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"Hey Toby. You ready for our date?" Jimmy greeted cheerfully as he answered the phone.
"Uh. About that," Fornell muttered.
He sounded a bit sheepish to Jimmy and Jimmy's heart reacted. "What happened? Did you catch a case?"
"No. Nothing like that."
"Then what?" He couldn't help or even offer comfort if he didn't know what he was dealing with. "You can tell me anything you know."
"Diane has a new boyfriend."
What? That seemed a little out of the blue. It wasn't like Fornell was still hung up on Diane. They were dating, after all. "That's good, right?"
"I don't know. It was supposed to be her Christmas with Emily, but now she's demanding I take her. I know we have plans, but I don't want Em to feel unloved at Christmas time."
Jimmy's heart broke for his lover. "Don't worry about it. Of course, you should give Emily the very best Christmas you can. You know what would make it even better for her?"
"What?"
"If you dressed up as Santa."
"Oh no. Oh hell no. I'm neither jolly nor fat and I don't look good with a white beard or red suit."
Jimmy found great amusement in how quickly Fornell shot down the idea. "Come on. It will be fun. Don't you want to make it special for Emily? Her mom's dumping her. It's got to suck to know that one of your parents doesn't want to make time with you."
"No. I refuse to dress up as Santa. That's Gibbs' job."
Jimmy chuckled. "Since when are we inviting Gibbs over for Christmas, Sweetheart?"
"We're not."
"Then how is he supposed to play Santa?" Jimmy pointed out reasonably.
"I don't wanna be Santa," Tobias whined in the tone that Jimmy knew meant he'd already won.
"I promise I'll make it up to you."
"How will you do that?" Tobias teased.
"Oh. I'm sure I could find something you like."
"What about you in an elf costume?"
"Aw. Do you want me to be Santa's helper?" Jimmy cooed.
"You can help me out of my clothes."
"Only after Emily's in bed, Sweetheart."
"Agh." Tobias groaned. "Don't remind me. I was hoping to have the weekend to ourselves. I wanted to gorge myself on you."
"There will be other times for you to enjoy my body. I know how much Emily matters to you and how much you love her. I'm not coming in between that."
"God. I love you, Jimmy."
"I love you too, Toby."
"How did I get so lucky?"
"I'm the lucky one." Jimmy smiled.
"I think we'll have to disagree on that one."
"Or we could agree that we're both lucky."
"Or that. So when are you coming over?"
Jimmy hummed. "I can be over in twenty minutes if you think you'll be ready for me then."
"Emily will be here in an hour."
"Well we better hurry then shouldn't we?"
"You're such a flirt."
Jimmy grinned. "You love me that way."
"I do. See you soon, Lover."
"Looking forward to it, Sweetheart."
Jimmy grabbed the Santa suit and Santa hats that he had from when he played Santa for Victoria before Breena and he broke up. Now, he had Victoria on the off holidays and never saw her on Christmas. He missed his little girl on Christmas, but it meant he really had no use for the suit anymore.
He couldn't wait to see the suit on Tobias. He just knew that it would look great on him. He had enough hats that both he and Emily could play Santa's helper or just one of them, depending on what made the most sense.
He didn't have time to swing by a costume shop and find a sexy elf costume, so Emily and Tobias would just have to make do with the Santa hat for now. If Toby wanted to roleplay Santa with his sexy elf, Jimmy would be more than happy to pick up an appropriate elf costume. They'd save the sex games for sometime when the two of them would have the night to themselves. It wouldn't be fair to Emily to plan that while she was around.
Jimmy arrived with only a few seconds to spare. He used his key to enter the apartment and stopped in the doorway in shock. "You need a Christmas intervention."
"A what?"
"Never mind. Here go change into this." Jimmy shoved the Santa suit into Fornell's hands. "Before you disappear though, point me to your tree and decorations."
Jimmy quickly set up the tree while Toby changed. Fortunately, it wasn't a super big tree. As it was, he had to really rush to get the lights and garland on the tree before Emily arrived.
The door range and Jimmy shrugged at Fornell. The tree would have to do, for now. Maybe they could get Emily to put the baubles on it and make it a fun family thing.
"Do you have your gifts for Emily?" Jimmy whispered as he passed Tobias on the way to the door to let Emily in.
"Yeah. I'll grab them when it's time for Santa to visit."
"So you're not going to wear the suit now?"
Tobias shook his head. "No. I just wanted to make sure it looked good."
"It looks fine, but you should go change so that it's a surprise for Emily."
"What are you doing here?" Diane demanded when Jimmy opened the door.
"Visiting my boyfriend and my best girl, Emily." Jimmy smiled at Diane, his lips and voice both a little pointed. He wasn't about to let her ruin Emily's Christmas more than she already had. He knew that Diane blamed Jimmy for her and Fornell's relationship falling apart. She'd made it more than clear what she thought of him whenever they ran into each other.
