Entry tags:
Generation Kill Fic: Santa Is Here, Sleighbells Are Ringing
This is the story that sprang into my head when I beheld my lovely santa-hatted Brad icon. So thank you ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
howarethosenuts for bestowing the hat on Brad (and thank you dontcockblockme for the lovely original icon which cried out to be santa-hatted). Um. Which is not to imply that this story is in any way your fault.
Title is from Sufjan Stevens's Come On Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance.
Many thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riverlight for beta, and thanks to everyone else who audienced and listened while I was figuring out what to do with a story whose entire premise was "Brad wears a Santa hat for some reason and has sex with Nate."
Brad/Nate. Explicit. Ridiculous. 6200 words.
"I don't know why you're even fighting me on this. Santa is the most recon motherfucker who ever lived."
Santa Is Here, Sleighbells Are Ringing
"I don't know why you're even fighting me on this," Poke said, in full more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger mode. "Santa is the most recon motherfucker who ever lived. His AO is the entire world, and he infiltrates every inhabited structure on that bitch in one night."
"No," Brad said patiently. "He only infiltrates the domiciles of Christmas-celebrating Christians with dependent children. So, I reiterate, a godless Jew like myself is a poor choice of embodiment for your festive occasion's jolly mascot."
Poke sighed. "I didn't want it to come to this, dog."
Brad felt an actual frisson of fear in the silence that followed.
"Brad," Gina said. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it--"
Brad closed his eyes and put his hands up, but since Gina was five thousand miles away on the other side of the phone, his surrender was neither observed nor accepted.
"--Is to spend thirty minutes of your next leave bringing a little bit of happiness to twenty kids whose daddies are in Fallujah this Christmas--"
"Yes," Brad said, "Okay, okay, yes, Jesus Christ, yes--"
"See," Gina said, because Gina never, ever let up when she was winning. "If you can take his name in vain the least you can do is celebrate his birthday."
"I will be Santa for the Bravo Two kiddies," Brad said, covering his eyes with one hand. It did nothing to block out the looming vision of horror. "But Ray is not allowed to be an elf, and there had better be no pictures."
"Yeah," Gina said. "Sure, Brad, whatever you say."
Brad wasn't stupid. He knew he was lucky that Ray let him get most of the costume on before he started taking pictures. What he hadn't expected was that Ray was pretty normally dressed in jeans and a recon sweatshirt instead of some insane elf costume. He was wearing a red nose and antlers, but by Ray's standards that was just barely acknowledging the occasion.
"It was Gina's idea," Ray insisted when Brad asked if he'd wussed out because of the tights. "Because obviously you're Grinchy Claus, and he doesn't have any elves. He just has Max dressed up as a reindeer. I'm your Max."
Brad stared at Ray for a minute and then bent over to blouse his ridiculous red velvet trousers over his boot tops. "I don't even know what the fuck that means, Ray."
"Fuck, man, you've never seen the Grinch? That's fucking un-American."
"Un-Christian," Brad corrected.
"Whatever, it's not important. You know the kind of stuff to say, right? Ho ho ho, merry Christmas, have you been a good little girl or boy as appropriate--hint, the girls are the ones in dresses, the boys have the short hair."
"I think I can handle it, Ray. The cultural imperialism of your people is actually pretty hard to escape."
"Not hard enough if you've never seen the Grinch," Ray muttered, and snapped a few more pictures as Brad got the beard and wig positioned. "Anyway, I'll be right next to you to hand you the presents and corral the kids. We got letters from all the guys for each kid and each wife, I'll give you the right one with each present, okay?"
Brad tugged the hat on, squinting into the mirror to try to get it settled on his head without messing up the wig again. "So you're going to be taking pictures of the wives of every guy in Bravo Two sitting on my lap, as well as their young children."
"Not your lap, Santa's lap," Ray corrected primly. "But yeah, watch where you put your hands if you ever want to be able to come back from the Royal Marines for more than a quick libo."
"Solid copy," Brad sighed, and shouldered the bag of gifts.
Ray picked up a bunch of jingle bells and started shaking them wildly, even though all the kids were at Mike and Cara's house, down the street. Brad shook his head, fighting a smile, and followed him.
Brad had to hand it to the wives of Bravo Two: every one of them cried when she watched her kid get their letter from their dad, but held it together when she got her own letter from her husband. The kids had variously screamed or cried or vibrated with excitement while waving at the cameras and waiting to be allowed to bolt from Brad's lap. The wives kissed his cheek, or at least Santa's beard, and made jokes and flirted ostentatiously while Brad kept his white-gloved hand in a loose fist, knuckles resting against their sides. The pictures and videos wouldn't show their white-knuckled grips on the letters.
Brad thought they were all done when Ray reached into the bag and said loudly, "One last present."
From the tone of his voice, Brad assumed the present was for Ray. He braced himself, taking a quick look around the room. They were down to Tony and the infantry friend of Tony's who was running the video camera as pretty much the only ones in the room paying attention. The kids were all occupied with their letters and toys, and probably wouldn't be scarred for life. It might cheer the wives up--even Cara had gone all misty and quiet.
Brad rolled his eyes and held out his hand. He'd already cued up the Have you been a good boy, Ray? in Big Gay Al's voice instead of the booming Santa tones he'd been using for the last twenty minutes when he read the label. It was Ray's familiar handwriting, a hurried scrawl.
Nate.
Brad looked from the label to Ray, who was grinning, back to the label, and then, very, very belatedly, he did a proper tactical scan of the room. He immediately spotted the person he'd managed to completely miss twenty minutes ago and for every minute since, while he was occupied with handing out presents and letters to the kids and their moms.
There were half a dozen men in the room besides Brad himself and Ray. A couple were guys Tony knew, whose wives had come to help organize. One was Cara's brother. And there were a few whose precise ecological niches Brad hadn't figured out at a glance--and one of those, sitting on the floor talking to Mike's six-year-old daughter with Mike's letter to her in his hand, turned out to be Nate. According to Brad's last intel he should have been three thousand miles away, busy with his DC internship and looking forward to a lot of family holiday stuff next week.
Nate seemed to sense his gaze, looking up to meet Brad's eyes. He smiled a little, looking amused--if he had been surprised by Brad's presence it had been twenty minutes ago. Nate was giving him a private smile, one Brad had only rarely seen. Brad didn't know exactly what expression was on his own face, but he had a sudden memory of saying Not to get homoerotic, sir. And Nate hadn't brought him anything at all, this time. He was just here, where he had no logical reason to be.
Ray said again, louder, turning away from Brad, "We've got a present here for somebody named Nate, has anybody seen him?"
Brad forced his expression into a bland, presentable smile--mostly hidden by Santa's beard and moustache anyway--and Nate's expression changed into a convincing semblance of innocent surprise. This was about an unexpected gift for Nate, after all, as far as everyone who was suddenly looking at him had any business thinking.
Anna was already jumping up beside Nate, yelling, "Uncle Nate, that's you! Santa has a present for you!"
Nate's attention shifted to the kid, and he smiled for her and let her tug him up to his feet and take back her dad's letter, and then he was walking toward Brad--being towed, in fact, by Anna.
Nate could have been facing Godfather; he stood tall before Brad, perfectly straight-faced, and said, "Hello, Santa, I'm Nate."
"Hello, Nate," Brad said, his voice coming out totally undisguised, which made Nate's lips twitch.
Before either of them could get any further, though, Ray said, "Oh, no no no, this is not how it works, Nate. If you want your present, you've gotta sit on Santa's lap like all the other good boys and girls. Doesn't he, Anna?"
Anna giggled and nodded, tugging on Nate's hand, and that was all it took--Tony was behind the camera saying, "There are rules, dog," and half the kids had looked up from their presents to cheer him on, and every single one of the wives was watching and trying not to laugh. Nate--who still had his back to the cameras, and everyone in the room except Brad and Ray--smiled.
