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Merry Christmas, baby
Sure did treat me nice
You bought all those good ol' presents
I love you, baby, rest of my life
“Come over,” Fred insists over the phone, “My mom just made cinnamon buns,” and, well. FP can resist a lot of things, but Bunny Andrews’ cinnamon buns aren’t one of them.
The Andrews house looks like a Christmas dream: multi-coloured glass lights trimming the eaves and windows and the pillars of the porch, looking as though they had been mounted by professionals instead of Artie Andrews’ folding aluminum ladder and Oscar and Fred’s snow-bitten hands. There’s a huge, pine-smelling wreath on the front door with a curled gold ribbon, and the pine tree out front is dazzling with another two strings of lights. Santas, candles, candy canes and snowflakes wink from each front-facing window, extension cords subtly running down the glass from these lit silhouettes into the warm house beyond. It’s the perfect mix of exuberant and tasteful, and though it may never be featured in Great Housekeeping , FP privately thinks it’s the nicest on the block.
He knocks nervously at the front door, sparkles of sunlight catching in the small window behind the wreath and winking in his eyes. Fred throws it open like he’d been waiting on the other side, sleigh bells hanging from the doorknob jingling merrily, and FP’s senses are momentarily overwhelmed by the warm light and the interior heat and the sound of laughter and chatter that pours out from inside the small home.
“Come in!” He shouts, holding the door wide. FP steps over the threshold in his frozen sneakers, inhaling the smell of baking that automatically hits his face, mingling with the pine scent. Over Fred’s shoulder, a dazzling Christmas tree stretches right to the ceiling in the living room, lights winking and twinkling so fast and bright that FP gets dizzy looking at it. Tinsel dangles from every branch, a train making its merry mechanical rounds of the dusty red tree skirt. A few gift bags and boxes are already heaped up beneath it, though FP remembers Fred’s family usually puts out the bulk of their presents after church tonight.
Fred’s hands push his back, steering him towards the kitchen, where the sound of Artie and Oscar’s laughter is emanating from the doorway. FP presses back into his hand, suddenly shy.
“I should have brought a gift or something, at least,” he mumbles.
Fred scoffs. “Are you kidding? You’re practically family, come on-!”
FP’s pushed lovingly into the Andrews’ kitchen, where Oscar and Artie are laughing at the table, empty holly-patterned plates smeared with icing before them, helping themselves to a dish of nuts in the middle of the table. The dining room is equally well-decorated: handmade cross-stitch holiday tapestries on the wall, ornaments dangling from the light fixture, and garlands along the mirror. Bunny is at the stove and kitchen island, seemingly simultaneously serving the cinnamon buns, whipping up Christmas cookies, and stuffing tissue paper into a gift bag.
“FP’s here for cinnamon buns!” Fred announces, and Oscar and Artie turn to look at him without their usual suspicion. Both of their eyes are warm, mirror images of Fred’s own cocoa brown. Bunny wipes a lock of hair out of her eyes, flicking flour on her forehead.
“Grab him a plate, Fred,” she prods her youngest, otherwise seemingly unconcerned with FP’s presence. Fred heads for the cupboards, and FP hovers awkwardly by the table, not sure where to sit.
“Alright,” Bunny calls over her shoulder, “I need to leave in twenty minutes to help Prudence at the church with the gift baskets for the seniors’ home. You’re all going to be back here at two-thirty to do our family photo, all right? And I need someone to take these cookies out of the oven when it beeps, and put them in the garage to cool, okay? They’ll be done in ten minutes.”
“Yes, dear,” Artie replies, more concerned with the newspaper crossword than the contents of the oven. His expensive pen scratches across the page.
Bunny sighs and moves Fred out of the way with her gentle hands, crossing the kitchen to check something on the already-overloaded Andrews family calendar. Her hands land on each of FP’s shoulders, pushing him down into a chair. “FP, sit. Eat.” Fred appears back at his side with a plate, and FP focuses on the tray of fresh, warm cinnamon buns in the centre of the table. He helps himself to one, feeling buzzy with joy as his fingers sink into the soft sides of a cinnamon bun as wide as his palm. His stomach grows audibly, and his mouth waters at the smell.
