Merry Christmas!
So, over in codiasi, we tried an Advent Calendar, in which a new Christmas/winter themed prompt was posted every day. I was the only one that did the prompts every day, but I enjoyed it a lot and maybe I'll try it again next year, too. Anyway, I'm gonna post them all here! Days 1-25. Woo! Enjoy!
Also, quick note, these aren't all the same universe. Some of them go back to my 'main story' but others are kinda one-shots. Some could be any 'verse. You decide, haha.
Day 1 - Prompt: Wreath
Cody had gone out grocery shopping, since he used up the rest of the milk that morning for his Chex, and there were a few more necessities they needed. He swore he wasn’t gone all that long, but when he got back to his and Ted’s apartment, with groceries in hand as he was fishing for his keys, he nearly ran face first into a Christmas wreath hanging upon their door.
His eyes darted around a bit, looking at the door and the wreath and the big, bright red bow stuck to the top of it. Giving up on looking for his keys, he instead kicked the door several times, hoping that Ted was nearby. He would have done his normal routine of sticking his eye up as close as he could to the peep hole, but he felt somewhat strange sticking his face into a wreath.
Thankfully, Ted was close by and heard the door. Looking through the peep hole himself, he saw a somewhat annoyed looking Cody. “Hey, baby,” he greeted when he opened the door and took a few of the grocery bags from Cody.
“What the hell is that?” was the first thing that Cody said.
“A wreath,” Ted answered with a smile.
“When did we get a wreath?” he asked, setting the bags down on the floor.
“I put it up a day before we left last time,” Ted told him.
“Wait. We’ve had a wreath on our door for the entire week, including the last three days we’ve been at home and I’m just noticing?”
“And you say I’m the oblivious one,” Ted retorted as he began unloading the grocery bags.
“There’s no way it’s-”
“Yup. Sure has been,” he said, cutting Cody off.
“But-”
“An entire week.”
“It’s not pos-”
“Two of which you’ve been home.”
“No, it can’t-”
“Yes, it can.”
“But-”
“Yup,” Ted cut him off again.
“Fine… let’s say it has been up for a week… why?”
“It’s almost Christmas. Why not? It looks nice.”
“I almost ran face first into it.”
“Obviously, someone needs to pay a bit more attention.”
Day 2 - Prompt: Snowman
“Mine’s bigger,” was the first thing that Cody said after an hour of hard work.
“It’s taller, sure, but mine’s got more girth to it. It’s a hell of a lot sturdier than your scrawny little excuse of a snowman,” Ted replied.
“Please, your snowman’s fat. Mine looks sleek. Dare I say it looks… dashing?” he asked.
“A snowman’s supposed to be fat. Not dashing,” Ted countered.
“A snowman’s supposed to look like however the hell you want it to look. So if I want a dashing snowman, I’ll make a dashing snowman.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.”
“What’s so dumb-!” he began, but was quite rudely interrupted by a snowball to the face. Cody sputtered, spitting some snow out of his mouth before brushing more off his face. “You dick! That went down my jacket!” he exclaimed, trying to pull the fabric away from him as he could feel the snow melting against his skin.
“It’ll melt. It’s only water,” Ted replied with a grin. The grin was quickly wiped off his face, however, when Cody came sprinting after him. He tried to take a step back, but his foot was good and buried in the snow he was stepping in, and when he fell backwards, his boot came off, taking his sock with it.
Soon, Cody was standing over Ted, a grin on his own face now. He had a snowball in his own hand and let it drop right onto Ted’s face. “It’ll melt. It’s only water.”
Day 3 - Prompt: Fireplace
“Baby, the fire’s dying down,” Cody pouted, leaning his body back into Ted’s.
“Yeah, and? You’ve got two legs, get up and put another log on the fire,” Ted replied. He could hear the pout in his lover’s voice.
“But I’m comfortable,” Cody said.
“Incase you didn’t notice, you’re leaning against me. If I move, you have to move,” he reasoned, wrapping his arms around the younger man, giving him even less incentive to move.
“But I don’t wanna. And I don’t want you to move, either.”
“Then how’re we gonna get the fire back up again?” Ted asked, nuzzling his cheek against Cody’s neck.
“Well… ok, you move and put another log on the fire, but then you come right back here,” Cody said.
“How come I have to take care of the fire?” he asked.
Cody paused, then replied in a somewhat questioning voice, “Because you’re the manly man in the relationship?”
With a sigh, Ted said, “Fine,” then disentangled himself from Cody. He stood up and grabbed one of the logs they had stacked nearby and gently pulled back the fire gate before tossing the log in. When he turned around, he saw that Cody had moved positions slightly, now lying back on his elbows. And that he had also removed his shirt. “What’s this about, huh?” he asked, heading back towards his lover.
“A thank you to getting the fire back up,” Cody responded, biting his lower lip.
“Oh, a thank you? Well…” He kneeled down, straddling Cody’s waist. “I could do with getting thanked like this more often.”
“Would it get you to do the dishes more?” Cody asked.
Ted didn’t answer. Instead he smirked and amusedly shook his head side to side before leaning down and capturing Cody’s lips in a kiss.
Day 4 - Prompt: Mistletoe
“I don’t think that a single Christmas party I ever went to had mistletoe,” Cody said to John after he arrived at the annual party Randy threw every year and spotted some young couple kissing. “I mean, aside from Randy’s.”
“Oh, really?” John asked, drinking some of the eggnog Randy made just for the occasion (and had apparently spiked with far more brandy than the recipe called for).
“Yeah. Last year I just- is that even legal?” Cody interrupted himself as his eyes fell back on the couple.
“They probably just had a little too much,” John said, watching alongside Cody as her hand went into his pants.
“Ya think?”
“So, is there anyone you’d want to meet under the mistletoe?” John asked then.
“Anyone I’d want to meet under the mistletoe?” Cody repeated. Well, there was one person, but he hadn’t told anyone about that. Though, John was with Randy, so he would probably be one of the most understanding people he could talk to. “There is someone.”
“Of course there is. There’s always someone.”
He looked up, interrupted when he heard Randy saying to the rather lewd couple, “Get a room… that’s not here.” They smiled at one another and shook their heads before Randy headed over towards them.
“So, who is it?” John prompted again.
“Who’s what?” Randy asked, having missed the first part of the conversation.
“I was just asking Cody who he’d kiss under the mistletoe,” John told him.
“Ah, ok. So. Who is it?” Randy asked. “No, wait, I bet I know who it is.”
Cody’s face flushed at that. “You do?”
“Yup. I bet it’s…” He gazed across the room, then turned back to Cody, “Kelly.”
Cody actually snorted at that. “Oh, god, as if.”
“Rosa,” Randy tried again.
That got another laugh from Cody.
And then he went in for the kill. “Ted,”
Cody’s eyes grew to about the size of dinner plates. “Oh, god, you knew all along, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Duh. Ever since John started shoving his dick up my ass, I learned about this gaydar shit. Let me tell ya, Codes, you’re off the charts.”
“Wait, what? I’m not that gay… am I?”
John and Randy looked to one another and then back at Cody. “I hate to break it to ya, but… you kinda are. And, would ya look at that… look who’s just standing there like a dumbass under the mistletoe,” Randy said. And, being the good friend that he was always known to be, grabbed Cody’s wrist and pulled him forward until he could give him a solid shove in Ted’s direction.
Cody stumbled a bit, but Randy’s little shove had caused Ted to look up (cheese and crackers in his mouth), and their eyes met. So now Cody couldn’t turn back.
“Hey, Cody,” Ted greeted, still chewing his food.
“Hey.” He quickly turned his head to look at John and Randy, who waved, and Cody realized that they were returning the wave that Ted had sent them. They weren’t going to be any help.
Ted then looked up to the ceiling. Cody turned his head again and saw that Randy was pointing upwards. Those bastards. “So… I guess… we’re uh… we’re standing under mistletoe.”
“Yeah, see, about that… Randy came over when John and I were talking and then the saw you and he just kinda pushed-”
His words were cut off and once again he looked like a deer in headlights when he found that he had a pair of lips against his. Ted pulled back, grimacing a little when he saw that some of the dip for his chips had gotten onto his shirt, but he didn’t care all that much. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? When you’re underneath mistletoe.”
“That… that is exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
Ted smirked and shook his head, and Cody saw that he was looking over his shoulder. So again, he turned his head and saw John and Randy giving them the thumbs up. “Codes?” Ted asked, getting his attention again.
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”
Day 5 - Prompt: Snow Covered City
“Snow sucks,” Cody muttered to Ted as they were getting out of their rental car in the hotel parking lot after a show. He had his rolling suitcase and several other smaller bags that he was attempting to get out of the trunk without setting any of them on the ground, which was now covered in a layer of mushy, slushy snow. “I have a puddle in my shoe now.”
“Shoulda worn your boots,” Ted replied. His beloved cowboy boots were waterproofed, mudproofed, snow, sleet and hailproofed. Cody’s sneakers weren’t.
“I hate you,” he grumbled after he knocked his rolling suitcase on its side straight into a slush covered puddle. “Shit.”
Ted sighed and picked up his lover’s suitcase by the handle and carried it inside once Cody managed to arrange the rest of his things. Once they were in, Ted opened up the suitcase which housed the cowboy boots Cody had begun to wear somewhat frequently and tossed them towards him. “C’mon, put ‘em on.”
“What? Why?” Cody asked; he’d already begun removing his jacket and hat and now Ted wanted him to put his boots on?
“We’re going for a walk.”
“Ted, it’s, like, minus one outside!” Ok, so, he was exaggerating slightly; it was more like thirty one, but who was counting?
“Then bundle on up.”
Cody sighed, giving into Ted’s wishes. He put his boots on and then slid his jacket back on. Ted walked over and pulled a beanie on over Cody’s head and grinned at him. “There, you’ll be fine.”
“You grew up down south, too, ya know. Mississippi isn’t exactly Massachusetts.”
“Yeah, well… you’re in a bad mood, so you need some fresh air to cheer you up.”
“What I need is a big fucking cup of scalding hot coffee, four layers of blankets, a snuggie, a fuzzy pair of slippers and a nice toasty fire. Not fresh air that’ll freeze my lungs in my body.”
“You know as well as I do that that’s not gonna happen. Now c’mon.”
Cody rolled his eyes and followed Ted out of their room and out of the hotel and onto the streets of Boston at night. As they stepped outside, Cody’s first breath was a sharp inhale of freezing cold air. But Ted was right there next to him, so… so maybe it wasn’t all bad. “Where we headed?”
“No idea.”
“You gonna know how to get us back to the hotel?”
“No idea,” Ted replied as he kept on walking, Cody right there beside him.
“So… we’re just gonna walk?” Cody asked.
“Yup.” He looked down at the sidewalk and at the footprints he left in the snow, alongside several other footprints from the others that had walked there before them. “I can’t tell you where a single thing is in this city.”
“Neither can I,” Cody told him. They walked a little further on when Cody spotted a Dunkin Donuts that was open twenty-four hours and insisted that they stop there and at least get a hot chocolate or coffee. Two mint flavored hot chocolates lots of whipped cream later, they were back outside, cups in hand, wandering along the streets. “Ya know, maybe this isn’t too bad,” he said, seeing some of the trees covered in a thin layer of white.
“I can have a good idea every once in a while,” Ted informed him.
“I guess you can.” They paused as they passed by a statue of George Washington in the middle of a small commons area. “Thank you, Teddy,” Cody said.
