Simon had always had a thing about Christmas. It would be simplest to say he didn’t like it. But the truth was that he’d always longed for a Christmas that would feel, well, Christmassy.
Instead, Christmas was spent at his parents’ house and consisted of a marathon session of dodging his family’s well-meaning suggestions about his life, meeting his sister’s boyfriend of the moment, each of whom was treated like a part of the family, and wondering why he came year after year when he always left miserable, feeling like a disappointment, and lugging a stack of flashy clothes and gift certificates to social activities, all of which he donated, like clockwork, the week after Christmas.
So when he and Jack were lying in bed a few weeks before Christmas and Jack asked him what his favorite Christmas had been, Simon didn’t have to think at all, because there was only one Christmas in memory that hadn’t sucked.
“When I was nine I slept under the tree. My parents didn’t want me to because they didn’t want to leave the lights on all night, but all I wanted was to be able to look up and see it all lit up like stars in the dark.”
Jack made a sound of satisfaction against his neck. Jack loved to look up at the stars.
“Maybe Kylie was sick or something and they were distracted, but they let me and it was magical. I took my duvet and pillows and made a little nest so my head was by the trunk and I could look up through the branches.”
That night he’d dreamt that Santa was tiny—the size of an ornament—and that when he’d come down the chimney Simon had put him in his pocket and carried him around like a comforting friend.
It was also the year that Simon had realized other kids had grown out of their shyness while he was beginning to feel like his brain was wiped clean when someone spoke to him.
“What about you?” he asked Jack.
“I used to like it a lot. As a kid. After my parents died Charlie and I didn’t really do much. It seemed too weird. Sad. Then I was off at school. When I moved back here we just never quite picked it up again. Usually we have dinner and watch shitty movies or something.”
Simon said, “Hmm,” and tightened his arms around Jack, but his mind was working double-time.
He got Charlie’s number out of Jack’s phone and sent the text with trembling fingers. Charlie wrote back right away to say that, yes, he wanted to come to the cabin for Christmas Eve. He also offered to help with whatever Simon might need.
What Simon needed first was the perfect gift. He started looking over Jack’s shoulder when he was on the computer and peering at him while he went about his day, wondering what was lacking in his life that Simon could find for him and wrap in brightly colored paper.
After two days of this detective work, Jack pinned him against a wall and said, “What’s wrong with you?”
“N-nothing?”
Jack peered at him.
“You’re being weird.”
Simon took this as a signal to stop looking for the perfect gift and turned his attention to planning the perfect celebration.
He could make dinner but all he could think of when he pictured a tree and lights and decorations was what if Jack didn’t want Simon doing that in his home. So that put an end to the decorations.
“What should I do?” he asked his grandma over dinner. “I don’t know what to get him, I can’t surprise him with a whole house of decorations because it’s his house, and I don’t even know if he’d want to cut down a tree? No, he’d never kill a tree just for decoration. Ugh.”
Jean smiled at him knowingly.
“Surprises are lovely, dear. But when you surprise someone you do all the work by yourself for the enjoyment of the one moment when they see what you did. When you plan something together, you get to enjoy the whole thing with them.”
And hell if that wasn’t the wisest and most sensible goddamn thing that Simon had ever heard.
He was all set to broach the topic with Jack the next day, when Jack said, casual as can be, as he fed the animals, “Do you wanna have Christmas with me?”
Simon glared.
It was so damn easy for Jack. After Simon’s days of thinking and worrying and scheming, Jack had just tossed the question out like it was nothing.
“Whoa. Uh. So maybe...you don’t want to?”
“Goddamn it,” Simon grumbled. He shoved Jack’s shoulders then hugged him tight. “Yes, please.”
Jack rubbed soothing strokes up and down his spine.
“Also your brother is coming for Christmas Eve.”
“He is?” Jack put distance between them so he could see Simon’s face. “You...did you contact Charlie?”
He beamed and Simon nodded miserably.
“I was going to try and plan a whole thing, but I got...” He shook his head and buried his face in Jack’s shoulder. “We could plan it together?”
“What’s that, darlin’?”
“Maybe it’s better if we plan together?”
Jack’s smile and soft eyes made it all worth sacrificing the element of surprise. In fact, as he bundled up against the cold and followed Jack out into the snow, he wasn’t sure why he’d ever thought a surprise was the way to go.
