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"I gotta say, we really outdid ourselves this year!"
Alex couldn't help but agree with his boyfriend as they both stared in awe at the gigantic blanket fort they had built in the center of their living room. Despite the fact that blanket fort-building was something both of them had mastered at this point, Jack and Alex had decided to put their all into this particular fort. They had basically ransacked their entire house in search of every blanket, throw pillow, and chair that they owned. When they finally got everything that they needed, they had spent nearly two hours meticulously planning out the interior and exterior designs of the fort, putting each item in the perfect place as they did so. The fort looked almost picturesque by the time they were done: a large yet structurally-sound outside with their two biggest blankets draped over all the chairs, and an inside surrounded by a string of Christmas lights and decorated with every pillow imaginable to maximize comfort.
"Lex?" Alex snapped out of his thoughts and turned to face Jack, who was furrowing his brows in confusion. "You were quiet for a while so I got a bit worried. You are happy with the fort, aren't you? Because if you aren't, that's perfectly fine, we could always change-"
Jack was effectively cut off by Alex cupping his cheek and pressing their lips together. The kiss lasted a few seconds before Alex pulled away and lightly flicked Jack's forehead.
"Ow, what the fuck was that for?!"
"Quit jumping to conclusions, loser, I love it," Alex fondly rolled his eyes as his boyfriend glared at him, wrapping an arm around the taller man. "You were right about the Christmas lights, by the way. The fort's much brighter now."
"Well yeah, of course it is," Jack let out a small laugh. "Our ceiling lights are way too dim because of those shitty lightbulbs you keep buying."
"Oh come on, they're not that bad!"
"Alex, you bought them off eBay for ten dollars and we've had to go through at least ten boxes because they burn out too fast!"
"Yeah yeah, can you go change now so that you don't have to lecture me about lightbulbs anymore?"
"You do realize that changing clothes isn't gonna stop me from making fun of your poor life decisions, right?" Alex opened his mouth to retort but Jack had already shot him a smirk and started walking to their bedroom with a strut in his step, one that only showed up whenever he felt that he had won an argument.
"Smug bastard," Alex thought to himself, "Why am I even in love with him anyway?"
The question might have been rhetorical, but Alex was forming a giant list of reasons in his head anyway. He was so incredibly gone for the younger man it was honestly kind of scary. He wouldn't give up what they had for the world, even when Jack constantly teased him about being cheap. Letting out a quiet happy sigh, Alex began walking to their bedroom to ask Jack if he wanted coffee or hot chocolate to drink, only to stop and take in the sight of his shirtless boyfriend rummaging through his side of the closet.
"You're only getting a shirt now?" Alex laughed while trailing his eyes over Jack's bare torso, making sure not to be too obvious otherwise Jack would never let him live it down.
Jack quickly fixed a loose sweater over his head, much to Alex's disappointment, and turned to face Alex with a pout, "It's not my fault that my jeans were too tight!"
"You're the one who keeps buying extra-skinny skinny jeans, dumbass!"
"Well fu-"
A loud crash interrupted them, sounding like it had come from the living room. The couple shared a look of concern before walking over to see what had happened. When they had arrived, they both stopped dead in their tracks with their jaws wide open.
Their blanket fort, their pride and joy that they had spent nearly two hours planning and building, was in complete shambles. All of the chairs had toppled over, most of them likely broken. The room was much darker, as the Christmas lights that initially brightened the inside of the fort were now emitting no light at all. Their stable foundation was now nothing but an uneven lump. Just as they were about to start questioning how everything suddenly went horribly wrong, the answer came in the form of a muffled bark. Jack slowly walked over and kneeled down, slightly lifting part of the blanket to reveal the head of a Golden Retriever puppy.
"Holy shit, Bart, how did you get in there?!" Jack let out what sounded like a mix between a sigh of relief and a laugh, lifting the blanket up more and allowing Bart to move from under the broken fort. The small puppy had been a rescue dog that the couple adopted a few months back. The owner of the shelter had warned them that he was a bit on the reckless side, but Jack and Alex had figured he would be easy enough to handle. Quite frankly, they hadn't expected him to be able to create this much damage.
"He isn't hurt, is he?" Alex asked, kneeling down next to the two of them and reaching out to scratch underneath Bart's chin.
"Doesn't look like it," Jack said. "I thought he was asleep, I didn't think he'd be up so soon."
"We might've woken him up when we were moving all the chairs and shit. Probably destroyed the fort out of revenge, the little rascal."
"Either that or he destroyed the fort because you named him Bartholomew and he was just waiting for the perfect moment to attack."
Alex gasped in mock-horror and went to cover Bart's-well, Bartholomew's-ears, "Excuse you, Bartholomew is a beautiful name!"
"Oh please," Jack laughed, rolling his eyes. "What are you gonna have me do? Write out a formal apology?"
"I'm expecting at least three pages, double-spaced," Alex retorted jokingly without even missing a beat, holding up one hand to silence Jack. "Alright we gotta focus, we need to figure out what to do with this." He then gestured towards the uneven blanket lump.
Jack shrugged, "I mean...there isn't really much else we can do. Unless you wanna try building it all over again?"
"If I'm being completely honest, I'd rather not use up two more hours of our time when we could just watch some Christmas movies on the couch or something," Alex lifted both of the blankets off completely to reveal the mess of chairs, pillows, and broken Christmas lights underneath. "Plus, most of the chairs are pretty much broken, so we'll probably have to throw those out."
Alex could've sworn he saw a frown show up on Jack's face for a split second before the other man quickly replaced it with a smirk, "Yeah, the chairs are broken because you buy everything in this house for under ten dollars."
"Oh, come on Jay!" Alex pouted, "You're making it sound like I'm a cheapskate or some shit!"