“You’re welcome, Cody.”
He looked down around him and saw that theirs were the only footprints in the snow so far. Two sets of footprints pointing towards one another, clearly seen in the snow, leaving nothing to imagination as to what the owners of the footprints were doing right then. “I love you,” Cody whispered, leaning in to press his lips against Ted’s, no longer caring about the cold.
Day 6 - Prompt: Apple Cider
Many years ago, Cody decided that the best part about Christmas (aside from presents, of course, because there was nothing that could top presents for a six year old), was the smells. The smell of turkey and ham and pies being baked and the smell of the pine tree and the smell of hot apple cider.
As he got older, he came to appreciate the family coming together (but he still liked getting presents) for Christmas, but the smells always stuck with him. The smell of cloves or cinnamon would take him right back to the holidays.
So now as Christmas was approaching again, he started smelling those smells once again. He was surprised, however, when he and Ted went to visit with John and Randy, when he could distinctly smell cider being brewed upon entering their house. He removed his jacket and hung it up next to Ted’s. “Your house actually smells pretty good for once,” he said.
“Hello to you, too,” Randy said.
“What? All I’m saying is that normally your place smells like… two grown men who are living together but not here all that often,” he replied.
“What the hell does that mean, our place smells like man?”
“Never mind… why does your house smell so… Christmassy?” he asked.
“That’d be John’s doing. Last night he couldn’t fall asleep so he turned on the TV and started watching the Food Network. There was some Bobby Flay Christmas special on or some shit so John got this bright idea that he wanted to make some mulled cider today for our guests,” Randy told him.
“Well, it smells really good,” Cody said, making his way towards the kitchen. “Hey, John,” he greeted.
“Oh, hey, you’re just in time,” he said with his usual smile. He grabbed a glass and poured a cup of the cider for Cody, sticking a cinnamon stick in there as a garnish.
“Yeah, Randy told us you decided to go all Bobby Flay. Now I get to be your guinea pig?” he asked, sniffing the cup in his hands.
“That you do,” John answered. “Or maybe all of you can be my guinea pigs,” he amended when Randy and Ted came into the kitchen.
“Let Cody go first,” Randy said.
“Thanks, baby, I love you, too,” John mumbled with a roll of his eyes. “I followed the recipe exactly,” he told them. “I didn’t spike it or add laxatives to it, or anything, I swear.”
Cody smelled the contents of the mug again, blowing on it quickly before taking a sip. As usual, he was transported right back to his childhood, when Christmas parties would mean family, turkey, apple cider and presents. “I gotta give it to ya John, maybe once you’re retired from the ring you can get yourself a gig on Food Network.”
“Too bad protein shakes, cereal and now mulled apple cider are all he’s capable of making,” Randy said, earning himself a cinnamon stick chucked at his forehead.
Day 7 - Prompt: Snow Plow
“Why the fuck did we move up here?!” Cody shouts as he slams the door shut behind him, pulling off his gloves and throwing them to the ground.
“What happened?” Ted asks. The move up north had been mutual on their part, because they wanted to finally marry one another, and in moving to Massachusetts they were well on their way to marriage.
“What happened?! I’m out there shoveling the fucking driveway because there’s two fucking feet of snow out there and do we have a snowblower? No. So I’m out there shoveling, while it’s still snowing, and what fucking happens? This goddamn fucking plow truck comes along and piles up ten more goddamn feet of snow at the end of the driveway where I just finished fucking shoveling!” he yells.
Ted had been out shoveling earlier, as they had woken up to a solid ten inches of snow, and it was still coming down. They tried calling John to see if he could maybe plow their driveway, but he couldn’t get anywhere because the roads had yet to be plowed, so he and Randy were stuck there… but at least they had a snowblower.
Cody joined him outside, but they only had one shovel, so he offered to take over for a while. Ted thanked him profusely; neither of them really had clothes that prepared them for this sort of weather. Ted had his jeans on with long johns on underneath, but that didn’t stop him from getting soaked. When he was going outside next time, he was considering wearing his waders because at least those were waterproof. “Oh. Well, that sucks,” Ted tells him.
“Ya think! They couldn’t have come earlier, could they? No! They come just as I was finishing the other half of the driveway! I think they took out our fucking mailbox, too!” Cody adds. He’s going to have to thank John and Randy for all the warnings they never gave them about fucking Nor’easters.
Day 8 - Prompt: Christmas Tree
“Ted… we have a problem,” Cody said as they were hanging up some Christmas decorations here and there. Though they weren’t in their house often, he did want to arrive home for their little Christmas break to a festive looking house.
“What?” Ted asked as he arranged a manger scene to his liking.
“We don’t have a tree.”
“Oh. We don’t, do we? Well, there have to be loads of people selling them, right?” he asked. “I mean, it can’t be that tough. What do we do? Go pick out a tree and tie it to the car?”
“We could. Or we could go get a fake one.”
“Oh, no, we’re not getting a fake tree. You’re the one that wants festive, and what’s better than coming home and smelling that fresh pine?” Ted asked.
“Coming home to a tree that’s not dead because you weren’t able to water it?” Cody suggested.
Ted was having none of it. “C’mon, let’s go. Can’t be that hard to find a place.”
“So… are you gonna cut down the tree and everything? Like some real life Paul Bunyan lumberjack shit?” Cody asked. “Cuz that’s pretty sexy.”
Ted rolled his eyes. “So, if I’m Paul Bunyan, does that make you Babe my blue ox?” he asked.
Day 9 - Prompt: Peeing Santa
“We used to decorate our house every year for Christmas,” Cody was telling Ted as they were driving home from the airport and going past house after house that had blinking, flashing lights.
“We put candles in the windows,” Ted told him. “We kept it pretty simple.”
“I fucking hated it,” Cody then said. “It took forever and it was such a pain in the ass. And then we had to go take all that shit down after it had only been up there a month!”
“We just had to unplug the candles.”
“Every year… and Dad would always get more! So year after year, we’d end up with more and more crap to put up on the roof and all over the yard. I’m pretty sure now he has the place covered in those massive blow up snowmen and Santas… you name it, he has it in his yard at Christmas,” Cody said.
“We… just had the candles,” Ted told him.
“I wish we only had candles…” He then got this grin on his face as he continued, “So, this one year when I was about fifteen and totally sick of doing all this Christmas shit, I decided to take some of the decorating into my own hands.”
“This doesn’t sound like it ended well.”
“Well… I was amused. Mom and Dad weren’t, but I thought it was fucking hilarious.”
“What did you do?” Ted asked, curiosity piqued.
“So, we always had this waving light up Santa that we put on the roof next to the chimney. In a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself, I took a string of white lights and hooked them up to Santa’s crotch so when the lights were on, it looked like Santa was taking a piss from our roof. It pissed a lot of people off.”
“No shit, you did not do that!”
“I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried! Eventually our neighbors across the street came over and knocked on the door saying that they needed to take that offensive thing down. Mom had no idea what the lady was talking about until she went outside and actually looked at it. Needless to say, I was up there that night taking down the lights. Which sucked, cuz I thought it looked pretty great.”
“I can tell you one thing… we should so put a pissing Santa on our roof.”
Cody laughed at that thought. “You think so?”
“Yeah. We can see how many people we can piss off at its offensiveness.”
Day 10 - Prompt: Log Cabin
“So, just tell me how this sounds, ok?” Cody asked of Randy as they sat together at a booth in Friendly’s. Ted had gone off to the bathroom, claiming that he must have eaten too much and that he’d be back in a few.
“Ok?”
“Ok. I was thinking as an early Christmas present, I could rent out a nice log cabin somewhere up north so Ted and I could spend some time there.”
“Sounds pretty cheesy to me,” Randy told him.
“What? I thought it’d be nice if he could just relax and go out and do some hunting-”
“Wait, you’re planning on going during hunting season?” Randy asked.
“Well… yeah. Why?”
“Nothing… it’s just that if you go during hunting season, you know that unless you go out hunting with him, you’ll never actually see him, right?”
“I’d go hunting with him.”
“You’d watch him shoot Bambi? I bet you cried during that movie.”
“And I bet you did, too.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Cody flipped him off. “But it’s not like he’ll be out all day. I mean, he can come back to the cabin to a nice warm fire and-”
“And his little bitch in a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron, pulling a pot roast out of the oven with a steamy mug of hot chocolate ready for him?” Randy supplied.
“I’m not his little bitch! But… yeah, what do you think?”
“You’ve already booked the cabin, haven’t you?” Randy asked, tilting his head to the side just slightly.
“Yeah. I did it a couple months ago,” Cody confessed to him.
“So, why are you asking me if it’s a good idea? Is your last chance to cancel coming up this week, or something?”
“That passed already. But, honestly, what do you think? I just… that’s all I wanted to know, what you thought of the idea.”
“Honestly?” Cody nodded, waiting for his reply. He went on, “I think he’d love it. And speak of the devil, look who’s back.” He waited until Ted got a bit closer to the table before asking, “Feeling better?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “What were you two talkin’ about?”
“Nothing important,” Cody answered.
Day 11 - Prompt: Cookies
“You signed up to do what, exactly?” Ted asked. Cody had dragged him into the kitchen, saying something about how they had to make a couple dozen cookies and something or another, but Ted had lost Cody around the couple dozen cookies part.
“Eve started a cookie exchange this year, so I signed up,” Cody explained again.
“What’s a cookie exchange?”
Cody raised an eyebrow at that. He then went on explaining very, very slowly, “You make cookies. And then you exchange them for other people’s cookies.”
“Oh. You just… trade cookies?”
“Exactly,” Cody said with a nod.
“Sooo… what kinda cookies are you making?” Ted asked.
“It’s this great recipe from my mom for these really good molasses cookies,” he said.
“You ever made them before?”
“Nope,” he answered.
“Ah… I was wondering why you’d never made them for me before.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been that great in a kitchen. One year I insisted that I help Dad make the Christmas turkey and… well, needless to say, I’ve been banned from their kitchen ever since… I was thirteen at the time.”
“So you decided it’d be a good idea to bake cookies to bring into people at work? That other people are actually gonna eat?” he asked.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve tried my hand in a kitchen, so I thought I’d give it another shot. How hard can it be?”
“Now those sound like some famous last words,” Ted muttered before Cody told him to grab the flour.
Day 12 - Prompt: Ugly Christmas Sweater
Cody really wasn’t sure how to react when he saw a fully dressed Ted coming out of their bedroom. Part of him wanted to laugh, but the other part of him was in so much shock, he physically couldn’t. “Ted. What in the actual fuck are you wearing?” he eventually managed to ask once he picked his jaw up off the floor.
“Well, last year I didn’t wear this and my mom asked me why and I guess I just… I felt bad I didn’t wear it, ya know? I always wore this at Christmas, and my brothers had matching ones,” he explained, pulling at the hem of a white knitted sweater, covered with poinsettias, bows and bells with a giant Christmas tree right in the center. He had shown her pictures of him and Cody together and she said she loved the pictures, but was wondering where his old Christmas sweater was.
“I feel bad for you right now. I think… I’d feel offended being seen with you wearing something like that,” Cody said, trying to make sense of the hot mess Ted had on. It was like Christmas itself vomited all over the sweater.
“Well, no one’s gonna see us, right? It’s just us,” Ted told him.
“I’m seeing you right now,” Cody said.
