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In Los Angeles, six-year-old Lucas Diaz shimmies into the corner behind the chair in the living room and wedges himself carefully in between the window and the Christmas tree. It’s a practiced, easy move. From the doorway to the dining room, his dad watches with his arms crossed and a soft look on his face.
“What are you doing, bud?” Eddie asks. He knows the answer, of course. Lucas is doing the same thing he’s been doing half the day and half the week before that.
He props his elbows neatly on the windowsill and puts his chin in his hands, so close to the glass that his little nose smudges it for the hundredth time. Eddie and Buck have been taking turns with the glass cleaner all week.
“I’m watching for Chris,” Lucas explains patiently.
Eddie smiles. “Sweetheart, we are going to go and pick him up from the airport when it’s time, remember?” he says gently.
Lucas looks back at him, frowning. “I can still watch,” he says.
Eddie chuckles lightly. “Okay,” he concedes. “But I promise he’s not going to fly into the driveway like Santa Claus.”
Lucas shakes his head. “Santa Claus does not use the driveway, Dad,” he sighs, glancing back at Eddie, a little long-suffering. “He doesn’t have a car.”
“Come on, Eddie,” Buck says from the hallway, appearing suddenly with a bright grin that he flashes between his husband and his son. “You should know that.”
Eddie checks to make sure that Lucas is firmly turned back toward the window— which he is— and then flips Buck off quickly. Buck laughs out loud, all joy, and Lucas turns back toward them at the sound, confusion on his little features.
“What was funny?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Eddie tells him.
Then, before Lucas can take to any further questioning, he leans in and kisses his husband with a hand to Buck’s waist. Their son has been in a phase lately. Eddie could practically set a clock to—
“Ew!” Lucas says, and turns away from them again.
That. Eddie smiles into the kiss as Buck pulls back just enough to look at him, blue eyes sparkling.
“You’re a mess,” he mumbles.
Eddie shrugs. “You got a kiss out of it,” he points out.
Buck beams at that, and then pulls Eddie in for another one. “Two kisses.”
By the window, Lucas groans and drops his cheek back into his little palm.
In San Jose, Christopher Diaz is standing in front of a window of his own.
Beyond the glass, the tarmac spreads out long and glossy with a fine drizzle of rain. He sighs, watching the slow progress of a luggage cart as it makes its way from one gate to another. He’s at gate sixteen, after a lengthy and annoying process of going through security. He’s gotten used to it since living away from home— or at least in the last couple of years, since he started insisting on more independence. His parents used to drive up and get him for every break, diligently bringing him back and forth across the six-hour drive. Sometimes his dad even did it twice in one weekend, even if Chris insisted it wasn’t worth all the drive time. His dad always said that it was, with that ease in his voice like Chris is worth any amount of hardship to him. Sometimes they drove up, too, got a hotel for the weekend just to be near Christopher. They never complained, even about having to do it with a toddler. Chris knows that it couldn’t have been easy.
So, it had been part of it when he tentatively suggested he’d be fine flying on his own. He thinks Buck wanted to argue. It was Dad who agreed to it, and they both pretended that Chris couldn’t see the anxiety in his eyes.
Still— it’s worked out so far. Chris has made the trip plenty of times now on his own with no problems. He guesses he was kind of due for some. He just wishes it didn’t have to happen on Christmas Eve.
Resigned, he moves back from the window and sinks into the nearest empty chair, easily shrugging his arms out of his crutches and taking his backpack off before he reaches for his pocket and extracts his phone.
His dad answers on only the second ring. “Hey, mijo!”
He sounds so cheerful. Chris sighs. “Hi, Dad,” he answers.
There’s a pause. He’s always been able to read Christopher like a book.
“Everything okay?” he asks cautiously.
Chris sighs again, looking up at the board over the empty desk at gate sixteen. It should display a boarding time by now, but it doesn’t.
“I hope so,” he says. “But I’m delayed.”
On the other line, there’s a sharp intake of breath, a hiss through teeth that Christopher can picture on his dad’s face with as much clarity as if he were right in front of him.
“By how long?” Eddie asks.
Chris glances at the board again. “Two hours,” he answers glumly.
“Damn,” Eddie says. He sounds sad, and Chris hates it. “Okay. Is it the weather?”
“Yeah,” Chris answers. He looks back out the window at the haze beyond it; the sky dark and endless, the tarmac shining dangerously; the planes still in their places. “It just looks like rain to me, but—”
“Hey,” Eddie cuts in, hearing his frustration across all the miles. “Safety first, though,” he reminds him gently. “Just keep us updated, okay?”
