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Tuesday 1st December 2020
Nick dragged himself along the silent corridor, pointedly keeping his eyes fixed ahead as the door to 4CS loomed closer.
He wasn't going to look.
Eyes ahead.
None of his business—
There were fucking fairy lights cascading from the ceiling of the new teacher's classroom. Multicoloured fairy lights.
Nick diverted his gaze, speeding up and doing his best not to notice the tinsel, paperchains and even a fucking mini Christmas tree adorning Mr Spring's classroom.
Bloody newbie teacher. Nick had been like that once… he shook his head to clear his thoughts —no need to go down memory lane —as he walked through his own classroom door. 5NN looked exactly like it had the day before: colourful and engaging, but practical . Not a single piece of tinsel to be seen, thank you very much.
He'd let the kids cut out snowflakes for the windows one day this week maybe, that would be enough decorations.
Nick dumped his bag on his desk and began to remove his coat when something caught his eye: sat on the lip of his whiteboard sat a tiny green… elf. Nick tilted his head to the side as he approached the small toy. He’d obviously seen the elves that now filled shops from early September all the way through to January, and a few of his pupils came in regaling tales of the things their elves (read parents…) got up to every night during December, but Nick had never seen an elf quite like the one now sitting on his whiteboard: blonde hair that looked real, not painted on, sticking out from underneath a green hat complete with little white pom pom on top.
Nick reached for the toy, wondering where it had come from. Just before his hand wrapped around one of the elf’s tiny boots a loud voice from behind him interrupted him.
“What are you— STOP!”
Nick jumped, spinning around to see Mrs Jones, the Headteacher of Elfmas Primary School, standing in the doorway.
“Uh,” Nick stammered.
“You can’t touch the elves, Nick! Surely even a grinch like you knows that! What if a child saw!” Tara, as she insisted all staff called her, hurried into the room, looking with concern between Nick and the toy. “I’m surprised you of all people have an elf though…” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you hated Christmas?”
Nick bristled. “I don’t hate Christmas, I just think…” he trailed off. The truth was that Christmas had lost its magic the year his dad had walked out on his mum, and no matter what Sarah Nelson had tried to bring the joy back into the festive period, Nick had always associated Christmas with disappointment.
He wasn’t a grinch though. He was a primary school teacher for fuck’s sake.
“Hmmm,” Tara considered him carefully. “Anyway, just wanted to remind you that the staff meeting’s tomorrow this week, due to the Christmas Fair taking place after school on Thursday.”
Nick nodded. “Haven’t forgotten.”
“Good, good. Also, I told the PTA you’d be happy to take a turn on the dunk the teacher stall.”
“What?!”
“Charlie signed up for it, but I can’t very well let the poor guy be pelted with wet sponges for three hours when it’s barely three degrees outside, can I?”
“Charlie…” Nick asked, confused. He’d been at Elfmas Primary for nine years, ever since he’d qualified. He knew all the staff, but he didn’t know a Char—
“Mr Spring,” Tara said slowly, looking at Nick with confusion. “His classroom is literally right next door to you. He’s been here since September Nick! How do you not know his name?!”
Nick shrugged, fighting a blush threatening to turn his usually pale skin pink. He wasn’t going to admit to his boss that he’d been very deliberately staying away from Mr Spr—, Charlie, since the first day of term, when Nick had been so flustered by the new teacher’s sudden appearance in the staff room that he’d ended up spilling the rest of his (thankfully luke warm) tea all down his front, squeaking out a high pitched hello , and then rushing from the room to try and compose himself.
Tara tutted and rolled her eyes. “Right. Well, you don’t mind do you?”
Nick, lost in a daydream of blue eyes, dimpled cheeks and curly dark hair, blinked at Tara. “Uh…” He couldn’t quite remember what he was being asked, but he sensed he’d already disappointed his boss enough for one morning. “No, of course not.”
///
Wednesday 2nd December 2020
“Right,” Tara clapped her hands together, smiling widely. “That’s everything I think. Unless anyone has anything else they want—”
Nick’s hand shot up and Tara turned to him with her usual friendly smile. “Nick,” she nodded.