“Then let’s just snap a couple pictures so that she sees me in it, ok?”
“You mean I actually have to be photographed next to… that?” he asked.
“Yes. C’mon, it’s not that bad. You don’t shut your mouth, I’ll make you wear an even worse Rudolph sweater one of my aunts made me.”
“It’s making me ill just thinking about it,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Ted.
Needless to say, his mother was quite pleased when he showed her the pictures of his and Cody’s Christmas.
Day 13 - Prompt: Hot Cocoa
Cody walked inside the house, seven plastic grocery bags hanging from his arms. Even once he got inside and closed the door behind him, he could still see his breath when he exhaled.
Ted heard the door closing and headed out to the front door to help him. “Jesus fuck, it’s cold out,” Cody muttered.
“I can tell. I can feel the cold coming off you. And your cheeks are all red.”
“No shit,” he muttered. He was stocking up with a bunch of boxed and canned foods, and even though they were hardly ever home, when they were, they still needed to eat. “Leave it to me to pick the coldest day of the year so far to go grocery shopping.”
“Well… it’s supposed to be even colder tomorrow,” Ted offered.
“Thanks,” Cody said, face still bright red. “Here, feel my face.”
Ted put the back of his hands against Cody’s cheeks quickly before pulling away due to how cold they were. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you have the best boyfriend in the world.”
“Oh, do I?” Cody asked, now looking for room in the pantry to stick the cans of soup he got, contemplating making one to warm him up somewhat.
“You sure do.” Ted grabbed the mug of hot chocolate he made for Cody a little after he said he was on his way home and handed it to him. “I had whipped cream on it, but it looks like that melted,” he said with a little shrug of his shoulder.
Cody couldn’t help but smile at the thought. He set down the can and took the mug, which was still warm. When he took a sip, he found that it was just the right temperature. Still nice and warm, but not too hot. “I guess I do have a really good boyfriend… but if you wanna be the best boyfriend in the world, next time you can go do the shopping.”
Day 14 - Prompt: Nutcrackers
“Do people actually use these to… crack nuts?” Ted asked, fiddling with the handle on the back of a nutcracker Cody had put up for decoration.
“No one I know’s ever done that,” Cody told him. “Now quit playin’ around and help me.”
“Well, it seems silly to have somethin’ that could actually be practical, then not use it at all,” he pointed out.
“I used to make them have conversations with each other,” Cody then admitted. “My grandmother had a big collection and… I pretended they talked to each other.”
“Kinda like Barbie dolls?” Ted asked.
“Nutcrackers are way more masculine than Barbie dolls,” Cody muttered, but a blush formed on his cheeks at the comparison.
“You ever play with Barbie dolls?” Ted went onto ask.
“I may have done with Teil,” he mumbled.
“I thought you were about to say with Dustin for a second there,” Ted said with a grin and Cody chuckled. “So, uh, how often did you steal them and play with them by yourself?”
Cody wanted to protest, but he hesitated just a moment too long. He knew he would never live that little confession down, even if he hadn’t actually confessed to anything… he really did. So instead he said, “I wanted my GI Joes to have some companionship that wasn’t just… each other.”
“Did you make your GI Joes queer?!” Ted asked.
“No! Not… not all of them…” When Ted gave him a funny look, he went on, “Well, it’s hard not to when you don’t have any girls around!”
“GI Joes were made to play war and soldier and shit… not to have romantic trysts with Barbie or… each other.”
“Can we just forget this ever happened and get back to decorating?” Cody asked.
Raising a brow, Ted answered with a simple, “No.”
Day 15 - Prompt: Christmas Lights
“So, now that we have our tree,” Cody said as he and Ted were driving home after having gone and picked out their tree, “we need lights and shit to decorate it.”
“We can probably pick up some lights from Wal-Mart.”
“Yeah,” Cody agreed, not knowing where else he could find lights. “That works. Do you want those colored lights or white ones?”
“Definitely white,” he answered. “They’re a lot more traditional.”
“True. But-”
“You practically wave a rainbow flag over your head, we don’t need to have a rainbow tree.”
Cody rolled his eyes. “Ok, ok, white lights it is.”
A short while later, Ted was pulling into a Wal-Mart parking lot and told Cody he’d be right back. He had no idea just how many boxes of lights to get, so he grabbed a dozen, paid for them and headed back to the car.
“Jesus, Ted, did you buy out the store?” Cody asked when he saw Ted putting the bags in the back.
“No.”
A while after that, they were back home and both of them worked to untie the tree from the car and bring it inside to set up. They had the tree in the stand and Cody quickly went back to the car to grab the bags of lights Ted bought so they could start stringing the lights up.
Working together, it didn’t take them that long to get the lights on the tree, though they both ended up with several scratches covering their hands. “Ok, so… ready to see how it looks?” Ted asked.
Cody nodded and smiled, waiting for Ted to plug in the lights. However, his smile was short lived when an entire section didn’t light up. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” he muttered.
Day 16 - Prompt: Flannel PJs
“I don’t know what to get my dad for Christmas,” Cody told Ted as they sat on the couch together.
Ted, remote in hand, was flipping through channels. “You never know what to get your dad for Christmas,” he replied.
“Well, he never tells me what he wants… and Lord knows, he already has everything he wants…”
“So, what did you end up getting him last year?” Ted asked, still flipping the channels.
“Flannel PJs and a couple John Wayne movies” he answered.
Ted shrugged. “That’s pretty practical. Did he wear the PJs and watch the movies?”
“Mom told me he wore the PJs every night, so much he’s practically worn through ‘em… but she also said that he hasn’t figured out how to use the DVD player yet, so the movies are still unwatched,” he said.
“Then get him another pair,” Ted suggested.
“You want me to get my dad pajamas again? This’ll make the fourth year in a row I’ve gotten him PJs,” he then admitted.
“Then make a tradition out of it. Get him a new pair of PJs every year.”
“Are you serious?” Cody asked, tilting his head up to look at Ted.
“Yeah. Why not? Just throw in a few more John Wayne movies and a DVD player instruction manual.”
Day 17 - Prompt: Beer Filled Advent Calendar
“Merry Christmas, boys,” John said to Ted and Cody, hefting a rather large, heavy looking box onto their kitchen table… on November thirtieth.
Both of them looked at John before glancing at one another, before again looking back to John. “You realize that it’s still November, right?” Cody asked.
“Just open it, dumbasses,” Randy chimed in.
“Wait, open it now? You don’t want us to wait until Christmas?” Ted then asked.
“Once you open it, you’ll be glad you did,” John told them. “I promise you, you won’t want to wait until Christmas.”
“Well… if you guys say so,” Cody said, looking to Ted yet again.
Ted shrugged and began ripping the paper off. “Uhh, what is it?” he asked once all the paper had been ripped off.
“Look a little closer. I’ll have you know, a lot of hard work went into this,” John said.
“Ok…” Cody looked closer, and on the front, he saw there were little doors labeled one through twenty-five. “Wait a second, is this an advent calendar?”
“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!” Randy exclaimed.
“It’s fucking huge!” Cody said.
“Just wait until you see what’s inside, then you’ll know why it has to be so huge,” John told them. When Cody went to go open the first door, though, his hand was slapped away. “Hey, is today the first?”
“No.”
“Then no opening.”
“That’s really not fair, is it? You make sure we open this today… just so we can torture ourselves waiting for a whole nother day?” Cody asked.
“Yup,” John said with a grin and a nod.
“Just be careful with it, ok?” Randy then asked. “Put it somewhere safe so it’s not knocked over.”
“We can stick it by the toaster,” Cody suggested.
“John, help me move this to the toaster.” With John, he managed to gingerly lift the mysterious advent calendar, walk it across the kitchen and place it down gently next to the toaster. “There.”
“So, we really need to wait until tomorrow?”
“Yup,” John and Randy answered at the same time.
~~~
The following morning, while making himself a bowl of cereal, Ted kept eyeing the calendar, very curious as to the contents. When Cody joined him in the kitchen, he asked, “Wanna open day one now?”
“Yeah.”
Cody reached for day one and this time, he was able to open the door. And he pulled out a Bailey’s Irish Cream. He grinned. “If the other twenty-four days are like this, I think we’ll have a very merry Christmas.”
“Damn, I can only hope they didn’t get our hopes up with day one just to crap out on us by giving us a piece of stale toast tomorrow, or something,” Ted muttered.
“They would do something like that, wouldn’t they?” Cody paused a moment before asking, “Wanna peek at tomorrow’s?”
“No,” he answered with a shake of his head. “We gotta be good with this.”
“Fine… so,” Cody said holding the bottle of Bailey’s in his hand, giving it a little shake, “want some coffee?”
Day 18 - Prompt: Christmas Carols
The ride was long enough as it was, but Ted was not changing the station. Unless they drove out of range of the one they were listening to, then he’d change it… to another one playing Christmas music.
“Ted, we’ve been through three different stations now and I’ve heard the same song at least twice on each one!” Cody whined.
“So? It’s festive.”
“I don’t give a shit about festive! I do give a shit about my sanity, though, and if I have to listen to Eartha Kitt singing about all the fellas she hasn’t kissed one more time, Teddy, I swear…”
“You have an iPod, right?” Ted asked.
“Are you serious?” Cody dropped his head back hard onto the headrest and sighed. And he sighed even harder when Twelve Days of Christmas started. That had to be the longest, most obnoxious Christmas song ever. Who would even want eight maids of milking?
But then he noticed that there was something different about this version. They skipped the third day of Christmas. And then they skipped to the ninth day of Christmas. Maybe this version wasn’t so bad. He even went so far as to turn the radio up… but just slightly.
Ted turned his head a bit and raised a brow, and when Cody shrugged, he turned back to watch the road.
Cody even went so far as to laugh when, on the twelfth day of Christmas, one of the singers began singing the Dreidel Song. And then they began singing the Twelve Days of Christmas to the tune of Africa. Cody was actually entertained.
Soon, though, the song ended, and Cody said, “That one wasn’t half bad.”
“See, there’s some good Christmas music out there.”
And then Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby began playing.
Day 19 - Prompt: Santa
“You should go get your picture taken,” Ted teased as they walked through the mall together and passed by Santa.
Immediately, Cody shook his head. “No way. I haven’t had my picture taken with Santa since I was four.”
“What? Why not?” Ted asked. “I had my picture with Santa taken for years.”
“I had a traumatizing experience when I was four, ok? Then I couldn’t so much as look at a mall Santa without bursting into tears,” Cody told him.
“Jesus, what’d you do? Piss on him?”
“Worse.”
“Crap your pants on him?” Ted asked.
“No, dumbass. Ok, so, I was on his lap and he was asking me what I wanted and I was looking up at him and I saw that his beard was falling down. So I didn’t answer him. I just reached up and pulled down his beard. I was so upset that I started crying, because I thought I was seeing the real Santa, ya know?”
“You de-bearded Santa?!” Ted asked as though it was some sort of sacrilege.
“I was four and pissed off that I was getting ripped off. So, yeah, after that… I was never able to get my picture with Santa, even though my mom tried for years, telling me that maybe it’s not the real Santa, because Santa had helpers everywhere, but I was having none of it.”
“Well, it’s been twenty-one years. Maybe you should get your picture with Santa and send it to your mom. Let her know you’ve gotten over your fake Santa phobia,” Ted suggested.
“Seriously?”
“Yes! Seriously. What’ve ya got to lose?”
“My dignity?”
