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Charlie’s been married to the love of his life for only a few months, and already he knows that in Nick he’s found the best husband—just as he had the best boyfriend and fiancé.
Holidays in general can be quite a stress trigger of his for several reasons, but they all boil down to a common denominator. Namely, they tend to center around personally tender subjects: food, family, overly-peppy festivities. While Charlie always does his best to stay afloat, some of the issues simply can’t be avoided. The chaos becomes nearly unmanageable especially around this time of year, where nonstop festivals and celebrations push him into shutting down and rebooting in damage control mode.
So when Charlie started sinking into the winter blues, Nick—ever loving and attuned to his husband’s every need—immediately noticed and offered to take care of the various Christmas tasks, or even forgo the holiday altogether. Not wanting to taint the memories of their first year as a family, Charlie insisted on moving forward with plans. Nick of course reassured him that nothing could ruin their time spent together. All the same, he graced Charlie with a gentle kiss and a sweet, “Don’t worry love, I’ve got it covered.”
And have it covered, he did. The following weeks pass by in near bliss, something Charlie can’t recall ever happening in living memory. Nick certainly has a knack for supplying a genuine taste of the holly jolly spirit, Charlie realizes as he finds himself cozied up in their kitchen. It’s peaceful and pressure-free, too. He’s perched on the counter for ovensitting duty, surrounded by platters of various home-baked goods for the neighbours, mailman, and local animal shelter where they adopted Daisy. Nick even entrusted him with mixing up the cinnamon roll frosting, which he now licks off of the whisk.
“Hey, Nick? Can you remind me again when I need to get these out of the oven?”
There’s an exceptionally large thud overhead, followed by some incoherent muttering that sounds suspiciously like a string of curses. “One second, sweetheart!” comes his muffled reply.
Nick pops around the corner a moment later as he climbs down from where he’d been rooting around in the loft. He’s dragging a hefty storage tote behind him that bangs on each step of the ladder along the way. Upon closer inspection, Charlie sees it’s covered with a child’s drawings of snowflakes and reindeer in permanent marker.
His voice is clearer this time, but Nick’s still a bit out of breath when he responds. “The timer should have you covered, but since we haven’t gotten around to calibrating the oven yet you can keep an eye on them just in case. Wait until they’re fluffy and starting to golden. That way they’ll be slightly crispy but not crunchy.”
“Oh, crunchy cinnamon rolls would be a travesty. Are you doing alright there?” Charlie teasingly quirks an eyebrow as he rakes his eyes over Nick, all huffing chest and flexing biceps that sparkle with a light sheen of sweat.
In no apparent rush to answer, Nick sets the tub aside and gingerly steps fully into the kitchen, leaning himself comfortably against the counter. He swipes a thumb across Charlie’s lower lip before sucking the stolen glob of cream cheese frosting into his own mouth with a soft hum. “Perfectly. You just relax for a bit while I do some quick decorating. Sound good?”
“Sounds good,” Charlie confirms.
Giving a sly wink as he nabs about his dozenth sugar cookie of the day, Nick takes off to the sitting room with the decorations in tow.
Time ticks by leisurely, the air heavy with a blend of sweet aromas and saccharine tinkling of jingle bells. It’s all so comfortable—so domestic. Once the kitchen timer rings, Charlie gives the rolls an extra fourty-seven seconds to reach what he judges as perfection before setting the tray out to cool.
“Rolls are out,” Charlie says over his shoulder. He does have to admit, they smell absolutely delicious.
“Perfect timing! I just wrapped up in here,” Nick calls back. He appears in the doorway a minute later, grabbing Charlie’s hands in his to lead him through the house. “Okay, no peeking.”
Nick’s frame is burly enough to block out most of the view, but Charlie complies and closes his eyes anyway as a smile cracks across his face. “I won’t.”
“Alright, drumroll please…” Nick plants Charlie in place with firm hands on his shoulders, then quickly steps back to gauge his reaction. “And open. Ta-da!”
