Merry (really late) Fuzz-tivus, Random!

[mercyrobot]

For the lovely random_nexus-- this is inexcusably late and is my usual long-winded left-field take on the actual request and isn't even properly smutty (or not in any satisfactory way, though there is a smexy part) even though I hinted that it would be and please don't shoot me because ending where it did felt logical. And um, yeah. MADE WITH LOVE.

The request was fluff, snow, hot chocolate, surprises. Holiday plans going all wrong in a way that turns out so very right... which I sort of managed.


All That's Missing is Alan Rickman and Some Terrorists
(Five Times Christmas Went Wrong, Except Not)

Just Now

"Honk," said the swan, flapping its wings as it slapped its flippers on the crushed remains of the last autographed copy of Point Break possibly in all of creation, which could not be replaced, thank you very much, because Patrick Swayze was dead, wasn't he, and Nicholas very sincerely hoped the bloody creature would injure itself at least badly enough to be out of commission for a while. "Honk, honk." Slap slap slap.

"There's always novelty pants," Doris said, waving her truncheon uselessly.

Nicholas let forth a howl of rage.


Four years ago

"Well, no, it doesn't look much like the ones from the bakery," Nicholas said gently with a pat to Danny's dejected shoulder. To be honest, the supposed Black Forest gâteau looked more like a murder scene than a cake, but he wouldn't tell Danny that for anything. "I'm sure it tastes fine."

"Yeah, maybe," Danny sighed. "'s just, you know, Dad doesn't get nothing nice looking in prison. Gruel and that."

Nicholas wisely refrained from correcting Danny on the mandated dietary requirements in Her Majesty's Prisons. "I don't think they get cake at all. He'll love it." And so help him, if Frank did not bite into that cake and do a creditable impression of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, Nicholas had a few well-placed phone calls to make about the quality of his 'accommodations.'

*

"I'm sorry, Sergeant Butterman," said the officer at prison reception. "He specifically requested no visitors."

"None?" Danny asked, more crestfallen than Nicholas had seen him since...well, the last time Frank had refused to see him. But it was bloody Christmas.

"That's what no visitors means," said the officer, whose name badge was obscured by a red and green reindeer pin, of which his superiors would not go uninformed.

"Did he say why?" Danny asked.

"We don't ask them why."

Danny's face twisted in pain as he flung an arm out and swiped the cake box onto the floor, where it splattered in a broken mass of cherries and dubious chocolate goo. "See he gets that, will you?" Danny snapped, and stalked out. Nicholas didn't bother to apologise for the mess before running out after him.

It took hours of spiked cocoa and a back massage before Danny could even be persuaded to pull a cracker, but he did smile in the end, if sadly, and Nicholas made those phone calls the very next morning.


Three years ago

"I think I may get a dog," Nicholas's mother said after a long interval filled with nothing but the sounds of clinking silverware and chewing.

"Oh? What sort?" Danny asked cheerfully.

"Oh, I haven't decided. But you know, since there won't be any grandchildren--"

"Mum," Nicholas said.

"I'm only saying, Nicky. A bit of joy in my old age, I don't think it's too much to ask. More peas?"

Nicholas threw his fork down and stood up. "I need your help in the kitchen, Mum," he clenched out between grinding teeth.

"Don't be silly," said his mother. "Everything's all out here."

Danny, bless him, popped up and announced he needed the loo.

"Why are you doing this, Mum?" Nicholas asked when Danny had gone.

"Doing what? I'm trying my best, but it's a bit of a shock, isn't it?" she picked at a spot of wax on the tablecloth rather than look at Nicholas.

"It's not a shock. I very purposely did use gender pronouns, very frequently. It's not like university. You've been well prepared for over a year."

"Oh, Nicky, it's not that he's a man. It's only-- well, he's not very good looking, is he?"

"Mum--"

"You're a very handsome man, Nicholas. I'm sure you could do much better than an overweight, undereducated--"

"MUM."

"I reckon you're right, Mrs Angel." Two matching pairs of mortified eyes turned to Danny in the doorway. "Nicholas probably could find someone fitter, or thinner, or with a posh accent, or at least whose father didn't try to kill him. But he hasn't, and if I'm good enough for him, I reckon that's got to be good enough for his mum, and I think I'd rather not come back here till it is."

