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Ransom was tired, but what else was new. He was on a gruelling 7-days on, 7-days off, 7-7 schedule at the hospital. It was rewarding work, but most nights, especially towards the end of the week, he was just about done when he got home.
Fortunately, he thought, as he unlocked the front door and kicked off his boots, it’s ringette night. That meant Holster was at the rink with the kids, and they wouldn’t be back for a whole hour. It was a fucking luxurious amount of time to himself and the possibilities were endless. He could take a nap, read his book, have a bubble bath, listen to some music, work out, make lunches for tomorrow, do the dishes, fix the toilet, pick up all the toys and miscellaneous kid-related debris around the house, sit on the couch and stare into the middle distance…
He eventually settled on that last one, and after what couldn’t have been more than one minute of being properly zoned out, he heard the familiar crunch of minivan tires on gravel, slamming doors and the clomp, clomp, clomp of tiny feet on the snow-dusted front steps.
“Second wind, Justin, you got this,” he said aloud as he rose to his feet.
He could hear a muffled chant through the door, then suddenly:
“Pizza night! Pizza night!!! PIZZZZZAAAAA NIGGGHHHTTTT!!!!!!!!!!”
The door burst open and Ransom couldn’t help but smile as his husband and three kids crashed into the front hall, hooting and hollering, tossing hats and mitts and skate-bags this way and that. The eldest left a trail of icy puddles down the hall to the kitchen where she triumphantly deposited the towering stack of pizza boxes and declared “Pizzzaaaa Nooiiiight!!!!!”
“Boots!” Holster called after her while de-scarfing the littlest one and stepping out of his own boots; he’d lost a sock in there, but didn’t seem to have noticed.
“Oh, yeah!” She called back from the kitchen and emerged moments later, boots in hand, tiptoeing around all the puddles and shrieking when she stepped in one.
Ransom watched them from the darkened living room for a moment. He always liked to take a second to appreciate Holster’s top-notch dad-skills. The way he didn’t bother about inside voices, and got everyone to put their boots on the rack and coats on the hooks without becoming the bad-guy.
“Daaaaadddd!” the middlest one called, Ransom’s cue.
“Did I hear something about… pizza?” he bounded dramatically into the hallway, scooping the middlest one up, spinning her around and tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She squeaked with glee and started rhyming off all the types of pizza they got, as he stooped to scoop up the littlest one and settled her on his hip. He planted a sloppy kiss on her forehead and she giggled and buried her face in his shoulder.
Ransom could feel Holster’s eyes on him as he chased the biggest one around the table for a few laps, while carrying the other two. Before long, he set them down and asked them to get the plates.
Holster was at his side instantly, hand on Ransom’s hip.
“Hey,” Ransom turned his head to meet his eyes and got smooched! He smiled against Holsters lips, pecked him back then pulled to look lovingly into Holster’s tired eyes, “Hey,” he kissed him again.
“Ew, gross!” the biggest one interrupted, just in time for Holster to lunge and grab the stack of plates that were teetering on the edge of the table.
After only a little more hullabaloo, they got everyone settled in and the five of them wrecked the pizzas.
~~~
Later on, after the peeing and brushing and pjs and Holster getting conned into a fourth bedtime story, Ransom was tidying up the kitchen and dividing up the leftovers for lunches. His second wind had run out about ten minutes earlier, and he was drifting distractedly around the kitchen.
He was on his third attempt of putting the wrong lid on this one little plastic container when he jumped at the sound of something shifting behind him.
“Sorry, babe,” Holster murmured coming up behind him to hug Ransom around the belly and kiss his neck tenderly. Ransom let himself melt back with a sigh into Holster’s comforting embrace. He thought for the millionth time today about how lucky they were to have each other, and how much he loved this giant dork and their gaggle of energy-sucking munchkins.
Ransom turned in Holster’s arms so he could hug him back, he loved how he could lean on Holster with everything he had and be supported so easily.
“I love you, man,” he mumbled into Holster’s shoulder.
“And I love you” Holster replied, Ransom felt the rumble of his voice reverberating through his own chest and through his body.
“You’re all rumbly,” he smiled and started half-laughing at how light and fluffy it made him feel, “I’m super-fucking tired, dude”
“You know, I never would have guessed,” Holster pulled back, smiling kindly, “Let’s just toss everything in the fridge and go to bed.”
“K”
So, they tossed everything in the fridge and went to bed.
~~~
As they went through the familiar routine of getting ready for bed, Holster was chattering away about this and that, getting Ransom all caught up on the rink gossip. Ransom wasn’t really absorbing any of it, and he knew Holster didn’t mean for him to. It was just a thing they’d established over the years, that when Ransom was super-tired he liked listening to Holster chatter at him. And Holster liked to chatter about increasingly absurd things to sleepy Ransom to see what he could get away with.
He was just in the middle of a whopper about the canteen lady’s wife when Ransom decided he really needed to make-out with his husband. Ransom took Holster’s hand which stopped him talking mid-sentence, floss in hand.
Ransom reached his other hand up into Holster’s hair and pulled him in for a deep kiss, finding comfort in the familiar toothpaste-y sensation. Holster tossed the floss aside and rested his hand on the small of Ransom’s back.
They stood there in the bathroom just kissing for a few minutes; Ransom eventually pushed Holster up against the sink, cradling his face with both hands. Holster’s hands made their way to Ransom’s bum, massaging gently.
Eventually, they parted.
“Are you done in the bathroom, or…?” Ransom asked.
“Mmmm,” Holster hummed contentedly, “bed?”
“Yeah,” Ransom took Holster by the hand and they snuck down the upstairs hallway, checking in on the kids along the way.
When they piled into bed, Holster put his glasses on the bedside table, and Ransom needed to kiss him again. They were lying face to face, so he just leaned over and gently pressed a kiss to his lips.
“I thought you were tired,” Hoster asked as Ransom climbed on top of him and started peppering his neck and chest with kisses, “do you want me to…”
“Too messy,” Ransom responded between kisses, “Don’t want to get out of bed after.”
“We have wet wipes,” Holster waggled his eyebrows seductively.
“What? No we don’t,” Ransom propped himself up to watch Holster’s face, “We ran out on Tuesday, when Sophie put peanut butter all over Julia’s face.”
“And then I picked some up when I was stalling for time after ringette got cancelled and before pizza night.” He twisted to grab all the supplies from the bedside table drawer while Ransom sat up, still straddling Holster’s hips.
“Bro…” Ransom whispered overcome by emotion, “You’re the best.”
Holster beamed up at him, “So how do you want to do this?”
“Hands and kissing?”
“Mmm, yes please,” Holster said, reaching to pull their faces together with one hand and pull Ransom’s baggy pajama pants down with the other.
~~~
Once they’d used the wet wipes, Ransom passed right out. He was using Holster’s chest as a pillow and had a leg slung across his thighs. Holster was tracing patterns on Ransom’s bicep as he felt his eyes start to droop. As he drifted off in the warmth of Ransom’s comforting embrace, he was stuck with the thought that even though they had to have a minivan there wasn’t a single thing he would change.