Chapter 6 Reindeer Riding Competition #2
“My hero,” Zane swooned. Asa watched as his husband’s expression went from dreamy to crestfallen comically fast. He slapped Felix’s shoulder softly.
“That’s mean. My legs aren’t…noodles. Do you know how much cardio I get by letting that lunatic—” Asa assumed he was the lunatic in question by the aggressive pointing in his direction.
“—run me down in the woods like a deer?”
“It’s not an insult, baby,” Felix said, turning to kiss his pouting lips. “You’re just naturally lean. I’d kill to be able to eat like you and never gain a pound.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Avi said, looking devastated at the thought. “I love your squishy thighs, they're my favorite ear muffs.”
“Mine too,” Zane agreed happily.
Their conversation lapsed after that, with only the sounds of baby giggles and crashing blocks interrupting the softly playing Christmas movie in the background.
After about twenty minutes or so, Avi blurted,“So…was that a yes to you two facing off tonight? The twins' bedtime is in an hour? Hell, if you want to make it interesting, you two could switch.”
“Switch?” Zane asked, twisting his head to look up at Avi, understanding finally dawning on him. “You mean like…switch…reindeer?”
Avi’s hand stroked Zane’s face. “Yeah, Zaney. You ride me, Kitten rides Asa…”
Zane whined, his fingers finding Felix’s hair and tugging it, eyelids heavy. Yeah, he was both drunk and horny. Still, he deferred to them as always. “I’ll do whatever you guys want.”
Something like pride swirled in Asa’s chest. “Of course, you will, Lois. You’re always so good for us.”
Felix shook his head like he was disappointed. “You really need to work more on playing hard to get, Zaney. One ‘good boy’ and you fold like cheap IKEA furniture.”
Zane huffed out a breath that sounded more like he was blowing a raspberry, setting off Oscar and West who had recently perfected their technique for maximum spit range.
Zane giggled at the babies who were happily hosing Asa down in their saliva. Fuck, he loved that sound. Almost as much as he loved the sounds of him crying and whimpering, begging to come. He loved how happy Zane was…well, as much as he was capable of loving anything.
His husband waved a lazy hand wildly, almost smacking Avi in the face. “I just want to make everyone happy, Lixie.”
Avi, ever calm, let out a soft hum. “And you’re doing a great job, Zaney,” he said, his hand fingers going back to combing through Zane’s hair.
Zane stared up at Avi, catching his swollen bottom lip between his teeth.
Avi was almost always the masochist, letting Felix do what he liked.
But when it came to Zane, he brought out the predator in others.
He was just meant to be someone’s toy to play with and even Avi couldn’t resist bullying him just a little.
He was looking at Zane like a cat toying with a mouse.
Zane was too tipsy to be wary. He either didn’t see or didn’t care about the dark look Avi had as he looked him over.
His husband lifted a hand, pressing a finger to Avi’s lips. He opened his mouth and bit down on his finger, earning a soft gasp. Felix turned around to see what was happening, then smirked, shaking his head. There really was no jealousy amongst them.
When he relinquished his finger, Zane flicked him, voice lacking conviction as he said, “Bad murder puppy. No biting.”
Avi made a whiny noise, ruining his apex predator vibe. “You let him bite you.”
Zane placed a hand on Felix’s soft curls, petting him like the pampered cat he was. “And you let him carve you up like a Christmas ham but you don’t see me coming at you with a kitchen knife.”
“Wow, I can really feel the spirit of Christmas here in the room with us,” Felix deadpanned. “Our children aren’t going to grow up to be malignant deviants or anything.”
“Oh, Lix, that ship has sailed,” Asa said. “No child of ours will ever be normal. Not on my watch.”
“Yeah, we’re raising Mulvaneys. They’re gonna be weird,” Avi agreed.
“They’re also Navarro’s…” Felix reminded.
Avi chuckled. “Kitten, that’s not the flex you think it is.”
“My family is normal,” Felix countered, tone haughty.
“Your family?” Avi said, voice filled with disbelief. “Please, kitten.”
“How is my family abnormal?” Felix asked, head swiveling from Asa to Avi.
“Your brother met our brother while playing body part jeopardy then blew him next to a corpse,” Asa reminded.
Avi nodded. “And you told the entire office that I was way too friendly with horses.”
“That sounds like a Mulvaney problem, not a Navarro one.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh,” Zane said, hands waving. “You have a collection of razor sharp cat claw rings that aren’t just for decoration,” Zane added excitedly.
Felix’s expression grew more and more disgruntled with each reminder, looking very much like a cat who’d been left out in the rain. He gave Zane a hurt look. “You too, Zaney?”
“Sorry, Lix,” Zane said, doing his best to look contrite as he leaned forward to press a kiss to his shoulder.
“Okay, okay,” Felix muttered. “Both our families are weird.”
Once more, the room fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the soft strains of holiday music in the background and the faint dialogue from the television.
Asa resumed building his tower, glancing at the screen as Frosty trudged into the greenhouse carrying Karen.
