A Touch of Mistletoe (14 page)

Derek's hand dropped to the floor and felt around for several seconds. Future-Scott used that stretch to catch Derek, turn Derek's chin, and seal their mouths together. When Derek lifted with a bottle in his hand, he had to fight playfully to be released again. Chuckling at Future-Scott's smirk, Derek upended the bottle and squeezed a healthy run of lubrication into his palm. From there to Scott's cock... from there back to his own... and Derek rose to his knees, lined up their bodies, and sank, completely bare and impossibly slow, pulling a grunt of needy appreciation from both Scotts.

Scott braced his hands under his chin and leaned against them. With half-lidded eyes he watched Derek and himself carry each other higher.

Dru leaned against Scott's arm, distracting Scott just enough to make him listen. "Better things are coming."

Future-Scott's hands found each of Derek's hips and he thrust hard. Scott's own hips ground his groin into the carpet. Derek responded with a pleased shout, and both Scotts followed it with a groan.

Better than porn any day, Scott decided. Whether it was proximity, or the connection to what he was watching, Scott hadn't been able to get that hard from rocking his hips against another surface since he was a teenager. It had his heart pounding and his mind spinning.

The tempo increased, both on the couch and beneath Scott's body. Derek gasped out something that could have been either a plea for mercy or a plea for more.

Scott panted into his interlaced fingers, and Future-Scott's chest rose and fell in perfect synchronization. When Future-Scott put his head back, clenched his teeth and growled, Scott couldn't help but parrot him. The aura of the room was brilliant, the flames almost too high and too hot, and as the two men on the couch writhed and rutted, Scott was sure that the culmination of energies were gathering in his own body. Pleasure receptors in Scott's head bounced off their maximum load indicators, and in a breath-stealing moment of 'oh, God, this is really happening' Scott dropped his forehead to the carpet and shoved his hips into the floor with a shout.

Future-Scott echoed it.

Derek gasped out a series of notes that started and died, started and died.

Scott breathed carpet dust and lint, all but gasping as his body shuddered through completion. One shot and bliss rushed through his body, another shot and tension and anxiety washed away, a final series of trembling hitches and all that mattered was drawing oxygen, releasing oxygen, and rest.

The carpet softened underneath him. Background noises faded to the sound of his own deep breathing, and the barely-there sounds of the radio Scott always kept on beside his bed.

He hardly felt the tiny hand on his back. "Merry Christmas, Scott."

*~*~*

Scott opened his eyes to bleary sunshine, meandering through the cobwebs of a dream that seemed too pleasant to give up—until he rolled over on to his back, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hand, and felt the wet, cold stain between him and the mattress.

"Seriously?" Scott flung the sheets aside and stared, shaking his head. Well, go figure. He scratched his head. Whatever had been in his scotch must have been damned good. Or damned bad. Either way. He'd not had a dream that was vivid enough to actually get him off since he was a teenager. But there were certainly worse reasons to have to change the sheets. At least they'd be all rainforest-spring-waterfall-whatever-fresh when he climbed into them again.

As he stripped the bed, tossed the linen, and remade the bed, the dream kept creeping into his thoughts, no matter how many time he tried to push it away. By the time he stood back, staring at the bed, he was worrying his lip with his teeth and questioning everything. It
was
a dream. Of course. Plastic decorations didn't just come to life... his brow softened, his eyes brightened. The mistletoe.

Suddenly he needed to see it. To touch it. Fuck it, Scott thought, he needed to hang it or some damn thing. Literally, even, as opposed to the figurative hanging he'd wanted to give it last night. Besides, it would look festive if he got company. After all, if Derek—

He stopped himself mid-step and sighed. That was, for all intents and purposes, probably not even the man's name. The guy probably was, actually, married with kids. "It was a
dream
," Scott repeated out loud.

Scott stepped into the living room. He lifted his eyes to the brilliant, almost prismatic sunlight that streamed in through the glass. Snow had fallen overnight, and the view elicited a smile. Kids everywhere were waking up to the realization that not only had Santa come and gone, he'd brought snow too. Christmas magic, à la Mother Nature.

