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Mick’s hum-based rendition of Jingle Bell Rock got canceled as soon as he entered the magical land of absolute chaos: the family home.
“Papa, Papa! Dad’s a cat and I can’t fix him!” their oldest, Hermey, tugged on his sleeve like a doorknob and pointed to the snowball under the Christmas tree. Even feline, Mick would know that smugness anywhere.
Hermey was all sniffles and hair askew. Mick suspected that Kittening 2: Frigid Boogaloo happened during a frolic in the snow. Hermey was giggling as she danced to a tune only she knew, and Lowell was pouncing and digging in the snow. Len winked at Mick when the kids got wrapped up enough in their own little worlds: the perfect opportunity to sneak away for some last-minute shopping.
“Lowell!” Hermey shrieked when a blue-black fox toddled in from down the hall. “Did I change you, too!?”
Lowell perked his head up at her, tilted ever so slightly. He shifted back to a zipper-biting human before going back to a fox and burrowing under the tree with Len. Snowball and a lump of coal.
Honestly, coming home to a cat instead of a husband was standard fare in Central City, but for a lil kid, this was a catastrophe on purr with the timestream itself imploding!
He set the bags on the counter and scooped her up. “It’ll be alright, darlin’. Remember when you turned me into a kitty?”
“Yeah…” she nodded, thinking she’d been too naughty for a hug. Mick wanted to punch the lights out of the dipshits who put that thought in her head, but that was for later. Now was the time to bury those bad memories under good ones. They wouldn’t go away; they’d be part of Hermey and Lowell forever, but Mick and Len could help them heal.
“I was only a cat for a day; ‘m sure he’ll be back to normal soon.”
Lowell looked up at Mick with fear-flattened ears.
“He’ll be human again soon,” Mick corrected.
Lowell curled up again. Why anyone would prefer to be human was beyond him. Foxes were fluffy, and nobody got mad at them for not talking, which made them the most perfect creatures ever.
“What movie do ya wanna watch?”
Lowell transformed into a reindeer and clomped his hooves while Hermey clamored for Rudolph! Rudolph! Rudolph!
“Papa, you can just click ‘return to movie’!” Hermey said when he clicked back to the menu after turning on the captions.
“Gotta start the movie ‘fore we return to it,” Mick was an author; he knew how words worked.
Both kids groaned just because their movie started two seconds later than it could’ve. What if they wasted away before they got to hear the jolly narration of Burl Ives? The horror!
“I’ll be wrappin’ gifts downstairs; you two stay here and don’t sneak in, got it?”
…Zilch.
No sooner had Mick set out some wrapping paper on his writing desk when Len plopped himself smack in the middle, gracefully avoiding the scissors. Mick managed to shoo him off, but then Len set his sights on the ribbons.
“Quit it, jackass!” Mick rescued the ribbons only for Len to stay playing hockey with the sparkly green bow. Mick put him out in the hall before the bastard could slip back in.
“Mow! …Mow! …Mow!” Len scratched at the door.
Mick didn’t know for sure if Len had his human comprehension—his own time as a cat was fuzzy at best—but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Go watch The Flying Glowstick with the kids!”
“Mah-ah!” Len pattered into the bathroom and pawed at that door to the writing room.
“Fuck off, Len!”
But Len was a patient motherfucker and camped until Mick made the mistake of resurfacing for more tape. With a groaned goddammit! Mick left Len to his paper throne and came back to the fuckwit speeding the down the hall with his neck stuck in a handle of a plastic bag.
“Len! Stay the fuck still!” Mick pinned him to the floor and got the offending bag off. Len gave him a look of utter betrayal before licking his leg and acting like this had never happened.
Mick wiped his face and took a deep breath before assessing the damage inside the writing room. Not too bad, considering. Just a couple bent ribbons and some holes in the wrapping paper—the tube unrolled and knocked onto the floor, naturally.
“Merrrrr…”
Mick rolled his eyes. Figures Len wouldn’t let not being human keep him from yappin’.
“What?”
Len wove between Mick’s legs and rubbed his cheeks against his jeans. Mick took the risk of scooping him up, receiving a headbutt and more cheek rubs in return. Hermey said cats did that when they liked people and wanted their humans to smell like ‘em, which sure sounded Lenny enough.
“Eh, I can break for cuddles, fuzzwit,” Mick chuckled and slipped out of his boots.
Mick finished up the presents with minimal ribbon-batting and paper-sitting. Mick stood up and nodded, proud of his work, and brought it upstairs to set it under the tree. Len even rode his shoulders all the way to the kitchen, where he proceeded to help Mick make popcorn—which the kids wasted no time devouring.
It just then occurred to him that this was the third time they’d watched Rudolph this season, as per the kids’ requests.
“Cuz it’s a movie about being loved even if you’re weird!” Hermey said, to Lowell’s agreement.
“Marh!” Len protested.
“That’s right,” Mick gathered up their precious ducklings. “We love ya cuz you’re weird, not despite it.”
“Really?” Hermey asked.
“Really-really,” Mick kissed their foreheads while Len headbutted them.
The kids asked to watch the Muppets Christmas Carol since they only had one more sleep ‘til Christmas, just like the song. Axel had gotten it for them, insisting it was THE Dickensest of Christmas Carols, and if Charles Dickens himself had problems with it, tough love, he was as dead as a doornail. Len’s bigass paws actually managed to hit the button to eject the DVD.
Crackling fire to the left, glowing Christmas lights to the right, cat husband by his head on the back of the couch, flanked by kids trying adorably hard to stay up ‘til midnight…
Mick and Len were turning into saps in their old age!