Merry Fucking Xmas

"Now, let’s get you all bundled up. It’s freezing outside and I don’t want you catching cold." Kevin zipped Nick’s coat up to his chin and tucked his unruly blond hair underneath the toboggan he’d shoved onto Nick’s head a moment before. Nick fidgeted, wrinkling his nose.

"Do I really have to wear all this? It’s like...hot."

Kevin sighed and smoothed Nick’s huge cumbersome coat over his shoulders. "Yes, Nick, you do. It may be hot in here, but it’s 20 degrees outside. I don’t want you to get sick. You’re a big baby when you’re sick."

Nick pouted. "Am not!"

Kevin bit back a grin, looking down at Nick’s matching, 2 piece, green snowsuit. "Uh...okay, Nick, you aren’t a big baby when you’re sick. You’re just infantile."

"That’s right!" Came an indignant snort from the blond. He hadn’t a clue what the word meant, he just knew that Kevin had conceded and that he was NOT a big baby when he got sick.

"Damn it, Joshua, get your skinny white ass back here! I ain’t got all day!" Came a raspy yell from the next room, and a loud noise as someone ran into something.

"I don’t wanna!" Josh screeched as he ran through the house bare ass naked, with a very pissed off Alex running after him holding his clothes out, trying to get the child-like man dressed.

"Damn it, Joshua Scott. I’m not going to say it again. You’ll get a whuppin’ if you don’t stop this childish shit and get your fuckin’ clothes on. C’mon now, don’t you want to go outside and play in the snow?" Alex had stopped and cornered Josh in the living room, but was using a different tactic to try and get him dressed.

Josh chewed on his lip, his nude body heaving from his jaunt through the house. "Uh..."

Alex leapt at him, and Josh screamed like a little girl as Alex landed on him and began shoving clothes onto his flailing body.

Josh grunted and wiggled and tried to throw Alex off of him, but to no avail, Alex was as stubborn as stubborn could get, and he was not letting Josh run around the house naked, as appealing as that might’ve been. He’d catch cold, and then they’d all be in hell trying to take care of him.

By the time Alex was finished, Josh was wearing underwear, half-zipped up pants, and 1 sock. The shirt Alex had tried to shove onto Josh’s body was around his neck and one arm was through an arm hole. The other sleeve lay across Josh’s chest and he stared up at Alex with a confused angry look on his face.

"But, I don’t wanna wear all this stuff. It’s not cold. It’s like 80 degrees."

Alex rolled his eyes heavenward. "Josh, I know it’s warm in here, but it’s colder than shit outside. You have to wear the snowsuit and all these other clothes or you’ll get all sick. Remember what happened last time?"

Josh’s face screwed up as he tried to remember what Alex was talking about.

"I see you don’t. Well, let me refresh your memory." Alex sat down on the sofa near where Josh was sprawled. "You ran outside in just your underwear, thinking it was as warm outside as it was in here, and it had snowed the night before. It was 30 fuckin’ degrees outside, and 5 minutes later you were soaking wet, lying in a snowdrift and crying for me to come and get you. The next day you were so sick you couldn’t even move. I had to carry you to the fuckin’ bathroom so you could throw up. Now, you remember?" Alex glared pointedly at Josh who was biting his lip.

"Oh yeah." Josh crawled to Alex. "I guess I wanna get dressed now. Me and Puppy can make snowmens!" Josh squealed excitedly and bounced on his knees between Alex’s legs.

"Yeah, you and Puppy can make snowmen." Alex stood up and grabbed Josh’s hand, leading him back to the other room so he could finish dressing him.

Kevin moved back into the room he and Nick were in and laughed softly. He’d had a similar incident with Nick before he’d gotten him dressed that day. He knew how stubborn those 2 could be. Sometimes he wondered how they were still alive. They were so stupid sometimes. Kevin figured they would forget to breathe or eat or something, because their little brains were so muddled all the time.

"Nick, do you have your mittens?" Kevin asked, pulling on his coat and zipping it up in readiness to go out.

Nick looked up from his hands where he held something in them. He hid them behind his back. "Uh...yeah..." He bit his lip and stared at Kevin as the older man’s eyes narrowed.