Brad swallowed, found his Santa voice, and smiled back. "It's a Christmas tradition, young Nate. Have a seat."
Nate shut his eyes for a second, shoulders shaking with swallowed laughter. After a second he pulled himself together, opened his eyes and said smoothly, "Okay, Santa, whatever you say. I do want my present."
It took a fumbling second for them to arrange themselves--Brad's legs were longer than Nate's by just enough that Nate didn't have a foot on the ground when he perched sideways on Brad's knees. The armchair Brad was sitting in gave a faint, ominous creak under the weight of two fully-grown Marines who'd gained back all the weight they'd lost in the desert. Brad put his free hand on Nate's side, the same way he'd braced the kids, and immediately felt like that was too much, and like he couldn't take it away without being obvious.
"So," Brad said, hanging on to the Santa voice as well as he could, and said the same thing he'd said to everybody else. "It seems you've been a good boy this year, Nate."
Brad felt Nate's weight shift, and pressed his hand tighter against Nate's ribs--this had been a fucked up year--but Nate smiled toward the cameras as he said, "I'm glad you think so, Santa. I did my best."
"That's all we ask," Brad said, and handed Nate the present, wondering as he did what the hell Ray had him giving Nate and whether it could be safely opened in front of the kids. "I'm sorry I didn't bring a letter for you from anyone in Iraq."
Nate actually looked Brad in the eye at that, and his smile wasn't just for the cameras. "That's okay, Santa, I've gotten plenty of emails and phone calls from my Marines this year."
Brad smiled back, trying to remember what he was supposed to say to get Nate off his lap before he said or did something completely irretrievable in front of forty witnesses--his brain was still stuck on Nate being here--and then Ray stood up and started jingling those stupid bells again.
"Okay, time for Santa to go take some presents to other kids now, he's a very busy guy!"
Nate and Brad tried to stand up at the same time, stumbling into each other and making a mutual grab for balance. Nate backed up a step, smiling and just slightly more flushed than embarrassment at the miscue would explain. He turned away, dropping to his knees to pick up his dropped present, and Brad forced himself to say a last ho-ho-ho to the kids while Ray cleared him a path to the door.
"Not a fucking word," Brad said, when he and Ray were safely out of earshot of everyone. "I'm busy plotting an appropriate retribution."
"You can buy me an even more awesome Play-Doh kit than the one you just gave Nate, so I won't doubt that you still love me the most."
"First of all," Brad said, glancing back toward Mike and Cara's before he pulled off Santa's hat, wig, and beard and stuffed them into Santa's bag, "Santa gave Nate that Play-Doh kit, not me."
"Yeah, okay, if it was a present from you it would've been something truly thoughtful like a det kit or an imported Australian hooker or something--"
"Secondly," Brad went on, not dignifying that with a response, "you do not get rewards for a stunt like that--in front of eighteen Marine wives and a roomful of children--"
"Who, as we've all been reminded, need cheering up! Come on, Brad, it was--" Ray stopped walking, grabbing Brad's red velvet sleeve to stop him, too. Ray's face lit up with the blinding suddenness of a detonation, and Brad knew that he'd given Ray the best and worst Christmas gift of all: intel.
"Oh my God," Ray said, even as Brad was glancing around the quiet street. It was dark, no one was visible, but they were in Oceanside.
"That wasn't a joke to you," Ray said, in the ecstatic tones of religious revelation. "The Iceman's got an actual--"
"Shut the fuck up, Ray," Brad gritted out, and shook off his grip, making for the comparative safety of Poke and Gina's empty house.
Ray did keep his mouth shut until he'd followed Brad inside, but once he'd locked the door beside them he said, in a stage whisper that had to be audible at a hundred meters, "You have an actual crush on the LT, and you've been holding out on me! I am taking back that friendship bracelet, Bradley!"
Brad had made it halfway across the living room while Ray was locking the door; he closed his eyes for just a second. Ray was behind him; Brad's face was safely concealed for this one instant. He exhaled without a sound, then put on a suitably blank expression and summoned up the right level of irritation. Brad shook his head and dropped the Santa sack to focus on getting the hell out of his costume. "I'm not telling you anything, Ray."
"You don't have to tell me, Brad. I'm not a Marine anymore, I got my brain back a couple months ago. I can see what's going on here. And, holy shit, he was in your lap! Was it like seventh grade all over again, touching the girl who'd already grown tits? Did you--"
Ray lunged in and succeeded in yanking the red velvet trousers down to Brad's knees, dropping Gina's guest bed pillow to the floor as he reached for Brad's crotch. "Did you get a woody? Does the LT--"
Brad fended Ray off automatically, and gave up a perfectly good chance to flip him onto the coffee table to pants him. Ray tried to pull the Santa coat over Brad's head, which gave Brad an excellent opening to punch him solidly in the chest and then put him into a headlock. With Ray's face mashed against his side, Brad said evenly, "You may rest assured, Ray, the presence of your grotesquely inbred, snaggled-toothed, cross-eyed, zit-ridden visage is enough to keep me from getting it up even if I had a lapful of naked, wet, professional pussy."
He could feel Ray laughing against his skin, but when he twisted free--Brad let him go, only to watch him nearly fall onto the coffee table tripping on his own pants--he said, "Seriously, Brad, it's a danger sign that this early in your relationship you're already fantasizing about whores in your lap instead of Nate."
Brad shook his head and sat down on the floor to get out of the Santa boots, shucking off the pants after them. "You clearly would not know a danger sign if it exploded in your face."
"Hey, give me some credit. I see 'em and I roll right through 'em, don't you remember anything about Iraq? Or were you too busy staring at the LT's mouth?"
Brad threw the coat at Ray and got up to go find his own clothes.
"You have to admit he's got a really pretty mouth!" Ray yelled after him.
Brad was under orders to return to the party once he'd changed, which meant there was no shaking Ray. Not that there was any percentage in letting Ray think Brad wanted to escape him any more than usual. There was a kind of reassurance in it; Ray was giving him shit over this exactly the same way he'd gone on about everything that crossed his mind when they were stuck in a Humvee together for three weeks.
Still, Brad had to grit his teeth when Ray blocked the door and refused to let Brad out of the house until he'd put the Santa hat back on.
"It'll make you less terrifying to the children," Ray said brightly as Brad glared. "We can't have them all bursting into tears."
Ray was still wearing both the antlers and the red nose.
"They didn't run screaming away from you," Brad pointed out, even as he surrendered to the inevitable by straightening the hat neatly on his head. It fell down over his ears without the wig under it. He arranged the tail of the hat at a precise perpendicular angle, exactly in front of his right ear. "I doubt I have anything to worry about."
"Keep telling yourself that," Ray said brightly, smacking him on the shoulder, and Brad gritted his teeth and practiced his smile.
Poke greeted him with a red plastic cup full of something hideous-looking; Brad knocked back half of it in one gulp, and then stared down at it. "Is this eggnog? Why does anyone drink this?"
"Because it's got rum in it," Poke said. "The grownups' eggnog is in the fridge upstairs, you can get your own refills."
But even before Poke had finished speaking, his daughter Jessie was plastered up against Brad's side, asking if he'd met Santa outside, wanting to show him the present Santa had given her.
Brad made his way through the kids and their moms, getting hugged over and over, sitting on the floor to help assemble Legos or admire a Christmas letter from Iraq that had almost certainly been written right here in Oceanside before the guys even left. Occasionally the sound of Ray's braying laugh made him look up. Each time, after he'd spotted Ray and assured himself that his RTO was on company behavior, he would search out Nate. Each time, no matter where Brad was in his slow circulation around the room, Ray and Nate were the same distance away from him. Maintaining dispersion. Covering their sectors.