“You go out ever night and wrestle in the tiniest of trunks and nothing else and you’re worried about a picture with Santa?”
“Ok… ok, fine. I’ll get my picture with Santa,” he said.
“Good,” Ted replied, already pulling him over to the line. “And, for the love of God, don’t pull anyone’s beard off.”
Day 20 - Prompt: Shopping
The first sign that Cody knew it was going to be a bad day was when he got stuck in traffic for over thirty minutes before he got to the mall. The second sign came when every single car ahead of him was turning into the mall. The third sign came when he spent twenty minutes driving around looking for a parking space.
So this was the reason he hated Christmas shopping. Right.
Thankfully he didn’t have a lot of things left to get. He had the flannel PJs left to get for his dad, he needed to find something for his mom and then there was Ted. He’d found something for John, Randy, his siblings, his nieces and nephews no problem. He had an idea in mind for his mom…
But Ted… he really didn’t know what to get him.
He headed in through the front doors of the mall and could hardly move the place was so packed. At least it gave him some time to think. He realized he’d never gotten him a watch before when he walked past a jewelers shop, but that seemed so overdone. Besides, Ted had plenty of watches… Maybe I’ll just get him watch batteries he thought to himself, as so many of the watches Ted had, he no longer wore since he was always too lazy to change the batteries.
That couldn’t be all, though… He didn’t think Ted would really appreciate getting nothing but watch batteries in bulk.
He already had all the hunting gear he could want. He just bought himself a new fishing rod…
Dammit.
He passed by another jewelers and saw a man picking out an engagement ring and that gave him an idea. He didn’t want to ask Ted to marry him, or anything, but… maybe a ring would be nice, just to show off that he belonged to someone again. He hadn’t worn a ring since, well… since before his divorce, even. And now he was with Cody and, while Cody didn’t want to jinx himself, it really seemed like he was with Cody in that forever kinda way.
“May I help you?” one of the employees asked, noticing how Cody had been staring into the shop.
“Umm, I’m interested in men’s rings,” he answered, allowing himself to be led further into the store.
Ok, so, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad of a day.
Day 21 - Prompt: Christmas Cards
“I don’t have time for this!” Cody exclaimed as he sat at his and Ted’s dining room table with a stack of blank Christmas cards in front of him.
“What else would you be doing if you weren’t writing these?” Ted asked.
“Playing Zelda!” he replied. “Obviously.”
“Right… C’mon, they can’t be that bad. I finished mine already.”
“Well, isn’t that special?” Cody muttered sarcastically. “This is just a pain in the ass. I mean, who’d you even write cards to, anyway?”
“Oh, my family, a few people I went to college with, some people I met at church. That kinda thing.”
“So… you’re done already?”
“Yeah. And, no, I’m not writing yours for you. How difficult is it to write Dear So-and-so, Merry Christmas, Love, Cody?” Ted asked.
“It’s not… I just don’t wanna do it,” he said.
“Here, I’ll keep you company, ok? That way, I’ll make sure you get things done and it’ll go faster if you’re not so totally focused on how much you hate doing Christmas cards.”
“Fine.” He grabbed another card and opened it, looking down at his list of people he had to write cards to. It didn’t take too long to fill it out, so he moved it to the side.
“That wasn’t too painful, now was it?”
“Guess not.” He wrote a few more out, then got to the one he was filling out for his mom and dad. “Hey, Teddy… since you’re here… think you could sign your name on this one, too?” he asked.
“You want it to be from the both of us?” he asked in return.
“Well… yeah… I think they’d like that, too,” he said.
“I’d be happy to,” he answered with a smile. He quickly signed his name, then told Cody, “I haven’t sent the ones to my parents yet… I kept meaning to ask if you’d sign theirs, but kept forgetting.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… I think they’d like that, too,” he said, mirroring Cody’s earlier sentiment.
“I’d be happy to.”
Day 22 - Prompt: Christmas Dinner
“Ted… do you think you could help me?” Cody asked as he awkwardly spread apart the turkey’s legs.
“Sure, what do you need help with?”
“Oh… everything,” he replied.
“Everything? Such as?”
“Well… for starters… that,” he said, pointing to the opening of the turkey wherein all its innards were contained.
“You never gutted a turkey before?” Ted asked.
“No. My dad always did it and I always just let him have at it,” he told him. “But, I mean, you hunt and all that shit, so… what say you take care of… that?”
“Sure,” he said again, rolling up his sleeves before quickly washing his hands.
Cody sent up a silent prayer that he didn’t have to shove his hand up some turkey’s ass. He’d cook it, he’d baste it, he’d most definitely eat it… but he really didn’t want to fist it. “Thanks.”
Soon, Ted had all the guts removed and Cody resumed his work on preparing the bird for cooking. Once it was in the oven, he began work on the other side dishes for their Christmas Eve dinner.
Hours later, while Ted was watching the Miami Dolphins get squashed by the Patriots, Cody began setting the table, a few candles included to set the mood. He pulled the turkey from the oven for the final time and let it rest while he put the finishing touches on the table settings. Just before he called Ted in, he lit the candles. “Ted! Get your ass over here!”
“Food ready?” he asked
“Yes!”
He turned off the TV and headed into the kitchen where he saw the table set up and smiled. “Looks nice.”
“Damn well better,” Cody muttered.
“You look even better.”
“Now you’re just buttering me up.”
“I’m just telling the truth,” he said.
“Ass kisser.”
“You’d know that better than anyone.”
Cody turned around and brought the now carved pieces of turkey to the table. “Gonna show me your ass kissing skills later tonight?”
“For cooking all this? It’s the least I can do.”
“The least you can do is not conk out after you’re done eating,” Cody replied.
“True,” he agreed. He’d definitely been known to take an hour or two long nap after large meals. “But I’m determined to show you just how grateful I am to have you. Having you in my life is the best Christmas gift of all.”
Cody smirked. “You’re such a cheeseball.”
Day 23 - Prompt: Presents
“Cody!” Ted called as soon as he came in through the door. He’d just gotten back from a quick trip to the post office to send off some packages to his family back home and on the way home, he stopped to grab some take out.
From their bedroom, Cody muttered, “Shit,” and in his brief state of panic, managed to whack his funny bone on the dresser. “Fuck!”
“You ok?” Ted asked, taking off his jacket and shoes before heading further into their house. “Where are you?” He soon was in front of the bedroom door, which was closed for once. “Codes?”
“Don’t come in here!” he called out.
“Why not?”
“I’m naked,” was the first thing that he could think of.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you naked before… like last night for example. Are you sick, or something?”
“No. Just… just don’t come in here!” he said yet again, now beginning to hurriedly throw all the unwrapped gifts he had spread out on their bed into a small closet.
Ted could hear all the rustling about and raised a brow. “What the hell’s going on in there?”
“Nothing!”
“So… I can’t come in… why?”
He shut the door to the closet and then headed over to the bedroom door, opening it to reveal a very confused Ted. “Ok.”
“What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing… just… nothing.”
“Well, umm… I brought home food.”
“Nice,” Cody said, walking past Ted to go get some lunch.
Ted watched Cody go, then looked back into the room when he saw a roll of wrapping paper fall out of the slowly opening closet door. “Codes, were you wrapping presents?” he asked.
“No.”
“You were.”
“Ok, fine,” he acquiesced while he rummaged through the brown paper bag that contained his Pad Thai. “So don’t go snooping or you’re dead.”
Day 24 - Prompt: Christmas Ornaments
“Shit!” Cody exclaimed as he hung an ornament on the tree and it proceeded to fall right off the branch.
“Are you breaking more ornaments?” Ted asked from the other side of the tree, hanging some ornaments of his own.
“It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. They’re just… falling off.”
“Well, you’re probably just not doing it right,” Ted told him.
Cody leaned his head around the tree and saw Ted and raised a brow at him. “Well, then, Mr. Expert Christmas Tree Decorator, how exactly do you do it right.”
“Uh, well, you need to make sure that the ornament’s more tucked into the back, especially if it’s heavy. If it’s up front, it’ll just fall right off.”
Cody handed Ted the ornament he’d been trying to hang and said, “You do it, then.”
Ted took it and hung it near the back of a branch so it could still be seen, but so that it wouldn’t slide right off. “There. Not too hard.”
Picking up another ornament, Cody went back to his section of the tree and tried hanging another one. Which ended up falling off the branch and down to the one below it. “Dammit,” he muttered.
“What is it this time?”
“Ya know what? How about you finish decorating the tree and I’ll go make us a drink with that rum that was in our advent calendar today,” he said. “And by make us a drink, I mean pour myself a shot.”
Day 25 - Prompt: Gorgeous Men in Bed Together
Cody wasn’t exactly what one could call a morning person. However, the one thing that truly made waking up an experience to look forward to was waking up in a warm bed next to Ted, preferably with his arm draped over him and their bodies snuggled close together.
And that was just how Cody found himself on Christmas morning. When he found himself stirring, he pushed himself a little further back in an attempt to get a bit more comfortable and maybe fall back asleep for a little while.
However, Ted was more of a morning person and was already awake when he felt Cody moving around. “Morning, Codes,” he mumbled into Cody’s mop of hair. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Teddy,” he returned, voice heavy with sleep.
“I’m gonna go get ready for church now,” Ted told him.
Cody groaned. “I was hoping that we could stay like that a whole lot longer,” he muttered.
“You know I go to Christmas morning mass every year. Did you want to come for once?” Ted asked as he eased himself out of bed and switched on a light.
“No,” Cody said into his pillow.
“Ok, then.” Ted grabbed the clothes he had hanging up from the night before so he’d be ready to go and headed into the bathroom with them. He emerged a few minutes later fully dressed for the service and saw that Cody hadn’t moved at all. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Cody.”
“Mmmhmmm,” came the reply.
Ted leaned on the bed, over Cody’s body and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said. “When you get back, you should join me in bed again.”
“What about presents?”
“Presents can wait.”
“But last year I proposed to you. Don’t you wanna see if I topped it this year?” Ted asked.
“You didn’t hire some minister to come to our house and marry us, did you?” Cody asked, turning his head to look at Ted, who had since gotten back off the bed.
“I dunno, did I?”
“Did you?”
“Would you get married today if I did?”
“Well… well, yeah… but… you didn’t, did you?” Cody asked again.
Once more, Ted said, “I dunno. Did I?”
“Oh my God, Ted, are we getting married today?”
“No. Unless you want to.”
“So… you didn’t find some minister to marry us today?”
“Now you sound disappointed,” Ted told him.
“I’m not disappointed… I mean, of course I’m gonna marry you one day. I did say yes after all. And I moved up here so that we could get married… I’d just be really surprised if it was today.”
“But what if it was today?” Ted asked.
“But you-”
“Baby, I need to go, otherwise I won’t be able to find a parking spot or a seat. Go back to sleep; I’ll see you in a few hours,” he said, heading out of the bedroom.
“How the hell am I supposed to sleep after that?” he called out, but he knew that Ted was ignoring him as he walked down the stairs. He then got out of bed and grabbed a bath robe to wrap around his naked body. While Ted was putting his jacket on, Cody asked, “We’re not getting married today, are we?”
“I don’t know what even put that idea into your head,” Ted told him, grinning.
“You! Talking about topping your gift from last year!”
“Who said I would?” Ted asked.
“You did!”
Ted just shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I will.” He picked up the keys to his truck and said, “Now I really need to go. Love you.”
