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Snow floated down onto the rose bushes outside the house, and there was a peaceful quiet outside in the town.
It had been Samantha who woke first, tearing through the house into Monty and Shadowman’s room. She jumped up onto the bed, hopping up and down and yelling about Christmas. Both of the men pulled back away from where she was jumping, and Monty had half a mind to yell at her.
“Get up! Get up, get up, get up!!!” she squealed, before tripping on the comforter and falling down onto Monty, giggling.
“Alright, I’ll go get coffee on. Why don’t you get the boys up, Sam? I’m sure they’d love to come down and check under the tree with you.” Shadowman responded, getting out of bed and taking a moment to smooth his hair with his fingers. Samantha was up again and bolted out of the room before Shadowman could get to the door, and she proceeded to go jump around with the boys until they were all roused and ready to go open gifts.
It was a few minutes before Monty was out of bed, groggy as all hell as he padded down the hall and downstairs to meet Shadowman in the kitchen. There were biscuits still in the tin from last night on the counter, waiting for jam and butter, and a coffeepot on the stove, just starting to boil. Shadowman was managing things, pulling down different jams from the cabinet, trying to find fresh fruit and see if they still had any eggs.
He was very aware of Monty’s heavy, tired footsteps and chose to act like he didn’t hear them, smiling peacefully as he listened to the bustle upstairs. When Monty made it to him, he wrapped his arms around Shadowman and laid his head against his back.
“Don’t fall asleep on me, I don’t want to get burned by our coffee pot again.” Shadowman teased, grabbing two mugs out of the cabinet before prying Monty off long enough to turn around and leave a tender kiss on his forehead. “I’ll bring you coffee and biscuits, okay? Go sit down. Maybe next year you’ll figure out how to be Santa without staying up all night. You know, like by using magic like you know you can do.”
“Mm. I know I can, but it’s not genuine, Shadowman. I want to put my heart in it for them and you know magic is so.. Impersonal.” he responded, before yawning and wandering into the living room, where he planted himself on the couch and began to doze off. Luckily, Shadowman had already gotten the fireplace going.
Just as Monty’s first dream started, Shadowman got to the living room with a plate of biscuits and two mugs of coffee. He had to stop himself from speaking, so as not to disturb Monty, and set the food down on a coffee table before going to the stairs to call the kids down.
Shadowman grabbed his mug and sat close to Monty, the disturbance of the couch and smell of the coffee enough to wake him again. And as the children ran downstairs to see a tree with plenty of gifts beneath it, Monty and Shadowman huddled close, full of almost completely undisturbed bliss from this peaceful and happy family life.