Nicholas could not help smiling despite his mother's horrified glare, and perhaps partly because of it. He jerked his thumb at Danny. "What he said. Except--" and he caught Danny's eye-- "the bit where there might be anyone better."

There was no question of staying for pudding, let alone for the night, so they contented themselves with a couple of Cornettos and the second to last hotel room in Ealing.

"I reckon I could stand to lose a couple of stone," Danny said quietly later, as Die Hard played on TV.

Nicholas stopped nuzzling at Danny's neck and looked at him sharply. "Don't listen to my mother. If I'd brought Brad Pitt round, she'd be complaining about him being American."

"Brad Pitt's not all squashy bits, though, is he?"

"There is only one bit of you I'd prefer not to be squashy," Nicholas said, and demonstrated.


Two years ago

There was a goose--a fucking goose that Nicholas had paid Andy's father extra not to leave the head and feet on so that at least it wouldn't look at him, and you could argue that it was organic and free range, and anyway, it was for Danny and his fond traditional memories--in the oven, lights on the tree, mistletoe over the doorway, and a bizarre rock-operatic rendition of 'Deck the Halls' blaring out of the radio. Nicholas had railroaded Doris and one of the Turners into the lonely task of minding the station for the day--partly by stealthy guilt trip about how badly the last two Christmases had gone, and partly on the agreement that Doris would not be expected to turn up for work after that until she'd fully got over whatever she got up to over New Year's. The way Evan Turner's eyes had lit up upon learning that he'd be alone in the station with Doris was mildly disturbing if Nicholas thought about it, which he wasn't, because he had potatoes to mash and peas to mush.

Danny was due back from last-minute shopping in Buford Abbey any minute now and everything, dammit, was going to be perfect. He would kiss Danny under the mistletoe, dammit, and have a nice Christmas dinner, dammit, and get plastered and naked on mulled wine, dammit. No parents, no trips to Gartree or Ealing or anywhere else until they were forced to get dressed on Boxing Day and go into work.

Three things happened at once. One, Cliff Richard came on and had Nicholas swatting at the radio with a fish-slice. Two, Danny came through the door and promptly lost his armload of packages due to tripping on the Christmas tree's extension cord (Nicholas had known they should have properly affixed it to the floor with a protective sleeve and yellow tape). Three, the telephone rang. And four, by the bye, Nicholas attempted to catch both Danny and the shopping, which resulted in (a) an HMV bag flying through the air along with (b) the fish-slice, and (c) Danny ending up on his arse beneath the mistletoe, which (d) Nicholas could not kiss him underneath, because (e) the caller ID said Metropolitan Police Service.

"We've caught Father Christmas!" exclaimed the last--well, fourth-to-last, but the other three weren't ringing--voice Nicholas wanted to hear.

"Brilliant," Nicholas snapped, helping Danny up. "Were you on his nice list or did he bring you a lump of coal?"

"No, Nicholas, your Father Christmas. We think, anyway. We just need you to pop up here and ID him."

"Can't you just send the file over? I'm a bit busy just now." The fish-slice had landed in Lily One's pot; Nicholas patted her leaves and retrieved it to rinse in the sink.

"Tut, tut, Inspector. You're a witness, not collaborating law enforcement. You know the regulations."

"Yes, yes. I meant as a favour, Sergeant."

"Can't do that, sorry."

"Can't you hold him till tomorrow? I'm sort of cooking a goose here."

"Lovely. But no."

"Can't I--"

"No."

"Can't you--"

"No."

"Dammit!"

The great thing about Danny, usually, was that while he was miles more important than the job and knew it, he also understood that sometimes the job had to come first. He would never ask Nicholas to let Father Christmas go free and continue to walk the streets with his flick-knife on the assumption that someone else would catch him eventually. He clearly wanted to, downcast and dejected and talking in a small-sounding monotone, but that was largely related to Danny's feelings about the man issuing the 'invitation,' for which Nicholas couldn't entirely blame him. Which made Nicholas want to stay even more, but he just couldn't.

Nicholas wrote out detailed instructions on how to finish the cooking and how to keep the food from ruining and drove to London and back with sirens on and the accelerator jammed down. It was still a decent hour for Christmas dinner when he did get back, but the goose was scorched and the potatoes were like concrete and Danny was in a foul mood about Sergeant Whatsit (which was all Danny ever called him, despite presumably knowing his name) and his history with Nicholas and what (or who) he might be trying to pull, and just who the bloody hell he thought he was.