"What do you have behind your back?"

"Nothin’." Nick’s eyes widened as Kevin walked toward him.

"Nickolas." It was a warning. And Nick knew what that meant. That was the only time he had before Kevin started getting pissed off. Then it was every man for himself.

"I uh..." How was he going to tell Kevin that he’d started playing with one of Kevin’s prized ornaments from the fireplace and broken a piece of it off.

Kevin stopped in front of Nick, suspicious, and pulled Nick’s arms from behind his back. He looked down at the broken figurine in Nick’s clenched hands.

"Nickolas Gene." His eyelid twitched as he stared back at Nick from the broken pieces that now rested in his own hands. "I told you to never touch my Precious Moments figurines, didn’t I?" Nick’s jerking nod prodded him on. "Didn’t I say that those little figurines were the only thing I cared about and that you could fuck up anything else in the house, just not to touch those?" Nick’s eyes misted over and he nodded again. "Nickolas, I’ve warned you God knows how many times, and you still did it. Would you like to explain why?" Nick’s chin quivered as he stared into Kevin’s hard pissed off green eyes.

"I don’t know." He said quietly, his eyes watering and spilling tears onto his pale cheeks.

Kevin sighed and put the pieces onto the mantle. He could glue them back together, he hoped, and they’d be just like new, again he hoped.

"Don’t cry. It’s OK. I’m sorry for yelling at you. It’s OK. Ssshhh." Kevin wrapped his arms around Nick and the blond sniffled into his neck, swaying slightly against him.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really. But, please, don’t touch any of the others. They’re special to me."

"OK."

"Ahem." Alex smirked at Nick and Kevin as he watched them move away from each other and stare at him. "I finally got the little shit dressed. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass he is?" Kevin’s answering smile told Alex that he did know. "Yeah. How about we trade next time?"

"Whatever you want, Alex. Where is he, anyway?" Kevin looked behind Alex to see if Josh was there, but when Josh wasn’t he looked curiously at Alex.

"Oh. He’s not wanting to come out in his suit. He says it’s too hard to move in and that he doesn’t want to wear it because it makes him hot." Alex shrugged and flopped down on the sofa near the fireplace. "You tell him to get his ass out here, he won’t listen to me for some reason."

Kevin laughed. "You know why he won’t listen to you. You’re mean to him, Alex." Alex’s shocked statement caused him to laugh harder. "You are."

"Well...he deserves it sometimes." Alex grumbled standing up again. He grabbed his own coat and buttoned it up.

"Joshua, c’mon out. We’re ready to go outside now." Kevin called out.

"But, I’ll fall." Josh called through the door. He sounded muffled.

"Joshua, what are you doing?"

"Nothin’." Kevin’s eyebrows rose. It didn’t sound like he was doing nothing.

Kevin looked at Alex, who shrugged, and walked out of the room and into the hallway. He peered through the door to the other room and his jaw fell open in surprise.

Josh was sitting on the floor with his head underneath the bed, ass in the air, his bright orange jumpsuit the only thing preventing Josh from moving completely under the bed.

"Joshua, what are you doing?" Kevin asked again, moving to squat beside Josh.

"I don’t wanna go out wearing this. I look stupid." He said.

"You don’t look stupid. You look cute. And anyway, you picked this out yourself. It’s your favorite color and everything. C’mon. Let’s go out and make snowmen." Kevin prodded Josh with a long finger and the younger man jumped at the touch.

"But-"

"But nothing, young man, let’s go before all the snow melts." Kevin nearly fell as Josh hurriedly moved from his position under the bed and into a sitting position beside him.

"It’ll melt?!" Josh’s horrified statement scrunched up beneath his bright orange beanie.

"Yeah. If we don’t go now, it might." Kevin stood up and mentally patted himself on the back for getting Josh’s attention. Maybe they’d get out of the house and into the winter wonderland soon so they could get back into the house and he could wrap their presents. Alex, of course, would keep those two busy. He smirked at that thought.

"Let’s go now, then!" Josh tugged at Kevin’s hand and lead him into the living room where Alex and Nick were staring into the fire. Alex looked up and moved toward the door but Nick stayed where he was, his eyes still trained on the fire, as if he were in a trance.