With that, he opened the door and headed out, leaving a confused, now somewhat chilly Cody behind in his wake. “Asshole,” he muttered before heading back upstairs to try and fall back asleep.
Also, quick note, these aren't all the same universe. Some of them go back to my 'main story' but others are kinda one-shots. Some could be any 'verse. You decide, haha.
Day 1 - Prompt: Wreath
Cody had gone out grocery shopping, since he used up the rest of the milk that morning for his Chex, and there were a few more necessities they needed. He swore he wasn’t gone all that long, but when he got back to his and Ted’s apartment, with groceries in hand as he was fishing for his keys, he nearly ran face first into a Christmas wreath hanging upon their door.
His eyes darted around a bit, looking at the door and the wreath and the big, bright red bow stuck to the top of it. Giving up on looking for his keys, he instead kicked the door several times, hoping that Ted was nearby. He would have done his normal routine of sticking his eye up as close as he could to the peep hole, but he felt somewhat strange sticking his face into a wreath.
Thankfully, Ted was close by and heard the door. Looking through the peep hole himself, he saw a somewhat annoyed looking Cody. “Hey, baby,” he greeted when he opened the door and took a few of the grocery bags from Cody.
“What the hell is that?” was the first thing that Cody said.
“A wreath,” Ted answered with a smile.
“When did we get a wreath?” he asked, setting the bags down on the floor.
“I put it up a day before we left last time,” Ted told him.
“Wait. We’ve had a wreath on our door for the entire week, including the last three days we’ve been at home and I’m just noticing?”
“And you say I’m the oblivious one,” Ted retorted as he began unloading the grocery bags.
“There’s no way it’s-”
“Yup. Sure has been,” he said, cutting Cody off.
“But-”
“An entire week.”
“It’s not pos-”
“Two of which you’ve been home.”
“No, it can’t-”
“Yes, it can.”
“But-”
“Yup,” Ted cut him off again.
“Fine… let’s say it has been up for a week… why?”
“It’s almost Christmas. Why not? It looks nice.”
“I almost ran face first into it.”
“Obviously, someone needs to pay a bit more attention.”
Day 2 - Prompt: Snowman
“Mine’s bigger,” was the first thing that Cody said after an hour of hard work.
“It’s taller, sure, but mine’s got more girth to it. It’s a hell of a lot sturdier than your scrawny little excuse of a snowman,” Ted replied.
“Please, your snowman’s fat. Mine looks sleek. Dare I say it looks… dashing?” he asked.
“A snowman’s supposed to be fat. Not dashing,” Ted countered.
“A snowman’s supposed to look like however the hell you want it to look. So if I want a dashing snowman, I’ll make a dashing snowman.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.”
“What’s so dumb-!” he began, but was quite rudely interrupted by a snowball to the face. Cody sputtered, spitting some snow out of his mouth before brushing more off his face. “You dick! That went down my jacket!” he exclaimed, trying to pull the fabric away from him as he could feel the snow melting against his skin.
“It’ll melt. It’s only water,” Ted replied with a grin. The grin was quickly wiped off his face, however, when Cody came sprinting after him. He tried to take a step back, but his foot was good and buried in the snow he was stepping in, and when he fell backwards, his boot came off, taking his sock with it.
Soon, Cody was standing over Ted, a grin on his own face now. He had a snowball in his own hand and let it drop right onto Ted’s face. “It’ll melt. It’s only water.”
Day 3 - Prompt: Fireplace
“Baby, the fire’s dying down,” Cody pouted, leaning his body back into Ted’s.
“Yeah, and? You’ve got two legs, get up and put another log on the fire,” Ted replied. He could hear the pout in his lover’s voice.
“But I’m comfortable,” Cody said.
“Incase you didn’t notice, you’re leaning against me. If I move, you have to move,” he reasoned, wrapping his arms around the younger man, giving him even less incentive to move.
“But I don’t wanna. And I don’t want you to move, either.”
“Then how’re we gonna get the fire back up again?” Ted asked, nuzzling his cheek against Cody’s neck.
“Well… ok, you move and put another log on the fire, but then you come right back here,” Cody said.
“How come I have to take care of the fire?” he asked.
Cody paused, then replied in a somewhat questioning voice, “Because you’re the manly man in the relationship?”
With a sigh, Ted said, “Fine,” then disentangled himself from Cody. He stood up and grabbed one of the logs they had stacked nearby and gently pulled back the fire gate before tossing the log in. When he turned around, he saw that Cody had moved positions slightly, now lying back on his elbows. And that he had also removed his shirt. “What’s this about, huh?” he asked, heading back towards his lover.
“A thank you to getting the fire back up,” Cody responded, biting his lower lip.
“Oh, a thank you? Well…” He kneeled down, straddling Cody’s waist. “I could do with getting thanked like this more often.”
“Would it get you to do the dishes more?” Cody asked.
Ted didn’t answer. Instead he smirked and amusedly shook his head side to side before leaning down and capturing Cody’s lips in a kiss.
Day 4 - Prompt: Mistletoe
“I don’t think that a single Christmas party I ever went to had mistletoe,” Cody said to John after he arrived at the annual party Randy threw every year and spotted some young couple kissing. “I mean, aside from Randy’s.”
“Oh, really?” John asked, drinking some of the eggnog Randy made just for the occasion (and had apparently spiked with far more brandy than the recipe called for).
“Yeah. Last year I just- is that even legal?” Cody interrupted himself as his eyes fell back on the couple.
“They probably just had a little too much,” John said, watching alongside Cody as her hand went into his pants.
“Ya think?”
“So, is there anyone you’d want to meet under the mistletoe?” John asked then.
“Anyone I’d want to meet under the mistletoe?” Cody repeated. Well, there was one person, but he hadn’t told anyone about that. Though, John was with Randy, so he would probably be one of the most understanding people he could talk to. “There is someone.”
“Of course there is. There’s always someone.”
He looked up, interrupted when he heard Randy saying to the rather lewd couple, “Get a room… that’s not here.” They smiled at one another and shook their heads before Randy headed over towards them.
“So, who is it?” John prompted again.
“Who’s what?” Randy asked, having missed the first part of the conversation.
“I was just asking Cody who he’d kiss under the mistletoe,” John told him.
“Ah, ok. So. Who is it?” Randy asked. “No, wait, I bet I know who it is.”
Cody’s face flushed at that. “You do?”
“Yup. I bet it’s…” He gazed across the room, then turned back to Cody, “Kelly.”
Cody actually snorted at that. “Oh, god, as if.”
“Rosa,” Randy tried again.
That got another laugh from Cody.
And then he went in for the kill. “Ted,”
Cody’s eyes grew to about the size of dinner plates. “Oh, god, you knew all along, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Duh. Ever since John started shoving his dick up my ass, I learned about this gaydar shit. Let me tell ya, Codes, you’re off the charts.”
“Wait, what? I’m not that gay… am I?”
John and Randy looked to one another and then back at Cody. “I hate to break it to ya, but… you kinda are. And, would ya look at that… look who’s just standing there like a dumbass under the mistletoe,” Randy said. And, being the good friend that he was always known to be, grabbed Cody’s wrist and pulled him forward until he could give him a solid shove in Ted’s direction.
Cody stumbled a bit, but Randy’s little shove had caused Ted to look up (cheese and crackers in his mouth), and their eyes met. So now Cody couldn’t turn back.
“Hey, Cody,” Ted greeted, still chewing his food.
“Hey.” He quickly turned his head to look at John and Randy, who waved, and Cody realized that they were returning the wave that Ted had sent them. They weren’t going to be any help.
Ted then looked up to the ceiling. Cody turned his head again and saw that Randy was pointing upwards. Those bastards. “So… I guess… we’re uh… we’re standing under mistletoe.”
“Yeah, see, about that… Randy came over when John and I were talking and then the saw you and he just kinda pushed-”
His words were cut off and once again he looked like a deer in headlights when he found that he had a pair of lips against his. Ted pulled back, grimacing a little when he saw that some of the dip for his chips had gotten onto his shirt, but he didn’t care all that much. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? When you’re underneath mistletoe.”
“That… that is exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
Ted smirked and shook his head, and Cody saw that he was looking over his shoulder. So again, he turned his head and saw John and Randy giving them the thumbs up. “Codes?” Ted asked, getting his attention again.
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”
Day 5 - Prompt: Snow Covered City
“Snow sucks,” Cody muttered to Ted as they were getting out of their rental car in the hotel parking lot after a show. He had his rolling suitcase and several other smaller bags that he was attempting to get out of the trunk without setting any of them on the ground, which was now covered in a layer of mushy, slushy snow. “I have a puddle in my shoe now.”
“Shoulda worn your boots,” Ted replied. His beloved cowboy boots were waterproofed, mudproofed, snow, sleet and hailproofed. Cody’s sneakers weren’t.
“I hate you,” he grumbled after he knocked his rolling suitcase on its side straight into a slush covered puddle. “Shit.”
Ted sighed and picked up his lover’s suitcase by the handle and carried it inside once Cody managed to arrange the rest of his things. Once they were in, Ted opened up the suitcase which housed the cowboy boots Cody had begun to wear somewhat frequently and tossed them towards him. “C’mon, put ‘em on.”
“What? Why?” Cody asked; he’d already begun removing his jacket and hat and now Ted wanted him to put his boots on?
“We’re going for a walk.”
“Ted, it’s, like, minus one outside!” Ok, so, he was exaggerating slightly; it was more like thirty one, but who was counting?
“Then bundle on up.”
Cody sighed, giving into Ted’s wishes. He put his boots on and then slid his jacket back on. Ted walked over and pulled a beanie on over Cody’s head and grinned at him. “There, you’ll be fine.”
“You grew up down south, too, ya know. Mississippi isn’t exactly Massachusetts.”
“Yeah, well… you’re in a bad mood, so you need some fresh air to cheer you up.”
“What I need is a big fucking cup of scalding hot coffee, four layers of blankets, a snuggie, a fuzzy pair of slippers and a nice toasty fire. Not fresh air that’ll freeze my lungs in my body.”
“You know as well as I do that that’s not gonna happen. Now c’mon.”
Cody rolled his eyes and followed Ted out of their room and out of the hotel and onto the streets of Boston at night. As they stepped outside, Cody’s first breath was a sharp inhale of freezing cold air. But Ted was right there next to him, so… so maybe it wasn’t all bad. “Where we headed?”
“No idea.”
“You gonna know how to get us back to the hotel?”
“No idea,” Ted replied as he kept on walking, Cody right there beside him.
“So… we’re just gonna walk?” Cody asked.
“Yup.” He looked down at the sidewalk and at the footprints he left in the snow, alongside several other footprints from the others that had walked there before them. “I can’t tell you where a single thing is in this city.”
“Neither can I,” Cody told him. They walked a little further on when Cody spotted a Dunkin Donuts that was open twenty-four hours and insisted that they stop there and at least get a hot chocolate or coffee. Two mint flavored hot chocolates lots of whipped cream later, they were back outside, cups in hand, wandering along the streets. “Ya know, maybe this isn’t too bad,” he said, seeing some of the trees covered in a thin layer of white.
“I can have a good idea every once in a while,” Ted informed him.
“I guess you can.” They paused as they passed by a statue of George Washington in the middle of a small commons area. “Thank you, Teddy,” Cody said.
“You’re welcome, Cody.”