“Did you get icing?” Oscar asks, offering FP a bowl of extra glaze and a spoon. FP takes some eagerly, drizzling it onto his cinnamon bun after a nervous glance at Fred’s plate to make sure he hadn’t taken too much.
“Oscar, sweetheart, you’re getting off work early tonight, right?” Bunny’s drying a mixing bowl in FP’s peripheral, lifting it back into the well-rummaged baking cabinet.
“I’m trying, Mom.” Oscar squares his shoulders importantly. “It’s an important job, you know. And I’m covering for two people.”
“You’re selling peppermint schnapps, Oscar, it’s not open heart surgery,” Fred quips, dumping another cinnamon bun on FP’s plate and taking another of his own.
“Oh, you don’t want me to buy you and your loser friends alcohol?” Oscar shoots back, raising an eyebrow as he digs into an orange from the centre of the table. “My mistake, I thought you were begging me last night.”
“SHH!” Fred almost bellows, smashing an icing-covered finger to his lips. He clearly tries to kick Oscar under the table, but Artie jumps instead, holding his leg and frowning sternly at his son.
“Ouch, Fred, what on earth-”
“Artie, dear, would you pick up some more fruit while I’m at the church?” Bunny asks, raising her voice over the sound of her sons squabbling. “I want to try that fondue tonight. Prudence and Lewis were just raving about it-”
Fred nudges FP’s knee with his and fixes him with a radiant smile. “You wanna go out to the van after?”
Bunny glances up at them. “What did I hear about alcohol, Fred?”
Artie looks up sharply from his crossword puzzle, but Fred’s face is as innocent as a child’s.
“I asked Oscar to buy me a bottle of wine to give to Mrs. Carmine,” he says angelically, naming their elderly neighbour. “I thought it would be nice to get her a present after I used her lawn for a shortcut all year.”
“That’s so sweet of you, honey,” Bunny says, and Fred shoots Oscar a cheesy grin.
“Do you need any help?” FP asks Fred’s mother, who’s moved on to scooping the last tray of cookies.
“Oh, no, sweetie, don’t worry,” Bunny beams, wiping her hands on her apron. “We’re having a nice, relaxed Christmas Eve this year. No going out of town or hosting relatives, just the family. I’ve got everything under control.”
The chaos in the kitchen looks like anything but relaxation, but Bunny’s glowing, so FP will take her word for it. Some of his worry must have shown on his face, though, because Bunny leaves her post at the kitchen island to put her arms around him. She smells like cookies and lilac perfume.
“Not you, dear,” she says. “You are family. You’re welcome here anytime.”
“Geez, Oscar, use a little more icing, will you?” Fred suddenly yells. He pulls the bowl away from his brother and dollops a healthy amount on FP’s bare cinnamon bun. “FP didn’t get enough.”
Oscar sticks his tongue out like he’s twelve instead of twenty-one. FP’s stomach growls again when his gaze lands back on his plate, and he takes a huge bite of his cinnamon bun. It’s heavenly - soft as cotton, and tooth-achingly sweet. He doesn’t think he’s ever tasted anything this flavourful before. He devours it in huge bites, for once not self conscious about how much he’s eating. The table is almost toppling under the weight of all the snacks and treats laid out on it.
Bunny is back to doling out instructions, while everyone at the table dives for thirds and fourths before they vanish.
“Fred, please, please no sledding until after the family picture. You can have a black eye in the Christmas Day pictures, but not this one.”
“Yes, mom,” Fred answers obediently. He grins at FP with his mouth full, a smear of icing caught on his top lip. FP privately hopes he won’t catch it until FP has the chance to lick it off.
“Did you get one, Mrs. Andrews?” he asks politely. Bunny winks at him.
“I’ve had two.” She slides the last tray of cookies into the oven, unhooking her apron and whisking it off to display a bright red Christmas sweater pinned with no less than three Christmas brooches. She squeezes FP’s shoulders as she sidles past him towards the stairs. “Eat up. Fred’s dying to swap presents with you. It’s all he’s been talking about.”
Sure enough, when they’ve eaten their fill, Fred hops up from the table and dashes to the tree. He drags out the biggest present from underneath the branches, the contents clanging noisily.
