Just hearing that, S feels warm all over, a sensation only heightened by the way J clings to his arm. Maybe it's excessive when they're just sitting here on the floor, surrounded by discarded wrapping paper and the presents they got each other, but he's never going to complain about this sort of closeness. It's that, after all, more than any material goods that makes this holiday so special. Last Christmas, he was alone and miserable. The lack of presents, he couldn't have cared less about. It was the lack of company that hurt, an even hollower, emptier ache than that first year after he lost his parents. At least back then, he had J.

He does now, and he doesn't intend to take that for granted for a second. It is, perhaps, for the same reason that he's so touched hearing that, his cheeks the slightest bit pink. "Really?" he asks, hopeful and pleased and a little shy. "It has to be up there for me. With the first one we spent as a couple." He'll always have a special place in his heart for the Christmases he spent with his parents when he was young, of course. It isn't a comparison he could make; this one isn't better than those, but those weren't better than this one, either. They're just good in different ways, a part of his past that he cherishes and a future he's so fucking lucky to have.