He led Emily into the house and pointed to the decorations. "Why do you get started on the decorations, Sweetie? Your dad will be down shortly."
She nodded and happily started placing items on the tree. Jimmy returned to the door and gave Diane a stern look. "Look. You can think whatever you want about me, but you're the one with a new boyfriend who can't be bothered to make time for your daughter. I love Emily very much and I'll be damned before I let you ruin her Christmas."
"How dare you talk to me that way? She's my daughter."
"That's right she is. Next time you should think about that before you dump her off on someone else and then get all judgmental about it over something that isn't even true." Jimmy purposefully kept his voice calm and even. Emily already knew that Jimmy and her mom didn't see eye to eye and he didn't want to make it more uncomfortable for her than he had to, but he had to try to make Diane see how her actions affected her daughter.
"I know you stole him from me."
Jimmy rolled his eyes. "We didn't even know each other when you were together."
Diane huffed. "You prevented me from getting back together with him."
Jimmy's lips pursed up in amusement. "You mean I showed him what it was like to be in a relationship with someone who wasn't crazy?" Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "So he wasn't tempted to hook up with you when you deigned to pay attention to him again?" This woman had hurt his lover and her daughter multiple times and Jimmy was sick and tired of it.
Diane growled and stomped off. Jimmy shook his head, closing and locking the door before joining Emily and Tobias to finish decorating the tree. Good riddance. They didn't need that kind of energy around Christmas.
"How was Diane?" Fornell asked.
"Same old, same old. Delighted to see me as per usual." Jimmy grinned, his eyes twinkling with undisguised mirth.
"You just can't help but charm her can you?" Tobias teased.
Jimmy knew the other man knew exactly how and why Jimmy clashed with Diane whenever they ran into each other. They'd had multiple discussions about it in the past, but never brought it up in front of Emily if they could avoid it. "What can I say? It just comes naturally to me."
Jimmy pitched in with decorating the tree until Emily was satisfied. She'd quite enjoyed ordering the two of them around, but neither adult minded. They'd rather she be smiling and happy than thinking about how her asshole of a mother dumped her on Christmas.
Once they finished with the tree, Jimmy asked. "Would you like to make cookies, Emily?"
"No. Daddy will burn them."
Jimmy leaned down, so that his face was on level with hers. "How about we let Daddy put away the rest of the decorations and you and I make cookies? How would you feel about that?"
Emily peered up at Jimmy suspiciously. "Are you going to burn them too?"
"I promise I'm actually quite good at making cookies."
"Ok. Let's do this then."
"What kind of cookies do you like?"
"Chocolate chip," Emily whispered. "But if Daddy's making them then no bake cookies."
Jimmy felt the corners of his lips curl upwards as he tried to suppress his laughter at Fornell's expense.
"Why don't you find me some eggs and the chocolate chips that are used for baking?" Jimmy suggested. He grabbed the flour, baking soda, sugar, brown sugar, and salt.
"Hm. What else are we missing?" Jimmy hummed to himself as he stared at the ingredients. "Can you find me the butter too, Em?"
She bounced excitedly over to the fridge and Jimmy grabbed the vanilla extract. Once Emily returned with the butter, he separated the ingredients into dry and wet and mixed them together. "Do you know where your dad keeps the oil spray or something of a similar nature? Oh and a baking sheet?"
Emily dashed around the kitchen while Jimmy continued to mix the ingredients in a mixing bowl. "Can you spray the baking sheet for me, Sweetie?"
Emily happily obeyed orders and eventually Jimmy passed on the mixing to Emily too. He turned the oven on to preheat and then walked her through rolling the dough into balls and dropping them onto the cookie sheets. Soon they had a couple of cookie sheets ready to go in.
"Smells good in here," Tobias muttered as he entered the kitchen.
"No, Daddy. You can't be here. You'll jinx everything."
Jimmy ruffled Emily's hair. "It's ok, Em. So long as he doesn't touch anything it will be fine."
Emily swatted at Jimmy's hand before shaking her finger at her father. "You heard, Jimmy, Papa. No touching."
"Ok, ok. I'll just sit here and keep my hands to myself then." Fornell smiled and looked a bit wistful.
Jimmy caught the look and raised an eyebrow. Fornell just waved it away and continued to watch them. Jimmy shrugged and returned to the baking.
As they waited for the cookies to bake, Jimmy worked with Emily to clean up the kitchen. They made it through the dishes and started on the counters when the oven beeped. Jimmy moved to grab a hot pad and pull the baking sheets out. He set them on a cooling rack to cool down.