“Yeah,” Chris replies, then hesitates. “Can you— maybe just don’t tell Lucas yet.”
It’s not his decision, really. Chris knows his parents will decide what Lucas can handle. It’s just that he’s been privy to near-daily Facetime calls this week in which Lucas has begged and pleaded with him to come home quicker, and Chris knew that he was pushing it by only arriving on Christmas Eve anyway. Guilt ebbs in little by little.
“We won’t,” his dad says softly on the other end of the call. “Try not to stress. You have something to eat?”
Chris softens too, in spite of himself. “Yeah, Dad. I’m fine,” he says.
“Okay. Text me, alright? Or call again if you want to.”
Chris nods, then remembers. “I will,” he says.
“Alright,” Eddie answers, reluctant. “Fingers crossed. We’ll see you soon.”
Chris hangs up and looks back out the window. He’d like to be optimistic, but he isn’t so sure about that. He sighs, settles back into his seat, and hopes anyway.
It’s only when darkness falls, and Christopher’s flight has been delayed for a second time, that Lucas seems to realize something isn’t quite right.
Eddie had filled Buck in after the first call, and they’d quietly worried about it in the kitchen out of Lucas’ earshot. The second update had been by text, Eddie’s phone buzzing quietly and bringing news.
delayed by two more hours :(
The calculations, as far as Eddie sees them, are not looking great. This delay will put Chris arriving at LAX near eight pm. Originally, he should have been there by four and they would have had the whole evening to spend together. Chris will be staying until after the new year, so it’s not as if they won’t have time. It’s just that—
Well. It’s Christmas. Eddie hasn’t said as much— not to Chris, not to Buck— but he really doesn’t have a great feeling about this.
Lucas abandons his post by the window as darkness settles over their neighborhood, and Eddie braces himself as he exchanges a look with his husband.
“Hi, sweet pea,” Buck says as Lucas wanders over to the couch and stands in front of them. He looks— frankly— suspicious.
“Where is Christopher?” he asks.
Eddie clears his throat. “His plane is not here yet, honey,” he says.
Lucas looks back toward the window, uncertain. “But it’s dark outside,” he says.
“Hey,” Buck interjects. “That’s— that’s okay. Right?” He reaches out and draws Lucas in with one hand, pulling him closer and smiling in that comforting way that only Buck really can. “We can still drive to get him in the dark, can’t we?”
Lucas hesitates, but then nods. Miraculously, he lets it go. For now, at least.
Buck exchanges a look with Eddie and then goes off to entertain him. Apple pads down the hallway after them, her collar jingling happily, and Eddie looks back at his phone screen.
Beneath the banner proclaiming the time, there’s a photo of all four of them that had been taken last summer. They’re all squished together on Bobby and Athena’s back deck. Eddie can’t even remember now which barbecue it had been, but Lucas is in Christopher’s lap and they’re squeezing each other. Normally, he can’t look at it without smiling a little. But tonight, it strikes a slightly melancholic chord in his chest.
He’s still trying not to entertain the idea that Chris might not make it back in time for Christmas when the phone rings.
By now, it’s past dinnertime. With a still-young kid in the house, they eat pretty early most nights. Lucas had been hesitant to eat, asking again about Chris, and Eddie had been glad he was facing away from the table as Buck muddled his way through a distract and reassure tactic.
Now, Lucas has had his bath and Buck is with him in his room; Eddie can hear the telltale clatter of plastic blocks from down the hallway as he reaches for the call and snatches it up.
On the other end of the line, Christopher is letting out a frustrated breath before his dad gets any farther than Hey.
“Cancelled,” he says flatly, barring any pleasantries.
His dad curses under his breath. “Completely?” he asks, that edge of anxiety creeping into his voice. Chris kind of wants to bang his head on something.
“Yes,” Christopher grits out.
Eddie is quiet for a minute. “How are you holding up?” he asks eventually. There’s something knowing in his voice that Chris sort of can’t handle right now.
“I’m—” He searches for the word. “Disappointed, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie offers softly. Chris knows his dad so well that he can almost see him glancing at the clock in the living room or the kitchen, the considering look on his face. “Do you want me to drive up and get you?” he asks, eventually, like Chris had known he would.
“Dad,” he sighs. “Even if you did, we’d never make it by the morning now. It’s six hours each way, and you can’t drive all night straight through.”
“I could,” Eddie says, stubborn.
Christopher rolls his eyes, even though his chest kind of aches because he knows that his dad would try if he asked.
“No,” he says, “You couldn’t.”
Eddie hesitates. “We could both come,” he says.