“What’s the deal with these elves? I get that most families seem to have them now and it’s… cute or something to have them in school, but no one told me about them and this morning I came into my classroom to find flour everywhere . And I mean everywhere. And that blood—blinking green thing lying in the middle of it. I tried to sweep it but you told me not to touch it, and Miriam wasn’t impressed when she came in to hoover a little while ago.”
Nick was met with silence. Tara cocked her head to the side, looking confused. “What do you mean?” she finally asked.
Nick huffed and threw his hands up in exasperation. “I came in yesterday to find an elf in my classroom, which… fine! But who is doing these… pranks?! Because covering my classroom in flour isn’t exactly funny. A bit of warning would have been appreciated.”
A long beat of silence followed again. The other teachers were all looking at Nick strangely and Tara was frowning at him. “Didn’t you… I thought you brought him in?”
“What, and then I emptied an entire bag of self raising flour all over my classroom, because spending half an hour on my hands and knees—”
A little giggle that quickly into a cough interrupted Nick. He ignored the way the sound gave him goosebumps and caused his heart to beat faster, instead turning towards the sound with a glare firmly fixed in place.
“Sorry!” Mr Spring bit his lip. “Sorry! Just, they used self raising flour… elf raising flour, it’s clever you know? And then you on your…” the curly haired man shook his head and bit his lip again, but his blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Never mind! Ignore me. Sorry!” His voice went up at the end as he clearly tried to hold back another giggle.
Nick cursed his body’s reaction to seeing the new teacher’s eyes so animated and his dimples so prominent. Channelling the annoyance he felt at his own pathetic attraction to someone he didn’t know, Nick narrowed his eyes at Charlie.
“Was it you—”
Charlie’s smile dimmed instantly. “What?! No! Of course not! Why would… I have an elf too, but all mine did this morning was draw a reindeer on my whiteboard and leave a joke. How does a snowman do his shopping?”
“What?” Nick asked, struggling to keep up.
Charlie cocked his head to one said. “Do you mean how?”
“What?!”
“ How does a snowman do his shopping?”
“I don—”
“He uses the winter net! Get it?” Charlie beamed at Nick, and Nick tried really, really hard to ignore the way his heart danced in his chest.
“Right.” Tara clapped her hands once, and Nick tore his eyes away from Charlie’s smiling lips to look at her. “Nick, Charlie, you’re more than welcome to have an elf in your classrooms, I think it’s great fun, but please refrain from doing anything too messy. I’ll probably have Miriam knocking on my door complaining later by the sounds of it.” She sighed long sufferingly.
“I didn’t… I didn’t make a mess! That’s the point!”
But Tara ignored him, instead dismissing the meeting with a final reminder about the Christmas Fair the following evening.
Nick sat in his chair, perplexed and more than a little annoyed, as everyone filed out of the staff room.
“It’s okay,” a quiet, and unfortunately familiar, voice said from beside Nick.
He turned to see Charlie standing above him, smiling sympathetically.
“Not everyone believes. I’ve learnt it’s best to just roll with it.” He frowned slightly. “And try not to piss your elf off too much. The more you annoy them, the naughtier they seem to get.”
Nick opened his mouth to respond, but then Charlie’s hand wrapped around Nick’s bicep and gave a soft squeeze, and his brain went offline.
“See you tomorrow, Nick.” Charlie’s smile returned, the beauty of it doing nothing to help Nick, who could only nod and watch as Charlie turned and left him alone in the empty staffroom.
///
The next two and a half weeks passed in a blur: between the Christmas Fair (which did not see Nick drooling over a dripping wet Charlie, who for some reason had chosen to wear a very thin white shirt to school that day), the Christmas Nativity, a Christmas parent workshop, a trip to the pantomime, Christmas Dinner, Santa visiting for Festive Forest School, Christmas jumper day, Christmas movie day and bring a toy to school day, Nick barely had a moment to breathe, let alone think.
Someone moving that bloody green elf every morning and getting up to mischief in his classroom only added to the whirlwind. No one had owned up to it yet, but after muttering curses at the green thing one evening before going home, only to sit on a whoopee cushion the next morning and having to deal with thirty nine and ten year olds making fart noises and giggling every time his back was turned for the rest of the day, Nick had decided to try and be nice to his elf. After that the pranks had become less annoying, and Nick could almost admit to enjoying coming in to find googly eyes on all the pencils, or paper chains decorating his ceiling.
