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Once upon a time, the heir of Christmas was born. While he showed a spark of promise in his younger years, it quickly became apparent to his father that the boy was difficult. He was clumsy at times, too silly often, and did not have the head for reason that was necessary to lead the holiday. Though his father hoped he would grow as a person, as each year past only his waning hope did.
The first time Coal was difficult to love
“One day, I hope you have a son who's just like you so you’ll understand I've done the best I can with what I’ve been given.”Coal was ten when his father told him that, which was terrifying given that his father, in essence, was magic itself. Or so it felt. It felt like only a few short months ago his father had believed Coal was the future of Christmas and now. Now if he didn’t change he’d be their curse.It didn’t sting, it took his breath away. He didn’t know then or for a while that it was a panic attack. This great inescapable idea that fate chose him to be next in line and there was more than a small chance that he would prove it wrong.Prove everyone wrong.Worst of all Santa.
The second time
At thirteen, Coal is on the cusp of many things—more training with his dad. Being firmly in his teenage years.Accepting that mom isn’t coming back.Being a teenager in the North Pole isn’t that different. There is a struggle like any other person to explore their identity. Santa turns a blind eye to the more garish outfit choices and the more frequent excuses to hang out with friends instead of studying their family's history. Until that year's Christmas banquet.Brash and with poor tonal control he can’t but tell his brother lewd jokes he’s heard lately. The Easter princesses who are in attendance roll their eyes at him but it feels so good to be the reason they are laughing he can’t stop himself. He’s always had a hard time with that.An explicative slips a little too loudly from his mouth and he sees Santa’s demeanor change from sending him warning glares to carefully blank.He expects he’ll get an earful afterward and knows a “Coal, follow me now.” is in the air before it leaves his father's mouth.What he doesn’t expect is that as soon as they are around the corner from company, foreign or domestic, he snatches the teenager's brocade-lined collar dragging him to the nearest bathroom.“Dad-”But it’s all so fast.“How dare you embarrass me and worst of all our Holiday with your foul mouth.” He’s trying to lean down to grab a decorative snowflake soap at the sink while Coal twists trying to get away from being manhandled.Screw this, he is not a child and will not be handled like one. With the height difference, things go sideways effortlessly.“The next time I hear you talking like a common sailor, I will shove this soap so far down your-”They both lose their balance and in the confusion, Coal's face smashes down on the soap, his teeth almost embedded in the surface, his nose alight with blunt force trauma.He makes it worse like he always does by viciously over-correcting to scrub as his face splits open the fragile skin of his bottom lip spitting to get the taste out of his mouth. He smells copper but thankfully his nose is just red, not broken or bleeding.His dad stumbles away before regaining his balance. Shocked and then something Coals never seen before. A cold distance.“Clean yourself up and go to your room, you’ve made enough of a scene already.” and now the oldest son of Christmas starts to think that maybe he does complicate everything.
The third time
The first time Coal goes to a club is also the last. He’ll go to one, reliable bar near his university in the future but one that he knows is a relatively safe space.At seventeen with his first fake I.D. nowhere feels inherently unsafe. Just exciting. He wants to soak up everything he can before being a responsible heir is no longer a choice.Though it’s starting to feel like less of one. The friend who gave him the I.D. tells him to lighten up and go make out with someone.Iris and Kris come along, though they are only there to keep an eye on him, so they say.But this is also their first time at a club and it’s hard to keep track of everything with blaring music and hypnotic light sequences.Coal doesn’t know that once you order a drink you need to have your eye on it all the time, even while the bartender makes it.His senses are already drunk and it’s so hard to focus, that he doesn’t even really want to. He just wants to have fun.This is the first place where he can test how far his attraction to both men and women goes because no one knows him or is going to tell his dad.A boy, not a man with bright platinum hair that glows in the black lights, comes up to him with two glasses and extends one.His first mistake is to feel stupid asking what it is not wanting to come across as inexperienced as he is. He’s had spiced wine before and sips of hot toddies but this is different. It tastes like rubbing alcohol smells and a cinnamon candle.The very attractive man in front of him shotguns it so he does too though it burns so much it feels like it’s going to come right back up until there’s a tongue in his mouth.There are soft hands on the sides of his face and yes, if the reaction of his body heating up is anything