Nate raised his eyebrows when he caught Brad looking. Brad nodded, and didn't look away until Nate nodded back.
Brad looked down at the sticky-fingered four-year-old who'd sprawled half over his lap. He'd totally lost track of whose kid this was. The letter he'd gotten from his dad--uninformatively signed Daddy--included a crayon drawing of a Christmas tree and presents; the kid was now imitating it with his new crayons. Brad took off the Santa hat and dropped it onto the kid's head, and the kid looked up from under the white furry edge and smiled proudly. Brad smiled back and picked up a crayon.
The kids were still going strong when Brad crept outside to sit on the deck and have a few quiet jet-lagged minutes of desperately wishing he smoked, or dipped outside of deployments, or was irresponsible enough to drink enough grownup eggnog to make a difference. Most desperately of all, he wished he were in Fallujah with his platoon, and any other one of those bastards had gotten exchanged to the Royal Marines, and was here now with his wife and kids, getting all the teary looks and over-enthusiastic hugs he'd been getting.
He didn't turn when he heard footsteps behind him; even in go-fasters he recognized them. He'd been listening for them ever since he turned his back on the party.
The Santa hat dropped onto his head, and Nate said, "I believe this belongs to you."
Brad looked over his shoulder--and up--at Nate, standing behind him. "Ray didn't send you out here, did he, sir?"
Nate nodded. "I did consider the possibility that I was being sent into an ambush. But he also said you might have suffered a fatal wound to your dignity and crawled off into the dark to die alone." Nate settled his hand on Brad's shoulder and added, "I had to risk it."
Brad flicked a glance past Nate to the back door; he couldn't see much from where he sat, but Nate's grip on his shoulder tightened, and Nate nodded slightly. They could speak freely.
"Be advised, sir, Ray's noticed that I have a crush on you. His motives will remain impure for the foreseeable future."
Nate raised his eyebrows. For a horrible second Brad thought he should have said thinks that I have, not noticed that I have, shouldn't have given himself away like that when he wasn't absolutely sure he wasn't misinterpreting. But Nate's hand was still warm on his shoulder, shifting in just slightly so Nate's thumb rested on the collar of his t-shirt. Not quite on skin, but moving that way.
"Sounds like Ray's recon is badly incomplete," Nate said evenly.
"He was never our best for HUMINT," Brad allowed, curling his hands into fists to keep from reaching for Nate. Not here, not now, not with eighteen military wives, a roomful of kids, and Ray all on the other side of the door. "I'll bet he could still handle a ratfucked radio better than anybody either of us know."
"I am assured of it," Nate agreed, one corner of his mouth finally curling up into a smile.
Brad had to look away. "I didn't know you were going to be in Oceanside."
You didn't tell me, he meant. He and Nate had exchanged holiday plans in emails a week ago; like most of their emails it had involved talking past each other slightly, never asking for anything directly. Nate had mentioned end-of-year insanity at his internship and a hectic schedule of family events. Brad had said he'd only be in California for half of Hanukkah, gone before Christmas. That had been the end of it.
"You didn't ask," Nate said lightly, and he might only mean that Brad hadn't asked for a clarification of his weekend plans immediately preceding Christmas, except that he added, "Cara did, a couple of days ago. I figured I could blow off a Friday at work for this."
Meaning he would have been willing to blow off a Friday for Brad. Meaning Brad had had the right to ask.
Brad had spent months now telling himself he was reading too much into Nate being friendly, wanting to keep in touch. Brad looked up again--Nate kept his hand in place though the t-shirt tugged under his grip--and Nate was looking down steadily. Brad thought that he might not have been reading nearly enough. He probably shouldn't mock Ray's HUMINT skills.
"I wouldn't have wanted to inflict holiday air travel on you, sir," Brad offered, because he had to say something, and it had to be something safe.
Nate's smile took up his entire mouth, now, unmistakable. Brad felt a jolt of pure want from the top of his head to his toes, blood rushing to his fingers as much as his dick. He'd spent so much time trying not to think about it, and now the dam burst. He clenched his fists tighter.
Nate's smile showed teeth for a second, as if he knew just what Brad was feeling. He lifted his hand from Brad's shoulder to fuss with the hat--straightening it to a perfect peak--as he leaned down to say, "Too bad. I would have liked letting you make it up to me."
"Nate," Brad said, and his voice was as unguarded as it had been when Nate had been standing in front of him, introducing himself to Santa. Nate's hand stayed resting lightly on top of the hat, and Nate didn't straighten up. "Tell me you have transport here."
Nate nodded slightly and said, "Need a cas-evac for that wounded dignity?"
"I'm going to," Brad said, unable to stop staring up at Nate, unable to stop wanting this now that he knew it had been on the table all this time. "If we don't get out of here soon, sir, I'm not going to be the only casualty."
Nate grinned again and said, "Pretty sure it's already too late for that, Brad, but I won't let you go off alone."
Brad finally found himself smiling back. "I'll hold you to that, sir."
They'd kissed themselves breathless and were half-undressed when it occurred to Brad that he'd kissed Nate for the first time somewhere back there in a half-lit hotel room blur of now now now. He pulled back for a second, just looking at Nate. Nate raised his eyebrows, grinning--lips pink and wet from kissing, cheeks flushed, green eyes bright--and said, "Not sure what comes next?"
Brad wasn't, on any level. He'd fantasized about Nate, but it was always like a porn flick: flimsy pretext and then improbably fantastic sex. Sometimes not even the flimsy pretext, just Nate's hands, Nate's mouth, Nate's cock. He'd never imagined kissing Nate--not like this, not standing up and making out without a clear objective beyond that. He'd never imagined going to a hotel room with Nate, and he'd never, ever imagined any kind of next.
"Spoiled for choice, sir," Brad said, almost without hesitating. He had one hand on Nate's side, skin to skin this time. His fingers were tucked into Nate's boxers, just touching the top curve of his ass. Nate had unzipped Brad's jeans, and even as Brad spoke Nate was palming Brad's hard-on through his jockeys. Brad's breath hitched, but he kept his expression neutral.
"That's easy," Nate said, and pressed closer to Brad, hand sliding excruciatingly slowly down to cup Brad's balls, still on the wrong side of his underwear, his lips not quite touching Brad's. "I'm going to suck you off."
Brad shuddered with need and converted the motion into a kiss, sliding his hands up to tug Nate a crucial half-inch closer. He could feel Nate smiling into the kiss, and Nate's fingers were still working on him; Brad's hips jerked once into the touch before he forced himself to be still, to focus on kissing Nate, the way their mouths fit together, the hot secret press of tongue, the rush of breath between them. Nate tasted like candy canes.
It was Nate who pushed back this time, turning his hand away from Brad's dick to shove Brad's jeans down.
"Clothes off," Nate ordered, already toeing off his go-fasters so he could get rid of his own hobbling pants. "And then sit down, I'm not blowing you up against a wall."
Brad grinned, arching an eyebrow as he got out of his own clothes. "Too hard on your knees, sir?"
"Not my knees I'm worried about," Nate said, shaking his head slightly. "I don't want you falling on me when yours give out."
"I've kept my feet under me despite the attentions of many talented professionals," Brad pointed out, even as he dropped into the armchair nearest the door. The fabric was smooth, it was decently padded, and it saved him having to walk three steps before Nate would go down on him.
Nate raised an eyebrow, and bent to pick up the Santa hat out of the scatter of their clothing, spinning it by the ball end as he stood there, naked and hard. He was on display for Brad, and he made Brad's mouth go dry like no whore ever had.
"Yeah," Nate said, walking over to stand between Brad's splayed knees. Brad looked up at him and Nate gave a crooked smile, dropping the hat onto Brad's head. "But none of them were me."
