12 Days of Cherikmas

Day 9: Santa Claus is coming to town

Erik jolted awake. He didn't know what caused his sudden breach of unconsciousness but on seeing that he was in bed alone he knew there was no hope of him being able to get back to sleep. He had slept next to Charles for so long and in doing so made him rely on the comfort the other man provided when he hugged him tightly for him to be able to sleep. Sighing, he got up and grabbed a jumper before leaving the room in search of Charles.

He found him in the living room furiously wrapping presents. You may think it's weird to say furiously in regarding someone wrapping presents but you haven't met Charles. The man was a warrior when it came to wrapping. Even though most of his other decisions were messy and unplanned when it came to wrapping - more specifically Christmas wrapping he had everything thought out. Timings, the amount of wrapping paper, bows, ribbons, labels. You name it, he had thought of it.

"Why are you still up? It's-" Erik paused to check the time "-3am."

"I need to finish wrapping a few presents then put them into the children's stockings." Charles responded, labeling a present with a child's name.

"So you're being an elf?" Erik chuckled.

"If you haven't got anything useful to say don't say anything." Charles grumbled.

Ahhh he was sleep deprived, Erik realised. That made a lot of sense. He held his hands up in surrender and smiled at his husband.

"Right, you wrap I deliver, sound good?" Erik announced.

Charles looked up at him great fully and smiled, the bags under his eyes extremely obvious.

"Thank you dear, sorry I got annoyed."

Erik bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of Charles' head, "don't worry Schatz, I should have known better than to annoy you when you're sleep deprived."

Despite everything Charles chuckled and threw a bow at Erik "idiot."

Erik grinned then set to work putting the correct present in the correct stocking. It always came in handy that Charles had given each of the students personalised stockings so that none of them got mixed up. Charles may be the most disorganised person in the world but he was very good when it came to sorting anything Christmas related out.

They worked in silence, enjoying the peace and quiet and the comfort the other being there gave. When he had finished, Charles stretched with a groan before rolling over to Erik who was just putting the final presents in stockings.

"Thank you darling." Charles whispered.

"Come on, let's get you to bed." Erik murmured, lifting an exhausted Charles out of his wheelchair and carrying him down the corridor and into their room, Charles wheelchair floating along behind them.

Erik made quick work of replacing Charles' clothes with his a pair of his own pajamas before tucking him in and rounding the bed to get in and curl up on his chest.

"I love you." Charles murmured, kissing Erik's forehead gently and wrapping his arms around him comfortingly.

"I love you too." Erik whispered lovingly before he fell back asleep, holding Charles tightly.