25th of December
Christmas
A beam of the sun is hitting Joey's eyes and causing him to stir a little, trying to fall deeper to sleep again when he hears a whispered. "Merry Christmas." in his ear.
"Merry Christmas." Joey mumbles not opening his eyes and cuddles closer to his boyfriend. "How late?"
"Close to noon sleepyhead." Seto replies and puts down a book he had been reading in favour of pulling Joey into his arms.
Joey opens his eyes in surprise and looks around the room. "Where are the kids?" He had been sure that they'll be in around 2 in the morning if not sooner. He'd carried Joe-Joe up to bed just about 4 times and stayed infront of her door while Seto arranged the presents just to make sure that she won't walk in on it right after that the two of them had gone to bed too. She was very persistent with waiting up for Santa. Seth on the other side had tried to help keep her in bed but even he didn't have a prayer of a chance when she wanted to see Santa.
"I assume they're playing with their toys." Seto replies. He has gotten both kids a few more toys to play with. In Seth's case a couple of different gaming systems with matching games and for Joe-Joe a few dolls. All in the same size and with a huge wardrobe to ensure that every one could wear a different dress until next Christmas. She also has gotten a new dolls tea set and a bed for each of her new baby-sized dolls. Joey had complained that it was too much but Seto insisted that after being in foster homes and getting so little so far they both should get a little more this year. Especially since they both didn't have all that many toys since they moved in. Joey had just rolled his eyes and started to name all the things Seto had already spoilt them with. After half an hour Seto had interrupted him and admitted that Joey might have a point in saying that they don't need that many new toys but now that he has bought them they might as well get them.
"I guess getting them all that stuff does have an upside." Joey mumbles now and gives Seto a little kiss.
"I agree." Seto replies after returning the kiss, "And I'm already starting a list for next year just to make sure they'll be just as busy."
Joey just rolls his eyes before saying, "I guess it's just gonna be until their next birthdays before they don't know what to play with anymore because they'll have too much to choose from."
"Then I simply throw out everything that is older than a month and buy them new stuff." Seto shrugs.
"I doubt that you spoilt Mokuba that much." Joey grumbles a little, "He's too nice to be that spoilt."
"You're wrong." Seto replies. "The first two years after Gozaburus death I spoilt him even more. It got a little less with time and I made sure to show him that I also did things for orphans to remind him of the life we had before. Joe-Joe will see other orphans too, she'll see some again tomorrow, and thus be reminded of the way her life had been. I'm sure it will ensure that she won't get too spoilt. And she does deserve a few years of getting everything after being denied nearly everything so far. And in Seth's case, he's too smart to get too spoilt and I'm sure he can deal with a great amount of belongings so I probably just need to sort out things of Joe-Joe's."
"You really are a big softie you know." Joey replies grinning.
"Aren't you curious about your presents?" Seto asks.
"No, I know what you got me." Joey replies. "At least I'm pretty sure."
Seto looks at him in surprise, he'd been careful not to let him find out and wrapped up the presents when arranging everything the previous night. "And what do you think you got and how can you possibly know?"
"I told you so often that my dueldisk is all busted up that you'd have to be stupid not to get me one." Joey simply points out. "And since you're not stupid, I'm certain that there is a dueldisk under that tree."
"I find myself unable to disagree with that." Seto replies with a smug grin, "But once you'll manage to get out of bed you'll notice that I placed more than one present under that tree for you."
Joey looks up with a frown, "Not fair. You could have dropped a hint, now you'll get way less from me than I get from you, that's so not fair."
"I don't mind, and thanks for the cooking book, I already picked out what you can cook me for my next birthday, too bad it's going to be so long until then." Seto replies to a now even more upset looking Joey, "I couldn't resist to open my present when I arranged them all. But don't worry, I re-wrapped it to make sure Joe won't notice."
"Jerk." Joey mumbles still a little upset.
Seto watches him pout for a moment before pulling him closer and giving him a kiss, "Don't worry, you're giving me more than you can imagine every single day by simply being here." Joey blushes and can't help the happy smile that finds it's way to his lips even though he want's to stay mad at Seto for overdoing it. "Do you want to open your presents now?"