He closed his eyes and drew a breath. And wasn't that what the dream had been trying to tell him? There didn't need to be a Derek, that wasn't the point. The point was that there
would be
a Derek. He just had to hold on, and stop his heart from hardening any more than it already had. Maybe even, if it was possible, work on trying to reverse some of the damage he'd already done to the poor thing.

So, yes, he would hang the stupid plastic plant. If for nothing else, it would remind him to keep looking for... How did that go? The beautiful inside the ugly? Or... he shook his head... something like that.

Ten minutes later, after he'd checked the garbage, the bag, the kitchen floor, and still couldn't find the decoration, Scott was at the point of panic. It seemed important, somehow, that he had proof that either the damn plastic nothing was still in the damn apartment, or that it
had
sprung to life and spent the night giving him a reason to hope. It didn't matter which, it just mattered that he had something. At least then he'd know he wasn't completely insane. At least then he'd know he hadn't imagined everything including the damn mistletoe.

Nausea slipped through his stomach. Hell, maybe he'd imagined the whole incident at the store. Maybe he'd never even been in the damn store.

Scott stumbled across the kitchen and yanked open the freezer. Five neatly stacked bags of dark-roast coffee huddled against one another, less the one he'd tucked into the cupboard. Scott sighed and ran his hand over his face. Maybe he should just go get a newspaper and have a coffee. That, at least, sounded sane.

He set up the coffee pot, flicked the power switch, and snagged his keys. He didn't bother with a coat; the vending machine was only six steps from the front door of the lobby. He'd survive.

He worked his feet into his slip-shoes, cleverly designed to look like unlaced sneakers that had been kicked around for a couple of centuries, and tugged open the door.

He hadn't meant to yank it so hard or so suddenly, Scott hadn't really been thinking about anything by that point at all. So when the young man walking by squawked in real surprise, Scott's reaction was to offer a squawk right back. Until they caught each other's eyes.

Derek...

"Oh..." the man said, stunned.

"You... I... wow." Scott stepped back and tilted his head. It was definitely the man from the store. The man whose face Scott had placed on his dream-crush. Weird. All kinds of weird. "I didn't know you lived in this building."

"I don't," the man said quickly. "I mean, I do for the moment. But not usually. My sister..." he thumbed down the hall. "My sister does. I just went to get—"

"Your sister." Scott's eyebrows crept up his forehead. "I thought she was your wife."

The man snorted, and instead of Scott's normal reaction of cringing in horror at the sound, Scott smiled.

"No," the man said around a chuckle. "My sister. I'm staying with her and her kids over the holidays."

Scott nodded. His smile deepened. "Your sister," he repeated.

The man looked up, caught his bottom lip with his teeth, and grinned. "Yeah. Sister."

A million conversation starters came to mind, and Scott shot every one of them down immediately. They didn't feel nearly intimate enough for a man that Scott had already seen not only naked, but writhing in full-blown bliss. "Listen," Scott finally blurted. "I'm really sorry about the attitude at the store. Totally uncalled for—"

"No, no!" A hand was raised, traffic-cop style. "Please. Don't even think about it. Everybody's patience is a little thin over the holidays—"

"I insist," Scott said firmly. "There's never a good reason to take out your frustration on a kid. Certainly not with such a..." he paused, gathered courage, "obviously sweet guy." He held out his hand, and tried to ignore its nervous tremble. If he could, maybe the other man would as well. "I'm Scott."

The man smiled, and once again snagged his bottom lip before replying. "Um, cool." He licked his lip and Scott wondered if he'd drawn blood. "Nice to meet you, Scott." He reached for Scott's hand with the caution of a wild animal accepting a treat. "I'm Derek."

The name fell into the hallway with the weight of a boulder. Scott was so shocked, he stepped back, feigning a choke into a cough.

Derek's forehead creased into a look of concerned oh-fuck-what-have-I-done. "Are you okay?"

Scott nodded, probably too quickly and too hard, but he was giving himself kudos for managing any part of the process at that point. "Good. I'm good."

He took a breath to center himself, and lifted his eyes to the ceiling of the hallway, just to give himself one second of not having to look into Derek's brown ones, and wondered if Derek wore a scar under his shirt.

