by KC Burn
"Hey." Tony knocked softly as he spoke.
The frown fell away and Dean smiled—a real one—before confusion took over. "Tony? What are you doing here?"
Tony pushed his way into Dean's office and shut the door behind him. Dean's eyes widened with a look almost akin to panic.
"Don't worry, I won't keep you long." Tony sat in the chair across from Dean's desk and slid the still-hot paper cup across to him.
"I don't understand." Poor Dean. He really didn't understand.
Tony smiled gently. "I'm on my way to my next patient, but I have some extra time, so I thought I'd drop off a little treat."
Dean's eyes narrowed as he stared at the cup. "What kind of treat?"
His Mr. Murphy was too funny. At least, Tony chose to think it funny. Otherwise, he'd start to believe no one had ever bought Dean anything just because. And that would be too fucking sad for words.
"Just try it."
"It's Christmassy, isn't it? I don't like peppermint, you know."
Yeah, he knew. "Just try it. You probably haven't had peppermint like this. It's one of my favourite drinks this time of year. If you hate it, I'll drink it." The identical drink he had cooling in the cup holder in the car would put him well over his caffeine limit for the day, but once in a while wouldn't hurt.
With a wrinkled nose, Dean took a tiny sip. Then a bigger one.
"It's actually good. I mean, I can taste the peppermint, but there's chocolate in there and the coffee offsets the sweetness of both. What is it?"
Tony smiled at the wonder in Dean's tone. "It's called a peppermint mocha. You should be able to order something similar at most coffee places, although not all of them carry peppermint flavour the entire year."
Peppermint might be a tiny step, but at least it was in the right direction. Tony was gonna drag this Christmas lover out of his Scrooge closet.
"Oh. Okay, thanks." Dean took another sip, this time without looking like he expected a bomb to explode in his face.
"Are you free Saturday? We're only one-third of the way through your Christmas indoctrination."
Dean rolled his eyes, but fortunately didn't tense up the way he did when they first spoke about the holiday.
"I have to work mornings on both Saturday and Sunday—weekends are crazy this time of year—but as long as we're not out too late, Saturday is good."
For the first time, Tony caught a glimmer of why working retail might engender a dislike of the holiday. It hadn't really occurred to him that people like Dean probably had to work harder and longer than they did at any other time of the year, while simultaneously exuding the excess of cheer and goodwill the season demanded. But Tony was confident he could revive Dean's joy in the season without adding any extra stress.
"Awesome. I'll pick you up at your apartment around four."
Tony leaned over the desk and gave Dean a kiss, just long enough to bring a hint of pink to his cheeks. "I won't keep you any longer." He turned around to open the door and realized there was another pressed dress shirt, this one in white, hanging on a hook.
"Um. You keep a spare shirt in your office?" Tony kept a spare set of scrubs in his car at all times, but being a nurse was often as messy as it was rewarding.
"Well, sometimes I have to help unload the trucks and I don't like working while dirty."
God. The urge to rumple Dean rose up stronger than before, maybe bare his skin, make it available for tasting. Tony desperately wanted to put Dean in such a state that he'd have to change shirts, but that was fodder for the realm of fantasy. In reality, Dean returning to work wearing a different shirt after Tony left his office? Highly unprofessional, and Tony had no intention of adversely affecting Dean's job.
"I am so not surprised." Tony was careful not to sound judgmental, especially when trying to control an overeager erection.
"Thanks again for the coffee."
Tony threw a grin over his shoulder before he slipped out of Dean's office. He could wait until Saturday to engage in some proper rumpling.
CHAPTER FOUR
TONY PULLED into the visitor parking at Dean's apartment complex a couple minutes before four. He plugged his phone into the stereo system and called up the playlist he'd made especially with this date in mind. A minute later, Dean burst out of the building, blond hair shining in the fading sunlight. Tony had called ahead to let Dean know he was on his way, but he hadn't expected Dean to be waiting downstairs.
Dean yanked open the door and sat, accompanied by a gust of cold air. "Fuck. I didn't think I was ever going to be able to leave work."