"Are you actually denying it? Alex, come on: the lightbulbs, the chairs, I'm willing to bet the small pillows were bought at that shady dollar store we live five blocks away from!"
"Jack, we can either clean this shit up or I can throw broken chair parts at you."
And with that, the two of them began cleaning up the mess in the living room. After deciding to stuff the broken chairs and Christmas lights into their attic ("If only the same could be done for those damn lightbulbs." "Not another word, Barakat.") and giving Bart a ten-minute timeout that ended up only lasting about three minutes before he was sent to bed early ("C'mon, it's impossible to stay mad at him!" "It'd be way harder to stay mad at him if his name was something simple like Spot." "Jack, does he look like a fucking Dalmatian to you?"), the rest of the clean up was relatively easy. About ten minutes later, they sat on the couch, each of them holding one of the blankets.
"So...now what do we do?" Jack asked, hugging his blanket and staring solemnly at the empty space where their fort once was. Alex felt a small twinge of guilt while looking at his boyfriend's somber expression; he might not have wanted to rebuild the fort due to lack of time, but he hated seeing Jack upset. He knew how much Jack loved fort-building this time of year, he just wished that the circumstances had been better. Alex wrapped his blanket around himself, trying to think of ways to hopefully cheer his boyfriend up.
"Hey, what if we just rolled ourselves up in these blankets and laid down on the floor like some Christmas burrito or something?" Alex joked, hoping to lighten the mood and get a smile out of Jack. And he did manage to get one.
But what he also managed to get was Jack turning to face him with wide eyes and whispering, "That's a great idea."
Before Alex could even ask questions, Jack shot up from his seat on the couch and laid the blanket he was holding down on the floor. He smoothened it out before walking to up Alex and snatching the blanket that was wrapped around him.
The other man was quick to protest, "Hey, I was using that!"
"And now you aren't," Jack replied without even looking up at him.
He placed a small section of the freshly-stolen blanket on top of the other blanket, making them overlap. He then laid on top of where both blankets joined, wrapping the rest of the top blanket around him and lifting his arm up to allow a space for Alex to join him, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get in!"
Alex let out a laugh in disbelief, "Are you being serious right now?"
Jack nodded eagerly, "Dead serious! We don't even have to leave like we do in regular blanket forts!"
"Oh yeah? What about when we want to turn the TV on?"
"You bring the remote with you, I can't do all the work here."
"And if we want to change the channel again?"
"I never said anything about putting the remote away, did I?"
Alex couldn't help but laugh, "Okay smartass, what about if we want drinks later?"
"We have phones on us, we can just call Dunkin Donuts or some shit!"
"And when we have to get the drinks?"
"We use door side delivery, I don't fuckin' know!"
"Jack, you do realize we'll have to physically get up to get the drinks anyway, right?"
"Alexander William Gaskarth, my arm is getting tired and you're asking too many questions. Get inside the damn Christmas burrito before I change my mind."
Alex let out a loud laugh, raising his hands up in surrender and joining Jack underneath the large blanket. He then tucked the rest of the blanket underneath them so that there was no cold air that could get inside their makeshift burrito. Jack let out a hum of satisfaction before snuggling closer to the other man, closing even the most miniscule amount of distance between them.
"Jack?" Alex asked tentatively, wrapping his arms around the other man when Jack let out an acknowledging hum, "I'm sorry about not wanting to build our fort again. I know it's a tradition of ours, and I know how much you love doing it."
"Don't worry about it," Jack nuzzled into Alex's chest, "In all honesty, I kinda like this a bit more. Makes me feel closer to you, both figuratively and literally, I guess." Alex hummed in agreement, planting a soft kiss on top of Jack's head.
"Although," Jack giggled, "I was hoping for an apology surrounding your shitty spending habits. Well, more like lack thereof but still."
Alex gasped in mock-horror, "Well in that case, you owe Bartholomew an apology for the slandering of his beautiful name!"
"Beautiful? In what universe?"
"The universe in which you didn't protest when I named him Bartholomew!"
"That was only because you called him Bart without telling me his full name!"
Alex pouted, "Rude."
"Dumbass."
"Bitch."
"Cheapskate."
Alex flicked Jack on the forehead again.
"Goddamnit!" Jack laughed, smacking Alex's chest lightly before burying his face in it. "I hate you," he whined, voice muffled.
"Yeah yeah, I hate me too," Alex rolled his eyes fondly. "Be more original, will you?"
"Ok then." Alex mentally prepared himself for another light-hearted insult, but then Jack did something unexpected.
He lifted his head up from Alex's chest, shifting himself up a little bit so that he was level with Alex's heart. He then planted a soft kiss just above where the other's heart was, murmuring a soft "I love you" afterwards.
And goddamnit, Alex couldn't fight back the smile that was on his face. What he felt for this man was stronger than anything else in the universe, and it was moments like this that reminded him why. He couldn't even formulate words to describe the way he felt, all he could do was tilt Jack's chin up and lean down to kiss him. He tried to pour every emotion he felt towards Jack into the kiss, hoping that the passion would make up for the lack of words. With the way Jack was eagerly responding to the kiss, it looked like it did.
They both pulled away after a while, Jack tucking his head back into Alex's chest and Alex propping his chin on top of Jack's head. No more words were exchanged between the two. No more words needed to be exchanged, they just let the comforting silence envelop them just like the thick blanket they were currently under.
It didn't matter if their Christmas was unorthodox. They didn't need some random Christmas movie blaring in the background. They didn't need hot drinks by their side while poking fun at the cheesy clichés they would find in said Christmas movie. In all honesty, they didn't even need an extravagant blanket fort.
The only thing Jack needed was Alex, and the only thing Alex needed was Jack. And they both had exactly what they needed. To them, that was more than enough.