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This year Cordelia was bound and determined to do some things right. Several of the holidays had either been slept through or wound up swept aside in favor of Senshi duties and she refused to let that happen with Christmas. Refused.

As a result, she had done the only 'right' thing in her mind. Cordelia Carden had placed a call to one Demetri Wright in order to invite him over to her family's home for the holidays. It had been an on-going thing when they were younger; when their parents had still spoken. His father had brought him over to her house and they'd baked cookies with her grandmother while the adults did whatever it was that adults did... Nana wasn't around anymore, but that didn't mean there couldn't still be cookies.

By damn, there would be cookies and Demy would show up or she'd put on her boots, trudge through the snow to the family car and make the chauffeur drive her all the way to wherever he was and she would drag him because it was Christmas and a tradition.

Luckily, the moment she had mentioned sprinkles and glitter gel icing it seemed as though her friend had been sold so there would be no dragging... Just fussing and a bit of pacing while waiting for him to arrive.

Cordelia's eyes narrowed as she heard the buzzer ring not once but half a dozen times and then a few more for a seeming good measure. One of these days she was going to take the brat aside and teach him some proper knocking etiquette, but that would have to wait for another day. Today they had other things to do; decidedly more important things.

She huffed as she opened the door, reaching out to grab him my the arm and drag him inside. "Go on, kick the snow off of your boots and then leave them by the door. You know where to hang your coat up too, along with your gloves and your hat and... What's that?" Her brow furrowed slightly as she spotted the gift bag that the bright-eyed blond was carrying. "You didn't have to bring anything with you today, Dem... You're supposed to save that stuff for tomorrow. You are coming tomorrow, aren't you? Or are you just going to go get your things and stay tonight along with Lucien?"

"Ugh, you mean you're still talking to him?" Her nose wrinkled as she took his coat first, hanging it up in the hall closet, before reaching for the decorative bag her friend had brought with him, prodding through the contents only to glance back up at Demetri. "And woah, what... Living with someone else? They pulled a roommate swap at Hell-- Hillworth? This close to the holidays? Something about seems cruel and unusual." More so than she generally gave the hell of a school credit for, at least.

"Even if they're not my real present, the glowsticks are nice... Well, festive, at the very least." She nodded, turning so that she could lead the blonde back towards the kitchen. "Maybe if you behave I'll share some of them with you... You're not going to get your present unless you come over for Christmas. You know mom and dad always have something for you too. Mom still likes to dote..."

Her brow furrowed, lips parting in a way that said she was about to go off on some sort of tirade about why Demetri Wright shouldn't be talking to Zac Painintheass but the next words to come after his mouth after 'Why wouldn't I be?' caught her off guard, actually catching her speechless for a moment that she quickly recovered from.

"You what? You dropped out of school? Demy..." She nearly whined his name, face stricken with something akin to horror at the thought of him loose on the streets mingled with worry that maybe there really wasn't any hope that school would make him smarter.

"Whatever you do don't let Mom hear you say that. Ever. And don't think living with someone else gets you out of coming to Christmas." She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest as she glanced back at him, trying to remain stern for a moment before signing as her arms dropped. "Oh, totally. We have to make enough for here... And I want to make some to send over to Od-- Erik's for his family and..."

Consider Cordelia distracted. For now.

"Erik is... A friend." The pause before she said 'a friend' would likely be enough to give him something else to latch on to, and if that didn't the way her face flushed just a bit more certainly would have. "Just a friend." She added on quickly, likely too quickly, although it was more because she knew that there were some things she just couldn't tell Demy and not at all because she was trying to cover something of a 'relationship' nature up.

Not that the little troll would actually know the difference.

"He's a boy and he's a friend. That's it." She turned on her heel, trying to get Demy out of her face so that she could start rearranging mixing bowls and ingredients on the center counter in the kitchen. "Wash your hands so we can start making cookies already."

"He's 'just a friend' like he and I are friends. Not all friendships are the same, you know. I mean... I'd hate to think that you were friends with someone in the exact same way you were with me." She huffed softly as she set one of the mixing bowls down a bit rougher than she'd intended, jumping as she listened to the clank of glass against wood.

"He is not a boyfriend." Her face, rose at first, was bordering crimson and she would have swatted at him again to get him to stop nudging her if he hadn't gone to wash his hands like she'd insisted. "I mean... It's not anything we've ever discussed, really." They hadn't discussed it. It hadn't come up. When it might have come up they always wound up interrupted... Excuses, excuses.

"He's just... A really good friend. He... Looks out for me." Cordelia tucked a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her pony tail back behind her ear, reaching out to fiddle with one of the measuring cups soon after. "Boyfriends are overrated, aren't they? And I doubt he thinks of me as anything but a friend anyways."

"Oh, it's something special alright..." She muttered, mostly beneath her breath as she shook her head, trying to put most of her focus on measuring out ingredients. It worked. For a bit, at the very least.

"You should discuss things if you're a couple, Dem. That's how those things are supposed to work. If you care about each other then you communicate and... I really don't know if your 'relationship' with Zac is the best thing to base my 'not relationship' on." Her brow furrowed slightly as she eyed the measuring cup she held in her hand for a moment longer before dumping it into the bowl.

"And I'll have you know that I've had boyfriends before." One. "And it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be." One in middle school. "He was a jerk... And what are you looking for?"

"It's totally flawed, just like your cracked logic. And you." She reached over, quickly running her fingers through his hair in a quick tousle to send it into even more disarray than it was already in.

"The chocolate chips are already on the counter, right along with the sprinkles and everything else I thought we might need... And you're not making a batch of cookies that's nothing but chocolate chips. It'll just melt all over the place and get disgusting and then you won't even want the cookies."