"Bad day at the office, hon?" Tony blinked and bit his tongue. Kind of early to start with those pet names, as much as Tony wanted to lock down Dean's available status. At least, given the context of his words, they could be taken as a joke.
"Ugh. Barely got out of there in time to shower and change. I had to stay an extra three hours. It was a total shit show. I was afraid I was going to have to call and cancel. But... um... I didn't want to screw up any plans. I mean, I know dinner last Saturday would have been hard to reschedule."
Oooh, yeah. That would have been a bitch. Those dinner tickets were rather more than he normally spent trying to impress a guy on a first date, but as soon as he'd gotten the idea in his head, he hadn't been able to shake it. And it had turned out better than he'd hoped. In fact, the tickets he’d gotten had been the result of a cancellation.
"Well, today is a little more flexible. Don't get me wrong, I'd have been disappointed if we'd had to reschedule, but I understand that sometimes things come up." Tony was reluctant to give Dean that out, but he wasn't a dick, and Dean wasn't his fucking slave or anything. Dean had to want to go out with him, and the three-date dare was just a nudge in the right direction, not an unbreakable contract. "Are you sure you want to go?"
"Yes. Please. I'd probably spend the night pacing my apartment, just stewing about everything that went wrong, and likely still going wrong right now."
Tony was pretty sure he could jolly Dean into a good mood, giving him a better reason to enjoy himself than to avoid thinking about work.
"Then let's get going."
"Oh, I... it's not much, but I brought you a candy cane," Dean said somewhat shyly. “If you wanted one.”
Dean stared pointedly out the passenger window, even as he held out a full-sized candy cane delicately striped with green and red. The Christmas thaw of Dean's heart had to be underway. It just had to.
Hell yeah. That tiny thoughtfulness, that tiny concession to Tony’s near-obsessive love of Christmas was the second crack in the dam. The first—of course—was accepting Tony’s offer of three themed dates.
“That’s great. Thank you, Dean.”
“Did you, uh, want it now?”
“Eh. Probably not too practical to eat it while I’m driving. Break off a piece that I can just pop in my mouth?”
No way would he let Dean feel like Tony didn’t appreciate his little gift.
“Sure.”
Tony took the broken piece and put it in his mouth. Mmm. “Thank you. Take a piece, too, if you want.”
Dean hesitated for a fraction of a second before he declined. Baby steps. The peppermint mocha had been a hit, and Tony still counted that as a win.
As they pulled out on to the street, Tony started the music. The playlist included a number of more light-hearted and less-traditional holiday songs, such as “12 Days of Christmas” by Relient K and “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses. Almost as soon as the first song gave a hint of the jingle of bells, Dean reached out for the radio controls.
Tony grabbed his hand and redirected it to Dean's thigh. The day would come when Tony would be comfortable taking Dean's hand and putting it on his cock for a little fun while driving, but that day wasn't today, and it had nothing to do with the condition of the roads. They just weren't there yet.
"No changing the music. Today, we're going to set the mood a little before we get there."
The disgrun
tled pout was just visible in his peripheral vision, and Tony barely held in his smirk.
"Fine. But I promise I'm not going to like it."
"Okay, then." Tony wondered if Dean was going to sulk the whole way downtown, but he'd underestimated his man. Dean asked him about his family, of all things, and Tony ended up listing all the things his sister still had scheduled for the kids and their various holiday school functions. Honestly, he didn't know how she did it, but most years, his brother-in-law was home to help. This was the first year Gary had been deployed over the holidays, which made him luckier than most.
Then again, maybe Dean was sneakier than he'd thought, because with Tony talking, Dean didn't have to. Although, he did notice a couple of fingers tapping along to the music. Baby steps, baby steps.
It didn't take Dean long to figure out they were heading downtown. The traffic wasn't as awful as it could have been, but Dean wasn't a fan of trying to brave any of the routes. The ones without hideous traffic had too many pedestrians and streetcar tracks. The tracks were worse than ice, with his narrow tires.