He looked down around him and saw that theirs were the only footprints in the snow so far. Two sets of footprints pointing towards one another, clearly seen in the snow, leaving nothing to imagination as to what the owners of the footprints were doing right then. “I love you,” Cody whispered, leaning in to press his lips against Ted’s, no longer caring about the cold.
Day 6 - Prompt: Apple Cider
Many years ago, Cody decided that the best part about Christmas (aside from presents, of course, because there was nothing that could top presents for a six year old), was the smells. The smell of turkey and ham and pies being baked and the smell of the pine tree and the smell of hot apple cider.
As he got older, he came to appreciate the family coming together (but he still liked getting presents) for Christmas, but the smells always stuck with him. The smell of cloves or cinnamon would take him right back to the holidays.
So now as Christmas was approaching again, he started smelling those smells once again. He was surprised, however, when he and Ted went to visit with John and Randy, when he could distinctly smell cider being brewed upon entering their house. He removed his jacket and hung it up next to Ted’s. “Your house actually smells pretty good for once,” he said.
“Hello to you, too,” Randy said.
“What? All I’m saying is that normally your place smells like… two grown men who are living together but not here all that often,” he replied.
“What the hell does that mean, our place smells like man?”
“Never mind… why does your house smell so… Christmassy?” he asked.
“That’d be John’s doing. Last night he couldn’t fall asleep so he turned on the TV and started watching the Food Network. There was some Bobby Flay Christmas special on or some shit so John got this bright idea that he wanted to make some mulled cider today for our guests,” Randy told him.
“Well, it smells really good,” Cody said, making his way towards the kitchen. “Hey, John,” he greeted.
“Oh, hey, you’re just in time,” he said with his usual smile. He grabbed a glass and poured a cup of the cider for Cody, sticking a cinnamon stick in there as a garnish.
“Yeah, Randy told us you decided to go all Bobby Flay. Now I get to be your guinea pig?” he asked, sniffing the cup in his hands.
“That you do,” John answered. “Or maybe all of you can be my guinea pigs,” he amended when Randy and Ted came into the kitchen.
“Let Cody go first,” Randy said.
“Thanks, baby, I love you, too,” John mumbled with a roll of his eyes. “I followed the recipe exactly,” he told them. “I didn’t spike it or add laxatives to it, or anything, I swear.”
Cody smelled the contents of the mug again, blowing on it quickly before taking a sip. As usual, he was transported right back to his childhood, when Christmas parties would mean family, turkey, apple cider and presents. “I gotta give it to ya John, maybe once you’re retired from the ring you can get yourself a gig on Food Network.”
“Too bad protein shakes, cereal and now mulled apple cider are all he’s capable of making,” Randy said, earning himself a cinnamon stick chucked at his forehead.
Day 7 - Prompt: Snow Plow
“Why the fuck did we move up here?!” Cody shouts as he slams the door shut behind him, pulling off his gloves and throwing them to the ground.
“What happened?” Ted asks. The move up north had been mutual on their part, because they wanted to finally marry one another, and in moving to Massachusetts they were well on their way to marriage.
“What happened?! I’m out there shoveling the fucking driveway because there’s two fucking feet of snow out there and do we have a snowblower? No. So I’m out there shoveling, while it’s still snowing, and what fucking happens? This goddamn fucking plow truck comes along and piles up ten more goddamn feet of snow at the end of the driveway where I just finished fucking shoveling!” he yells.
Ted had been out shoveling earlier, as they had woken up to a solid ten inches of snow, and it was still coming down. They tried calling John to see if he could maybe plow their driveway, but he couldn’t get anywhere because the roads had yet to be plowed, so he and Randy were stuck there… but at least they had a snowblower.
Cody joined him outside, but they only had one shovel, so he offered to take over for a while. Ted thanked him profusely; neither of them really had clothes that prepared them for this sort of weather. Ted had his jeans on with long johns on underneath, but that didn’t stop him from getting soaked. When he was going outside next time, he was considering wearing his waders because at least those were waterproof. “Oh. Well, that sucks,” Ted tells him.
“Ya think! They couldn’t have come earlier, could they? No! They come just as I was finishing the other half of the driveway! I think they took out our fucking mailbox, too!” Cody adds. He’s going to have to thank John and Randy for all the warnings they never gave them about fucking Nor’easters.
Day 8 - Prompt: Christmas Tree
“Ted… we have a problem,” Cody said as they were hanging up some Christmas decorations here and there. Though they weren’t in their house often, he did want to arrive home for their little Christmas break to a festive looking house.
“What?” Ted asked as he arranged a manger scene to his liking.
“We don’t have a tree.”
“Oh. We don’t, do we? Well, there have to be loads of people selling them, right?” he asked. “I mean, it can’t be that tough. What do we do? Go pick out a tree and tie it to the car?”
“We could. Or we could go get a fake one.”
“Oh, no, we’re not getting a fake tree. You’re the one that wants festive, and what’s better than coming home and smelling that fresh pine?” Ted asked.
“Coming home to a tree that’s not dead because you weren’t able to water it?” Cody suggested.
Ted was having none of it. “C’mon, let’s go. Can’t be that hard to find a place.”
“So… are you gonna cut down the tree and everything? Like some real life Paul Bunyan lumberjack shit?” Cody asked. “Cuz that’s pretty sexy.”
Ted rolled his eyes. “So, if I’m Paul Bunyan, does that make you Babe my blue ox?” he asked.
Day 9 - Prompt: Peeing Santa
“We used to decorate our house every year for Christmas,” Cody was telling Ted as they were driving home from the airport and going past house after house that had blinking, flashing lights.
“We put candles in the windows,” Ted told him. “We kept it pretty simple.”
“I fucking hated it,” Cody then said. “It took forever and it was such a pain in the ass. And then we had to go take all that shit down after it had only been up there a month!”
“We just had to unplug the candles.”
“Every year… and Dad would always get more! So year after year, we’d end up with more and more crap to put up on the roof and all over the yard. I’m pretty sure now he has the place covered in those massive blow up snowmen and Santas… you name it, he has it in his yard at Christmas,” Cody said.
“We… just had the candles,” Ted told him.
“I wish we only had candles…” He then got this grin on his face as he continued, “So, this one year when I was about fifteen and totally sick of doing all this Christmas shit, I decided to take some of the decorating into my own hands.”
“This doesn’t sound like it ended well.”
“Well… I was amused. Mom and Dad weren’t, but I thought it was fucking hilarious.”
“What did you do?” Ted asked, curiosity piqued.
“So, we always had this waving light up Santa that we put on the roof next to the chimney. In a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself, I took a string of white lights and hooked them up to Santa’s crotch so when the lights were on, it looked like Santa was taking a piss from our roof. It pissed a lot of people off.”
“No shit, you did not do that!”
“I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried! Eventually our neighbors across the street came over and knocked on the door saying that they needed to take that offensive thing down. Mom had no idea what the lady was talking about until she went outside and actually looked at it. Needless to say, I was up there that night taking down the lights. Which sucked, cuz I thought it looked pretty great.”
“I can tell you one thing… we should so put a pissing Santa on our roof.”
Cody laughed at that thought. “You think so?”
“Yeah. We can see how many people we can piss off at its offensiveness.”
Day 10 - Prompt: Log Cabin
“So, just tell me how this sounds, ok?” Cody asked of Randy as they sat together at a booth in Friendly’s. Ted had gone off to the bathroom, claiming that he must have eaten too much and that he’d be back in a few.
“Ok?”
“Ok. I was thinking as an early Christmas present, I could rent out a nice log cabin somewhere up north so Ted and I could spend some time there.”
“Sounds pretty cheesy to me,” Randy told him.
“What? I thought it’d be nice if he could just relax and go out and do some hunting-”
“Wait, you’re planning on going during hunting season?” Randy asked.
“Well… yeah. Why?”
“Nothing… it’s just that if you go during hunting season, you know that unless you go out hunting with him, you’ll never actually see him, right?”
“I’d go hunting with him.”
“You’d watch him shoot Bambi? I bet you cried during that movie.”
“And I bet you did, too.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Cody flipped him off. “But it’s not like he’ll be out all day. I mean, he can come back to the cabin to a nice warm fire and-”
“And his little bitch in a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron, pulling a pot roast out of the oven with a steamy mug of hot chocolate ready for him?” Randy supplied.
“I’m not his little bitch! But… yeah, what do you think?”
“You’ve already booked the cabin, haven’t you?” Randy asked, tilting his head to the side just slightly.
“Yeah. I did it a couple months ago,” Cody confessed to him.
“So, why are you asking me if it’s a good idea? Is your last chance to cancel coming up this week, or something?”
“That passed already. But, honestly, what do you think? I just… that’s all I wanted to know, what you thought of the idea.”
“Honestly?” Cody nodded, waiting for his reply. He went on, “I think he’d love it. And speak of the devil, look who’s back.” He waited until Ted got a bit closer to the table before asking, “Feeling better?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “What were you two talkin’ about?”
“Nothing important,” Cody answered.
Day 11 - Prompt: Cookies
“You signed up to do what, exactly?” Ted asked. Cody had dragged him into the kitchen, saying something about how they had to make a couple dozen cookies and something or another, but Ted had lost Cody around the couple dozen cookies part.
“Eve started a cookie exchange this year, so I signed up,” Cody explained again.
“What’s a cookie exchange?”
Cody raised an eyebrow at that. He then went on explaining very, very slowly, “You make cookies. And then you exchange them for other people’s cookies.”
“Oh. You just… trade cookies?”
“Exactly,” Cody said with a nod.
“Sooo… what kinda cookies are you making?” Ted asked.
“It’s this great recipe from my mom for these really good molasses cookies,” he said.
“You ever made them before?”
“Nope,” he answered.
“Ah… I was wondering why you’d never made them for me before.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been that great in a kitchen. One year I insisted that I help Dad make the Christmas turkey and… well, needless to say, I’ve been banned from their kitchen ever since… I was thirteen at the time.”
“So you decided it’d be a good idea to bake cookies to bring into people at work? That other people are actually gonna eat?” he asked.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve tried my hand in a kitchen, so I thought I’d give it another shot. How hard can it be?”
“Now those sound like some famous last words,” Ted muttered before Cody told him to grab the flour.
Day 12 - Prompt: Ugly Christmas Sweater
Cody really wasn’t sure how to react when he saw a fully dressed Ted coming out of their bedroom. Part of him wanted to laugh, but the other part of him was in so much shock, he physically couldn’t. “Ted. What in the actual fuck are you wearing?” he eventually managed to ask once he picked his jaw up off the floor.
“Well, last year I didn’t wear this and my mom asked me why and I guess I just… I felt bad I didn’t wear it, ya know? I always wore this at Christmas, and my brothers had matching ones,” he explained, pulling at the hem of a white knitted sweater, covered with poinsettias, bows and bells with a giant Christmas tree right in the center. He had shown her pictures of him and Cody together and she said she loved the pictures, but was wondering where his old Christmas sweater was.
“I feel bad for you right now. I think… I’d feel offended being seen with you wearing something like that,” Cody said, trying to make sense of the hot mess Ted had on. It was like Christmas itself vomited all over the sweater.
“Well, no one’s gonna see us, right? It’s just us,” Ted told him.
“I’m seeing you right now,” Cody said.
“Then let’s just snap a couple pictures so that she sees me in it, ok?”
“You mean I actually have to be photographed next to… that?” he asked.