It wasn't arrogance, or a boast of sexual prowess. There was no mistaking the meaning of Nate's matter-of-fact words: he knew how much he mattered to Brad. He knew that it wasn't about how good he was; he knew he could weaken Brad's knees just by being himself, on his knees for Brad. That casual certainty made Brad's breath come short. Nate's smile turned to something else in the instant before he leaned down for a kiss, and then dropped to his knees.
Brad stayed where Nate's kiss had left him, head tilted against the back of the chair, and looked down at Nate through his eyelashes. Nate didn't look up; he planted his left hand low on Brad's belly and curled his right around Brad's cock, jacking him once, twice. Brad twitched up helplessly, into the press of Nate's hand, into the tightness of his fist. Nate planted an elbow on Brad's thigh--dull but serious pressure--and then lowered his head, parting his lips around the head of Brad's cock.
Brad bit his lip at the warm wetness of Nate's mouth on him; then Nate's tongue swiped slowly over him. Brad managed to keep his hips still, his thighs tensing hard--the pressure of Nate's elbow became a sudden flare of pain. He couldn't help reaching out, though, his hand settling on Nate's cheek, his thumb at the corner of Nate's mouth.
For that, Nate looked up. His stretched lips turned up at the corners, and he made an approving noise without taking his mouth off the head of Brad's dick. He held Brad's gaze as he inhaled, and then he closed his eyes--forehead wrinkling just a little in concentration--as he went down.
Then again, Brad thought, as his cock disappeared into the heat of Nate's mouth, Nate might have just been talking about his technical proficiency. He was good at it, good enough to make Brad push up--Nate pushed him back, holding him steady, but Brad couldn't resist. Nate wasn't good like a professional, or not like any professional Brad had ever hired. He kept his eyes closed as he concentrated, doing his own thing as he sucked Brad's cock; even the way he held Brad down felt like it was about keeping Brad from messing up the way he was running this. There was nothing submissive about Nate on his knees, any more than a sniper in the dust lining up his shot.
Brad just had to sit back and take it, and he did his best as Nate's mouth--and Nate's busy hands--sent shocks of pleasure through his body. His fingers and toes and the crown of his head tingled, every hair on his body standing on end. He rubbed his thumb along Nate's lips, along the side of his own cock, but even that didn't get Nate's attention anymore, and when Nate pushed up into his mouth Nate just pushed him back down.
"Nate," Brad finally said, and his breath was so ragged it was almost two syllables, but it made Nate look up.
"Nate," Brad repeated, and Nate pulled nearly off him--he was cradling Brad's balls with his hand, fingers pressing in just behind, his tongue moving slow and wet on the head of Brad's cock. Brad could hardly breathe. Meeting Nate's eyes didn't make that any easier, but he still felt compelled to talk, to say something. He couldn't think of anything safe, anything that wasn't given away already by the way he couldn't keep his voice steady. "Nate, fuck, please, please--"
Nate's mouth slid back down his cock, and Brad had to close his eyes against the rush of sensation. But there was no escaping Nate's hands, Nate's mouth, Nate's weight holding him still.
"Nate," Brad said, "Nate," and he hoped Nate understood that he meant it as a warning. He opened his eyes to meet Nate's as he came, and Nate didn't back off as Brad shook through it, not until Brad pushed him away. Nate smiled with abused red lips, and folded downward a little, sitting on his heels, pillowing his head on the arm folded on Brad's thigh. His other hand slid to rest on Brad's hip. Brad's own hand fell to his thigh, and he watched Nate catch his breath, his own breathing loud in his ears.
Nate's eyes fluttered just as Brad reached out to touch him again; Brad's hand was still hovering uncertainly in mid-air when Nate's eyes widened in sudden surprise. Brad raised an eyebrow. Nothing about him had changed in the two minutes Nate had his eyes closed. Nate shook his head minutely, and Brad tilted his in question--which made the hat slip lower on his head, and suddenly it was obvious what Nate had just now noticed.
Nate put one hand over his eyes, fingers splayed so he could still look through them at Brad, trying to look horrified while grinning uncontrollably.
"Well, Nate," Brad said, and for this it was easy to keep his voice steady. "You've been really good...."
Nate started laughing, snapping his fingers closed and squeezing his eyes shut.
"If you'll just get into my lap, I think you have another present coming," Brad added, grabbing Nate's biceps to haul him up.
"Oh, God, no, no, bad Santa," Nate said, trying to shove Brad away, but he was still laughing, and he didn't go for any of the obvious vulnerable spots or go limp to keep Brad from pulling him up. They scuffled a little--the chair rocked back into the wall and came down with a jolt--but Nate wound up on the chair with Brad, mostly on top of him, his dick pressed against Brad's belly and one of his legs folded up awkwardly between Brad's side and the arm of the chair. Brad had one hand on Nate's ass and the other clutching his wrist, both their arms extended straight out at an angle.
That left Nate with a hand free to do what he wanted with the hat, but after flicking the ball on the end of the hat so it bounced off Brad's cheek, Nate just leaned in to kiss him. He didn't taste like candy canes anymore. Brad smiled against Nate's mouth, tugging with his hand on Nate's ass to get Nate's hips moving against him. He could feel Nate's cock hardening between them, but even if he let go of Nate's wrist he didn't think he could get a hand on Nate's cock without pushing him away or tipping the chair over.
Nate didn't seem to have any leverage; he kept hitching his hips against Brad in tiny motions until Brad pushed off hard with one foot, knocking the chair back onto two legs again, resting against the wall. Brad let go of Nate's wrist to brace against the wall, and Nate's hand slapped down beside his--but Nate must have gotten a foot down, too, because he was thrusting against Brad now, his cock sliding hot against Brad's skin, his ass going taut under Brad's palm with every motion.
"If this chair breaks," Nate gasped against the side of Brad's throat.
"Santa's elves'll fix it," Brad promised.
Nate shook a little with laughter and muttered, "Fuck you."
"Not in this chair, sir," Brad pointed out, watching Nate's pink cheeks edge toward red, watching his mouth open and close on retorts he thought better of. Brad slid his hand up to the base of Nate's spine, settling his palm over that spot, and Nate's hips jerked under his hand, his thrusts speeding up. Nate leaned into another kiss without opening his eyes, but Brad met him there, licking into his mouth as Nate's cock jerked between them, come slicking skin for a last few thrusts.
Brad couldn't have said which one of them did it, but the chair thumped down onto all four legs again a few seconds after Nate went still, breaking their kiss apart. Nate hardly seemed to notice, slumped over Brad with his head tipped limply to one side.
Brad reached up and took the hat off, dropping it gently onto Nate's head.
Nate's shoulders shook silently for a few seconds before he opened the one eye not covered by the drooping hat and said, "Happy Hanukkah, Brad."
Brad grinned. He wrapped both arms around Nate and then heaved them both out of the chair, guiding their mutual stumble so that they fell safely--hat and all--onto the bed. Brad didn't let go when they'd landed, just kissed him again and said, "Merry Christmas, Nate."
When Brad got back to his quarters in Devon, he discovered that somebody--aided by magical reindeer named "paying ungodly sums of money for international shipping four days before Christmas"--had already been there. The box was slightly heavier than he'd expected.
When he opened it, he found not only the hat he'd been careful to leave behind in Nate's hotel room, but also a shiny new webcam, much nicer than anything he'd ever bothered to buy himself.
Brad shook his head slightly, and reached for his phone. Instead of texting some inanity to indicate that, indeed, Nate had not somehow missed hearing about a plane crash affecting the flight he knew Brad had been on, he tapped out Got your gift. We need to talk about this Santa problem of yours.
Nate texted back less than a minute later, Skype. One hour.
