Merry Christmas!
A quick, extra-fluffy one shot for anyone who has the time to read it, now that it's official Christmas Day :)
I also wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing my stories, and especially for the support I got for the first chapter of The Unravelling. I will be finishing that along with The Long Stretch, but will leave my other long-term fics on hiatus for now. I think I really need to stop writing new stories! Anyway, thanks for reading and have a lovely Christmas and New Year.
All I Want For Christmas
Ste comes home from a busy day tending to the Christmas rush at the Deli and tries not to laugh out loud at the sight awaiting him.
Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is blaring out from the CD player, and Brendan is singing while dancing around the room with a very excited Leah. There are bits of tinsel draped over each of their shoulders; evidence of an afternoon spent decorating the Christmas tree.
Ste takes a moment to himself before he makes his presence known, watching the scene with giddy pride. A year ago, when they had only just begun to give things a go, everything had been much too tentative. It was still early days and while they had been happy at the time, there had been a worry that somewhere along the line it would all go wrong, much like it had before.
Today, no such anxieties even cross his mind. But that doesn't mean life doesn't feel special.
"I just want ye for my own, more than ye could ever...Steven!" Brendan falls silent when he whips around mid-dance and spots his boyfriend watching him fondly.
"Don't stop, I was enjoying that!" Ste protests, laughing heartily. Leah runs over to him, grinning.
"Daddy!" she exclaims loudly. "Look at our tree!"
His eyes linger over their masterpiece. "Wow, great job you two!"
"We haven't put the star on top yet," Brendan tells him. "We were waiting for ye, weren't we Leah?"
Leah nods. "I'm going to get Lucas," she says, wandering off in search of her brother.
Ste watches as Brendan goes to turn off the CD. "Where is he?" he asks after their son.
"Having a nap. He was a bit grouchy earlier. I've got dinner in the oven, ye hungry?"
"Proper house-husband, aren't you?" Ste teases, then attempts to straighten his face out when he gets a scowl in return.
"Very funny. I have to be at the club all day tomorrow, so then it's your turn."
"You say that like it's some massive payback," Ste grins, wandering into the kitchen to inspect what's cooking. He takes one look and snorts. "At least tomorrow's meal will be edible!"
Brendan throws his tinsel accessory on the floor in a strop and joins him by the oven. "Ye cheeky sod! I'll have ye know I...oh." He tails off when Ste takes out his creation to find it has completely collapsed in on itself.
"Er...what what it meant to be?"
"It's a quiche..." Brendan mumbles, and Ste can't help but poke the middle of the concoction with his finger. It slides straight through, and he turns around to find his boyfriend avoiding his gaze.
"Shut up."
"Didn't say a word!" Ste replies, voice light with the struggle not to giggle. "But sorry Bren, this is beyond saving. Let's order a pizza or something, eh?"
Brendan grumbles, and Ste winds his arms around his neck, something he's grown accustomed to doing whenever his man needs reassurance.
"Thanks," he says now, moving close enough to touch foreheads with him.
"What for?"
"For making all this effort. You don't have to be a domestic god, you know. This..." he trails off, tugging Brendan by the hand and leading him back into the lounge to look at the tree, "this is everything I always wanted to come home to when I was a kid. It's perfect."
Before either of them can say anything else, Leah and Lucas reappear. "Can I do the star, Daddy?" the little boy asks, eyes sparkling with delight.
Ste grins at him. "Well, let's ask Daddy Brendan shall we? He's the one that's put in all the hard work."
Lucas looks at his second father with big eyes, silently asking permission as if the older man might actually tell him no.
Ste watches on in amusement with Leah who, having taken part in every other aspect of the decorating, is now quite happy to let her brother have his moment.
"'Course ye can put the star on, little man," Brendan answers, lifting Lucas onto his shoulders once he's picked up the gold plastic star.
As he watches them attach the traditional item to their Christmas tree, Ste can hardly believe he gets to have a family moment as normal as this – it's surreal, but it feels wonderful.
"What are you crying for, Daddy?" Leah asks, and to his surprise he realises his cheeks are damp with tears.
"Nothing bad, sweetheart," he says softly. "Nothing bad."
Amy comes to pick the kids up on Christmas Eve, after they've spent the day having an early celebration with Ste and Brendan. She spares a cursory glance at the gifts Leah tells her are from their Daddy Brendan, but seconds later even she has to stop and admire the tree when it falls into her line of vision.
Things haven't been easy between them over the past twelve months. Amy will always be the mother of Ste's kids, and the woman who watched Ste suffer during Brendan's worst and darkest moments. But one day Ste had reminded her that she was the one who had saved him, had given him another chance and without it he would never have become the man he was today. He had explained to Amy that he was simply doing the same thing for Brendan that she had once done for him.
His words couldn't perform a miracle and create a new-found friendship; but they had given her pause for thought, and ever since then she had gradually begun to accept Brendan's role in the kids' lives, and she could be civil to him. She had of course, however, repeatedly made it clear that should Brendan put a foot wrong, any access she had been allowing him to Leah and Lucas would stop for good.
Brendan, in turn, had taken all the necessary steps to ensure that this would never happen. Dodgy deals are a thing of the past, and anger management sessions have helped him enormously.
Everyday Ste feels prouder of Brendan than he ever did of himself when he'd managed to turn his own life around.
He's lost in thought now, after everyone else has left, and doesn't hear the footsteps approaching behind him.
"Steeeeeven..."
He turns around, startled but delighted to find Brendan accosting him with mistletoe. It's a mirror image of this time last year, when he had insisted on a Christmas kiss himself as the clock had struck midnight.
"Brendannnn..." he teases back, and a pair of lips cover his own a second later.
When they finally separate, Ste lets his eyes wander to the glow of the tree lights. It might be a cliché used a thousand times over, but the future has never looked brighter.