His favourite elf antics had included Charlie though. Or more accurately, Charlie’s elf.
Whoever was moving the elf had clearly decided that Nick’s elf (who he nicknamed Greenie) and Charlie’s elf (who apparently had been named Red since he turned up in Charlie’s life a few years ago) were friends. Or should be friends. And every few days Nick would walk into his classroom to discover either Red and Greenie getting up to mischief together, or Greenie missing, only to be discovered next door in 4CS.
This had led to Nick actually talking to Charlie, something he was now able to do without fumbling over his words or spilling hot beverages all down himself. In fact talking to Charlie had become the highlight of his day, and if he didn’t have an excuse to seek the other man out in the form of the elves, he made sure to find another reason.
Now he knew Charlie, he firmly believed that it wasn’t the younger man moving the elves; Charlie usually stumbled into his classroom a good twenty minutes after Nick, inhaling coffee like it was an elixir and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He didn’t seem to actually wake up until about ten in the morning, around the time his class went out for break and he could make himself an extra large, extra strong coffee in the staff room.
He knew Charlie couldn't be moving them after Nick had left school for the day either; Charlie taught drums three nights a week from his spare bedroom, which meant that he usually left promptly at the end of the school day, and Nick couldn’t see Charlie turning back out in the cold and dark, hours later, just to move the elves. The man hated being cold and had confessed to Nick that as soon as his last pupil left he was straight in his PJs and oodie, ready to tackle lesson planning and marking whilst sitting on the sofa, pinned underneath Jesper, his giant ginger tom.
More importantly though, Nick believed him. He didn’t know why, couldn’t explain it if he tried. But he trusted Charlie, even if he’d only really started to know him in the last few weeks. So if Charlie said it wasn’t him moving the elves, he believed him.
Friday 18th December 2020
Nick grinned as he looked around his classroom in search of Greenie. The tiny green elf was nowhere to be found, which meant Nick had the perfect excuse to make Charlie a coffee at break time and deliver it to his classroom.
It was the last day of term and all the kids were loud and hyper, but Nick smiled his way through to breaktime with ease. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he hadn’t hated December and the build up to Christmas. Dare he say, he’d actually had fun. He looked around his classroom at the paper chains, the googly eyes still dotted around and the tiny Christmas tree with twinkly lights that had magically appeared in the book corner after the Christmas fair, and something in his chest fluttered, warm and cozy.
He looked up at the clock, tinsel wrapped around it, and sat up straighter in his chair. He clapped his hands together five times in a well practiced rhythm and waited as his class echoed it back to him. Silence slowly fell.
“What do you say to an extra five minutes of playtime?” he asked his class. A beat of silence followed, before a loud cheer rang through the room. Nick laughed. “Go on,” he nodded towards the door. “Grab your coats.”
Cheers of “You’re the best Mr Nelson!” and “It’s CHRISTMAS! ” filled the room as the kids all raced for the door.
Nick batted his eyes at his TA, who rolled hers back at him with a smile, and then followed the group of children outside. Three minutes later, Nick was outside 4CS with a steaming cup of fresh coffee. After a minute the door to Charlie’s classroom opened and excited kids started to file out. Instead of the usual chaotic stampede though, when the children saw Nick waiting they slowed down and giggled, whispering quietly to themselves. Charlie’s TA grinned widely at Nick as she followed the last child out of the classroom. He smiled back hesitantly, not dwelling on the unusual behaviour for long because Charlie’s classroom was now empty apart from the man himself, and Nick was too excited to see him to think about childish giggles and whispers.
“Hey!” Nick said as he walked inside the brightly decorated room.
Charlie, whose back had been to Nick, jumped and turned around quickly, doing an odd side step as he did.
“Oh, h-hey!” Charlie stuttered. For the first time since they’d met, the other man seemed flustered, and his usually tanned cheeks were tinged pink.
“Are you okay?!” Nick asked, rushing towards him in concern.
“Yes!” Charlie smiled, but it didn’t look quite right. He sounded nervous and his dimples were missing. Nick loved Charlie’s dimples, so their absence was notable.
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment until Nick looked down at the cup in his hands. “Oh, here, I made you a coffee!” He thrust the mug at Charlie a little too enthusiastically, and the next thing he knew, hot coffee was splashing down Charlie’s festive knit cardigan.