“Come on, FP,” he urges. “I wanna swap presents in the van.”
It was so typical of Fred to turn up with a present the size of a horse. FP’s own gift for Fred is burning a hole in his pants pocket, nowhere near this size. He gets up obediently and follows him.
“Fred!” Artie calls from the table. Fred’s father unclasps his wristwatch and tosses it to his youngest in an easy underhand, which Fred picks out of the air like a baseball. “The timer’s set for two-fifteen. Don’t keep your mother waiting for this photo.”
“I promise,” Fred vows, sliding the watch into his pocket. Reliable as Fred usually is, FP’s never seen him check a wristwatch when he’s distracted with something else. He’s not even sure Fred owns one. He gives his dad a cheeky grin before he skips out of the room. “Don’t forget the cookies!” Fred hollers back over his shoulder.
Fred lugs the massive gift all the way down the front steps and across the lawn before stopping in a snowdrift and giving FP his most angelic look.
“Will you carry this for me?” He gives FP’s bicep a firm squeeze, running his hands silkily up and down the sleeves of FP’s worn-out coat. “You have those big strong football arms, and mine are just little noodles.” He puts on a pleading face, wrapping his arms around FP from behind. “And you have this big strong chest…”
FP makes a show of heaving a big sigh so Fred will know he’s not a fool - Fred has a pretty nice chest too, for the record - but the flattery works on him, like it always does. He picks up the heavy present and lugs it towards the van.
The Shaggin’ Wagon is parked at the back of the Andrews driveway, leaking a patch of something rusty red onto the asphalt. Both boys instinctively squint at the colour to ascertain if this is a new leak or not. The van looks horrifically out of place beside Oscar’s car - a beautifully restored steel blue Ford Galaxie - and Artie’s gleaming clean Buick. But it does match the festive decorations on the house: Fred and FP had hung a wreath on the front and strung Christmas lights and garlands haphazardly around the vehicle’s exterior. Gaudy plastic candy canes tied to the grill completed the picture. Tacky as it was, they went a long way towards obscuring some of the more significant damage to the body - including a mean swipe from Hermione’s keyring the last time she and Fred had fought.
Oscar’s car is boxing them in, but Fred slides a pair of keys out of his pocket like a magician and hops in the front of the Galaxie. FP spares a nervous glance towards the house in case Oscar hears them touching his baby, but Fred peels out into the street and parks his brother’s car against the curb with speed and expertise. Then he’s bounding back up the driveway, peeling open the rusty doors at the back of the van and tossing the heavy present in like it’s feather-light. It crashes when it lands, so hard that FP’s starting to suspect he’s unwrapping a new set of cymbals for his drum kit.
“Oscar’s got another set of keys,” Fred promises FP as they slide into the front of the van. “He’ll live without these for the afternoon.”
They’d installed a full bench seat, so FP sits right up against Fred as he rummages for his own keys and fires up the engine. It splutters and roars, the exhaust pipes belching black smoke, and then the van rattles into life. Fred immediately twists the knob for the heater, aiming the vents into the front cab so they’re toasty warm. A pine air freshener that gave up its fragrant ghost long ago jangles happily from the rearview mirror as they roll down the driveway into the street. FP’s hand sneaks onto Fred’s thigh below the dashboard, exactly where it belongs.
Fred drives them through the well-decorated streets of his suburb and out towards the highway, passing the forest he and FP used to camp out in as kids and the town’s best tobogganing hill. He misses the turn-off for the highway and leads the VW down an old unpaved road, passing handsome farmhouses, sparse woodland, and snowy fields speckled with horses and cows. When they pass the Christmas Tree farm that grows the trees Pop’s sells - everyone on the North side gets trees from Pop’s, everyone on the South relies on Junkyard Steve - Fred drives for about five more minutes and then pulls the van gently off the road and parks it by an old wooden fence.
FP looks out the window, his breath fogging the glass despite the heater’s best efforts. The field beyond the wooden fence is white and snowy, and pine trees make a green carpet in the distance. A few of them stand right up along the road, shielding the van slightly from the road. Fred unsnaps his seatbelt and squeezes over the bench seat into the back.
“Plug this in,” he orders, handing FP an inexplicable strand of wire to push into the cigarette lighter.
