Growing up, Christmas for Locklyn had always been a tense affair. He'd always far preferred the years as a child he had been permitted to remain at the castle for the holidays or been allowed to tag along with a friend. Otherwise the weeks bleed into a series of lectures and disappointments. And it had only gotten worse as he got older when the the disappointments he committed shifted from detention with Oz to being seen with whores and taking bastards in. It honestly was a miracle the old man James hadn't suffered some stress induced heart attack yet. Or his mother, he supposed.

The Dempsey Christmases on the other hand had always seemed like the warmth, lovely sort of chaos he could only be jealous. The ones you got when those who were around you wanted to be around you and each other. So he didn't mind to much that when he sat down at the restaurant, Oz blaired right past his own holiday - even if he would have been happy to go on about Adelle's attempts to fly her new toy brooms- and moved on to his own.

"Oh... I do?"