“No, like my father,” Claybourne said slowly, opening the door.
“Come on, Sebastian, let’s give them some space,” Liam said from the hallway where he waited with Kent.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Doc. I love you, because to me Felix is my brother and you are his mate. But, if you hurt my brother again, I will bring down a world of hurt on you. I’ve kept my mouth shut up until this point hoping you’d pull your head out of your ass and see how shitty you’ve been treating him. This is your first and last warning. You better start treating my brother right or you will see what kind of scary shit I can shift into, because I have tricks that even Felix doesn’t know about.” Sebastian stood up and stretched, rubbing his back.
“Now make up and give me a niece or nephew to spoil.” He grinned evilly at Claybourne, who swallowed hard.
“Oh and Doc, I’ll see you tomorrow for my appointment at nine a.m.” Sebastian waddled past Felix and Claybourne to Liam.
“Good luck, Doc,” Liam said, and all three walked down the hallway.
“Felix I’m…” Claybourne started.
“I’m stealing your cinnamon rolls!” Felix heard Sebastian yell from the kitchen.
Smiling, he yelled back, “Go ahead! What’s another ten pounds!”
“Fuck you! And for that, I’m taking all of them!”
Felix smiled until he heard the front door close and his friend was gone.
“You were right!” Claybourne blurted out.
“Huh? About what?” Felix asked, wanting clarification.
“All of it. You’re right, we should be enjoying our first Christmas together. You’re right, you don’t have a presence in our home, that’s my fault. Every time you bought something, it would seem out of place, you were considerate of my feelings and got rid of it. I had no idea that’s what I was doing. It wasn’t because you aren’t special to me.” Claybourne dropped to his knees, crying.
“I never even realized that it was your first Christmas being free, of course you’d want to celebrate. But, once again it was all about me. I freaked out that things were different. There were needles on the floor. The lights weren’t symmetrical on the tree. The snowman on the left side of the fireplace has a button missing. I turned into the one person I hate most in the world.” Claybourne pounded his fists into his thighs.
Felix jumped off of the counter and dropped onto the floor beside his mate, grabbing both hands. “I should have thought about what these changes would do. I just thought that it would be okay since it was Christmas and who doesn’t like Christmas?”
“Stop it! Stop making excuses for me. You are always compromising, always being selfless and putting what you want aside for my own asinine ways.”
“You’re my mate, of course I’ll compromise. It just hurt the way you came at me like that,” Felix admitted softly.
“We never celebrated Christmas when I was a child. Christmas meant mother would be busy with dinner parties and father would open a new bottle of whiskey. The house was never decorated. The one time I tried to put up a tree like my friends had, that is what my father yelled, ‘Take it down, it’s tacky and gaudy!’ After I left home, I didn’t know how to celebrate. It was just me, so I never started.” Claybourne looked up and Felix could see the stark terror in his eyes at the thought of becoming like his father.
“Come with me.” Felix stood and pulled his mate up. He walked him back into the family room.
He sat Claybourne on the sofa. He ran to the kitchen and grabbed the dustpan and foxtail. He quickly swept up the loose plastic needles and threw them away. Next he grabbed a black Sharpie from the utility drawer and drew a button on the snow man. He stood in front of his mate.
“Okay, what needs to be changed with the lights?” he asked.
Claybourne looked at him for a second like he had lost his mind.
Felix rolled his hand in front of him. “Come on.”
“The branch on the right, there is a light strand that dips down lower than on the left.”
Felix turned and eyed the tree before he saw what his mate was talking about. He adjusted the light strand and stood back.
“What else?”
“I hate purple bulbs. Purple is just not a Christmas color.”
Felix easily plucked off the handful of purple bulbs.
“Now, tell me what you like.”