“Yes. C’mon, it’s not that bad. You don’t shut your mouth, I’ll make you wear an even worse Rudolph sweater one of my aunts made me.”
“It’s making me ill just thinking about it,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Ted.
Needless to say, his mother was quite pleased when he showed her the pictures of his and Cody’s Christmas.
Day 13 - Prompt: Hot Cocoa
Cody walked inside the house, seven plastic grocery bags hanging from his arms. Even once he got inside and closed the door behind him, he could still see his breath when he exhaled.
Ted heard the door closing and headed out to the front door to help him. “Jesus fuck, it’s cold out,” Cody muttered.
“I can tell. I can feel the cold coming off you. And your cheeks are all red.”
“No shit,” he muttered. He was stocking up with a bunch of boxed and canned foods, and even though they were hardly ever home, when they were, they still needed to eat. “Leave it to me to pick the coldest day of the year so far to go grocery shopping.”
“Well… it’s supposed to be even colder tomorrow,” Ted offered.
“Thanks,” Cody said, face still bright red. “Here, feel my face.”
Ted put the back of his hands against Cody’s cheeks quickly before pulling away due to how cold they were. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you have the best boyfriend in the world.”
“Oh, do I?” Cody asked, now looking for room in the pantry to stick the cans of soup he got, contemplating making one to warm him up somewhat.
“You sure do.” Ted grabbed the mug of hot chocolate he made for Cody a little after he said he was on his way home and handed it to him. “I had whipped cream on it, but it looks like that melted,” he said with a little shrug of his shoulder.
Cody couldn’t help but smile at the thought. He set down the can and took the mug, which was still warm. When he took a sip, he found that it was just the right temperature. Still nice and warm, but not too hot. “I guess I do have a really good boyfriend… but if you wanna be the best boyfriend in the world, next time you can go do the shopping.”
Day 14 - Prompt: Nutcrackers
“Do people actually use these to… crack nuts?” Ted asked, fiddling with the handle on the back of a nutcracker Cody had put up for decoration.
“No one I know’s ever done that,” Cody told him. “Now quit playin’ around and help me.”
“Well, it seems silly to have somethin’ that could actually be practical, then not use it at all,” he pointed out.
“I used to make them have conversations with each other,” Cody then admitted. “My grandmother had a big collection and… I pretended they talked to each other.”
“Kinda like Barbie dolls?” Ted asked.
“Nutcrackers are way more masculine than Barbie dolls,” Cody muttered, but a blush formed on his cheeks at the comparison.
“You ever play with Barbie dolls?” Ted went onto ask.
“I may have done with Teil,” he mumbled.
“I thought you were about to say with Dustin for a second there,” Ted said with a grin and Cody chuckled. “So, uh, how often did you steal them and play with them by yourself?”
Cody wanted to protest, but he hesitated just a moment too long. He knew he would never live that little confession down, even if he hadn’t actually confessed to anything… he really did. So instead he said, “I wanted my GI Joes to have some companionship that wasn’t just… each other.”
“Did you make your GI Joes queer?!” Ted asked.
“No! Not… not all of them…” When Ted gave him a funny look, he went on, “Well, it’s hard not to when you don’t have any girls around!”
“GI Joes were made to play war and soldier and shit… not to have romantic trysts with Barbie or… each other.”
“Can we just forget this ever happened and get back to decorating?” Cody asked.
Raising a brow, Ted answered with a simple, “No.”
Day 15 - Prompt: Christmas Lights
“So, now that we have our tree,” Cody said as he and Ted were driving home after having gone and picked out their tree, “we need lights and shit to decorate it.”
“We can probably pick up some lights from Wal-Mart.”
“Yeah,” Cody agreed, not knowing where else he could find lights. “That works. Do you want those colored lights or white ones?”
“Definitely white,” he answered. “They’re a lot more traditional.”
“True. But-”
“You practically wave a rainbow flag over your head, we don’t need to have a rainbow tree.”
Cody rolled his eyes. “Ok, ok, white lights it is.”
A short while later, Ted was pulling into a Wal-Mart parking lot and told Cody he’d be right back. He had no idea just how many boxes of lights to get, so he grabbed a dozen, paid for them and headed back to the car.
“Jesus, Ted, did you buy out the store?” Cody asked when he saw Ted putting the bags in the back.
“No.”
A while after that, they were back home and both of them worked to untie the tree from the car and bring it inside to set up. They had the tree in the stand and Cody quickly went back to the car to grab the bags of lights Ted bought so they could start stringing the lights up.
Working together, it didn’t take them that long to get the lights on the tree, though they both ended up with several scratches covering their hands. “Ok, so… ready to see how it looks?” Ted asked.
Cody nodded and smiled, waiting for Ted to plug in the lights. However, his smile was short lived when an entire section didn’t light up. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” he muttered.
Day 16 - Prompt: Flannel PJs
“I don’t know what to get my dad for Christmas,” Cody told Ted as they sat on the couch together.
Ted, remote in hand, was flipping through channels. “You never know what to get your dad for Christmas,” he replied.
“Well, he never tells me what he wants… and Lord knows, he already has everything he wants…”
“So, what did you end up getting him last year?” Ted asked, still flipping the channels.
“Flannel PJs and a couple John Wayne movies” he answered.
Ted shrugged. “That’s pretty practical. Did he wear the PJs and watch the movies?”
“Mom told me he wore the PJs every night, so much he’s practically worn through ‘em… but she also said that he hasn’t figured out how to use the DVD player yet, so the movies are still unwatched,” he said.
“Then get him another pair,” Ted suggested.
“You want me to get my dad pajamas again? This’ll make the fourth year in a row I’ve gotten him PJs,” he then admitted.
“Then make a tradition out of it. Get him a new pair of PJs every year.”
“Are you serious?” Cody asked, tilting his head up to look at Ted.
“Yeah. Why not? Just throw in a few more John Wayne movies and a DVD player instruction manual.”
Day 17 - Prompt: Beer Filled Advent Calendar
“Merry Christmas, boys,” John said to Ted and Cody, hefting a rather large, heavy looking box onto their kitchen table… on November thirtieth.
Both of them looked at John before glancing at one another, before again looking back to John. “You realize that it’s still November, right?” Cody asked.
“Just open it, dumbasses,” Randy chimed in.
“Wait, open it now? You don’t want us to wait until Christmas?” Ted then asked.
“Once you open it, you’ll be glad you did,” John told them. “I promise you, you won’t want to wait until Christmas.”
“Well… if you guys say so,” Cody said, looking to Ted yet again.
Ted shrugged and began ripping the paper off. “Uhh, what is it?” he asked once all the paper had been ripped off.
“Look a little closer. I’ll have you know, a lot of hard work went into this,” John said.
“Ok…” Cody looked closer, and on the front, he saw there were little doors labeled one through twenty-five. “Wait a second, is this an advent calendar?”
“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!” Randy exclaimed.
“It’s fucking huge!” Cody said.
“Just wait until you see what’s inside, then you’ll know why it has to be so huge,” John told them. When Cody went to go open the first door, though, his hand was slapped away. “Hey, is today the first?”
“No.”
“Then no opening.”
“That’s really not fair, is it? You make sure we open this today… just so we can torture ourselves waiting for a whole nother day?” Cody asked.
“Yup,” John said with a grin and a nod.
“Just be careful with it, ok?” Randy then asked. “Put it somewhere safe so it’s not knocked over.”
“We can stick it by the toaster,” Cody suggested.
“John, help me move this to the toaster.” With John, he managed to gingerly lift the mysterious advent calendar, walk it across the kitchen and place it down gently next to the toaster. “There.”
“So, we really need to wait until tomorrow?”
“Yup,” John and Randy answered at the same time.
~~~
The following morning, while making himself a bowl of cereal, Ted kept eyeing the calendar, very curious as to the contents. When Cody joined him in the kitchen, he asked, “Wanna open day one now?”
“Yeah.”
Cody reached for day one and this time, he was able to open the door. And he pulled out a Bailey’s Irish Cream. He grinned. “If the other twenty-four days are like this, I think we’ll have a very merry Christmas.”
“Damn, I can only hope they didn’t get our hopes up with day one just to crap out on us by giving us a piece of stale toast tomorrow, or something,” Ted muttered.
“They would do something like that, wouldn’t they?” Cody paused a moment before asking, “Wanna peek at tomorrow’s?”
“No,” he answered with a shake of his head. “We gotta be good with this.”
“Fine… so,” Cody said holding the bottle of Bailey’s in his hand, giving it a little shake, “want some coffee?”
Day 18 - Prompt: Christmas Carols
The ride was long enough as it was, but Ted was not changing the station. Unless they drove out of range of the one they were listening to, then he’d change it… to another one playing Christmas music.
“Ted, we’ve been through three different stations now and I’ve heard the same song at least twice on each one!” Cody whined.
“So? It’s festive.”
“I don’t give a shit about festive! I do give a shit about my sanity, though, and if I have to listen to Eartha Kitt singing about all the fellas she hasn’t kissed one more time, Teddy, I swear…”
“You have an iPod, right?” Ted asked.
“Are you serious?” Cody dropped his head back hard onto the headrest and sighed. And he sighed even harder when Twelve Days of Christmas started. That had to be the longest, most obnoxious Christmas song ever. Who would even want eight maids of milking?
But then he noticed that there was something different about this version. They skipped the third day of Christmas. And then they skipped to the ninth day of Christmas. Maybe this version wasn’t so bad. He even went so far as to turn the radio up… but just slightly.
Ted turned his head a bit and raised a brow, and when Cody shrugged, he turned back to watch the road.
Cody even went so far as to laugh when, on the twelfth day of Christmas, one of the singers began singing the Dreidel Song. And then they began singing the Twelve Days of Christmas to the tune of Africa. Cody was actually entertained.
Soon, though, the song ended, and Cody said, “That one wasn’t half bad.”
“See, there’s some good Christmas music out there.”
And then Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby began playing.
Day 19 - Prompt: Santa
“You should go get your picture taken,” Ted teased as they walked through the mall together and passed by Santa.
Immediately, Cody shook his head. “No way. I haven’t had my picture taken with Santa since I was four.”
“What? Why not?” Ted asked. “I had my picture with Santa taken for years.”
“I had a traumatizing experience when I was four, ok? Then I couldn’t so much as look at a mall Santa without bursting into tears,” Cody told him.
“Jesus, what’d you do? Piss on him?”
“Worse.”
“Crap your pants on him?” Ted asked.
“No, dumbass. Ok, so, I was on his lap and he was asking me what I wanted and I was looking up at him and I saw that his beard was falling down. So I didn’t answer him. I just reached up and pulled down his beard. I was so upset that I started crying, because I thought I was seeing the real Santa, ya know?”
“You de-bearded Santa?!” Ted asked as though it was some sort of sacrilege.
“I was four and pissed off that I was getting ripped off. So, yeah, after that… I was never able to get my picture with Santa, even though my mom tried for years, telling me that maybe it’s not the real Santa, because Santa had helpers everywhere, but I was having none of it.”
“Well, it’s been twenty-one years. Maybe you should get your picture with Santa and send it to your mom. Let her know you’ve gotten over your fake Santa phobia,” Ted suggested.
“Seriously?”
“Yes! Seriously. What’ve ya got to lose?”
“My dignity?”
“You go out ever night and wrestle in the tiniest of trunks and nothing else and you’re worried about a picture with Santa?”
“Ok… ok, fine. I’ll get my picture with Santa,” he said.