"Nick. C’mon. Time to go."

"Hahahaha, Puppy looks like a big booger!" Josh’s giggling echoed throughout the room and Alex had to bite his lip not to laugh.

"I do not!" Nick scowled and pouted at Josh. "Well...you look like a uh....uh..." A look of pure concentration crossed his features as he tried to think of something to call Josh. "You look like turkey!" The triumphant look that crossed his face was suddenly extinguished by Josh’s response.

"Turkey’s ain’t orange, you big doodie head." Josh stuck his tongue out at Nick.

Nick scowled. "So? At least I didn’t have one on my head and somethin’ was in it trying to kill me." He stuck his own tongue out at Josh.

Josh’s eyes widened and he shuddered in remembrance. "Shut up."

"Both of you shut up. No fighting, or you won’t get to go outside and play in the snow." Kevin stated sternly looking from Nick to Josh and back again to get his point across to them.

That shut them up, but they still kicked at each other when Kevin wasn’t looking, as they went outside.

------

"Lookit what I did, Kevin!" Nick giggled as he stuck a stick into the bottom half of the snowman to make a man out of it.

Kevin stared at it and then at Nick’s joyful face, and decided to let it go. He didn’t know any better. "That’s nice. Are we done yet?" He looked at his watch.

"No! We haven’t made the mommy snowman yet." Josh pouted.

"The mommy snowman." Kevin repeated, looking at Alex who shrugged.

"Yeah! This is a snowman family, silly. We gotta make a mommy. There’s the daddy and there’s the babies." Nick pointed excitedly at the 3 snow people they had already made, that looked suspiciously like Alex, Josh and Nick.

Kevin’s eyebrows raised. "Which one’s the daddy?"

"The one with the wiener, duh." Josh explained pointed at the stick that protruded from the lower half of one of the snow people.

"Uh huh." Kevin shook his head, and looked at Alex who seemed to be laughing at him. He scowled and mouthed ‘Shut up, or no sex for you tonight.’ That shut Alex’s sense of humor up pretty quickly.

And so, the four set off to make the ‘mommy’ snowman. A few minutes into it, Nick giggled softly to himself and grabbed a handful of snow in a green-gloved hand. He aimed carefully, tucked his tongue into the side of his cheek, and threw the snow at Josh, beaning the man right in the back of the head. He quickly looked down and bit his lip to keep from laughing and giving himself away.

Josh looked up quickly. What had hit him? He looked at Nick, who was busy working on his part of the snow mommy. It couldn’t have been Nick, could it?

Josh grabbed a handful of snow ready to pack it into the side of the snowman but instead got another idea of how to use the snow. He glanced at Kevin and Alex who were off to the side talking, and close together. They would never know, he thought to himself, grinning.

He balled up the snow and threw it quickly at Nick, then hid behind one of the other snowmen, giggling.

"Hey!" Came a huffing response as Nick wiped the snow from his eyes. The snowball had hit him square in the face as he’d stood up to put some coals into the snow person’s head for eyes.

"Ducky!" He pouted and looked at Kevin and Alex. They were supposed to be watching out for that kind of thing. Josh wasn’t supposed to do that to him. Although, he’d thrown one at Josh not too long ago, he admitted to himself. "That wasn’t nice."

"You did it first." Josh responded, still hiding behind a snowman.

Nick saw a piece of orange color sticking out from behind the daddy snowman and grinned evilly. He moved around the daddy snowman and crept slowly toward Josh who as still oblivious to his advancing on him.

Nick leapt forward, just as he was 3 feet away from Josh’s back, and grabbed onto him. "Gotcha!" He announced, making them both tumble and roll into the snow.

"Get off me! This is really cold, Puppy!" Josh’s shriek alerted Alex and Kevin, who came around the back to see what they were doing.

"Get out of the snow. You’ll get sick." Kevin said, eyeing the two laying in the snow.

Both pouted, but climbed to their feet. When Kevin turned back to Alex, they both ran to hide behind something, because Nick had thrown another snowball at Josh and they were in a full-out war now.

A snowball whizzed by Kevin as he stood with his back to the two and he shut his eyes in annoyance. "Stop that."