Nicholas knew better than to argue over anyone's motives, especially when Danny's anger turned possessive, and it wasn't as though wine was a requirement for getting naked, and at least the mistletoe had kept all right.


One year ago

The snow fell silently, filling in the tyre tracks that serpentined over the road and met in the lay-by in a twisted mass of metal and strewn Christmas presents.

Down the road, Sandford was waking up to its own presents, but this little boy would never squeal in delight over the Wii that now lay crushed and muddied with its paper halfway off. His parents would not snap a photo; only the Andes would, a decent attempt at nicotine gum abandoned for the day. Doris could barely contain her tears; Tony wouldn't do anything but stand at the cordon and look the other way, and Nicholas wasn't going to make him, knowing he was thinking of Stan safe at home in his bed.

The ambulances rolled away silently, in no hurry.

"A tragic accident," Nicholas said to Jack Briggs of the Sandford Citizen, who would write up a heart-wrenching piece on the family and win an award.

Nicholas sent everyone else home as soon as he could when the detail teams began to trickle in from the county. He sent Danny home too. He stayed with the scene until the bitter end, when there was nothing left but some shards of glass and a broken tree.

When he finally did get home, he smelled not the roast that had been in the oven all night, but Chinese, which Danny solemnly placed on the coffee table with six cans of lager. "Didn't seem right," Danny explained at Nicholas's unasked question. "I took it to the children's home."

They ate moo shu and watched the Doctor Who special and didn't let go of each other.


Last night

"Fucking pot!" Nicholas growled as the little black flakes of non-stick coating floated mockingly to the top of the would-be custard.

He'd poured the entire contents down the sink and chucked the saucepan violently into the bin before Danny came in (wearing Auntie Jackie's annual reindeer pyjamas) to see what all the noise was about.

"Custard," Nicholas said, in search of more eggs in the fridge. "Ruined it. I'll have to start again-- fuck!" He slammed the fridge shut. "We're now out of eggs. And everywhere's closed. I'll need to--"

Danny dragged him away and enveloped him in a warm flannelled embrace. "You'll need to leave it and come to bed."

"But the trifle has to--"

"D'you know why they call it a trifle? Because it doesn't bloody matter, does it? We won't even want pudding with all that other stuff. Now come--"

"Ice cream!"

"What?"

"Ice cream's custard. I can melt the ice cream." Nicholas gave Danny a brief kiss and left him to sigh and go off to bed alone. Chunky Monkey trifle wasn't exactly traditional, but Nicholas was determined.

It was well after midnight when he'd finished, at which point he realised the all-important DVD was still hidden in his desk at the station (under the requisition forms, where Danny would never look). He stole out to get it, which led to two hours of helping Bob and Saxon track down a kitten that wasn't apparently too keen on spending the next few hours shut in a box, ventilated or no. An exhausted (and muddy, as it had begun to snow) Nicholas lectured the parents on the appropriate handling of gift animals and slushed his way home.

The little suction-cup clock in the shower (essential for being on time to work in a household prone to shared and prolonged bathing) read 3:30 by the time Nicholas could feel his fingers and toes again, so he decided there wasn't much point in sleep now.

"'s Chris'ms?" Danny asked blearily while Nicholas was dressing.

"Not yet," Nicholas whispered. "I'll wake you for breakfast." Studied resistance was all that enabled Nicholas to simply kiss Danny on the forehead and not succumb to the temptation to crawl in next to him. He had a turkey to cook.

This morning

It was all turning out perfectly, finally. Breakfast in bed (no eggs, but that was all right) followed by a lot of jam-sticky kissing, and now it was time for a leisurely opening of presents whilst the turkey roasted and the trifle soaked up its liquor.

"Danny," Nicholas protested weakly at the tongue in his ear and the hand up his shirt.

"What?" Danny mumbled through a mouthful of earlobe.

"We've got--ah--presents to open."

"Thought I was opening my prezzie." Danny pushed up Nicholas's shirt and abandoned the ear-nibbling to kiss at his chest, which he well knew was a weak point, a reduce-Nicholas-Angel-to-putty-in-your-hands point. When Danny had discovered it, he'd commented that he'd known girls who didn't like it half as much, which had (on several occasions now, actually) prompted Nicholas to rather vigorously prove how much of a girl he was not. But in this case Danny was simply content to suck and bite at Nicholas's nipples and collarbone and palm his own erection through the comically tented reindeer pyjamas while Nicholas grasped at his shoulders and thrust upwards against a carefully calculated area of nothing to thrust against.