The decorations really are a sight to behold. Scattered among streams of tinsel are a lifetime of sentimental homemade baubles: tiny footprint casts, bedazzled childhood pictures taken with Santa Claus, hand-painted glass ornaments, and an assortment of other little winter-themed crafts held together with strings of glitter glue. A lot of them are faded, but it’s easy to tell they were once bright, and even more so that they still carry the same joy today. Nick’s name is lovingly written on each piece, first appearing in Sarah’s neat cursive then eventually scrawled in his own hand as he developed penmanship skills over the years.
Standing next to it all, Nick is absolutely beaming—complete with jazz hands and all. It’s honestly one of the cutest sights Charlie’s ever seen, something he’ll look back on and cherish forever. He’ll be able to fully appreciate it later, but right now, all he can do is stand there with his mouth agape in mild shock. At the center of everything, adorned with it all is something so far from the standard artificial pine tree he envisioned that he’s not really sure what to think.
Daisy, on the other hand, seems entirely unbothered, gnawing away at her newest toy without a care in the world.
“It’s a bit…” Charlie pauses for a moment, making sure to choose his next word delicately before continuing. “Unconventional.”
“Isn’t she something special?” Nick is practically buzzing with pride, either paying no mind to the hesitancy or perhaps missing it altogether. Goodness, he’s adorable.
Charlie’s brain buffers for another few beats. “She?”
“Yeah! Her name’s Heidi!”
He drags his eyes away from Nick, looking back into the blank stare of the six-foot-tall wooden dinosaur figure he’s standing face-to-face with. “I suppose she is a pretty cute, uh…” Charlie wracks his brain for scraps of knowledge he’s absorbed secondhand from Nick. “Parasaurolophus?” He says it slowly, trying to sound out his guess without entirely butchering the pronunciation. “Like Ducky from The Land Before Time, I think.”
“Heidi the Hypacrosaurus,” Nick corrects. “Contrary to popular belief, the anatomical depiction of Ducky and her family indicates she’s actually a Saurolophus, not a Parasaurolophus—which, by the way, was also portrayed with distinctly separate characters. It doesn’t make sense, I know. Not to mention the fact that the entirety of lore and media surrounding The Land Before Time—both official and unofficial—is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
“That said, while three very different dinosaurs, they’re closely related as genera in the common family Hadrosauridae and all present with a classic duck-billed appearance. So it’s somewhat easy for the average person to get them confused.”
“Oh. Okay, cool. Are they in Jurassic Park, then?”
“Yeah, they are. Parasaurolophus starred more prominently in Jurassic Park since it’s most widely recognized. Although…” Nick draws out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and slightly shaking his head. “Don’t even get me started on all the flaws in that franchise. None of them—the hadrosaurids—were around in the Jurassic Period. They didn’t come into play until the Cretaceous Period, and that wasn’t unknown at the time of production either. I mean, how can you be a proper sci-fi without the science? ‘Jurassic’ is literally in the name!”
Charlie giggles, playfully bumping his shoulder into Nick’s. “And you call me a gay nerd. C’mon, tell me what’s real about Heidi. I wanna hear all about her.”
Mirroring the action from a few minutes ago, Charlie joins their hands together and gently guides them to the couch. Daisy quickly perks up and trots over to join in, hopeful for some pets which they’re happy to provide. It’s a quiet, simple celebration of love. This is what Christmas cheer means, Charlie thinks, as he leans into the snuggle pile among fluffy blankets and fireplace warmth and his new little family. With their arms wrapped around each other, Nick begins the story of Heidi’s nativity:
“Well, my mum made her for me. It all started when I was just out of kindergarten, the same year I got Nellie. Anyway, you know how puppies can be. Nellie was chewing the branches and eventually took a tinkle on the skirt, and my dad announced right then that the Christmas tree would be no more. That was also around the time I got my official autism diagnosis, and I was super into dinosaurs—like, my first proper special interest. So of course Mum took me to the Natural History Museum and we picked out a puzzle from the gift shop…”