FP obeys, and suddenly the dim back of the VW bus is drenched in rainbow light. FP clambers over the bench seat and stares around the small quarters in awe. Fred has decorated the entire inside of the van. A string of colourful incandescent Christmas lights swoops around the perimeter of the walls, crisscrossing over the ceiling before it runs over the bench into the front of the cab. Ball-shaped ornaments have been hooked on the wires, festive red and gold and green, some shaped like stars. Christmas music keeps spilling from the radio. Fred’s spread blankets out on the floor and pillows up against the walls, so many that the van resembles nothing so much as the inside of a tent. But the piece de resistance is in the center: a tiny artificial Christmas tree, fully decorated, whose stand has been aggressively duct-taped down to the center of the floor.
Fred pulls him forcefully down onto the pillows, FP giving in easily so that they land tangled up on top of each other, Fred’s grabby hands squeezing his sides, his arms, his cheeks.
“I decorated it,” he gushes, turning over so that they’re laying side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, with no space in between them, staring at the ceiling. The warm weight of Fred’s shoulder pins FP to the floor, one of his legs tangling over FP’s and hooking their ankles together. They had been talking about decorating the inside of the van, but with December reaching its usually hectic pace, FP had assumed it had fallen by the wayside.
FP settles himself on a pillow pilfered from the Andrews basement, arms crossed behind his head as he stares up at the Christmas lights on the ceiling. He feels something he doesn’t feel very often - safe and at ease. Completely relaxed. Home. The warmth of the blankets bleeds up through his back, a soft cushion through which he can barely feel the floor.
“It’s okay if you didn’t get me anything,” Fred says suddenly, rolling over to face FP. Despite the season, his skin still has a healthy bronze glow, his cheeks and ears tinged pink and his brown eyes sparkling. “You’re my favourite gift. All I need is you.”
FP’s mouth drops open in mock offence. “Didn’t get you anything! Is that what you think?”
“Well-” Fred looks around himself, as though scanning for FP’s present to appear. “I didn’t know if you had time.”
“What do you call this?” FP demands, lifting his hips so he can get at Fred’s present from where it’s wedged deep in his pocket. FP extracts the small bundle from his jeans, sloppily wrapped in newsprint and far too much tape. Fred’s face lights up like the Spacy’s parade.
“Can I open it!” he begs as soon as the gift lands in his hot little hands. FP has to laugh at his enthusiasm.
“Of course,” he says, and Fred dives into the wrapping. He manages to unpeel the worst of the tape, folding back the crumpled newsprint to get at what lies in the center. When he has the wrapping unfolded, his mouth drops open. FP watches him with bated breath.
Fred looks up with his mouth open, the gift in his palm. He looks so shocked that FP feels like Fred’s going to tell him there’s been a mistake. But then he smiles the most perfect, awed smile that FP’s ever seen. “FP, it’s so beautiful,” he whispers, as if the gift can hear him.
He’s holding a buttery leather wallet, warm camel brown with neat, precise stitching. It’s gloriously expensive, the type of man’s wallet advertised as a gift for the fathers and husbands and fiancees of the upper middle class. It’s the kind of gift you’re supposed to get a boyfriend you love more than the whole world.
Fred’s own cracked and flattened faux-leather wallet has belonged to him since middle school, and Oscar before that - Fred was the sentimental type who couldn’t bear to throw anything out - and constant unfolding, at the arcade, the bowling alley, the movies, every time their heap of junk got pulled over, had worn it to threads. The last few times they’d been out together, FP had been convinced the seams were going to give, and Fred’s spare change - not to mention his driver’s license and his zillion mementos - were going to rain down all over the snow. It hadn’t happened yet, but the day was coming.
FP’s been wanting his whole life to give Fred a gift like this. It’s what he considers the type of gift Hermione would get a suitor - in the league with a bottle of cologne, a wristwatch, a pricey scarf. And thanks to a tricky bit of five-finger-discount work - no ordinary shoplift, since the wallets at Spiffany’s Department Store were kept under glass - he finally could. He fishes in another pocket while Fred’s opening all the compartments of the wallet, admiring it with starry eyes. His chest feels like it’s going to burst with pride when Fred starts transferring his money over, stuffing old movie and concert tickets back in his new wallet as if they’re just as valuable as the bills.