Brad grinned and sat down to configure the new hardware, already wearing the hat.
howarethosenuts for bestowing the hat on Brad (and thank you dontcockblockme for the lovely original icon which cried out to be santa-hatted). Um. Which is not to imply that this story is in any way your fault.Title is from Sufjan Stevens's Come On Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance.
Many thanks to
riverlight for beta, and thanks to everyone else who audienced and listened while I was figuring out what to do with a story whose entire premise was "Brad wears a Santa hat for some reason and has sex with Nate."Brad/Nate. Explicit. Ridiculous. 6200 words.
"I don't know why you're even fighting me on this. Santa is the most recon motherfucker who ever lived."
Santa Is Here, Sleighbells Are Ringing
"I don't know why you're even fighting me on this," Poke said, in full more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger mode. "Santa is the most recon motherfucker who ever lived. His AO is the entire world, and he infiltrates every inhabited structure on that bitch in one night."
"No," Brad said patiently. "He only infiltrates the domiciles of Christmas-celebrating Christians with dependent children. So, I reiterate, a godless Jew like myself is a poor choice of embodiment for your festive occasion's jolly mascot."
Poke sighed. "I didn't want it to come to this, dog."
Brad felt an actual frisson of fear in the silence that followed.
"Brad," Gina said. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it--"
Brad closed his eyes and put his hands up, but since Gina was five thousand miles away on the other side of the phone, his surrender was neither observed nor accepted.
"--Is to spend thirty minutes of your next leave bringing a little bit of happiness to twenty kids whose daddies are in Fallujah this Christmas--"
"Yes," Brad said, "Okay, okay, yes, Jesus Christ, yes--"
"See," Gina said, because Gina never, ever let up when she was winning. "If you can take his name in vain the least you can do is celebrate his birthday."
"I will be Santa for the Bravo Two kiddies," Brad said, covering his eyes with one hand. It did nothing to block out the looming vision of horror. "But Ray is not allowed to be an elf, and there had better be no pictures."
"Yeah," Gina said. "Sure, Brad, whatever you say."
Brad wasn't stupid. He knew he was lucky that Ray let him get most of the costume on before he started taking pictures. What he hadn't expected was that Ray was pretty normally dressed in jeans and a recon sweatshirt instead of some insane elf costume. He was wearing a red nose and antlers, but by Ray's standards that was just barely acknowledging the occasion.
"It was Gina's idea," Ray insisted when Brad asked if he'd wussed out because of the tights. "Because obviously you're Grinchy Claus, and he doesn't have any elves. He just has Max dressed up as a reindeer. I'm your Max."
Brad stared at Ray for a minute and then bent over to blouse his ridiculous red velvet trousers over his boot tops. "I don't even know what the fuck that means, Ray."
"Fuck, man, you've never seen the Grinch? That's fucking un-American."
"Un-Christian," Brad corrected.
"Whatever, it's not important. You know the kind of stuff to say, right? Ho ho ho, merry Christmas, have you been a good little girl or boy as appropriate--hint, the girls are the ones in dresses, the boys have the short hair."
"I think I can handle it, Ray. The cultural imperialism of your people is actually pretty hard to escape."
"Not hard enough if you've never seen the Grinch," Ray muttered, and snapped a few more pictures as Brad got the beard and wig positioned. "Anyway, I'll be right next to you to hand you the presents and corral the kids. We got letters from all the guys for each kid and each wife, I'll give you the right one with each present, okay?"
Brad tugged the hat on, squinting into the mirror to try to get it settled on his head without messing up the wig again. "So you're going to be taking pictures of the wives of every guy in Bravo Two sitting on my lap, as well as their young children."
"Not your lap, Santa's lap," Ray corrected primly. "But yeah, watch where you put your hands if you ever want to be able to come back from the Royal Marines for more than a quick libo."
"Solid copy," Brad sighed, and shouldered the bag of gifts.
Ray picked up a bunch of jingle bells and started shaking them wildly, even though all the kids were at Mike and Cara's house, down the street. Brad shook his head, fighting a smile, and followed him.
Brad had to hand it to the wives of Bravo Two: every one of them cried when she watched her kid get their letter from their dad, but held it together when she got her own letter from her husband. The kids had variously screamed or cried or vibrated with excitement while waving at the cameras and waiting to be allowed to bolt from Brad's lap. The wives kissed his cheek, or at least Santa's beard, and made jokes and flirted ostentatiously while Brad kept his white-gloved hand in a loose fist, knuckles resting against their sides. The pictures and videos wouldn't show their white-knuckled grips on the letters.
Brad thought they were all done when Ray reached into the bag and said loudly, "One last present."
From the tone of his voice, Brad assumed the present was for Ray. He braced himself, taking a quick look around the room. They were down to Tony and the infantry friend of Tony's who was running the video camera as pretty much the only ones in the room paying attention. The kids were all occupied with their letters and toys, and probably wouldn't be scarred for life. It might cheer the wives up--even Cara had gone all misty and quiet.
Brad rolled his eyes and held out his hand. He'd already cued up the Have you been a good boy, Ray? in Big Gay Al's voice instead of the booming Santa tones he'd been using for the last twenty minutes when he read the label. It was Ray's familiar handwriting, a hurried scrawl.
Nate.
Brad looked from the label to Ray, who was grinning, back to the label, and then, very, very belatedly, he did a proper tactical scan of the room. He immediately spotted the person he'd managed to completely miss twenty minutes ago and for every minute since, while he was occupied with handing out presents and letters to the kids and their moms.
There were half a dozen men in the room besides Brad himself and Ray. A couple were guys Tony knew, whose wives had come to help organize. One was Cara's brother. And there were a few whose precise ecological niches Brad hadn't figured out at a glance--and one of those, sitting on the floor talking to Mike's six-year-old daughter with Mike's letter to her in his hand, turned out to be Nate. According to Brad's last intel he should have been three thousand miles away, busy with his DC internship and looking forward to a lot of family holiday stuff next week.
Nate seemed to sense his gaze, looking up to meet Brad's eyes. He smiled a little, looking amused--if he had been surprised by Brad's presence it had been twenty minutes ago. Nate was giving him a private smile, one Brad had only rarely seen. Brad didn't know exactly what expression was on his own face, but he had a sudden memory of saying Not to get homoerotic, sir. And Nate hadn't brought him anything at all, this time. He was just here, where he had no logical reason to be.
Ray said again, louder, turning away from Brad, "We've got a present here for somebody named Nate, has anybody seen him?"
Brad forced his expression into a bland, presentable smile--mostly hidden by Santa's beard and moustache anyway--and Nate's expression changed into a convincing semblance of innocent surprise. This was about an unexpected gift for Nate, after all, as far as everyone who was suddenly looking at him had any business thinking.
Anna was already jumping up beside Nate, yelling, "Uncle Nate, that's you! Santa has a present for you!"
Nate's attention shifted to the kid, and he smiled for her and let her tug him up to his feet and take back her dad's letter, and then he was walking toward Brad--being towed, in fact, by Anna.
Nate could have been facing Godfather; he stood tall before Brad, perfectly straight-faced, and said, "Hello, Santa, I'm Nate."
"Hello, Nate," Brad said, his voice coming out totally undisguised, which made Nate's lips twitch.
Before either of them could get any further, though, Ray said, "Oh, no no no, this is not how it works, Nate. If you want your present, you've gotta sit on Santa's lap like all the other good boys and girls. Doesn't he, Anna?"
Anna giggled and nodded, tugging on Nate's hand, and that was all it took--Tony was behind the camera saying, "There are rules, dog," and half the kids had looked up from their presents to cheer him on, and every single one of the wives was watching and trying not to laugh. Nate--who still had his back to the cameras, and everyone in the room except Brad and Ray--smiled.