“Good,” Ted replied, already pulling him over to the line. “And, for the love of God, don’t pull anyone’s beard off.”
Day 20 - Prompt: Shopping
The first sign that Cody knew it was going to be a bad day was when he got stuck in traffic for over thirty minutes before he got to the mall. The second sign came when every single car ahead of him was turning into the mall. The third sign came when he spent twenty minutes driving around looking for a parking space.
So this was the reason he hated Christmas shopping. Right.
Thankfully he didn’t have a lot of things left to get. He had the flannel PJs left to get for his dad, he needed to find something for his mom and then there was Ted. He’d found something for John, Randy, his siblings, his nieces and nephews no problem. He had an idea in mind for his mom…
But Ted… he really didn’t know what to get him.
He headed in through the front doors of the mall and could hardly move the place was so packed. At least it gave him some time to think. He realized he’d never gotten him a watch before when he walked past a jewelers shop, but that seemed so overdone. Besides, Ted had plenty of watches… Maybe I’ll just get him watch batteries he thought to himself, as so many of the watches Ted had, he no longer wore since he was always too lazy to change the batteries.
That couldn’t be all, though… He didn’t think Ted would really appreciate getting nothing but watch batteries in bulk.
He already had all the hunting gear he could want. He just bought himself a new fishing rod…
Dammit.
He passed by another jewelers and saw a man picking out an engagement ring and that gave him an idea. He didn’t want to ask Ted to marry him, or anything, but… maybe a ring would be nice, just to show off that he belonged to someone again. He hadn’t worn a ring since, well… since before his divorce, even. And now he was with Cody and, while Cody didn’t want to jinx himself, it really seemed like he was with Cody in that forever kinda way.
“May I help you?” one of the employees asked, noticing how Cody had been staring into the shop.
“Umm, I’m interested in men’s rings,” he answered, allowing himself to be led further into the store.
Ok, so, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad of a day.
Day 21 - Prompt: Christmas Cards
“I don’t have time for this!” Cody exclaimed as he sat at his and Ted’s dining room table with a stack of blank Christmas cards in front of him.
“What else would you be doing if you weren’t writing these?” Ted asked.
“Playing Zelda!” he replied. “Obviously.”
“Right… C’mon, they can’t be that bad. I finished mine already.”
“Well, isn’t that special?” Cody muttered sarcastically. “This is just a pain in the ass. I mean, who’d you even write cards to, anyway?”
“Oh, my family, a few people I went to college with, some people I met at church. That kinda thing.”
“So… you’re done already?”
“Yeah. And, no, I’m not writing yours for you. How difficult is it to write Dear So-and-so, Merry Christmas, Love, Cody?” Ted asked.
“It’s not… I just don’t wanna do it,” he said.
“Here, I’ll keep you company, ok? That way, I’ll make sure you get things done and it’ll go faster if you’re not so totally focused on how much you hate doing Christmas cards.”
“Fine.” He grabbed another card and opened it, looking down at his list of people he had to write cards to. It didn’t take too long to fill it out, so he moved it to the side.
“That wasn’t too painful, now was it?”
“Guess not.” He wrote a few more out, then got to the one he was filling out for his mom and dad. “Hey, Teddy… since you’re here… think you could sign your name on this one, too?” he asked.
“You want it to be from the both of us?” he asked in return.
“Well… yeah… I think they’d like that, too,” he said.
“I’d be happy to,” he answered with a smile. He quickly signed his name, then told Cody, “I haven’t sent the ones to my parents yet… I kept meaning to ask if you’d sign theirs, but kept forgetting.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… I think they’d like that, too,” he said, mirroring Cody’s earlier sentiment.
“I’d be happy to.”
Day 22 - Prompt: Christmas Dinner
“Ted… do you think you could help me?” Cody asked as he awkwardly spread apart the turkey’s legs.
“Sure, what do you need help with?”
“Oh… everything,” he replied.
“Everything? Such as?”
“Well… for starters… that,” he said, pointing to the opening of the turkey wherein all its innards were contained.
“You never gutted a turkey before?” Ted asked.
“No. My dad always did it and I always just let him have at it,” he told him. “But, I mean, you hunt and all that shit, so… what say you take care of… that?”
“Sure,” he said again, rolling up his sleeves before quickly washing his hands.
Cody sent up a silent prayer that he didn’t have to shove his hand up some turkey’s ass. He’d cook it, he’d baste it, he’d most definitely eat it… but he really didn’t want to fist it. “Thanks.”
Soon, Ted had all the guts removed and Cody resumed his work on preparing the bird for cooking. Once it was in the oven, he began work on the other side dishes for their Christmas Eve dinner.
Hours later, while Ted was watching the Miami Dolphins get squashed by the Patriots, Cody began setting the table, a few candles included to set the mood. He pulled the turkey from the oven for the final time and let it rest while he put the finishing touches on the table settings. Just before he called Ted in, he lit the candles. “Ted! Get your ass over here!”
“Food ready?” he asked
“Yes!”
He turned off the TV and headed into the kitchen where he saw the table set up and smiled. “Looks nice.”
“Damn well better,” Cody muttered.
“You look even better.”
“Now you’re just buttering me up.”
“I’m just telling the truth,” he said.
“Ass kisser.”
“You’d know that better than anyone.”
Cody turned around and brought the now carved pieces of turkey to the table. “Gonna show me your ass kissing skills later tonight?”
“For cooking all this? It’s the least I can do.”
“The least you can do is not conk out after you’re done eating,” Cody replied.
“True,” he agreed. He’d definitely been known to take an hour or two long nap after large meals. “But I’m determined to show you just how grateful I am to have you. Having you in my life is the best Christmas gift of all.”
Cody smirked. “You’re such a cheeseball.”
Day 23 - Prompt: Presents
“Cody!” Ted called as soon as he came in through the door. He’d just gotten back from a quick trip to the post office to send off some packages to his family back home and on the way home, he stopped to grab some take out.
From their bedroom, Cody muttered, “Shit,” and in his brief state of panic, managed to whack his funny bone on the dresser. “Fuck!”
“You ok?” Ted asked, taking off his jacket and shoes before heading further into their house. “Where are you?” He soon was in front of the bedroom door, which was closed for once. “Codes?”
“Don’t come in here!” he called out.
“Why not?”
“I’m naked,” was the first thing that he could think of.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you naked before… like last night for example. Are you sick, or something?”
“No. Just… just don’t come in here!” he said yet again, now beginning to hurriedly throw all the unwrapped gifts he had spread out on their bed into a small closet.
Ted could hear all the rustling about and raised a brow. “What the hell’s going on in there?”
“Nothing!”
“So… I can’t come in… why?”
He shut the door to the closet and then headed over to the bedroom door, opening it to reveal a very confused Ted. “Ok.”
“What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing… just… nothing.”
“Well, umm… I brought home food.”
“Nice,” Cody said, walking past Ted to go get some lunch.
Ted watched Cody go, then looked back into the room when he saw a roll of wrapping paper fall out of the slowly opening closet door. “Codes, were you wrapping presents?” he asked.
“No.”
“You were.”
“Ok, fine,” he acquiesced while he rummaged through the brown paper bag that contained his Pad Thai. “So don’t go snooping or you’re dead.”
Day 24 - Prompt: Christmas Ornaments
“Shit!” Cody exclaimed as he hung an ornament on the tree and it proceeded to fall right off the branch.
“Are you breaking more ornaments?” Ted asked from the other side of the tree, hanging some ornaments of his own.
“It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. They’re just… falling off.”
“Well, you’re probably just not doing it right,” Ted told him.
Cody leaned his head around the tree and saw Ted and raised a brow at him. “Well, then, Mr. Expert Christmas Tree Decorator, how exactly do you do it right.”
“Uh, well, you need to make sure that the ornament’s more tucked into the back, especially if it’s heavy. If it’s up front, it’ll just fall right off.”
Cody handed Ted the ornament he’d been trying to hang and said, “You do it, then.”
Ted took it and hung it near the back of a branch so it could still be seen, but so that it wouldn’t slide right off. “There. Not too hard.”
Picking up another ornament, Cody went back to his section of the tree and tried hanging another one. Which ended up falling off the branch and down to the one below it. “Dammit,” he muttered.
“What is it this time?”
“Ya know what? How about you finish decorating the tree and I’ll go make us a drink with that rum that was in our advent calendar today,” he said. “And by make us a drink, I mean pour myself a shot.”
Day 25 - Prompt: Gorgeous Men in Bed Together
Cody wasn’t exactly what one could call a morning person. However, the one thing that truly made waking up an experience to look forward to was waking up in a warm bed next to Ted, preferably with his arm draped over him and their bodies snuggled close together.
And that was just how Cody found himself on Christmas morning. When he found himself stirring, he pushed himself a little further back in an attempt to get a bit more comfortable and maybe fall back asleep for a little while.
However, Ted was more of a morning person and was already awake when he felt Cody moving around. “Morning, Codes,” he mumbled into Cody’s mop of hair. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Teddy,” he returned, voice heavy with sleep.
“I’m gonna go get ready for church now,” Ted told him.
Cody groaned. “I was hoping that we could stay like that a whole lot longer,” he muttered.
“You know I go to Christmas morning mass every year. Did you want to come for once?” Ted asked as he eased himself out of bed and switched on a light.
“No,” Cody said into his pillow.
“Ok, then.” Ted grabbed the clothes he had hanging up from the night before so he’d be ready to go and headed into the bathroom with them. He emerged a few minutes later fully dressed for the service and saw that Cody hadn’t moved at all. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Cody.”
“Mmmhmmm,” came the reply.
Ted leaned on the bed, over Cody’s body and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said. “When you get back, you should join me in bed again.”
“What about presents?”
“Presents can wait.”
“But last year I proposed to you. Don’t you wanna see if I topped it this year?” Ted asked.
“You didn’t hire some minister to come to our house and marry us, did you?” Cody asked, turning his head to look at Ted, who had since gotten back off the bed.
“I dunno, did I?”
“Did you?”
“Would you get married today if I did?”
“Well… well, yeah… but… you didn’t, did you?” Cody asked again.
Once more, Ted said, “I dunno. Did I?”
“Oh my God, Ted, are we getting married today?”
“No. Unless you want to.”
“So… you didn’t find some minister to marry us today?”
“Now you sound disappointed,” Ted told him.
“I’m not disappointed… I mean, of course I’m gonna marry you one day. I did say yes after all. And I moved up here so that we could get married… I’d just be really surprised if it was today.”
“But what if it was today?” Ted asked.
“But you-”
“Baby, I need to go, otherwise I won’t be able to find a parking spot or a seat. Go back to sleep; I’ll see you in a few hours,” he said, heading out of the bedroom.
“How the hell am I supposed to sleep after that?” he called out, but he knew that Ted was ignoring him as he walked down the stairs. He then got out of bed and grabbed a bath robe to wrap around his naked body. While Ted was putting his jacket on, Cody asked, “We’re not getting married today, are we?”
“I don’t know what even put that idea into your head,” Ted told him, grinning.
“You! Talking about topping your gift from last year!”
“Who said I would?” Ted asked.
“You did!”
Ted just shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I will.” He picked up the keys to his truck and said, “Now I really need to go. Love you.”
With that, he opened the door and headed out, leaving a confused, now somewhat chilly Cody behind in his wake. “Asshole,” he muttered before heading back upstairs to try and fall back asleep.