"Pretty brave, trying to find parking downtown on a Saturday. We could have taken the subway, you know." It’d be a lot cheaper, too.
Tony shrugged, gaze firmly on the road. "Eh, where we're headed has a few nearby parking structures, and I'm not planning on drinking. It's nice to just get into the car and head home when we're ready to leave. Feels all adult-like." Tony flicked him a glance with a naughty grin.
Even though this was only the second time Tony had picked him up for a date, Dean could get used to being a passenger. It was definitely more relaxing than taking the subway. He'd been jumped a couple of times on the subway. Not because he was gay but because he looked like an easy target. He'd escaped both times with no more than scrapes and bruises, because he wasn't nearly as easy a mark as he appeared, but that didn't change the fact that he avoided going downtown whenever he could.
"So, is this plan a secret, too?" The last Christmas date had been... good. Far better than anticipated, and hadn't made him nearly as squeamish as he'd expected, probably because it didn’t resemble any Christmas as he'd seen on TV. No guarantee that same luck would hold. But why downtown? What was downtown that they couldn't find near their homes?
"Yeah, I think so. Don't want to give you a chance to veto it without giving it a try."
Dean crossed his arms in mock disgruntlement. Well, maybe a bit of real disgruntlement. Not only did that sound ominous, but he was a little pissed that Tony assumed he'd automatically refuse to go.
Before too long, Tony made his way up Bay Street and turned into a parking structure. They got out of the car, and Tony rummaged around in the back seat.
"Here, put these on." Tony tossed a bundle of knitted somethings onto the seat.
"Uh. What? I'm wearing gloves. And a coat. And a scarf."
Tony rolled his eyes. "You're dressed for a quick walk from building to car."
"We just drove through the financial district," Dean drawled. "We’re not exactly hiking in the wilderness. And I'm pretty sure there are about, oh, a billion stores if we head over a block to Yonge Street."
"Oh my, how sarcastic, Mr. Murphy."
Shit. Something about the way Tony called him by his last name made him shiver. It just seemed so delightfully wicked that he got completely sidetracked.
"Seriously, though, you're going to freeze in what you're wearing. So I made sure to bring you some stuff."
Was that sweet or annoying? Dean was leaning toward sweet, simply because he'd never had anyone care enough to bother.
"C'mon. Let's get you out of this." Tony peeled back Dean's pea jacket and tossed it on the seat. Then he grinned, grabbed the ends of Dean's scarf and used it to pull Dean close. "Mmm. Too bad I have to put more clothes on you."
Dean lifted an eyebrow. "This is all your idea, don't forget that. We could be at my apartment, naked and in bed, at this very moment."
Tony's eyes darkened and a split second later, he was kissing—no , more like devouring—Dean's mouth. Fuck. How could he possibly be cold while wrapped in Tony's arms?
Dean clutched Tony closer as his cock plumped up. Parking garage sex was probably against some public-indecency ordinance, but he just wanted to push Tony into the car and... do so many things. Hell, he didn't even know what Tony's dick looked like. Or tasted like. He poured all that hunger and want into the kiss, swallowing the moan Tony fed him.
Much to his surprise and irritation, Tony broke the kiss, although he didn't pull back, just gazed into Dean's eyes, pupils blown all to hell.
"Oh, Mr. Murphy." The husky rasp of Tony's voice slid down and grabbed Dean by the balls. "You are so fucking sexy."
With a deep sigh, Tony stepped back and unwound the thin cashmere scarf Dean had found on clearance at the end of last winter. It ended up on the car seat as well. Tony yanked at the knit bundle, extracting a cable knit sweater, much like the one he’d worn on Wednesday.
"Good thing you're wearing a turtle neck. It will be perfect under this."
Dean bowed to the inevitable and put the sweater on.
Oh. He hadn't expected the scent to remind him so much of Tony. "This isn't going to fit under my coat."
"Of course it will. Might be a touch bulky, but you've got plenty of room in that thing. It's a sweater, not body armour. And I'm not that much bigger than you are."