“What, and have Lucas either in a car all night or spending Christmas at someone else’s house?” Chris asks. Both options sound miserable. Worse than being at home and missing one of their family. At least this way, Lucas will have his presents and his dog and his usual Christmas routine to distract him.
It’ll just be without Christopher.
“No,” he says decisively.
“Chris—” Eddie starts, his voice etched with some kind of pain. It shouldn’t be like this, Chris thinks. If he had let his dad come and get him in the first place, or taken a flight a couple of days earlier, it wouldn’t be like this. “I don’t want you spending Christmas alone in the airport.”
“I might still make it,” Chris offers, a little meekly. “They’re going to re-book everybody once they schedule new flights. We don’t know when they’ll be yet, I could end up on a late flight tonight still.”
They both know how unlikely it is. But the longer Christopher looks at the big, impersonal blue and white Christmas tree in the corner of the departures hall, the more he needs to cling to whatever slivers of hope he can get his hands on.
His dad seems to sense as much, and relents.
“Is Lucas okay?” Chris asks into the quiet.
His dad hesitates. “We haven’t told him anything yet,” he admits.
Chris closes his eyes and leans back, imagining how his brother is going to react. He loves that kid so much, he doesn’t even know how to express it sometimes. Becoming a big brother at sixteen had been— new, and different, and unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable.
But it had also been the best thing that ever happened to Christopher.
“Do you think if I wave my crutches around they might take pity on me and put me on an earlier flight?” he asks, thinking about Lucas’ crestfallen face.
His dad offers a dry, humorless laugh. “Worth a shot, bud,” he says gently. There’s a lull, and then he adds— “He’ll be okay. We’ll handle it. I don’t want you to worry.”
It’s a tall order. Chris promises he’ll try, though. It feels empty even as he says it. He listens as his dad promises they won’t open presents without him, and swallows hard as they say goodbye with Chris issuing more promises to keep them updated.
And then it’s just Christopher, and gate sixteen.
Back in Los Angeles, Buck wanders into the kitchen and knows immediately that something is wrong.
Beneath the cheerful hum of the Christmas music that they’ve left playing from the living room all evening, the Diaz house thrums with a pulse of anxiety. Eddie is leaning over the counter, his shoulders tense, and Buck is pretty sure he knows exactly why.
He has to ask anyway, even though he doesn’t want to.
“Was that Chris?”
Eddie turns toward him, his face giving the whole thing away. “Cancelled,” he says. The sadness in his voice shreds at something in Buck.
“Cancelled?” he repeats lowly, glancing back down the hallway. “Completely?”
Eddie nods. “They’re gonna put him on a new flight, but he doesn’t know when. Could be…” Eddie shrugs helplessly. “Who knows?”
Buck thinks frantically. “Well— should we just—”
“Already tried,” Eddie answers, shaking his head. “He’s refusing. Says he doesn’t want Lucas spending Christmas in a car.”
“We could—”
“Or with someone else,” Eddie adds flatly. “Thought of everything, I guess.”
Buck flounders. In the end, he does the only thing he can think to do and reaches out. Eddie goes easily, folding into his hug with the comfort and ease that only someone this deep into a marriage, a partnership, could do. Still— even as Buck relishes the familiar weight of his husband against him— something about the whole thing feels so empty and wrong.
He looks over Eddie’s shoulder at the kitchen table and is struck, momentarily, by the memory of countless nights in this same house, even before it was home to him. All the Christmases, all of them with Christopher. Buck can practically see him as he had been at Lucas’ age or just a little older, sitting right there, vibrating with all the childlike excitement of the holidays.
It aches now. The thought of spending Christmas without him is— kind of incomprehensible.
He kisses Eddie’s head. It helps a little, but not very much.
With a plan in place some few minutes later, they endeavor to do the hardest part. They find Lucas sitting patiently at the window again, even though it’s dark, and the sight makes Eddie wish he could do anything but this.
“Is it time to get Chris?” Lucas asks, perking up when he sees them walk into the room. Eddie’s throat closes up and Buck takes one look at him before taking the lead.
“No, honey,” he says gently, holding his hand out. “Will you come here and sit with Daddy please?”
Lucas extricates himself from the window very carefully, and then obediently comes over to Buck, then lets him scoop him up as they all settle on the sofa together.
The Christmas lights shimmer and the stockings hang like they always have, but everything feels a little bit muted suddenly. As if catching on, Lucas looks anxiously between his parents.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his gaze flickering from Buck to Eddie. “Why do you look sad?”
Buck squeezes him lightly and sweeps a hand over his curls, drawing his attention back to him. “Everything is going to be okay,” he says. “But we have to tell you some sad news, buddy.”
