Okay, so first of all, I hope you had happy holidays!! No matter what you celebrate (or not). Also, I sincerely hope 2018 is better & may you find peace - a few soothing words of blessing from me!

As for the one-shot, it's a short story I've just come up with (a mix of Gotham TV show universe and my own in which nygmobblepot is canon). Anddd, my dearies, if you spot any grammar mistakes in the text, please let me know. Thanks in advance. xx

Oh, almost forgot! The song I've chosen, I did it on purpose, because I've been so obsessed with it lately, if you're not familiar with Halsey, which is hardly possible, this one will enchant you, promise!! (Or maybe it's just me being madly in love and seeing flowers and butterflies literally everywhere, who the heck knows? I sure don't.)

***

The snowflakes outside the window spinned lively as a black-haired man, lost in thought, sipped his wine slowly.

The clock chimed midnight. The man flinched a little and looked up at it.

It was a Christmas night. December 25 th. Oswald Cobblepot had never been fond of Christmas, even as a child, mostly because he realized how hard his mother had to work in order to get him some candies and new toys. It saddened him even though he had never heard a single complaint from her; on the contrary, he could feel his mother's unmeasurable love in every moment of his life before she was gone. Then, it stopped.

Life happened to be cruel, one thing no one could deny, especially when you always craved for love and didn't get it. Especially when you met your father for the very first time and a few days later he was assassinated.

A tear ran down Oswald's cheek at the mere thought of the memories. Normally, it didn't cross his mind, but Christmas was a special occasion. On this date every year, he became more melancholic than usual.

What good had Gotham done to him? The city loved by him with such passion, his only true definition of a word home. The place full of criminals, simply filled with evil, where only few good men left. Nevertheless, it consisted of everything he valued and cared about.

"Gotham is my home."

Had living a gangster's life ever paid off? Maybe they... Could be alive if he had chosen a different path?

No.

Oswald shook off those thoughts immediately. His parents loved him unconditionally, knowing about his dark secrets and still considering him a good man. How come?

He had never found it unique nor unusual, it was what it was. Obviously, he loved his mother dearly (and appreciated evey single thing she had done for him) as well as his father, although he had never had a chance to learn more about him. A few years back, it seemed that he didn't fully understand it himself.

Until he fell in love.

No doubt about it, he remembered it all very well. That uncertainty rising inside him, the very first time his heart had beaten so rapidly at the sight of Edward Nygma, the tension he could feel in the air and the suffering not so long after that.

Then, it occured to him what it really meant to love somebody unconditionally.

Fortune favors the brave, they say.

After all, it turned out to be true.

Oswald put down the empty glass and shook his head in disbelief as if he still couldn't comprehend how lucky he was to share his life with a man of his dreams.

"There you are! I've been looking for you..." Oswald felt Ed's chin on his shoulder and his hands wrapping around him in a squeezingly tight grip. "It's already past midnight. I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas," he muffled into his ear. "Merry Christmas, Oswald. I love you."

"Merry Christmas, Ed. And a happy new year," Oswald replied, staring at him with the light in his eyes.

Suddenly, all of his sorrows disappeared.