Dean huffed out an unwilling laugh and let Tony have his way.
Within a few minutes, Dean was redressed, feeling a bit like he was wearing a fat suit, and wearing an additional knit hat—thankfully not a pom-pom topped toque like he'd had to wear as a kid—and a thick scarf. His sophisticated cashmere scarf lay alone, sad and limp, alongside Tony's duffle bag.
"Uh, Tony, I'm sweating to death under all this."
"You'll be thankful later. Trust me." Tony handed Dean his gloves, which had apparently passed muster, before pulling on his own. "Let's go."
The wardrobe finagling confirmed one thing—at least they weren't going to brave a visit to Santa.
"No. Hell, no. No in triplicate." Dean shook his head, just in case the words weren't enough. Skating? Tony was insane. There was no other explanation.
"Surely, this isn't too Christmassy. Skating is more like a winter activity, not just a holiday one." Tony was clearly baffled by Dean's reluctance.
Tony was also obviously blind. There was a ginormous Christmas tree, and city hall was lit up like a landing strip for Santa’s sleigh. Dean wasn't about to admit he secretly liked the coloured lights. The plethora of lights made everything quite cheery, and they'd never irritated him. He so rarely had reason to go downtown and he didn't recall ever showing up at Nathan Phillips Square in the winter, much less after sunset when it was all tarted up for the holidays.
"You seriously want me to strap on a pair of razor blades and go swanning about on slippery-as-fuck ice?" Dean tilted his head up the sky. The sun had gone down well before they'd arrived at the parking structure. "In the dark, no less?"
Tony grinned. "They're not exactly as deadly as razor blades."
"Don't lie. I've seen hockey games. It's a bloody sport." Well, he'd seen one hockey game, and holy hell, the blood had been... shocking and completely unexpected.
"Really? Because you tend to get blood more often from fists and pucks than blades."
Dean lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug, not willing to further display his ignorance. "Even if you've never skated before?"
"Are you sure you're Canadian? I always thought skating was our heritage."
Shoulders tensing, Dean turned to more carefully inspect the other people gliding gracefully—without a body check in sight—on the ice, balanced precariously on metal no more than three millimetres wide. "There wasn't a lot of money when I was growing up." That was for fucking sure. At least, none that his foster parents ever cared to spend on him, beyond the bare necessities as required by law.
"Hey, man, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to tease." Tony
nudged his shoulder companionably, and Dean risked looking at him. Sincerity shone on his face, without a hint of derision. "I promise no blood, and you'll be surprised at how easy you'll stay up. I'll even hold your hand, help stabilize you, if you want."
Something inside Dean leapt at the very thought of Tony holding his hand in front of all these people, proclaiming intentions to one and all. Part of him wanted that so much it was almost a physical pain, but could he risk it? All too soon he was getting used to Tony in his life, and it had only been a matter of days. Not even two weeks, and he was already in so deep that getting out when it was all over might well destroy him. He'd spent his life keeping his distance, relying on no one but himself, but all things Tony were seeping inexorably through the cracks in his walls.
For the sake of his sanity and keeping his heart unbroken, he should turn around, find the nearest subway station, and head home. Somewhere in there, he also ought to change his phone number. And find a new apartment. A new job. Maybe he could move to the Yukon.
But there was that triple-cursed part of him that wanted Tony to hold his hand. The part that proclaimed there was more to explore with Tony, including the promised third Christmas date. And that part of him was taking over, outvoting the self-preservationist.
Without warning, Tony was in his face, cupping his cheeks, noses so close they were almost touching. If it weren't for the intent expression, Dean might have tilted his head for an expected kiss.
"What?" Dean whispered.
Tony bit his lip, at a loss for words for the first time since Dean had met him.
"I know I kind of pressured you into these Christmas dates. And I still truly believe that someone who could create that fantastic Christmas display in the store has, at the very least, a deeply buried hope that Christmas can be a good thing. But the more I've gotten to know you; I've realized there are things you're not telling me."