Lucas frowns. “What?”
Buck glances over at Eddie and then back to their son, searching for words. “Do you remember when we went to pick up Tia Adriana from the airport last summer?” he asks. “And how we had to go really late?”
Lucas nods hesitantly.
“That was because her plane was delayed,” Buck explains gently. “Because there was a storm and it’s not safe for planes to fly when the weather is bad. Remember?”
“Yeah,” Lucas says slowly.
“Okay. Well,” Buck says. “The same thing is happening with Christopher’s plane today. That’s why he’s not here yet.”
Lucas looks at Eddie, his blue eyes wide. “Is he very late?” he asks. “Like as late as Santa?”
Eddie swallows hard and reaches out, putting his hand on Lucas’ knee. “His flight is cancelled, sweetheart,” he explains. “So he’s going to have to go on a different plane and we don’t know when that’s going to be.”
Lucas looks between the two of them again, his face increasingly frantic. “But— but Santa is coming tonight,” he says. “So we have to get him before we go to sleep.” He looks over at Eddie. “His plane will be here soon, right?”
Eddie gives his knee a little squeeze. “I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “We don’t know when it’s going to be. It might not be until tomorrow.”
Lucas’ lower lip begins to tremble. “But— but you said he was coming today,” he says, anguished.
“I know,” Buck soothes. “But sometimes things like this happen, and it’s not anybody’s fault.”
Lucas looks up at him, his blue eyes suddenly glossy with tears. “We can’t have Christmas without him,” he says, his voice breaking in the middle. Once it does, it seems like he can’t stop. “We always open our presents together!” he sobs. “And you said— you said you promise!”
Eddie feels as if his chest has been pried open, and one look at Buck gives the same impression.
“I know,” Buck repeats. “But— you know what, he’s gonna be here as soon as he can and then we can just wait a little bit to open the presents with him, yeah?”
Lucas shakes his head. “It’s not the same!” he wails, and drops his head into Buck’s shoulder as his little body heaves with the sobs that he can’t restrain anymore, all of it just too much for a six-year-old. Apple appears at the side of the couch, pacing and nudging Eddie with her nose as if to say— do something. He looks back at her soulful eyes and wishes he could tell her he’s already doing everything he can.
“I know, I know,” Buck hushes, rocking Lucas helplessly. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“I want Chris,” Lucas sobs.
“We know, mi sol,” Eddie hums, stroking his hand over Lucas’ back as his own heart shatters somewhere beneath his ribs. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“No, I’m not!” Lucas cries, curling into Buck and crying with abandon. “I’m not! I hate this Christmas!”
It’s everything they’d known it would be, and worse. Even three years later, Lucas has his days in which he doesn’t cope particularly well with Chris being away. He does better as time goes on, but this is like the first year and then some.
They shush him and Buck holds him and Apple paces and the Christmas lights and the gifts sit in the corner and mock all of them. At least, that’s how it feels to Eddie. Eventually, Lucas’ sobs quiet to sniffles and Buck keeps rocking him gently as Eddie lays a throw blanket over them both.
From there, Lucas eventually tires himself out to total exhaustion and cries himself to sleep in Buck’s arms. The quiet is new and ringing when it comes, leaving far too much space in Eddie’s head to think.
Buck watches him over Lucas’ head, his face soft and sad and sympathetic. “You okay?” he whispers, eventually.
Eddie clenches his jaw and gives a small shrug. “It’s okay,” he says, also in a whisper. “It just—” He looks at Lucas and shakes his head a little bit. “I want him here, too. It’s not fair on either of them.”
Christopher is, of course, a grown adult. That doesn’t make the sting of the thought of spending a Christmas without him any less harsh. Even as he thinks about it, Eddie realizes that part of him is picturing baby Christopher alone in that airport instead of the capable man that he’s become.
He thinks it’s probably the same for Buck— that the Chris he’s seeing in his head probably has little red strapped glasses and small crutches and crooked teeth.
Eventually, they tuck Lucas into his bed and crawl into their own. Eddie checks in with Chris— no change so far— and they settle in pressed together. It helps, Buck curled around him, but when Eddie can’t keep his eyes open anymore, sleep is still fitful.
When the miracle happens, it’s already Christmas— technically speaking, anyway.
Christopher hears his own name over the intercom in the eerie stillness of an airport at three-thirty in the morning. He’s stiff and a little bit in pain, but more than happy to cram himself into an airplane seat anyway.
By four fifteen, the plane rumbles beneath him as the plane lifts off the ground. Christopher has never been more happy to be on a plane in the middle of the night in his life. Actually, he thinks just before he drifts off to the roar of the engines, he’s not sure he’s ever been on any plane in the middle of the night before.