Brad swallowed, found his Santa voice, and smiled back. "It's a Christmas tradition, young Nate. Have a seat."
Nate shut his eyes for a second, shoulders shaking with swallowed laughter. After a second he pulled himself together, opened his eyes and said smoothly, "Okay, Santa, whatever you say. I do want my present."
It took a fumbling second for them to arrange themselves--Brad's legs were longer than Nate's by just enough that Nate didn't have a foot on the ground when he perched sideways on Brad's knees. The armchair Brad was sitting in gave a faint, ominous creak under the weight of two fully-grown Marines who'd gained back all the weight they'd lost in the desert. Brad put his free hand on Nate's side, the same way he'd braced the kids, and immediately felt like that was too much, and like he couldn't take it away without being obvious.
"So," Brad said, hanging on to the Santa voice as well as he could, and said the same thing he'd said to everybody else. "It seems you've been a good boy this year, Nate."
Brad felt Nate's weight shift, and pressed his hand tighter against Nate's ribs--this had been a fucked up year--but Nate smiled toward the cameras as he said, "I'm glad you think so, Santa. I did my best."
"That's all we ask," Brad said, and handed Nate the present, wondering as he did what the hell Ray had him giving Nate and whether it could be safely opened in front of the kids. "I'm sorry I didn't bring a letter for you from anyone in Iraq."
Nate actually looked Brad in the eye at that, and his smile wasn't just for the cameras. "That's okay, Santa, I've gotten plenty of emails and phone calls from my Marines this year."
Brad smiled back, trying to remember what he was supposed to say to get Nate off his lap before he said or did something completely irretrievable in front of forty witnesses--his brain was still stuck on Nate being here--and then Ray stood up and started jingling those stupid bells again.
"Okay, time for Santa to go take some presents to other kids now, he's a very busy guy!"
Nate and Brad tried to stand up at the same time, stumbling into each other and making a mutual grab for balance. Nate backed up a step, smiling and just slightly more flushed than embarrassment at the miscue would explain. He turned away, dropping to his knees to pick up his dropped present, and Brad forced himself to say a last ho-ho-ho to the kids while Ray cleared him a path to the door.
"Not a fucking word," Brad said, when he and Ray were safely out of earshot of everyone. "I'm busy plotting an appropriate retribution."
"You can buy me an even more awesome Play-Doh kit than the one you just gave Nate, so I won't doubt that you still love me the most."
"First of all," Brad said, glancing back toward Mike and Cara's before he pulled off Santa's hat, wig, and beard and stuffed them into Santa's bag, "Santa gave Nate that Play-Doh kit, not me."
"Yeah, okay, if it was a present from you it would've been something truly thoughtful like a det kit or an imported Australian hooker or something--"
"Secondly," Brad went on, not dignifying that with a response, "you do not get rewards for a stunt like that--in front of eighteen Marine wives and a roomful of children--"
"Who, as we've all been reminded, need cheering up! Come on, Brad, it was--" Ray stopped walking, grabbing Brad's red velvet sleeve to stop him, too. Ray's face lit up with the blinding suddenness of a detonation, and Brad knew that he'd given Ray the best and worst Christmas gift of all: intel.
"Oh my God," Ray said, even as Brad was glancing around the quiet street. It was dark, no one was visible, but they were in Oceanside.
"That wasn't a joke to you," Ray said, in the ecstatic tones of religious revelation. "The Iceman's got an actual--"
"Shut the fuck up, Ray," Brad gritted out, and shook off his grip, making for the comparative safety of Poke and Gina's empty house.
Ray did keep his mouth shut until he'd followed Brad inside, but once he'd locked the door beside them he said, in a stage whisper that had to be audible at a hundred meters, "You have an actual crush on the LT, and you've been holding out on me! I am taking back that friendship bracelet, Bradley!"
Brad had made it halfway across the living room while Ray was locking the door; he closed his eyes for just a second. Ray was behind him; Brad's face was safely concealed for this one instant. He exhaled without a sound, then put on a suitably blank expression and summoned up the right level of irritation. Brad shook his head and dropped the Santa sack to focus on getting the hell out of his costume. "I'm not telling you anything, Ray."
"You don't have to tell me, Brad. I'm not a Marine anymore, I got my brain back a couple months ago. I can see what's going on here. And, holy shit, he was in your lap! Was it like seventh grade all over again, touching the girl who'd already grown tits? Did you--"
Ray lunged in and succeeded in yanking the red velvet trousers down to Brad's knees, dropping Gina's guest bed pillow to the floor as he reached for Brad's crotch. "Did you get a woody? Does the LT--"
Brad fended Ray off automatically, and gave up a perfectly good chance to flip him onto the coffee table to pants him. Ray tried to pull the Santa coat over Brad's head, which gave Brad an excellent opening to punch him solidly in the chest and then put him into a headlock. With Ray's face mashed against his side, Brad said evenly, "You may rest assured, Ray, the presence of your grotesquely inbred, snaggled-toothed, cross-eyed, zit-ridden visage is enough to keep me from getting it up even if I had a lapful of naked, wet, professional pussy."
He could feel Ray laughing against his skin, but when he twisted free--Brad let him go, only to watch him nearly fall onto the coffee table tripping on his own pants--he said, "Seriously, Brad, it's a danger sign that this early in your relationship you're already fantasizing about whores in your lap instead of Nate."
Brad shook his head and sat down on the floor to get out of the Santa boots, shucking off the pants after them. "You clearly would not know a danger sign if it exploded in your face."
"Hey, give me some credit. I see 'em and I roll right through 'em, don't you remember anything about Iraq? Or were you too busy staring at the LT's mouth?"
Brad threw the coat at Ray and got up to go find his own clothes.
"You have to admit he's got a really pretty mouth!" Ray yelled after him.
Brad was under orders to return to the party once he'd changed, which meant there was no shaking Ray. Not that there was any percentage in letting Ray think Brad wanted to escape him any more than usual. There was a kind of reassurance in it; Ray was giving him shit over this exactly the same way he'd gone on about everything that crossed his mind when they were stuck in a Humvee together for three weeks.
Still, Brad had to grit his teeth when Ray blocked the door and refused to let Brad out of the house until he'd put the Santa hat back on.
"It'll make you less terrifying to the children," Ray said brightly as Brad glared. "We can't have them all bursting into tears."
Ray was still wearing both the antlers and the red nose.
"They didn't run screaming away from you," Brad pointed out, even as he surrendered to the inevitable by straightening the hat neatly on his head. It fell down over his ears without the wig under it. He arranged the tail of the hat at a precise perpendicular angle, exactly in front of his right ear. "I doubt I have anything to worry about."
"Keep telling yourself that," Ray said brightly, smacking him on the shoulder, and Brad gritted his teeth and practiced his smile.
Poke greeted him with a red plastic cup full of something hideous-looking; Brad knocked back half of it in one gulp, and then stared down at it. "Is this eggnog? Why does anyone drink this?"
"Because it's got rum in it," Poke said. "The grownups' eggnog is in the fridge upstairs, you can get your own refills."
But even before Poke had finished speaking, his daughter Jessie was plastered up against Brad's side, asking if he'd met Santa outside, wanting to show him the present Santa had given her.
Brad made his way through the kids and their moms, getting hugged over and over, sitting on the floor to help assemble Legos or admire a Christmas letter from Iraq that had almost certainly been written right here in Oceanside before the guys even left. Occasionally the sound of Ray's braying laugh made him look up. Each time, after he'd spotted Ray and assured himself that his RTO was on company behavior, he would search out Nate. Each time, no matter where Brad was in his slow circulation around the room, Ray and Nate were the same distance away from him. Maintaining dispersion. Covering their sectors.