“And I got you these too,” FP says, pulling a pair of earmuffs out of his coat. Those had been an easy snag from the store accessories display on the way out. He reaches out and puts them firmly down over Fred’s ballcap, brushing his hair back and tucking them carefully into place. “Your little ears are always cold.”
Fred’s bare fingers fly up to hold FP’s hands in place over his ears. His eyes shine with love, a blush spilling across his nose and cheeks.
“Wow, Effie,” he says lovingly - a very seldom used nickname from childhood that never fails to make FP turn bright pink. His smile is so big that the skin around his eyes is crinkled tight. “You really love me.”
FP blushes. He has a hard time saying it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. With Fred’s delicate face cupped in his hands, Christmas lights making rainbows on his boyfriend’s skin, he feels like he’s holding the most precious gift in the whole world.
“I should open yours,” he manages to choke out, hoping Fred won’t notice how sentimental he’s feeling.
It works immediately - Fred loves gift-giving even more than receiving. Earmuffs still on his head, he drags the box with its enormous bow in front of FP’s lap and eagerly helps him untie the ribbon.
FP opens the big box and finds himself staring down into mounds of colourful tissue. He rustles through them and pulls out the first thing his hand closes on - a plastic spatula.
With a curious glance at Fred, he pulls out a heavier item - a silver cooking pot with a lid. Piece by piece he uncovers a mismatched set: a small black quart pan, a scuffed silver saucepan, a deep shining pot and a shiny new frying pan. Added in are a half-dozen wooden utensils, tied together with a candy-cane-striped bow.
“Most of them are from the thrift store,” Fred explains. “But I went back over and over to make sure I got nice ones. I wanted you to have the best.”
“Oh, wow,” FP says slowly. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t cookware. Fred shoves him playfully, pretending to be offended by the mild reaction.
“They’re for your trailer! It’s about time you had a functioning kitchen. And good news. These pots come with a free dinner cooked and prepared just for you, by yours truly.” Fred beams, and FP smiles eagerly right back. There’s nothing he likes better than nibbling Fred’s neck when he’s cooking.
When his father had thrown him out that year, he’d thought briefly his life was over. But ever since he’d secured his own trailer, he had realized he could finally have a life of his own. Not one lived in fear. And when Fred helped him buy groceries or tangled up next to him on the bare mattress where he slept on the floor, playing domestic even though FP’s trailer had approximately one stick of furniture to speak of - it held the promise of something like a beautiful future.
“Thank you,” he says, touched now by the housewares.
“Oh,” Fred adds, sliding a hard, flat object wrapped in tissue out of the box. “And don’t forget this.”
FP opens it. He’s looking down at a photo frame enclosing a picture of himself and Fred, beaming and shirtless, the summer they’d fixed this van. Their arms are around each others’ shoulders, their heads tilted together. A sturdy pane of glass covers their beaming smiles. FP doesn’t smile for pictures a lot - his class photo in the yearbooks is shaping up to be four years of toothless grimaces. But in this one, he’s beaming like a little kid who just discovered saying Cheese. The border of the frame is hand-painted, a grassy green fading to summer-sky blue. And with a start, FP realizes he’s not looking at a photo after all. The soft shading of coloured pencils gives it away. Fred had drawn this by hand.
“To hang on your wall?” Fred suggests. “It’s all bare at your new place. I thought this could be the first.”
FP feels a lump in his throat as he holds the sentimental gift. It must have taken him untold hours. The picture blurs in his vision until it’s just a smudge. The Christmas lights catch in the dull silver sides of the pots and pans and gleam in his eyes.
“Are you crying!” Fred spoke up. “Over this? You big baby. You’re worse than my mom.”
“There’s something in my eye,” FP lies, rubbing his right eye with his knuckles to dislodge a nonexistent eyelash. Fred tackles him in a huge hug, knocking the lid of the saucepan off.
“Don’t cry now,” he pleads, laughing warmly in FP’s ear. “I have something else, too.”
