle self.
Still, he almost ran right into her when she stopped before one display. Apparently one of the seasonal varieties, it had a cluster of animals with red bows tied somewhere on their bodies, not unlike the bow Saber had in her hair. Saber, of course, was staring at a lion, the bow clipped into its mane.
Shirou grinned, picking it up. “Do you want this one?”
She huffed. “I…I did not say such a thing.”
His grin widening, Shirou went to set it back down. “Okay, then you don’t wan—”
Saber’s hands shot out. “I want.” She looked down and to one side, coughing, pink touching her cheeks. “I mean, no, I will take it, since there seems to be no other adequate options here.”
He handed her the stuffed animal, tried not to gush over just how adorable she was now. “Then, Merry Christmas, Saber.”
The Christmas lights were just being turned on when they made it to the courtyard where it had been set up. Shirou sighed, though, as crowds of people—families primarily, but a large number of couples—blocked their way from moving any closer. And Saber seemed too preoccupied with the lion to care about using her power to part the mass of people like the mythical Red Sea or whatever the Charisma-based equivalent was.
Still, it seemed like the trip had been worth it. So preoccupied with the stuffed animal, Saber hardly noticed when a child bumped into her and fell back at her implacable form; she absently reached down, grabbed the boy by his collar, lifted him up to his feet, then patted him along on his way, all without even sparing a glance.
He looked back up at the tree, too far away to fully admire anything but a mass of lights and a clear star at the top, and considered just calling it for the night—
Saber tugged on the sleeve of his jacket. “I…wanted to say that I knew about the exchange of gifts. I did not know what to get you, however, which is why I ended up purchasing this dress.” She was about as red as Shirou had ever seen her, and not because of the dress either. “I…apologize if that was not clear before.”
Shirou eyes darted up to see if Saber’s hair had sprung another lock when he wasn’t looking, but apparently this was a genuine apology from even the Alter form. “Um, I didn’t, well, you didn’t—” he carefully smiled, “you do look really pretty, Saber.”
“O-o-of course!” She closed her eyes and nodded as if in deep contemplation and coming to the same conclusion. “I expected nothing less of your ability to conceptualize what looks p-pretty.”
“Although,” he teased, “just dressing up isn’t really a gift.”
Her face fell. “I…see.”
He leaned in, his hands going to her waist to pull her closer, pressed his lips to hers. She gave a compliant little sound in response, arms encircling his neck, halfway forgetting about the plush clutched in her hand.
“So you’ll just have to reward me with a kiss in front of all these people,” Shirou said when he withdrew.
Her lips pursed, pouted faintly as she looked aside, trying desperately not to blush again. “I suppose that is…acceptable,” she muttered.
“Then, I take your leave,” he said, leaning in again.
The stupid strand of hair had in fact returned amidst the gooseflesh-inducing kisses they had shared in town, and by the time they had returned to the house Saber was for the most part feeling like herself again. With a squeeze of the hands, Shirou had gone off to finish preparing dinner.
When she returned to her room—and made sure Rin was not somehow hiding beneath the tatami, ready to spring embarrassing questions on her when her guard was dropped, Saber went to the little shelf next to her desk, settled the new stuffed lion next to the first one. In placing them side-by-side, she found the new one was smaller, fitting perfectly right beneath the chin of the first. She smiled at the image.
“Saber, we’re almost ready for dinner out here!” Shirou called.
Startling, Saber glanced around quickly to make sure nobody had again snuck into the room in her distracted state. When she confirmed that Shirou had not entered to announce food, and no devilish magi were still about, she took a deep breath, arranged her features back to stoicism, and went to finish celebrating the night with the rest of the house.
End
And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go brush my teeth.
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Originally Posted by Seika
