My entry for the Christmas fic exchange for meowimhannah. I hope it's okay and that I filled the prompt to your expectations! Thank you so much for the prompt and thank to potatoes-are-not-for-sex for organising this!

Merry Christmas everyone, and a happy new year I guess! Hope you all get lots of lovely gifts and eat lots of nice food. Plus, if you're having a family Christmas, good luck, you will need it. And possibly therapy afterwards.

WARNING(S): heavily implied smut like I used the word orgasm so yeah, language (if anyone actually cares about that)

Dan reckons, as he curls into his husband's side, that his life is pretty fucking awesome.

For starters, he's got a really hot other half. Sizzling hot, like the spiciest hot sauce he can find in the supermarket, he thinks, and immediately regrets it. It's probably the most embarrassing thing he's ever even thought, and he went to high school, godsake. He vows to never think it again, nevermind say it aloud.

Back on the topic of why his life is fucking awesome, his son is actually asleep - no joke, his eight year old is actually asleep - on Christmas Eve of all nights. That leaves him and Phil to themselves, and yes, the connotations are exactly what you're thinking. Especially because they've already put all the presents under the tree, already pretended to be Santa and disposed of the carrots, eaten the mince pie left for the man himself and drunk the glass of shandy. Life is good.

Phil's made them both hot chocolate with all the trimmings (cream, hundreds and thousands, a flake, diabetes) and they're huddled on the sofa together, watching some shitty Christmas film. Well, Phil is; Dan is rather distracted with staring at him. So, yeah, maybe he's slightly distracted because the film is bollocks, but the (lack of) distance between him and Phil is doing nothing for his attention span. From so close he can feel Phil's pulse, feel his soft breathing, the heat through radiating from his skin through his jumper. Dan's lips are shiny from his drink, soft, warm and pink and so, so inviting.

He takes Phil's mugs from where it is cupped in his hands and places it on the coffee table (of course they have a coffee table, they're the definition of domesticity). Phil looks at him questionably for a moment, but the flare of understanding blossoms in his irises when he meets Dan's eyes; pupils large, swallowing the brown.

Phil leans forwards, almost in slow motion in Dan's desperate eyes, capturing Dan's bottom lip with his own and whining low in his throat. Dan kisses back, harder and shoves Phil's shoulders back against the cushions, straddling his thighs. His hands trace down Phil's collar bone, down to the buttons of his shirt and he unbuttons them slowly, sliding the fabric of Phil's shirt down along his shoulders.

Phil breaks away from their firm kiss, gasping. "Bedroom." He says simply, voice low and husky. Dan shivers and agrees, taking Phil's hand and drags him down their hallway, trying to hush their giggles like they're horny teenagers trying not to wake their parents. Which, they kind of are because they never really did mature that much, not really.

Two earth-shattering orgasms later, Phil collapses into Dan's chest, panting heavily and flushed. "I love you," he mutters against his left nipple, "so much."

"Am I that good of a fuck, then?" Dan asks, laughing lightly and Phil nudges him with his nose.

"Yeah. Why do you think I married you, huh? It's certainly not for your cooking skills."

"Hey!" Dan protests, but places a kiss to Phil's slightly sweaty, obvious just-had-sex hair. "I love you, too. Way more than you."

"Shut up." Phil says, just as he falls asleep.

#

Dan is jolted awake by the bed creaking, shaking and then a shrill scream.

"Daddy! Daddy! It's Christmas, daddy, daddy!"

Max shakes him by his shoulders, bouncing on his chest on his knees, rolling across until his is on top of Phil. "C'mon daddy! Presents! Did Santa come? C'mon, we have to go check!" Dan has to wrack his brain to remember if Santa indeed did come, which is possibly the most worried he's ever been in his life, until he remembers that indeed, he did. (Or, he has done enough to pretend that Santa has come.)

Max is still jumping up and down on Phil, who is still hardly awake, when Dan sits up, wrapping his arms around his son's waist and dragging him back from the half-asleep bundle that is Phil. "Come on, little man, give your daddies a few minutes to wake up." Dan pauses to yawn, before ruffling Max's hair. "Tell you what, you go to your room for a second and I'll let you have extra syrup on your pancake.

Max squeals and throws his tiny arms around Dan's neck before bolting off to his room.

Dan forces himself up, drags on some pjs and pulls the blanket away from Phil, who follows his actions with only slightly more reluctance. Dan's proud of him for that, he must admit, because they both aren't known for being good in the morning.

Max comes rocketing back and Dan makes pancakes, with the promised extra golden syrup, and serves everyone in bed. Max is positively vibrating with excitement while he eats between his parents. He is first to finish and while his parent's finished he makes a den with the duvets around Phil's ankles, clambers across the bedframe, jumps on Dan's shoulders ("woah, woah, woah, I'm not a playground.").

Then Max is dragging them down into the living room with the widest smile he can muster without splitting his cheeks. Phil can't keep the smile from his own lips, can't stop himself from laughing along with Max's childish giggles.

Nothing could ever top Max's face when they open the door to the living room. Nor will anything beat the feeling of watching their son run to his stocking, laden with sweets and little toys, or the beaming smile on his face as he tears the paper off the presents under the tree. They laugh at each of his reactions, laugh harder as he reacts to the scooter with a piercing scream.

"You know, anyone would think we were torturing him." Dan remarks, rolling his eyes.

Later, when their parents plus Chris and PJ with their respective parents have arrived, when they've had their Christmas dinner and are settling down for the Doctor Who Christmas special, Chris wiggles his eyebrows at him.

"You're very chirpy today." Chris says suspiciously, eyes flickering to Phil like he has something to do with it (he does).

"It's Christmas, Chris. I'm in the spirit." Dan replies curtly, shifting a little to find a comfortable position to sit in.

"Yeah," Chris says, but does not look entirely convinced, "but that doesn't explain why you can't sit down properly. That must have been one hell of a present Phil gave you last night." He says with a wink at Phil, who blushes bright red.

Both Chris and PJ laugh, but, later, when Max asks what he meant by the 'present' it's their turn to blush. Chris can't help but to think that it backfired just a little bit. Dan laughs smugly at him, mumbling something about karma.

Christmas ends, as it always has to, and each and every person who had the pleasure to be in the Lester-Howell household goes to bed with a smile on their face, pleasant dreams taking them to dreamland.

They're sad it's over, sure, but there's always the promise of next Christmas, and the one after that, and the one after that.

When he grows older, Max can still remember the mornings waking his parents up with screams and jumps, can still remember the laughter and glee of Christmas day.