"I meant the ones--dammit, Danny--" Nicholas wrenched Danny's hand off his chest and pressed it over the crotch of his jeans until Danny relented and began to rub-- "I meant the ones under the tree, but--fuck!"

"You want me to fuck you?" Danny breathed against wet skin.

"No--yes--the presents--"

"Will wait," Danny declared, and slid back to undo Nicholas's jeans. "You shouldn't've put these on if you didn't want me to--"

There was a loud crash from the direction of the garden. Nicholas jumped. "What was--"

Danny held him down and continued peeling off the jeans. "Cats or something. Hedgehogs. Leave--"

But there was a suspiciously familiar bark, followed by the clang of bin lids on gravel, and a definitely familiar voice calling out, "Saxon, no!"

It was a call to action. Danny let Nicholas up and they leapt to it. Nicholas only had to button his jeans, but Danny needed shoes and something without reindeer on, so Nicholas was first on the scene. He flung the back door open and had barely drawn breath to ask what the hell was going on before Elvis the swan barrelled in like a honking feathered cyclone, followed by a barking Saxon who'd got loose from Doris, who skidded into the house on their heels, if dogs and geese had heels.

"Chief, he'll kill it!" Doris exclaimed, and if it weren't for the fact that it would cause the site of a not-yet-entirely-ruined Christmas to be strewn with guts and beaks, Nicholas might have said let him.

"Where's Walker?" Nicholas shouted instead, over the din of the barking and honking.

"Car," Doris said. "Cheeky bugger legged it through the meadow an' I had to follow him."

Nicholas was about to scold Doris for separating Saxon from the only person the dog would take orders from, but the zoological whirlwind tore a path of destruction through the presents and all he could manage was an anguished, "No!"

Walker arrived mere seconds later and called off Saxon with a 'geroffydamnog,' but it was too late. The damage had been done.

"Honk honk."

 Slap slap slap.

Novelty pants.

Nicholas howled.

Danny emerged from the bedroom, having missed most of the action, and would tell Nicholas later that for a moment he'd wondered if he'd somehow stepped into the wrong house. "What's going--"

"Is it too much to bloody ask?" Nicholas bellowed, though whether to man, beast, or God, even he wasn't really certain.

Doris and Walker beat a hasty retreat with Saxon, and the bloody swan had the nerve to wander obediently out behind them with a final 'honk.'

"I just wanted a nice. Happy. Christmas," Nicholas seethed, fishing Point Break from the wrecked glass of its frame. "No prisons, no parents, no homicidal Santas, no death, just a nice fucking dinner and some presents, maybe some cocoa and a leisurely sort of shag. Is that really so difficult?" This last was most definitely directed towards the ceiling, at which Nicholas waved the crushed and scratched DVD case.

Danny stared at him wide-eyed for a moment and then began to laugh. Loudly. Raucously.

"It's not funny!" Nicholas yelled.

"Sorta is," Danny wheezed between gales. "John McClane."

Nicholas blinked. "What?"

"John McClane. Die Hard. Christmas. Just wants to--" Danny dissolved again.

It took Nicholas a moment to process it as he was pulled into Danny's arms, laughter against his neck shaking them both, and it was all suddenly so incredibly ridiculous, and for a while Nicholas couldn't stop laughing either.

But then he remembered the maimed and probably irreplaceable present in his hands and smelled turkey skin blackening and it wasn't so funny anymore. He stepped back, sobering. "I just wanted it to be nice for you, Danny. Just once for something not to mess it all up."

"Silly bugger. It's never all messed up. End up with you every year, don't I?"

"The swan smashed your present and the dinner's burnt. Again."

"Good job you made that trifle," Danny said, not looking bothered in the least. "C'mon, then, what'd you get me?"

Nicholas sadly held out what was left of the case.

Danny stared at it for a moment and then grinned ear to ear and grabbed Nicholas in a bone-crushing hug. "This. Is. Brilliant."

"It's all smashed," Nicholas said, squirming away.

Danny didn't let him get far. "In the line of duty. 's us all over, ain't it?"

And suddenly Nicholas got what Danny meant about it never being all messed up. "I love you," he said, because he couldn't even think anything else.