Joey looks into the blue eyes he starts to love more with each passing day and then mumbles, "Why should I? The best present is a peaceful morning in your arms." He cuddles closer and leans his head against Seto's chest to listen to his heart for a while with closed eyes, feeling the sleepyness from earlier return, "And I don't really want to end that now."
"Sap." Seto chuckles while pulling Joey closer and pressing his nose into his blond messy mop of hair.
"Look whos talking." Joey grumbles not opening his eyes again and stays like that until Seto's lips ghost over his face and they start to kiss each other soon.
An hour later Joe-Joe finally storms into the room. The tail of her white dragon in one hand and a doll under the same arm while the new book Joey and Seto created themselves is in her other hand. "Daddy, Pappy look, from Santa. Seth read it and it's about me findin' a dragon and helping him and then he's stain' and I got my own dragon. I've gotta find that dragon. It says it's in the garden but Seth and I looked everywhere and there is no dragon Seth said it's not real and just a story, so the dragon won't be there before we went and there really isn't a dragon but this is from Santa there's gotta be a dragon somewhere, come help lookin' I've got to find that dragon."
"Calm down." Seto replies. "It's a story book ,so Seth is right. It's not real and there is no real dragon in our garden because sadly, dragons don't exist."
"But people used to believe in them so there must be some, maybe most died and there aren't many left. I bet those stupid knights killed all those poor and innocent dragons. I hate knights." Joe-Joe went on. "Please Pappy, help me find that dragon. Maybe it's hiding because it thinks a knight might come and hurt it. We have to help the dragon and protect it."
"People used to believe that there were dragons because of dinosaur bones. They found different ones including wing bones of flying dinosaurs but didn't know how to put them together right and then called the creaturs they thought them to be from dragons but there was never a real dragon." Seto tried to explain.
"But maybe we're wrong and they where right. Maybe there weren't any dinosaurs and only dragons and maybe there still is one in our garden." Joe-Joe insists.
Seto takes a deep breath while Joey chuckles and decides to some day soon write her a story about a fairy that lives in Seto's closet just to see his reaction to her reaction to that story. But then again, she might insist to sleep in there for a while and thus taking them their last bit of alone time.
"Joe-Joe, darling. There never were any dragons and there aren't any dinosaurs alive anymore either so even IF I'm wrong, which I'm not, and the dinosaurs were dragons, which they weren't, then there wouldn't be any more of them left. And even IF there were, which there aren't, then there most definetly wouldn't be any in my garden without me knowing it, so there is no reason to look for that dragon and now please go and play with your new doll there and Joey and I get dressed to look at our presents."
"Oh right, about that." Joe-Joe smiles up at him, "You need to stop being grumpy, you hardly got any presents because of it." And with that she is gone and Joey is laughing.
"Remind me not to let her have any more books until she knows the difference between fantasy and reality." Seto sighs rolling his eyes. He doesn't really care that Joe believes he gets only few presents because he's grumpy. He's much too happy to have seen her happy smile and excited eyes, no matter how crazy the words that came from her smilling mouth were.
"Too bad. And here I was thinking of letting a fairy live somewhere in the house in the next story." Joey chuckles still certain that having it live in their room would be a bad idea.
After another deep breath Seto simply says, "Either way, we should get up, it's past noon and the kids are down there alone. I assume they´re already hungry by now."
"Yeah, you're right." Joey says with a sigh.
"But you should get breakfast done. I want to look at my presents." Joey replies.
"Sure you want to entrust me with food?" Seto asks.
"Oh come on." Joey says, still grinning, "Setting the table with a bid of bread and something to put on it can't be too hard, even for mister screw-the-rules-I've-got-money."
After getting dressed Joey goes down to the living room in which the Christmas tree and the presents are together with both kids and Seto goes towards the kitchen to get breakfast ready. At least V has tought him how to make coffee after last Thanksgiving because no matter how well Joey can cook, his coffee is nothing but water with a bit of colour in it.
A little later Seto walks towards the rest of his family and sees Joey looking at his new dueldisk surrounded by some of his other presents which include a new and even better laptop, a few books that even he might like and plenty of computer games for his laptop to pass some free time at the office if he needs a break. He also got him a few pieces of jewelery that Joey might like.