“How?” FP manages to say. He didn’t think he could take any more sentiment and keep a shred of his dignity intact. It was hard to be a tough guy around Fred on the best of days. He was out of luck over Christmas, especially when Fred was pulling stuff like this.
Fred beams and roots in his pocket. “Close your eyes.”
FP does, wondering warily when he’s going to be asked to put his hand out or stick out his tongue. But Fred doesn’t touch him. He feels the weight of the van shift as Fred gets up, and then sits back down.
“Open.”
Fred just sits in front of him, cross-legged, cheeks pink and excited, his hair sticking up from under his hat. FP stares at him, but can’t place anything different. “What?”
“Look up.”
FP does. There’s a sprig of real mistletoe, tied with a red ribbon, dangling from the string of lights directly over their heads. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised - Fred’s never too far from mistletoe on the holidays.
“I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you what to do,” Fred prompts, smiling mischievously.
“C’mere,” FP growls, and pulls Fred into his arms for the first of many hot, messy, cinnamon-flavoured kisses.
Artie’s watch alarm rouses them right on schedule. Fred presses the pedal down to the floor on the way home, the van doing its best attempt at a nimble thirty-four miles an hour, pulling his jeans back up at the same time and zipping them while FP works the clutch.
“Are you going to the mall?” FP asks. Most families in Riverdale suffer through Christmas portraits in front of one of the many backdrops at the mall photo studio, duplicating glossy 5x7s to send out with their Christmas cards. But Fred shakes his head.
“Dad’s all about saving money this year.” His messy hair is sticking up in all directions, the picture of bedhead. FP tries to smooth it down a little with his hand. “We’re doing it in front of our tree. He’s got that nice camera with the timer.”
Artie only brings out his good camera for special occasions. He’s setting it up on the tripod when they stroll in the door, Fred cheerfully skipping up the stairs to comb his hair and quickly re-dress in the outfit his parents had approved: a green collared shirt with a red-and-green plaid vest and his most uncomfortable dress pants. Oscar’s outfit is the same, but his vest is dark green. Fred’s halfway down the stairs towards the tree when Oscar catches him by the arm and drags him back up.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Fred cries indignantly, but Oscar gives him an evil eye that silences him as swiftly as if he’d glued his mouth shut. Looking both ways, his older brother drags Fred into the bathroom and slams the door.
“You really are an idiot,” Oscar comments blithely.
“What the hell are you-” Fred’s voice fades out as he catches a look at his reflection in the mirror. His collar had shifted, showing a trio of enormous purple hickeys spilled up the skin of his neck. He touches them with a wince. “Oh, oops.”
“I don’t know who you had in your van,” Oscar remarks, rummaging under the bathroom sink and coming up with some of their mother’s makeup, “Or why you couldn’t wait an hour, but you need to tell her to lay off the teeth.”
Fred grins and sits quietly while Oscar attacks his neck with his mother’s concealer. When he’s done, Fred stares in the mirror in genuine amazement. The marks had completely vanished under what looked like smooth, unbroken skin.
“This is good!” Fred says in shock. His jaw drops, thunderstruck with sudden realization. “Oscar,” he bellows accusingly, “You’ve done this before! You dog!”
“This is the gratitude I get for saving Christmas,” Oscar grumbles, and shoves Fred down the stairs ahead of him just as Bunny’s voice floats up the stairs.
“Boys, what are you doing up there?”
FP’s awkwardly sitting on the couch downstairs when they re-emerge, though he still hides a snicker at Fred’s outfit, turning it into a polite cough when Artie looks at him. They all assemble in front of the radiant Christmas tree, and FP gets the honour of pushing the button on the attached remote control that takes the photograph.
When they’ve posed for a dozen portraits, and Artie seems satisfied that at least one will be usable, Fred begs to pull FP in for a photo, despite him being dressed in a sloppy band tee and black jeans that are hanging on by a thread. To FP’s surprise, neither Artie nor Bunny tries to dissuade him. FP presses the button and lets Fred yank him into the frame before the timer goes, an arm around his shoulders, holding him front and center.
When they get their photos back, Bunny frames a 4x6 copy of the one with FP in his band tee and jeans, and nestles it on their spindly bookshelf next to their CDs and an old photo of her grandma. FP even makes a copy for his trailer.
He’s family, after all.