“Shit!” Charlie jumped back.
“Oh, fuc-dgicles! I am so sorry!”
“It’s fine!” Charlie quickly unbuttoned his cardigan and shrugged out of it, as Nick darted behind him to the desk, where he knew Charlie kept a box of tissue—
“Oh.”
“I’m fine, it was the shock, it’s not even— Oh.”
“They’re um….”
“Yeah…” Nick could hear Charlie swallow behind him. “I uh… found them like that this morning.”
“Oh.” Nick continued to stare at the two elves in front of him. “They’re… kissing.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure looks that way.”
“Where did they get mistletoe from?”
Charlie didn’t reply for a moment. When he did, his voice was soft, barely a whisper. “Elf magic.”
Nick couldn’t stop his eyes drifting back to Charlie. The other man was staring at the two elves just as intently as Nick had been, but there was something in his expression that tugged at Nick’s heart. Something a little like longing maybe.
Or maybe that was how Nick felt and he was projecting. Hoping. Wanting.
Eventually Charlie gave a small smile and turned to Nick. “Do you think they’re dating?”
There was still a small part of Nick that wanted to scoff, to insist they were just toys and of course they weren’t dating . But a much bigger part wanted to see Charlie smile, and instinctively Nick knew how to make that happen.
“I hope so.”
Nick had been right, a wide, happy grin broke out across Charlie’s face, dimples and all. Nick’s heart fluttered at the sight. “Yeah?”
Nick nodded, taking a step closer to Charlie without any conscious thought, like he was a magnet and Charlie was the North Pole. “Yeah, I like to think they’ve got to know each other over the last few weeks, and found that they like spending time together. And now it’s the last day of school, they couldn’t hold their feelings in any longer, so…”
Charlie took a tiny step towards Nick. They were almost the same height but stood so close, almost toe to toe, Charlie had to lift his chin up slightly. Nick wanted to brush his fingers across Charlie’s exposed collarbone, cup his chin in his hand, kiss him…
“So?” Charlie whispered, his words ghosting across Nick’s lips.
“Charlie,” Nick whispered in reply.
“I’ve liked getting to know you, Nick.”
Nick nodded softly. “Charlie, can I—”
“Mr Spring! Mr Spring! It’s snowing!”
Nick jumped away from Charlie so fast that he swore the other man almost lost his balance.
He knew they had mere seconds before thirty kids were piling through the open classroom door. “Can I take you out tonight? On a date? Please?” Nick rushed out, keeping his voice low as he backed slowly towards the door.
Dimples appeared on Charlie's pink cheeks, his eyes lighting up as he nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Please.”
“It’s a date,” Nick whispered, just before he was swept up in a mob of excited children.
Monday 2nd December 2030
“And so, that’s how Greenie helped Papa meet Daddy,” Nick grinned, still getting butterflies as he reminisced over that first Christmas together.
“And then they brought you me?” Clara asked, her tiny nose scrunched up as her little mind tried to piece together the stories he and Charlie had told her over the last two years.
Nick chuckled gently, kissed the top of her head and gently shifted her so she was lying down in her bed. “Not quite… but they've always helped us know what to do, shown us how to be happy when otherwise we might overthink.”
Clara wrapped her arms around her cuddly cat as she continued to pull a very serious thinking face. “They said I make you happy?”
Nick’s heart clenched. “So very happy, my sweet girl.”
Truthfully, Nick didn’t think they would have needed Red and Greenie in their lives to realise that Clara was meant to be with them when she’d arrived on their doorstep just under two years ago, tiny and dirty and far more timid than any of the many foster children they’d looked after over the years. But the fact that their two elves had turned up the previous week with a tiny baby elf of their own had already prompted a conversation that certainly helped them to make the decision quicker and easier than they might have done otherwise.
Charlie was still convinced elf magic had helped make the whole process smoother than normal too, and by last Christmas, aged two and a half and no longer quite so tiny or timid, Clara had officially become theirs.
“I tell them I want baby brother then,” Clara mumbled into her pillow. “Then they tell you, and I get one.”
Nick laughed louder than he intended, quickly silencing himself by pressing another kiss to his daughter’s head. “I’m not sure that’s how it works, sweetheart.”
“T’is,” Clara yawned. “I talk to them. You see.”