Nate raised his eyebrows when he caught Brad looking. Brad nodded, and didn't look away until Nate nodded back.
Brad looked down at the sticky-fingered four-year-old who'd sprawled half over his lap. He'd totally lost track of whose kid this was. The letter he'd gotten from his dad--uninformatively signed Daddy--included a crayon drawing of a Christmas tree and presents; the kid was now imitating it with his new crayons. Brad took off the Santa hat and dropped it onto the kid's head, and the kid looked up from under the white furry edge and smiled proudly. Brad smiled back and picked up a crayon.
The kids were still going strong when Brad crept outside to sit on the deck and have a few quiet jet-lagged minutes of desperately wishing he smoked, or dipped outside of deployments, or was irresponsible enough to drink enough grownup eggnog to make a difference. Most desperately of all, he wished he were in Fallujah with his platoon, and any other one of those bastards had gotten exchanged to the Royal Marines, and was here now with his wife and kids, getting all the teary looks and over-enthusiastic hugs he'd been getting.
He didn't turn when he heard footsteps behind him; even in go-fasters he recognized them. He'd been listening for them ever since he turned his back on the party.
The Santa hat dropped onto his head, and Nate said, "I believe this belongs to you."
Brad looked over his shoulder--and up--at Nate, standing behind him. "Ray didn't send you out here, did he, sir?"
Nate nodded. "I did consider the possibility that I was being sent into an ambush. But he also said you might have suffered a fatal wound to your dignity and crawled off into the dark to die alone." Nate settled his hand on Brad's shoulder and added, "I had to risk it."
Brad flicked a glance past Nate to the back door; he couldn't see much from where he sat, but Nate's grip on his shoulder tightened, and Nate nodded slightly. They could speak freely.
"Be advised, sir, Ray's noticed that I have a crush on you. His motives will remain impure for the foreseeable future."
Nate raised his eyebrows. For a horrible second Brad thought he should have said thinks that I have, not noticed that I have, shouldn't have given himself away like that when he wasn't absolutely sure he wasn't misinterpreting. But Nate's hand was still warm on his shoulder, shifting in just slightly so Nate's thumb rested on the collar of his t-shirt. Not quite on skin, but moving that way.
"Sounds like Ray's recon is badly incomplete," Nate said evenly.
"He was never our best for HUMINT," Brad allowed, curling his hands into fists to keep from reaching for Nate. Not here, not now, not with eighteen military wives, a roomful of kids, and Ray all on the other side of the door. "I'll bet he could still handle a ratfucked radio better than anybody either of us know."
"I am assured of it," Nate agreed, one corner of his mouth finally curling up into a smile.
Brad had to look away. "I didn't know you were going to be in Oceanside."
You didn't tell me, he meant. He and Nate had exchanged holiday plans in emails a week ago; like most of their emails it had involved talking past each other slightly, never asking for anything directly. Nate had mentioned end-of-year insanity at his internship and a hectic schedule of family events. Brad had said he'd only be in California for half of Hanukkah, gone before Christmas. That had been the end of it.
"You didn't ask," Nate said lightly, and he might only mean that Brad hadn't asked for a clarification of his weekend plans immediately preceding Christmas, except that he added, "Cara did, a couple of days ago. I figured I could blow off a Friday at work for this."
Meaning he would have been willing to blow off a Friday for Brad. Meaning Brad had had the right to ask.
Brad had spent months now telling himself he was reading too much into Nate being friendly, wanting to keep in touch. Brad looked up again--Nate kept his hand in place though the t-shirt tugged under his grip--and Nate was looking down steadily. Brad thought that he might not have been reading nearly enough. He probably shouldn't mock Ray's HUMINT skills.
"I wouldn't have wanted to inflict holiday air travel on you, sir," Brad offered, because he had to say something, and it had to be something safe.
Nate's smile took up his entire mouth, now, unmistakable. Brad felt a jolt of pure want from the top of his head to his toes, blood rushing to his fingers as much as his dick. He'd spent so much time trying not to think about it, and now the dam burst. He clenched his fists tighter.
Nate's smile showed teeth for a second, as if he knew just what Brad was feeling. He lifted his hand from Brad's shoulder to fuss with the hat--straightening it to a perfect peak--as he leaned down to say, "Too bad. I would have liked letting you make it up to me."
"Nate," Brad said, and his voice was as unguarded as it had been when Nate had been standing in front of him, introducing himself to Santa. Nate's hand stayed resting lightly on top of the hat, and Nate didn't straighten up. "Tell me you have transport here."
Nate nodded slightly and said, "Need a cas-evac for that wounded dignity?"
"I'm going to," Brad said, unable to stop staring up at Nate, unable to stop wanting this now that he knew it had been on the table all this time. "If we don't get out of here soon, sir, I'm not going to be the only casualty."
Nate grinned again and said, "Pretty sure it's already too late for that, Brad, but I won't let you go off alone."
Brad finally found himself smiling back. "I'll hold you to that, sir."
They'd kissed themselves breathless and were half-undressed when it occurred to Brad that he'd kissed Nate for the first time somewhere back there in a half-lit hotel room blur of now now now. He pulled back for a second, just looking at Nate. Nate raised his eyebrows, grinning--lips pink and wet from kissing, cheeks flushed, green eyes bright--and said, "Not sure what comes next?"
Brad wasn't, on any level. He'd fantasized about Nate, but it was always like a porn flick: flimsy pretext and then improbably fantastic sex. Sometimes not even the flimsy pretext, just Nate's hands, Nate's mouth, Nate's cock. He'd never imagined kissing Nate--not like this, not standing up and making out without a clear objective beyond that. He'd never imagined going to a hotel room with Nate, and he'd never, ever imagined any kind of next.
"Spoiled for choice, sir," Brad said, almost without hesitating. He had one hand on Nate's side, skin to skin this time. His fingers were tucked into Nate's boxers, just touching the top curve of his ass. Nate had unzipped Brad's jeans, and even as Brad spoke Nate was palming Brad's hard-on through his jockeys. Brad's breath hitched, but he kept his expression neutral.
"That's easy," Nate said, and pressed closer to Brad, hand sliding excruciatingly slowly down to cup Brad's balls, still on the wrong side of his underwear, his lips not quite touching Brad's. "I'm going to suck you off."
Brad shuddered with need and converted the motion into a kiss, sliding his hands up to tug Nate a crucial half-inch closer. He could feel Nate smiling into the kiss, and Nate's fingers were still working on him; Brad's hips jerked once into the touch before he forced himself to be still, to focus on kissing Nate, the way their mouths fit together, the hot secret press of tongue, the rush of breath between them. Nate tasted like candy canes.
It was Nate who pushed back this time, turning his hand away from Brad's dick to shove Brad's jeans down.
"Clothes off," Nate ordered, already toeing off his go-fasters so he could get rid of his own hobbling pants. "And then sit down, I'm not blowing you up against a wall."
Brad grinned, arching an eyebrow as he got out of his own clothes. "Too hard on your knees, sir?"
"Not my knees I'm worried about," Nate said, shaking his head slightly. "I don't want you falling on me when yours give out."
"I've kept my feet under me despite the attentions of many talented professionals," Brad pointed out, even as he dropped into the armchair nearest the door. The fabric was smooth, it was decently padded, and it saved him having to walk three steps before Nate would go down on him.
Nate raised an eyebrow, and bent to pick up the Santa hat out of the scatter of their clothing, spinning it by the ball end as he stood there, naked and hard. He was on display for Brad, and he made Brad's mouth go dry like no whore ever had.
"Yeah," Nate said, walking over to stand between Brad's splayed knees. Brad looked up at him and Nate gave a crooked smile, dropping the hat onto Brad's head. "But none of them were me."