Jack was talking animatedly about Christmas trees when they got into his truck—local pines and root balls and ground thaw temperature and replant viability—and when they arrived at a tree farm twenty minutes away, Jack didn’t even hesitate, just grabbed Simon’s hand and pulled him into the fray.
Simon appreciated every accommodation Jack had made for him. Every questioning look to see if he needed to go home, every firm hug that soothed his nervous system, every massage that calmed his twitching muscles.
But this moment when Jack was so excited to do something with Simon that he didn’t even think about making accommodations shifted something between them.
Jack wanted him. Wanted Simon with him, no matter what.
They made their way through a maze of trees with their trunks wrapped in burlap and perched in buckets.
“What’s up with that?” Simon asked, pointing.
“That’s to protect the root ball. I was just talking about this for like ten minutes.”
“Sorry,” Simon said, sheepish.
“I was saying that we can replant it when the ground thaws. I can’t believe people cut down whole trees just to throw them away.”
Simon squeezed his hand. He’d been right about that, anyway.
Jack continued on about deforestation and climate change as they walked. His copper hair gleamed where it stuck out of his maroon beanie and his shoulders looked impossibly broad in his heavy navy coat.
Simon couldn’t believe that he was picking out a Christmas tree with this man. That he got to touch him, kiss him, wake up with him. His mind buzzed with dizzy joy but when Jack looked at him he couldn’t remember one iota of what Jack had been saying. And he didn’t really care.
He tugged Jack behind one of the larger trees in the corner of the lot and pulled him into a kiss.
“I like being shut up that way,” Jack said.
Simon swallowed, then leaned to whisper in Jack’s ear.
“I want to suck your cock.”
Jack froze, then groaned and dragged Simon tight against him like he was about to fall.
“Fuuuuck, I can’t believe you just said that. At a Christmas tree farm,” he added, clearly scandalized.
Simon could hardly believe it himself but now that he had, all he could think about was dropping to his knees in a forest of pine trees and taking Jack in his mouth. The thought of Jack’s big hands on his face and in his hair, of Jack in full winter gear with his cock out, of Jack coming down his throat while the cold air caressed him, made him shiver with want.
Jack cupped his cheek, eyes fixed on his mouth. He pressed his thumb to Simon’s lips and Simon felt his mouth give just enough to let Jack inside.
“Fuck,” Jack muttered.
Jack had a tree in the truck so fast Simon wasn’t even sure he’d paid for it.
When they pulled up in front of the cabin, Jack hurried toward the door, but Simon stopped him.
“We don’t have to—” Jack began, instantly gentle.
“I want to...out here.”
Jack’s pupils dilated and he nodded, then pulled Simon to the copse of trees at the side of the cabin.
Simon shoved Jack against a thick tree, dropped to his knees, and pressed his face against Jack’s thighs. He was overwhelmed, which was different than anxious, and turned on. He wanted to touch Jack, pleasure him, not have to think.
He undid Jack’s belt and pulled his pants down, sucking Jack’s cock into his mouth before the cold air could chill him. Jack gasped and slid a hand into Simon’s hair.
“You look so fucking hot like that. Swallowing my dick, hungry for it. Fuuuuuck,” he groaned when Simon took him deeper.
Jack’s powerful thighs were tight and Simon squeezed his ass, then pulled him forward, encouraging Jack to thrust in and out of his mouth.
“Fuck, baby, you feel amazing. You want me to keep talking?”
Simon moaned and nodded. Nothing got to him like hearing all the things Jack wanted to do to him.
Simon closed his eyes, focusing on the slick slide of Jack’s cock over his lips and into his throat. He relished the sensation of choosing something to block his speech and breath.
“Shit, you look like a fuckin’ angel, Simon. Like all you want in the whole world is to have your mouth on me. Maybe I should keep you between my legs all day when I’m drawing, keep my dick in your mouth, just—oh god—have you kneel there and service me whenever I want.”
Simon moaned and shoved a hand in his pants, so turned on it wouldn’t take much.
“Don’t make yourself come,” Jack said sharply. “Just touch that hot dick and wait for me.” Simon almost choked as lust rolled through him and he squeezed the base of his cock to keep from coming at Jack’s command.