Joey looks up at him from his personalized dueldisk in the look of a red eye black dragon and then gets up and walks towards Seto and gives him a kiss whispering, "You really overdid it but thanks."
"I love you." is all Seto replies before opening his own present to make sure that Joe-Joe won't start and wonder why he doesn't seem to be interested.
Joe-Joe walks over to Seto with a few little papers in her hand and passes them to him saying, "Those are from me for you."
Seto looks at the vouchers. Three vouchers for a morning alone with his big puppy and Seto couldn't help but chuckle at the picture of a golden haired big dog, that clearly isn't Jake, in his bed. Joe-Joe drew that on every voucher. There was one more voucher with a picture of a leash and when he looks questioningly at her while holding it up she says, "That's to borrow Jakies leash for playing. V said you'd love that even though I still think that grown-ups really shouldn't be allowed to play. I really don't get your games."
Seto just blushes a little and says, V forgot that I would also need a voucher from Daddy to let me play with it because he will have to play with me and I think he really doesn't like that particular grown-up game."
"That's sooooo true." Joey replies, "Which is why there aren't any leashes on my vouchers." And with that he gives Seto three vouchers for a self made dinner for two when the kids aren't around and one for help when cooking the dinner he still has to make.
Seth also gets two vouchers from Joey for one shopping trip with Joe-Joe when Mattie or Jaden are over. Just to give him some time with his friends without Joe-Joe.
Joe-Joe got two for going into an amusement park. Joey already used one voucher from Seto. He got ten from him, all saying 'One wish come true'. Seto promised to give him whatever he wanted for each of them and Joey immediately passed one back saying, "I'm coming with you on that next business trip. You managed to leave for those before I was around so I'm sure the office won't burn down if I don't stay and we'll find a solution for the kids too."
With a sigh Seto had taken that voucher back and has a strong feeling that Joey will save the others for similar wishes.
After that they all sat and watched TV or used their gifts to amuse themselves with and Joe-Joe got every male in the room to read her story for her at least 5 times while it seemed nearly imposible for everyone but Joe to get Seth to look up from his new laptop on which he designed Matties gift that he wants to give him the next day. Inspired by Joe-Joe's idea on the 21st, Seth is getting Mattie vouchers as well. One for a trip to the zoo with him, one for a trip to Kaiba Land with him and one for watching a movie together. Joey is still surprised how much thought Seth is putting into the gifts for Mattie since Jaden is simply getting a game for a computer and Seth seemed to randomly grab one saying "I think he doesn't have this one yet." Joey also notices that Seth's presents for Mattie enables Seth to always do the same, thus also giving himself some time with Mattie. He clearly needs to have a closer look on his big boy.
After a self made dinner from Joey and Joe-Joe all of them have a late night walk with Jake through the park and look at all the Chrismas decorations around their home before the kids are sent to bed. Joey and Seto sit down in the living room and cuddle a little until Seto says, "Too bad that I didn't get a voucher for a yes." Joey looks up questioningly until Seto adds, "V talked to me about a suggestion for a gift from you, telling me that I'd just have to provide a certain question."
Joey pales considerably while considering how to react if Seto seriously is going to pop that question now. They're still just together but he still felt his heart beat sped up in excitement rather than fear. He loved Kaiba for years and the thought of marrying the jerk doesn't freak him out as much as he thought until now. "No reason to pale, I assumed that he misunderstood something. I know that it's too soon to ask you." After that he gives him a kiss and Joey can't help but be a little disappointed even though he doesn't want to be. What Joey doesn't notice is the surprised look on Kaiba's face after seeing his reaction to those words or the happy smile that followed before he pulled Joey closer and gave him a kiss that makes Joey hope all over that Seto might be about to ask after all. But Seto really had been sure that Joey would say no if he asked him and isn't prepared to do so now but that doesn't mean that he can't start planning now.
Authors Note: Merry Christmas hope you all got everything you wished for *hug*
Thanks to Angel Dove1, Guest and Violet-Eclipse.
The next and last chapter will be out on the last day of this year. And by the way, with not being prepared Seto meant first that he doesn't even have a ring and secondly that he want's to ask in a way that no one could possibly say no to him and this doesn't seem suitable for that goal to him. I guess V needs to be even more convincing than he usually is but then again...Kaiba might just need to learn to listen!