Nick stood back up, smiling. “If you say so.”
Clara just nodded, already half asleep.
Thursday 5th December 2030
“Daddy! Papa! Papa look!”
Nick pulled his dressing gown across his chest, frowning at how tight it felt — he hadn’t eaten that many mince pies, had he? — as he took the last few stairs down into the sitting room.
“Papa see ! A baby!”
Nick’s head snapped up then, his eyes quickly focusing on the familiar sight of Greenie, Red and their toddler elf underneath the Christmas tree. Only this time there was a fourth, much smaller elf with them: a tiny little baby cradled in Red's arms.
Nick's heart did a little somersault.
“A baby! I getting a baby!” Clara giggled, crouching down, careful not to touch, to inspect the little elf family as they wrapped little elf gifts for each other.
“A baby?”
Nick watched Charlie slowly descend the stairs, still as beautiful as the day they met, still as sleepy in the mornings too. Charlie's eyes were heavy with sleep and he paused half way down to stretch and yawn.
Clara quickly bounded back up the stairs, launching herself into Charlie who, even half asleep, automatically bent down to scoop her up into his arms.
“We getting a baby!” Clara squealed, right into Charlie's ear.
Nick watched his husband's face flash through multiple reactions, before settling on confusion. He carried their daughter carefully down the remaining stairs before placing her on the sofa and turning to Nick. “I need coffee.”
Nick chuckled, placing a quick kiss on Charlie's lips. “I'll go make some. You can explain to Clara that just because Greenie and Red have had a baby—”
“They've what?!”
“A baby!” Clara jumped up and down on the sofa. “Papa said they show you what you need! You need a baby!”
Charlie finally noticed the elves under the tree, and a familiar expression, the longing and hope Nick had seen all those years ago in Charlie's old classroom, passed across his face, before quickly being replaced with a sad smile. “Clara, sweetheart—”
The shrill sound of Charlie's phone ringing inside his dressing gown pocket cut him off.
“I'll go make coffee,” Nick smiled at his husband before turning to leave him to deal with whoever was on the phone. He was fairly sure it would be Charlie's mum, trying to catch him before he started work to discuss Christmas plans, and as much as Nick loved his husband, he didn't want to be dragged into that conversation, which was likely to last several long minutes and turn quite heated.
Nick hadn't even finished filling the kettle with water when Charlie practically skidded into the kitchen, his socked feet slipping slightly on the tiles as he hurried through the door. Nick placed the kettle on the worktop as he turned to Charlie in concern.
“Char, what's—”
“It's Linda, they have an emergency placement and no one else… she wants to know… They don't know how long for, but she doesn't think it's going to be short term and—”
Nick placed steadying hands on his husband's arms and squeezed gently. They'd taken a break from long term fostering after adopting Clara, but they still sometimes welcomed a child into their home if Linda, their social worker, ever needed someone to help with a short term, emergency situation. It wasn't that unusual, so Nick was slightly confused by Charlie's flustered demeanor.
“Breathe, start again.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Linda's on the phone, she has a baby she needs to place urgently. Newborn… I said we don't usually… She can't say how long he'd be with us, they're looking for a long term placement for him, but he came earlier than expected. He's okay and the hospital are keen to discharge him but…”
Nick nodded slowly, trying to wrap his head around what he was being asked.
“We don't have anything for a newborn…” Charlie whispered, the words laced with a sadness Nick might not understand, but after a decade together he could hear it all the same.
“We could buy what's needed, that's not a problem. We need to think about… what about Clara? And work?”
“I can cancel my drumming lessons this week. And next. I’m sure the students will understand. I could even ask if Darcy has any free space they could offer them?”
“And Clara?”
Together they turned to look at their daughter who was back crouched in front of the Christmas tree, apparently talking to the elves.
“She's seen us have short term fosters before…” Charlie's tone was pleading.
Nick wrapped an arm around his husband's back. “You think it feels right?”
Charlie nodded, his salt and pepper hair brushing against Nick's shoulder. “I do.”
“Elf magic?”
Charlie chucked softly. “Our magic. Any adventure we go on together, as long as we have each other, I know we'll be okay.”
Nick turned and placed a long, lingering kiss on Charlie's temple, inhaling the comforting smell that was Charlie . “Then tell Linda we're ready for another adventure.”