“So close, shit,” Jack gasped.
Simon swallowed around him and Jack came, pulsing hotly down Simon’s throat with each thrust.
Before Simon had gotten his breath, Jack dragged him off his knees and kissed him deeply, breathing hard. He slid a hand into Simon’s jeans and fucked him with his tongue as he fondled him. When Jack fisted his cock and jerked hard, Simon’s vision whited out and he came, gasping and swearing, into Jack’s hand.
“Jesus Christ,” Jack groaned and Simon whimpered and let himself fall against Jack.
When he could open his eyes, he let out a creaky laugh.
“Hmm?” Jack inquired.
Simon turned them slightly and pointed, too wrung out to speak.
Pickles, Mayonnaise, and Louis were lined up side by side in the kitchen window, staring at them, heads cocked.
The afternoon of Christmas Eve, Simon paced the basement and refreshed the UPS tracking link one million times. The perfect gift for Jack had come to him in the middle of the night and if it didn’t get here on time he was going to flip his shit.
No, he told himself as his heart started to race. He lay down on his back on the rug and stretched. You won’t flip out. You’ll just give Jack his present after Christmas. It’s not that big a deal.
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth for a few minutes, then practically screamed when the doorbell rang, startling him.
He bolted up the stairs and wrenched the door open to claim the package before he even thought about the awkwardness of having to see the delivery person.
He had the envelope in hand and was flush with relief that the heavy snows of the past week hadn’t scuttled his plan when his grandmother came downstairs.
“Do you want your gift now or later?” she asked.
“Are you sure you wanna go to Mom and Dad’s instead of coming to Jack’s?”
Jack had been really disappointed when Grandma Jean had said she thought she should go to Simon’s parents’ house for Christmas and had asked for a raincheck for the next year.
“I think I can stand my own son for a few hours.”
She winked at him and Simon smiled.
“I just mean...it’s the first Christmas without Grandpa, and...”
Simon had his suspicions that she’d turned down Jack’s invitation because she wanted a quick holiday visit and then the night to herself to remember him, so he hadn’t pushed.
Jean patted Simon’s cheek.
“I’ll miss your grandfather wherever I am today. And every day,” she said.
Simon swallowed and nodded.
“So. Presents?”
“Okay, now.” Simon smiled.
He ran downstairs to grab hers and they met in the living room. This was their tradition.
They opened them at the same time and when Simon saw her face he knew he’d won before he even got the paper off.
The needlepoint pattern was of a photo of Simon and his grandparents when he was a toddler. He was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and his grandparents each had hold of one of his hands, swinging him above the ground. Simon was grinning at the camera with glee, but his grandparents were smiling at each other.
“I made it on this site online where you can—”
Jean grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce hug. Her cheek was damp against his.
“It’s wonderful.”
She stroked his hair back and smiled through tears.
“Go on, then.”
He pulled the rest of the paper off and found a needlepoint kit of a giant St. Bernard dog that looked very much like Bernard—wait, it was Bernard, and it had a decorative border made of bones.
“Is this—?”
“Great minds and all that,” she said, smiling. “I got the picture from Jack.”
“You’re awesome,” Simon said. “Thank you. Merry Christmas.”
With all the snow the drive to Jack’s cabin took twice as long as usual, but when he turned up the long drive, Simon saw lights glittering through the trees and heard happy barking from inside as he parked.
For a moment as Simon looked at Jack’s front door he was back months before when he’d first taken the winding road and ended up here. That day, it had felt like it would take a force of energy greater than the sum of everything Simon had inside him to even open the car door. And once he had, his very hand had rebelled against knocking on the door.
Now, behind that door was everything Simon wanted. The man he loved, the animals he loved, the place that felt like home and safety and freedom. His future.
The door opened.
“Hey, darlin’, need a hand?”
Jack was already tugging on a coat to come help him and Simon felt unexpected tears prickle in his eyes.
Jack hadn’t shaved in a few days and it tickled Simon’s face when Jack leaned in to kiss him.
“You okay?” Jack asked, catching his chin.
Simon nodded but he knew if he spoke he’d cry.
Jack stroked his cheek, then caught him up in a crushing hug. Simon felt like he could have lifted up his legs and gone slack and still Jack’s arms would have held him.