It was a long, exhausting travel day. Drake Maverick groans as he gets out of the car and walks towards the house, dragging his luggage behind him. He's halfway to the door when he thinks he hears something, tilting his head and daring to look around. Before he can even make a full rotation, something whistles towards him and impacts hard with his face. He sputters and stumbles back, tripping over his luggage and falling flat on his back in the snow. He blinks hard, dazed and a little winded.
"Oh god," Ethan says, his voice lifting in a rough laugh. "Drake, some things will never change, huh?" He looms over him and Drake glowers up at him. "Just because we've come up north to have an actual white Christmas this year, doesn't mean you have to fall ass over teakettle into it."
"You're an arse," Drake mumbles. "Help me up, bloody hell-"
Ethan obliges, gripping his hand and pulling him up. He's just barely gotten him partially up when Drake plants his legs, pulls and sends Ethan careening hard into the snowbank a few feet away.
"What the hell!" Ethan sputters, head bursting through the soft snow to stare at Drake in disbelief.
"That's what you get," Drake tells him with a smirk. "You should stay there, you make a good looking snowman."
Ethan scoffs, burying himself free of the snow clinging to his legs and arms. "I should make you into a snowman," he scoffs, standing at his full height and pressing his hands to his hips, watching as Drake gingerly moves to collect his luggage, which is stuck in even more snow after how Drake had fallen over and onto it, the snow making everything a little too slick and uncomfortable for him to easily pull it up.
"Are you going to help me?" he wonders, huffing at the very unhelpful Ethan.
"I don't know, I might just leave you out here for a little while," Ethan teases. "See how close you get to be to a snowman."
"You're only going to get coal for Christmas at this rate, Ethan," Drake warns him.
"So it'll be just the same situation as every other year then," he cracks, but then a brutally cold wind sweeps over them and Drake shivers violently. Ethan sighs, stepping forward. "Come on. No point in drenching all of your nice luggage any further." He grips the handle of the bag tight, tossing it up over his shoulder with such ease that Drake looks somewhere between impressed and absolutely envious.
"Ugh, my pants feel horrible now, all crusted in snow and heavy, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to walk in these," he grouses, before letting out a ridiculously loud squeal when Ethan abruptly snags him around the waist and hoists him up too, slinging him over his other shoulder. "Holy shit," Drake cries out, digging his hands into Ethan's back. "Don't do that!"
Ethan simply laughs at him before carrying him and his things inside. "Yeah, yeah. Be a good boy and I'll make soup and maybe even some tea, get us both warmed up."
Drake sputters, his response fading away as the door to the house closes behind them.