"Can you find a glass of milk for Santa, Emily?"
"For Santa?"
"Yeah. He'll probably want a snack by the time he gets to our house," Jimmy explained.
"Are you sure he'll be able to find me? I was supposed to be at Mom's."
"I'm sure. Santa is magic like that, but we have to go to bed and sleep once we put out the cookies and the milk or he won't come."
Emily gave him that look that all children had when they thought adults were being silly, but were indulging them. "Ok. Ok. I can go to sleep, but you and Daddy better sleep too."
"Don't worry. We will, Em."
Jimmy let Emily set the cookies out for Santa and then he headed to change into pajamas while Tobias read Emily a bedtime story.
"You're good with her, you know?" Fornell offered as he entered the bedroom they would share tonight.
"She reminds me of Victoria. I miss her so much now."
"I know what you mean."
Jimmy shook his head to get rid of the sad thoughts. "Are you ready to play Santa tomorrow?"
"Are you ready to be my elf and help me into and out of my clothes?"
"Emily might get suspicious if I attempted that." Jimmy couldn't keep his lips from twitching upwards in amusement.
Tobias huffed. "Fine. I'll do it myself."
"I did bring some Santa hats for your helpers to wear. I was thinking we could see if Emily wanted to help out, but if she doesn't I'm happy to do so."
"Or you could just help out anyway?"
"Of course. If that's what you want."
"What I want is to do what we'd originally planned for this weekend when it would be child free."
"Emily is next door."
"Well then you better be quiet," Tobias whispered.
Jimmy shook his head, but didn't protest when Tobias settled on top of him. They fell asleep later than planned and woke up early when Emily came zooming into the bedroom and jumped on the bed.
"Presents!" Emily cheered.
"Not yet, Em. You have to let the adults wake up first." Tobias muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"But Daddy. Santa came."
"And the gifts will still be there in an hour when we're up."
Emily pouted. "Fine."
Jimmy chuckled. He waited for Emily to leave the room before exiting the bed to shower and dress. They'd put on sleep pants before falling asleep after their shenanigans, but Emily didn't need to wonder what Jimmy and her dad got up to last night.
Fornell joined him in the shower and they took turns washing each other before finally getting out. "Why don't you change into the Santa suit? I'll get the coffee started and bring you some before putting on a suitably delightful outfit and the Santa hat and entertain Emily until you're ready."
Tobias wrinkled his nose, but nodded in acceptance. Jimmy smiled and gave him a kiss before disappearing into the closet to choose his Christmas outfit. He hoped they'd done enough that Emily would forget all about Diane's selfishness.
He strode out of Fornell's room in red and green plaid pants and a green shirt with the red Santa hat. He met Emily in the living room where she was performing the long time tradition of shaking gifts. He smiled slightly and continued onto the kitchen to get coffee started. While he waited for it to percolate, he returned to find her sitting on the couch looking innocent. Quirking his lips up in a half smile, he asked, "Did you figure out what you're getting?"
Emily shook her head solemnly. "No, but there are so many presents," her voice rose in awe.
"I told you Santa would be able to find you. Are all of these for you?" Jimmy teased.
"No there are some for you and Dad too."
Jimmy nodded, getting up and pouring coffee for himself and Fornell. He quickly took a mug up to Tobias before returning to the living room with Emily. "Did Santa overcompensate?"
Emily shrugged. "I'm not sure Santa even came."
"And why is that?"
"He didn't eat the cookies." She nodded towards the plate of cookies and glass of milk that still sat on the mantle.
"I bet there's a reason those are still here. Obviously Santa came or else there wouldn't be any gifts."
"Don't be silly. Those gifts are from you and Daddy."
"Is that so?"
"Yep."
"How do you know that?"
"Santa isn't real, silly."
"And who told you that?"
"My mom."
Jimmy took a deep breath to prevent himself from going off on Diane like he really wanted to. "Well I don't know where she got her information, but she's wrong."
"Really? Then why doesn't Santa ever visit her house?"
Jimmy knew it was petty, but he couldn't stop himself from saying, "I bet he does. She probably just doesn't want to admit that he just leaves coal for himself."
Emily wrinkled her forehead and stared at Jimmy. "She wouldn't do that, would she?"
"No. You're right. I shouldn't have said that. I bet Santa got lost and that's why you have so many presents this year. He finally found you."
"Do you really think so?" Emily asked hopefully, her voice rising slightly.
"Of course, I do, Em. You're amazing. Santa would never purposefully forget you."
They hugged. Jimmy pulled back as he heard footsteps. "Do you hear that, Em? Maybe someone's come to visit."
"Ho ho ho!" Fornell cheered and rang some bells as he made his way into the living room.
"Santa!" Emily squealed.
"Have you been a good girl, Emily?"