And hanging from the doorjamb, a good six inches above both their heads, was the plastic ball of mistletoe.

Whether Derek tracked Scott's gaze, or just saw it at the same time, Scott didn't notice. But when Derek offered a mortified, "I didn't put that there," Scott laughed.

"Long story," Scott said, holding up both hands in a gesture of surrender, albeit to the Universe, Dru, or Derek's confused expression, Scott didn't dare to pick. "Though I'd love to tell you all about it over coffee sometime."

Derek lifted his eyebrows, nodded to the side, and pinched his lips in an entirely too cute inside-out kiss. "How about now?"

Scott paused, made a sound of consideration, and finally shook his head. "When I said sometime, I actually meant, like, our fiftieth anniversary."

Derek's eyes widened and his face broke into a grin.

Scott laughed. "But I'm completely up for sharing a coffee if you'd like."

"I would," Derek said. And as if reconsidering a need for clarification, "Like that. I would like that."

Scott stepped to the side and opened the door wider. "Me too."

Ad Meliora

E.E. Ottoman

Originally the plan had been to go to An-An's grandparents' for Christmas.

Every year for as long as she could remember, her mother, father, and sisters had made the journey to Texas to spend Christmas with her grandparents on their ranch. Christmas with her grandparents also unfortunately meant attending their creepy evangelical mega church on Christmas Eve. But the rest of the holiday had always been something An-An looked forward to.

Since moving away from home, An-An had driven to her parents' house a few days early before catching a flight into Dallas on the 23
rd
. That gave her plenty of time to be caught up on the family gossip, and see all the new pictures of her niece and nephew.

This year, though, would be different; she'd known that from the beginning. Because this year there was M.C. to consider.

Just how different it would be hadn't really sunk in until she was running for her life through knee-deep snow.

It turned out M.C. didn't really do Christmas the way An-An's family did, with presents and cookies. Instead, there was a lot more mayhem and death.

*~*~*

The tires of An-An's truck crunched over the mixture of snow and gravel as she guided it off the semi-paved country road onto a narrow dirt one. As far as she could tell, the drive was barely a path through the heavy woods that had lined the road they'd just been on.

She squinted out the windshield, debating putting on her headlights; the surrounding trees and sky heavy with more snow made it hard to see the road.

"Are we almost there?" She asked M.C., who sat in the passenger seat frowning down at her phone.

"Very nearly." M.C. glanced up long enough to scan the road in front of them before consulting her phone again. "The lodge should be right up here."

An-An turned back to the road feeling dubious. Despite her trepidations, after a few minutes the trees opened up to create a large clearing, with a winding drive. Bright floodlights blinked on as soon as they pulled up the drive, bathing the lawn and house in white light. The house was huge faux-hunting lodge, complete with log frame, double chimneys, a porch and garage. The drive wound around a small lawn covered in snow and up to the garage. An-An parked in front of it. "Is this it?"

M.C. nodded, tucked her phone into her coat pocket, and reached for the car door. "This is it. The Morgan family has spent every holiday season here for generations."

Pushing open the driver door, An-An climbed out, boots crunching against the snow. The place looked like the idealistic log cabin in the woods, but on steroids. "Nice place, big, fancy, looks like it's a bitch to heat though."

"Probably is." M.C. stuck her gloved hands in her pockets and stared up at the large house. "But the Morgan family is not short on money." She dug in a pocket, pulled out a key. "Shall we look inside?"

"I can't believe they're actually paying us to stay here," An-An said as she followed M.C. up the steps onto the porch and watched her unlock the front door.

"It's not such a good deal when you remember that two people have died violently." M.C. smiled over her shoulder as she pushed open the front door and led the way into the house.

After stamping the snow off, M.C. bent to undo the buckles on her boots. An-An gaped at the giant stone fireplace surrounded by lush leather couches, and watched over by the glass eyes of a large stag head. Chandeliers made from even more stag antlers hung from the rough-hewn wooden rafters overhead. An-An couldn't imagine owning all this just to use for only a few weeks out of the year.