to go by, he does like men. Test confirmed.Young and horny he lets the other guy lead him to the hallway outside of the bathrooms once they part for air.His second mistake is thinking that as long as there in the club, he doesn’t need to tell anyone where he’s going.Pushed up against a grungy dark green way, nervous excitement flairs in his belly. It feels good to be desired. It also feels like a good sign that it's all moans and heavy breathing instead of awkwardly talking.That is until the hands touching him diverge in their journey. One going below the waist of his pants and the other to the side of his neck.Coal tries to ignore it first but he’s never liked things touching his neck so he tries to attractively lean away while staying connected at the lips. The upper hand moves his head back.And he starts to get the smallest bit nervous.“Hey, really quick. What’s - a what’s your name? I’m Coal.” the bright blond sighs.“David, ok?” He’s like a sucker fish attaching himself to Coal’s numb wet lips. It’s when there is a light squeeze on his neck that he decides he can’t do this. I Don't want to do this.“Um you're hot, really hot but can we just keep it to below the chest-” a hand slams next to his head. He can’t hear the thump of it but the wall vibrates with the force.“Listen, you're cute so stop ruining the mood.” He thinks he’s in fight or flight mode, he should be but all he can do is start to shake. It never occurred to him that someone might not listen to him, might want to take something from him that he wasn’t ready to give.“No, uh thank you. My friend-” He’s trying to play it off but there is a real growing concern added by the fact that it’s getting harder to breathe and think.Going to the side step away he finds the world unsteady with him in it.“I got you, just relax babe, I’ll take care of you.” The other man’s version of taking care of him is palming his limp dick outside of his underwear for a few minutes.It gets harder to hear then, all he knows is the heat of the body pressed into his is suddenly replaced by nothingness.It’s all nothingness until Iris swims into vision, upset and beautiful.“Oh my gods, I thought you have been kidnapped and here you are drunk off your ass. You scared us.” They're not the only ones, his mouth is too lax to say that.They get him into the car where he is bullied into finishing one and a half water bottles on the drive home so he looks semi-sober.By the time they are in the palace, it feels like a bad dream ghosting over his skin. It only exists if he thinks hard enough about it. So letting it go starts to feel easier and easier.That is until he passes his father who looks like he is heading to bed late from working in his office.It feels like Santa only stops out of familial obligation looking him up and down.“Coal, are you..ok?”The third mistake he makes is thinking that he can’t talk about this with anyone.From sneaking out with a fake idea to getting groped by a stranger after he got drunk, nothing he’s done tonight has been ok. None of it he can ever tell his dad if he wants the look of perpetual disappointment to leave.“Yeah. Of course. ‘Night Dad.”Coal doesn’t look ok. He’s still not very steady and he wants to cry. The thing is, Santa sees this, on a basic level at least and he lets Coal go without further questions.The father of Christmas tells himself he has too much to worry about already.
The fourth time
If there isn’t a glass ceiling to mess up, a natural-ish but unobtrusive barrier, there should be. There really should be. Coal, for the first time in a long time, wishes for Christmas that he had something like this.If he did then perhaps granting all of those- may be that little island he decimated wouldn’t be-Well, it could have turned out differently. It could have turned out right.Then he wouldn’t have been effectively exiled for a year. After the night in the bar when Dad calls to rip his paper fine heart into shreds, that…just it. For a year at least.But a year can be a deceptively long time.Even Kris and Iris slow down in their messages to him.In the first month, he thinks it will blow over and they will slowly come back to him. He hopes, he really does that they will understand he just wanted to help. That his heart was in the right place.That second month, he gets mad. Screw them. People make mistakes. It happens. Can’t they see he’s suffering too? He reads everything he can get his hands on about the state of affairs. He’s not just getting off scot-free.Then the money in his account dries up when the second semester nears.At first, he calls Dad, grovels a bit, and leaves voicemails with increasing panic. Not even Santa’s secretary will get back to him.He gets a message from the university about upcoming costs. Meal plans, Dorms, Tuition. He’s by himself scrambling to find jobs to cover costs he never thought about before. That he has to pay, it’s not like he can just stop eating, he tried.It feels cruel but also, a bit deserved. So he stops the texts and emails too. All of them probably have their hands full putting out the fires he started. And Coal, he’s not a fire or even an ember. He’s just…cold.You never know how lonely you can be, you think you do and then, terribly, horribly, you find that was nothing but a false bottom to a much deeper void.