His words fell on deaf ears, as they continued their fight. Josh threw a snowball, which hit Nick in the chest. Nick threw a snowball that clipped Josh’s shoulder. And then both grinned at the other and aimed at Kevin’s back.

Both snowballs hit Kevin right in the center of his back between his shoulder blades. He stood stock still and silent, staring at Alex who had put his gloved hand up to his mouth to keep himself from laughing out loud.

"Joshua Scott, Nickolas Gene." He growled menacingly, and the two who’s names had been called gulped in fear. They knew Kevin was mad, but hadn’t thought of the consequences of throwing a ball of snow at the older man when they’d done it. It was just fun to them and they thought Kevin needed to loosen up a little.

Kevin turned around and stared at both Josh and Nick, who were cowering behind some trees at the edge of their property. "Come here now."

Josh and Nick looked at each other. "Uh...are you going to punish us?"

"No. We need to go inside. It’s getting colder." Kevin said gruffly. He really wasn’t going to. He didn’t have the energy to deal with punishing those two at the moment.

Josh and Nick didn’t look convinced but slowly started to walk toward Kevin and Alex. When the reached them, they stood reluctantly a few feet away, staring at the snow covered ground.

Alex decided he needed to intercede in the tense moment and he walked to Josh and put his arm around him. "C’mon, we can all have hot chocolate." He said, talking to Josh and Nick.

Josh’s eyes lit up. "Yay! C’mon, Puppy!"

Nick looked at Kevin and slowly followed Alex and Josh into the house. Kevin followed suit a few moments later, shaking his head.

-------------

Kevin and Alex had come up with this plan a few months ago. One of the two of them would dress up like Santa Claus and come to deliver Nick and Josh’s gifts to them. They’d drawn straws, and Kevin had won. Or lost, as Kevin saw it. Personally, he thought that Alex had somehow cheated, but he wasn’t going to get into that or fight with Alex about it. He just knew that Alex was going to give him something in return. He already had something in mind.

As he finished up wrapping the presents, he sighed and headed to the storage closet where the Santa suit was hidden. That’s also where he’d hidden the presents, because he knew Nick and Josh would never think to look in there. They wouldn’t have anyway, they still believed in Santa, which was why the were going to do this whole Santa-delivering-presents-in-the-middle-of-the-night-at-their-house thing.

Kevin wanted to kick Alex’s ass for this. He decided some other sort of punishment would suffice though, as he slipped into the red and white costume, over the fat suit he’d purchased especially for the occasion to make it appear that he was fat, and tucked his long hair up into the hat; then placed the white cottony beard at his mouth.

Looking into the mirror, he straightened the hat and the beard, and made sure to hide as much of his face as possible. Then he trudged into the living room with a big red velvet sack to place all the toys inside.

When that was done, he went up to Josh and Nick’s room and looked inside. Alex sat on a chair near the door and was asleep, his chin tucked into his chest and his arms crossed across it, moving as he breathed. Gently tapping on Alex’s shoulder, Kevin woke him up so that Alex could accidentally wake up the two sleeping in bed.

Alex had to hold in his laughter at Kevin’s appearance. It was classic. And he was definitely getting the video camera and recording this for black-mailing purposes later.

Kevin walked back downstairs, quietly but quickly, and grabbed the sack full of toys. He heard a noise and feet padding hurriedly down the hall and quickly moved toward the fireplace to make it appear as if he’d just come out of it. When silence ensued, he assumed Josh and Nick were watching him in awe, happily watching as ‘Santa’ put their gifts under the Christmas tree.

Alex hurriedly grabbed the video camera from his and Kevin’s closet and ran into the hallway. He turned it on and started taping the excitement of the hiding Josh and Nick.

Kevin put each toy underneath the tree carefully. He hoped that Alex wasn’t taping this. That was something he would do. He probably was though. Kevin resigned himself to his fate and placed the last gift under the tree. He straightened up just as Nick and Josh crept into the room.

They froze like deer in headlights. "Oh God. You’re not gonna take our presents back now, are you?" Asked a frightened Nick, his eyes wide as he stood stock still staring at ‘Santa’.

"Why would I do that?" Kevin asked, deepening his voice and taking on the stereotypical Santa persona.

