Work Text:
“Uncle Roy, can we take Jamie to get ice cream?” Phoebe asked, looking up at him with the smile that she knew would get her anything from her uncle. Roy stood his ground for exactly three seconds before huffing out a ‘fine’ and picking up his phone to ring Jamie.
Jamie, of course, was all too eager to agree to the outing. Roy had been nervous about introducing Jamie to Phoebe, this thing between them had only been going on for a few weeks and Roy still couldn’t call it anything other than ‘this thing’—which Keeley insisted he needed to get over if he wanted it to become anything real. The scary thing is that he actually thinks he does want it to—although if he had known that introducing Jamie to Phoebe would mean having to put up with their combined nonsense he probably would have held off a little longer.
But now, here he is walking the streets of London with Jamie and Phoebe giggling beside him like a couple of schoolchildren. They’ve passed several ice cream shops but Jamie told Phoebe about some amazing shop that has a hundred different toppings. “A hundred?” Phoebe had gasped, looking at Jamie with wonderment. Jamie had preened at the attention and shot Roy a smug smirk.
“Look!” Jamie shouts before taking off across the street. Roy grunts and has to physically restrain Phoebe from running blindly into traffic to keep up with Jamie. Holding Phoebe’s hand Roy navigates them across the street, catching up to an excited Jamie jumping up and down next to a man dressed as, of all things, Santa.
“Look, look, it’s Santa!” Jamie calls them as soon as he sees them approaching. Roy rolls his eyes at Jamie’s shenanigans—not nearly as impressed as Jamie is by the sighting.
“So?” Roy asks. Jamie gasps in outrage that Roy is genuinely confused by. It’s a man dressed as Santa in the middle of October, it’s a pretty original Halloween costume, he’ll give the guy that.
“So take our picture. Phoebs, don’t you want a picture with Santa?”
“No.” Phoebe shakes her head, you’d think she was the adult and Jamie was still in grade school. “Santa’s not real Jamie, Uncle Roy said so.”
“What?!” Jamie shrieks, leave it to Jamie Tartt to completely overreact to something as simple as a child being smart enough to not believe in Santa Claus—Roy was impressed at how well Phoebe had taken the news. “‘Course he’s real. He’s standing right here.”
“You still get presents from him don’t ya?” Jamie tries changing tactics and Roy can see it starting to sway Phoebe—her mom does still leave her a few presents under the tree from Santa.
“Yeah,” Phoebe tells him, drawing out the syllable in uncertainty.
“Then there you have it.” Jamie claps his hands together. Roy has to admit Jamie’s matter-of-fact tone is pretty convincing—he makes it seem like believing in Santa makes more sense than believing in the sky being blue, which in London it actually might be.
Phoebe looks between Jamie and Roy, her eyes asking Roy if it’s okay to believe Jamie and Roy never could resist those eyes. “Go.” He motions towards Jamie and the still silent Santa. She bounds over and the three huddle together as Roy pulls up the camera on his phone.
“Say Jamie!” Jamie tells them as Roy snaps a few pictures. Jamie and Phoebe both thank their mysterious Santa, who continues to be silent, just nodding in response—Roy thinks he’s probably a little bit pissed, to be honest.
“How does Santa deliver all the presents?” Phoebe asks Jamie as they make their way back to their ice cream route, she’s now standing next to Jamie holding his hand. Roy smirks to himself wondering how Jamie’s going to talk himself out of this one.
“It’s magic innit? You can get loads done with magic.” Jamie tells her, his free hand slipping into Roy’s. Unbelievably that seems to be enough logic to sway Phoebe.
“I can’t believe you told her Santa’s not real,” Jamie whispers into Roy’s ear while Phoebe mulls over the potential properties of Santa’s magic.
“She asked! I don’t lie to Phoebe.” He doesn’t, she gets enough bullshit promises from her piece of shit dad.
“Oh really. So when she walked in on us in the kitchen the other day?” Jamie teases, keeping his voice too low for Phoebe to pick. Roy flushes at the memory of Jamie’s tongue on his neck doing sinful things to him as Phoebe had come bounding down the stairs.
“Shut up. That’s different,” Roy grumbles under his breath. Jamie’s grin takes over his whole face. Roy really hates how smug he’s going to be about this.
“Uh-huh.” Jamie leans over to peck Roy on the lips. It’s just a quick press of lips but still leaves Roy wanting more. If only they weren’t on this god-forsaken ice cream quest.
“Prick,” Roy says to cover up how affected he is by Jamie—judging by the look Jamie gives him, it doesn’t work.
“Besides, it's not a lie.” Roy looks questioningly to Jamie—the other man has a beatific smile on his face and his eyes are sparkling with mirth.
“What?” Roy asks, really hoping that Jamie doesn’t mean what he thinks he means.
“Santa. It’s not a lie.” And there it is—maybe Jamie’s only saying this for Phoebe’s benefit but he’s still talking in hushed tones, his face not showing an ounce of humour—the arrow is pointing dangerously close to Jamie being a grown man that believes Santa is real.
“Wait, you don’t believe in Santa?” Roy asks because what the fuck? Jamie is an adult, there is just no way Roy’s fucking someone who still believes in Father fucking Christmas.
“Maybe,” Jamie says in a singsong. He looks like he’s either really enjoying fucking with Roy’s head or like someone who just took a picture with a magical being they totally and completely believe in—and it really pisses Roy off that he can’t tell which it is.
“No. Not maybe.” Roy’s growl is almost subvocal as Jamie ignores him in favour of picking Phoebe up off the ground and swinging her onto his shoulders.
“Come on Phoebs, ice cream awaits.” Jamie sticks his arm out as if he’s holding a sword and they’re heading off on some grand adventure. Jamie does always play the royal steed when Phoebe wants them to play princesses and dragons.
“Jamie! Not maybe!” Roy calls after them as he picks up his pace to keep up with the two children in front of him—infuriated that he’s in love with the one man that never ceases to drive him crazy.