Avi tilted his head, his brows knitting together.
“Why didn’t Frosty just set Karen down inside the greenhouse and stay out in the snow?” Avi asked, his tone genuinely puzzled. “He could’ve avoided the whole melting thing.”
Zane made a noise of agreement. “Plot hole,” he slurred. “There’s always a plot hole. Like, why didn’t they just close the door behind her?”
Avi nodded, looking almost offended. “Exactly. And why was Karen so fragile she needed Frosty to carry her? She had legs.”
Asa huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “You’re overthinking a children’s cartoon, Avi.”
Avi’s expression remained serious. “It’s a bad plan. You’d think a living snowman would be more strategic.”
Felix shook his head. “You’re the only person I know who could critique Frosty the Snowman like it’s a tactical failure.”
“That’s because it was a tactical failure,” Avi replied smoothly.
“Da-da-da,” West babbled, abandoning the rubble of blocks to climb into Asa’s lap.
He hoisted the baby up so he could rest his head on his shoulder.
They’d long since given up trying to help them differentiate between parents and uncles.
It didn’t matter. They were all raising them together.
The scent of lavender and baby powder had Asa squeezing just a little tighter.
It was weird how much he liked the way Oscar and West smelled.
It was clearly an evolutionary thing, some biological fail-safe that allowed Avi and Asa to look at these two helpless creatures and feel… territorial…protective.
He looked around at the others, ensuring they weren’t watching before pressing his nose to West’s hair and inhaling deeply.
Yeah, he’d die for these kids. He’d go pure scorched earth even.
When he glanced over, Felix was watching him with those insanely feline honey eyes.
Unlike Zane, it took a lot to turn Felix on.
He needed to be touched, coaxed into anything like that slowly.
He was a tactile creature by nature, but Asa adoring Felix’s biological babies definitely seemed to spark something inside him.
“Okay,” Felix murmured, gaze plastered to Asa’s.
“Okay?” Zane asked, confusion etched between his brows.
Felix shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “We can…swap teams…if you want.”
Avi’s gaze followed Felix’s, landing on his brother snuggling with his baby, smirking knowingly. Asa watched as Avi’s hand fell to Zane’s hip, squeezing softly. “What do you think, Zaney?”
Even from this distance, Asa could see his husband’s pupils were already fully blown at the thought. “Yeah, as long as I can play with Lix first.”
Asa laughed. “Nobody would ever say no to that, Lois. Literally nobody.”
“Okay, bedtime for the boys,” Felix declared.
Avi clicked off the television and Zane clumsily sat up giving Felix a sloppy back hug, before letting Avi pull him to his feet. Asa handed West to his father, then scooped up Oscar who was just about to chuck a block out of the playpen.
Bedtime had become a well-oiled machine.
It usually consisted of two people prepping the bottles and nursery, two giving baths.
All of them would then wrestle them into their nighttime pull-ups, pajamas and weighted sleep sacks, before Avi or Zane attempted to read them a bedtime story complete with voice acting.
The boys were just getting to an age where they would slow down to listen instead of zooming around the playroom on their chubby baby legs.
Tonight, they’d already gotten baths after Thomas and Aiden had delivered them back to the house covered in chocolate ice cream without any explanation whatsoever. They were also already in their bedtime clothes, crossing several things off their bedtime to-do list.
Once in the playroom, the boys toddled to the felt Christmas tree on the wall while Zane turned on the noise machine. Felix refilled the Breza and Asa made sure their cribs had everything they needed for the night. Pillow, blanket, their two well-worn stuffed rabbits.
There were two cribs in the nursery, but it didn’t matter.
They would no longer sleep apart. In the beginning, they’d listened to the experts who said that it was unsafe for them to co-sleep, with each other or their parents.
But now, at eighteen months, they were getting a little lax in their protocols.
Sometimes they just needed sleep. Besides, they had cameras that monitored their breathing. How unsafe could they be?
It probably wasn’t a good idea to encourage that level of codependence at such a young age, but West was inconsolable without Oscar there to cuddle him. Besides, who were Asa and Avi to say what was truly codependency and what was just brotherly love?
Once all preparations were made, Avi sat in the rocker and read Baby Santa with Felix perched on his knee. The boys ignored the adults, happily ripping the velcro ornaments off their tree and rearranging some to their liking while chewing on the others.
Zane settled himself between Asa’s knees where he sat on the floor, leaning his weight into him and resting his head on his shoulder. “Hey, Lois. You feeling okay?”
“Mm,” Zane said, turning his face to nuzzle Asa’s neck, his next words vibrating against his skin. “I feel buzzy. It’s nice. I love our little family.”
It was hardly a new sentiment. Zane said it at least three times a week.
Anytime he was overwhelmed with love for them.
But for the first time Asa got exactly what he meant.
He wrapped his arms around Zane, looking around at his family and realized that this was what contentment felt like.
This was what Zane was always talking about.
This was his favorite kind of chaos.