"Of course, Santa."
"Did you make these cookies, Emily?"
"Yeah. I made them for you, Santa."
"How about you share them with me, Emily? Santa shouldn't eat them all himself. Mrs. Clause wouldn't like that."
"Ok, Santa!"
Jimmy grabbed the plate and set it down between Emily and Fornell. As they shared the cookies, Jimmy regaled them with stories of Christmases past with Victoria and a variety of cute things she did. Eventually, Santa prompted Emily to share what she wanted for Christmas. Both adults listened sagely, taking note of her requests. They may have already bought her gifts, but that didn't mean that they couldn't use her ideas to help figure out what they'd do for the rest of the day.
"Are you ready for presents now?" Santa asked after she finished detailing everything she wanted, which included a surprising number of people's happiness.
"Yes!" Emily cheered, bouncing up and down in excitement.
Both adults couldn't help beaming back, glad to see her so happy.
"Why don't you help me hand them out, Jimmy?"
"Of course, Santa." Jimmy went over to the tree and started bringing the gifts over to Fornell.
Tobias would announce who the present was for in his Santa voice and then hand it to Emily to add to the appropriate person's pile. Once all of the gifts had been handed out, Santa announced. "Thank you for the cookies and I hope you enjoy your presents, but I must be heading onto the next house."
"Do you have to?' Emily shot him a pleading look.
"I really do. Other boys and girls need their gifts too. You wouldn't want them to go empty handed, would you?"
"I guess not." She pouted.
Jimmy hugged her and motioned for Fornell to go change. "It will be ok, Emily. He'll come back in the future."
They sat and stared at the pile of presents. "Where is Dad?" Emily broke the silence. "I can't believe he missed Santa."
"I'm sure he'll be here soon," Jimmy assured.
Fornell chose that moment to appear. "What did I miss?" he asked.
"You missed Santa," Emily announced.
"What? Santa was here?"
"Yeah. He left you a bunch of gifts." Emily pointed at the pile for Tobias.
"Well if Santa came we better open all of these presents before we start breakfast. What do you say, Sweetheart?"
"Presents!" she cheered.
Fornell and Jimmy both encouraged Emily to start opening her gifts first. Emily had about twenty presents in front of her while Jimmy and Fornell only had three each.
After Emily opened her first six presents, Jimmy and Tobias took a turn each while Emily played with the play set that she'd unwrapped intended for thin plastic dolls to interact with. Jimmy had given Fornell a very expensive and good looking watch. Fornell had given Jimmy a name brand pair of shoes that Jimmy had been eying for a while.
The next set of presents for Emily contained a number of cute pieces of clothes. She wasn't as excited about these in general, but Jimmy had caught her eyes lighting up at some of the prettier outfits. The gifts the adults revealed ended up being the same thing, a friendship bracelet from Emily.
They finished unwrapping the rest of the gifts and Emily had quite the haul. She'd ended up with a dream house, a play set, and a number of characters that she could dress and use with the various other items. She'd also received a car just the right size for the thin plastic dolls to sit in and a variety of clothing outfit options for them. The rest of her presents had been clothes for her, some of which matched the outfits for her dolls so she could dress them up like her if she wanted.
Tobias had received the friendship bracelet, watch, and a gift certificate to a nearby science museum that focused on appealing to children. Jimmy, on the other hand, had collected a friendship bracelet, name brand pair of shoes, and a gift certificate for a night out at a fancy restaurant. All in all, it was a great Christmas.
Tobias and Emily agreed to clean up while Jimmy cooked breakfast and settled in for a day of whatever Emily wanted to do. Both of the adults would happily play with her or any of her toys, but she wanted to start off with a Christmas movie. They happily let her pick which movie they'd watch and all cuddled together on the couch once they finished eating.
Emily pulled out some card games and board games to play after the movie finished and it wasn't long before bedtime neared. They all retreated to her room to play with her new toys until bedtime arrived. Jimmy let Fornell tuck her in as she tired and watched as his lover kissed her and told her he loved her.
Jimmy couldn't resist hugging her himself. "I hope you had a good Christmas, Em."
"It was perfect. Can we do it again next year?"
Fornell ruffled her hair. "We'll see, Em. Sleep well."
"Daddy, read me a story."
Jimmy smiled and left them to story time. He stripped down and laid in bed waiting for Tobias. Fornell joined him after he finished reading to Emily. "Thank you. I don't know what I would have done without you."
"Don't worry about it. I couldn't date you without loving, Em. I'm just glad that we were able to give her a wonderful Christmas."
"I'm sure she'll be talking about this with her mom for years to come."
"Serves Diane right," Jimmy muttered before pulling Fornell close and kissing him. It was time to close out Christmas day with his lover.