When they touch down in Los Angeles, by what must be a true Christmas morning miracle, it’s almost six in the morning. Chris gets as far as opening his phone to call his dad, but stops just short. There is, after all, still the same old key to his childhood home hanging on his key ring and he has Buck’s credit card in his Apple Wallet.
He can’t imagine either of his parents will mind a hefty Uber fare. Just this once.
Christopher had thought that it would be hard to stay awake in the Uber. As it turns out, the thought of surprising his family keeps him wired as he rides through the sunrise over Los Angeles into the dawn of Christmas Day.
They coast past the city, much quieter than usual, and Chris watches the faint wintry twinkle of the decorations where they hang from the streetlamps and along the streets in the first light of day. It’s a long ride, but he’s hopeful he’s going to make it. By the time the driver pulls into the familiar residential neighborhood, Christopher is alight with the familiar hum of excitement.
“Merry Christmas,” he says, grinning at the driver as he maneuvers his crutches out of the car in front of the house.
He doesn’t get a response. He also doesn’t really care. He has a baby brother and a Christmas morning to get to.
It only takes a moment for Chris to slip into the house. He knows all the creaky floorboards and where to step and he leaves his crutches with the rest of his stuff by the door. This is home— the walls are still smudged with the phantom of his fingertips in all the same places that he’s always used to balance as he makes his way very carefully and quietly, past the unlit Christmas tree and all the gifts— sparing a glance long enough to see that his parents had filled his stocking, even knowing that he wasn’t going to be here— down the hall to Lucas’ bedroom.
Apple notices him first, as he eases the door open stealthily. She raises her head where she’s sleeping at the foot of Lucas’ bed and thumps her tail happily, like even she knows that they were waiting for him. He might be emotional about it, if he wasn’t focused elsewhere.
Namely, on the little boy in his bed. Lucas is curled up, still fast asleep in the quiet house, the faint morning light leaving him undisturbed. Even so, Chris can see the residual redness around his eyes, the flush in his cheeks beneath where his hand is curled around Duckie against his pillow.
He smiles a little, and then carefully lowers himself onto the edge of the bed. It’s a little clumsy— a little unsubtle, jostling both Lucas and Apple. But ultimately it’s his hand against his brother’s shoulder that rouses him. Lucas turns sleepily, blinking into the light, and then—
It’s kind of like Christmas magic.
Lucas opens his eyes and springs into life at the sight of Chris, scrambling up out of his sheets and throwing himself into his brother’s arms as Christopher’s chest glows warm with the joy of it and he wraps Lucas up in a hug just as enthusiastically.
“You’re here, you’re here!” Lucas squeals, squeezing him tightly.
“Hi, Lucas,” Chris laughs. “Merry Christmas!”
Lucas squeezes impossibly tighter and makes a little noise very similar to being hugged by Buck, and Christopher grins.
“They said your plane wasn’t coming!” Lucas says, his voice muffled by Christopher’s shoulder.
Chris squeezes him back. “Did you think I was going to miss Christmas with my favorite boy?” he asks.
Lucas pulls back just enough to shake his head, his blue eyes bright and shining. “No,” he says seriously. “I thought you would always come.”
Chris smiles. “I would always come to see you, bud,” he says warmly.
There’s a squeak from the hallway that Chris knows as his dad’s bedroom door— the same as always. He looks back at his brother.
“Uh-oh,” he whispers. “I think I’m about to be discovered.”
Seconds later, his dad steps into the room looking— a little— alarmed. His face eases into surprise and joy and warmth in a matter of a second at the sight of Chris sitting on the edge of the bed, beaming with Lucas still attached to him in his Christmas pajamas.
“Chris,” Eddie gasps, moving forward as Buck appears behind him. And then they’re all around Lucas’ bed, a tangle of a hug with a wiggly six-year-old at its center.
Christopher beams from the middle of it all.
“Merry Christmas,” he says.
Above him, his dad shifts and Chris gets a good look at his face— familiar dark eyes, suspiciously glassy.
He reaches out and touches Christopher’s cheek, the way he used to when Chris was little.
“Best Christmas gift ever,” he says, too soft to be for anybody but Chris.
“Okay!” Buck says, a touch too loud and somehow just right. “This calls for Christmas pancakes, let’s go, let’s go!”
And maybe Chris is asleep on the couch within minutes of presents being opened. But when he wakes up, it’s to his little brother climbing carefully on top of him with his dad’s earnest sweetness and Buck’s dramatic flair. And if you’re asking Chris, he doesn’t think he would change any of it at all.