It wasn't arrogance, or a boast of sexual prowess. There was no mistaking the meaning of Nate's matter-of-fact words: he knew how much he mattered to Brad. He knew that it wasn't about how good he was; he knew he could weaken Brad's knees just by being himself, on his knees for Brad. That casual certainty made Brad's breath come short. Nate's smile turned to something else in the instant before he leaned down for a kiss, and then dropped to his knees.
Brad stayed where Nate's kiss had left him, head tilted against the back of the chair, and looked down at Nate through his eyelashes. Nate didn't look up; he planted his left hand low on Brad's belly and curled his right around Brad's cock, jacking him once, twice. Brad twitched up helplessly, into the press of Nate's hand, into the tightness of his fist. Nate planted an elbow on Brad's thigh--dull but serious pressure--and then lowered his head, parting his lips around the head of Brad's cock.
Brad bit his lip at the warm wetness of Nate's mouth on him; then Nate's tongue swiped slowly over him. Brad managed to keep his hips still, his thighs tensing hard--the pressure of Nate's elbow became a sudden flare of pain. He couldn't help reaching out, though, his hand settling on Nate's cheek, his thumb at the corner of Nate's mouth.
For that, Nate looked up. His stretched lips turned up at the corners, and he made an approving noise without taking his mouth off the head of Brad's dick. He held Brad's gaze as he inhaled, and then he closed his eyes--forehead wrinkling just a little in concentration--as he went down.
Then again, Brad thought, as his cock disappeared into the heat of Nate's mouth, Nate might have just been talking about his technical proficiency. He was good at it, good enough to make Brad push up--Nate pushed him back, holding him steady, but Brad couldn't resist. Nate wasn't good like a professional, or not like any professional Brad had ever hired. He kept his eyes closed as he concentrated, doing his own thing as he sucked Brad's cock; even the way he held Brad down felt like it was about keeping Brad from messing up the way he was running this. There was nothing submissive about Nate on his knees, any more than a sniper in the dust lining up his shot.
Brad just had to sit back and take it, and he did his best as Nate's mouth--and Nate's busy hands--sent shocks of pleasure through his body. His fingers and toes and the crown of his head tingled, every hair on his body standing on end. He rubbed his thumb along Nate's lips, along the side of his own cock, but even that didn't get Nate's attention anymore, and when Nate pushed up into his mouth Nate just pushed him back down.
"Nate," Brad finally said, and his breath was so ragged it was almost two syllables, but it made Nate look up.
"Nate," Brad repeated, and Nate pulled nearly off him--he was cradling Brad's balls with his hand, fingers pressing in just behind, his tongue moving slow and wet on the head of Brad's cock. Brad could hardly breathe. Meeting Nate's eyes didn't make that any easier, but he still felt compelled to talk, to say something. He couldn't think of anything safe, anything that wasn't given away already by the way he couldn't keep his voice steady. "Nate, fuck, please, please--"
Nate's mouth slid back down his cock, and Brad had to close his eyes against the rush of sensation. But there was no escaping Nate's hands, Nate's mouth, Nate's weight holding him still.
"Nate," Brad said, "Nate," and he hoped Nate understood that he meant it as a warning. He opened his eyes to meet Nate's as he came, and Nate didn't back off as Brad shook through it, not until Brad pushed him away. Nate smiled with abused red lips, and folded downward a little, sitting on his heels, pillowing his head on the arm folded on Brad's thigh. His other hand slid to rest on Brad's hip. Brad's own hand fell to his thigh, and he watched Nate catch his breath, his own breathing loud in his ears.
Nate's eyes fluttered just as Brad reached out to touch him again; Brad's hand was still hovering uncertainly in mid-air when Nate's eyes widened in sudden surprise. Brad raised an eyebrow. Nothing about him had changed in the two minutes Nate had his eyes closed. Nate shook his head minutely, and Brad tilted his in question--which made the hat slip lower on his head, and suddenly it was obvious what Nate had just now noticed.
Nate put one hand over his eyes, fingers splayed so he could still look through them at Brad, trying to look horrified while grinning uncontrollably.
"Well, Nate," Brad said, and for this it was easy to keep his voice steady. "You've been really good...."
Nate started laughing, snapping his fingers closed and squeezing his eyes shut.
"If you'll just get into my lap, I think you have another present coming," Brad added, grabbing Nate's biceps to haul him up.
"Oh, God, no, no, bad Santa," Nate said, trying to shove Brad away, but he was still laughing, and he didn't go for any of the obvious vulnerable spots or go limp to keep Brad from pulling him up. They scuffled a little--the chair rocked back into the wall and came down with a jolt--but Nate wound up on the chair with Brad, mostly on top of him, his dick pressed against Brad's belly and one of his legs folded up awkwardly between Brad's side and the arm of the chair. Brad had one hand on Nate's ass and the other clutching his wrist, both their arms extended straight out at an angle.
That left Nate with a hand free to do what he wanted with the hat, but after flicking the ball on the end of the hat so it bounced off Brad's cheek, Nate just leaned in to kiss him. He didn't taste like candy canes anymore. Brad smiled against Nate's mouth, tugging with his hand on Nate's ass to get Nate's hips moving against him. He could feel Nate's cock hardening between them, but even if he let go of Nate's wrist he didn't think he could get a hand on Nate's cock without pushing him away or tipping the chair over.
Nate didn't seem to have any leverage; he kept hitching his hips against Brad in tiny motions until Brad pushed off hard with one foot, knocking the chair back onto two legs again, resting against the wall. Brad let go of Nate's wrist to brace against the wall, and Nate's hand slapped down beside his--but Nate must have gotten a foot down, too, because he was thrusting against Brad now, his cock sliding hot against Brad's skin, his ass going taut under Brad's palm with every motion.
"If this chair breaks," Nate gasped against the side of Brad's throat.
"Santa's elves'll fix it," Brad promised.
Nate shook a little with laughter and muttered, "Fuck you."
"Not in this chair, sir," Brad pointed out, watching Nate's pink cheeks edge toward red, watching his mouth open and close on retorts he thought better of. Brad slid his hand up to the base of Nate's spine, settling his palm over that spot, and Nate's hips jerked under his hand, his thrusts speeding up. Nate leaned into another kiss without opening his eyes, but Brad met him there, licking into his mouth as Nate's cock jerked between them, come slicking skin for a last few thrusts.
Brad couldn't have said which one of them did it, but the chair thumped down onto all four legs again a few seconds after Nate went still, breaking their kiss apart. Nate hardly seemed to notice, slumped over Brad with his head tipped limply to one side.
Brad reached up and took the hat off, dropping it gently onto Nate's head.
Nate's shoulders shook silently for a few seconds before he opened the one eye not covered by the drooping hat and said, "Happy Hanukkah, Brad."
Brad grinned. He wrapped both arms around Nate and then heaved them both out of the chair, guiding their mutual stumble so that they fell safely--hat and all--onto the bed. Brad didn't let go when they'd landed, just kissed him again and said, "Merry Christmas, Nate."
When Brad got back to his quarters in Devon, he discovered that somebody--aided by magical reindeer named "paying ungodly sums of money for international shipping four days before Christmas"--had already been there. The box was slightly heavier than he'd expected.
When he opened it, he found not only the hat he'd been careful to leave behind in Nate's hotel room, but also a shiny new webcam, much nicer than anything he'd ever bothered to buy himself.
Brad shook his head slightly, and reached for his phone. Instead of texting some inanity to indicate that, indeed, Nate had not somehow missed hearing about a plane crash affecting the flight he knew Brad had been on, he tapped out Got your gift. We need to talk about this Santa problem of yours.
Nate texted back less than a minute later, Skype. One hour.
Brad grinned and sat down to configure the new hardware, already wearing the hat.