The fifth time
Somehow, Coal fully prepares himself in the half a second he decides to push Kris out of the way and take the hit.It’s something he can do right, Something he can be useful for.A punching bag.He kind of always has been for their father. In one way or another.He’s also kind of always deserved it so he makes peace with the impact of a connecting fist.At ten, Coal had been a bit surprised but mostly outraged by his father's angry outburst. Now there is no surprise or outrage. He learned for a long time to be disappointed in himself too.Kris, however, is not just surprised but decimated by the abuse. He doesn’t understand that life has been giving as good as Coal gave it for a long time.His brother can’t understand that Coal is a bit difficult to love. He doesn’t learn the easy way and their dad understands this.“You just make it so hard, Coal, to be nice to you. I want to be nice to you, I do but you make it hard when you do these things.”“If you can’t find a way to be the future Santa that our holiday deserves, I will do what I have to to make you.”“One day you will see, I was so hard on you for a reason.”He’s still sputtering pieces and parts of outrage as he pulls Coal past their stunned father whose face is locking down into resolve by the second, to the solace of his bedroom.Red blooms like paint in water over Coal's cheekbone, like mismatched blush. Kris keeps sneaking side-long glances at it, tomorrow there will be a spectacular bruised blossom of a shape in its place.And all Coal will remember of this is that: he should stop trying, he really should.
Plus One time he wasn't
After they’ve been together for a few years Coal and Hex talk about life beyond the collective.About adopting a child.
It’s another year before they get married and an additional year and a half before they have a tiny willful toddler with wild black curls ruling both of their lives.Kris, confirms his suspicions that year, that while Navi looks like Hex, though not his biological parent, he is basically Coal when he was a kid. Also somehow how without being a biological parent.It’s the first time he’s come close to a panic attack in years. Worrying that he’ll mess up this beautiful kid they're supposed to be giving a better life to.Navi is asleep in his big kid room adjacent to theirs.The light clicks on even though Coal is trying to be quiet with his racing thoughts and when Hex drags himself into a sitting position Coal follows without thinking.Hex knows him so well it feels like he can hear Coal's heart.“I can hear you thinking, What’s wrong with love?” he wants to shrug but doesn’t, they don’t block each other out like that anymore. They don’t cut eachother off from loving one another but old habits die hard.“Do you” he scratches the light beard that’s been coming in nervously. A new habit. “Do you think Navi is..” he laughs trying to dispel this dramatic tone he’s set. “Maybe a little too much like me? I don’t know if I’m the best influence.”Despite having taken over as Santa for a few years now. The literal embodiment of light in the darkest moments and childlike wonder.“Do you love our son?” they were still getting used to saying that but the reaction was automatic.“Of course Hex! Jeez, what kind of question is that?” There's a calculating pause and he reaches for his husband's hands.“Ok, what do you love about him?” and where is this even going? A positive thought reframing exercise?“What do you mean? I don’t know, everything? He’s the cutest kid I've ever seen. Which is more than a little biased but that’s ok. Mmm, he’s also hilarious, you know the other day he kept calling me go-go instead of dad for the whole damn day and I couldn’t figure it out until afternoon snack. It was because my sweater was green and white like his yogurt pouch. I asked him and he just started laughing this deep belly laugh- and man- he has the best laugh. Besides yours.” He signs and relaxes his tense shoulders.“I just didn't know I could love anyone else this quickly and easily. I’m amazed every day by how fast he’s growing. How he understands this strange new world and embraces it.” That happens a lot more lately, this outpouring of love when their son gets brought up. It’s becoming his favorite topic.“So he’s easy for you to love?” to which Coal just gives a bewildered expression of duh. It’s been so natural to love Navi sometimes it takes his breath away.And Coal knows he’s sunk when Hex rests his hand with their wedding band over his heart.“Then yes Coal, he is just like you, he’s one of the easiest people I’ve ever loved.”
Oh.
OH.
Forgiveness is such a bittersweet thing.He was never difficult to love, he just was by someone who had a difficult time loving.And that, Coal starts to understand. Is a very different story from the one he was raised with.So…Hex tells him a new one.
Once upon a time there was a kind, funny, and strong man named Nicolas. As Santa with his loving husband, the future Halloween king, they helped change the tradition of their holidays to be a place where everyone could succeed. Together they had a beautiful son named Navi and their days were filled with kindness and, most of all, love.
The End.