Nick shifted and looked over at Josh. "Uh...’cause we’re out here interrupting your uh job thingy. We’re seein’ you and we’re not s’posed to." He bit his lip and stared at Kevin.

Kevin had to bite back a grin. Nick was so cute when he was uncertain or confused. Which was all the time. But, none the less, he had to play Santa. And he definitely was going to make Alex pay for making him be the one that did this.

"No. It’s OK, Nick, just don’t tell anyone you saw me. You’ve been a good boy all year and so has Josh, so I’ll forgive you this once." ‘Santa’ ho ho ho’d and then hobbled toward the door. He heard them whisper excitedly about him knowing their names.

"Where ya goin’?" Josh’s confused voice rang out after Kevin.

Kevin’s finger clenched around the bag’s neck. "The chimney was a tight fit. I need to uh go out the door this time. I don’t want to get stuck."

He heard Alex’s soft laughter and had to fight not to curse at him.

"Oh."

"Can we tell you what we want for next year?"

Kevin’s eyes shut briefly. Nick was getting on his nerves. "Now, that wouldn’t be fair, don’t you think? The other little boys and girls don’t get to do that, so, that really wouldn’t be fair to all of them." He hoped Nick would get the idea and leave him alone so he could get the hell out of that costume.

"Oh yeah." Nick looked appeased with that answer, and Kevin turned the doorknob slightly.

"Why don’t you two go sit on Santa’s lap? I wanna get a nice shot of you and Santa together." Kevin was going to kill Alex. He turned around and plastered a smile onto his face.

"Now, Alexander, you know I have a busy night ahead of me. I don’t have ti-"

"Ohhh, can we? Please?" Came an excited squeal from Josh as he clasped his hands together in delight at the prospect of being able to sit on his lap.

Kevin stared at him. "I really don’t thin-"

"Oh c’mon, Santa, it would make them so happy." Alex smirked and raised the video camera.

"Fine. Hurry up though." Kevin begrudgingly set his bag down and plopped down onto a chair.

Nick and Josh looked excitedly at each other and then ran toward Kevin at full tilt. Kevin stared at them in horror and put up his hands to try to get them to slow down. He might’ve yelled something, but they didn’t hear it and plowed straight into him, jumped onto his lap, both at the same time, and knocked Kevin, the chair and themselves into the floor.

"God, get them off me." Kevin mumbled from underneath a pile of squirming bodies.

Alex cackled with laughter, his hand shaking so hard he could hardly aim the camera at them anymore. He nearly fell from how hard he was laughing as he watched Kevin trying to push Josh and Nick off of him.

"Nick....Josh...get off of...." Alex’s sides heaved from laughter. "of him. Please. He’s gotta go." Then he lost it again and put the camera down so that it would still be videotaping and he could laugh in peace.

The two boys scrambled from ‘Santa’s’ body and moved away from him.

"Thanks. I know what I’ll be giving Alexander for Christmas this year." Kevin mumbled grabbing the red velvet bag and rising to his feet.

"Now, you two go to bed, and you’ll get to open what Santa brought you in the morning." The two sprinted down the hall and both Alex and Kevin could hear them leap into their beds.

"Jesus, Alex." Kevin threw down the bag with an exasperated groan.

"What?" Alex feigned innocence.

Kevin glared at him as he removed his Santa suit and then finally the fat suit. He threw it all down next to the velvet bag and stalked over to the camera and pulled it up to his face.

"Alex is going to be punished for taping this. Merry fucking Christmas." He then shut it off, grabbed the Santa suit and bag and threw them back into the storage room. He locked it, grabbed the video camera and stalked over to Alex.

Alex swallowed and backed up. "What...are you gonna do?" He asked, dread filling his body as he watched a pissed off Kevin move closer to him.

"Oh nothing. Just teach you the true meaning of good will toward all men." Kevin bit out and flipped the camera back on.

Alex bit out a hysterical laugh, unsure of what Kevin was going to do to him, and then tore down the hall to their bedroom. Kevin followed, filming every scared move and sound that Alex made, then shut the door and locked it behind him.

"Merry fucking Christmas, Alexander."

END