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Thomas is stood in the doorway to the living room, a Tupperware box full of cold noodles in one hand, wearing an expression of weary disbelief, when Minho stumbles down the stairs. The other boy’s hair is a rumpled mess from sleeping all day, and Thomas refrains from running his hands through it the way he wants to. Minho comes to a stop beside Thomas, pulls a disgusted face at his dinner, and then starts forward into the living room. He comes to a dramatic halt, and Thomas grins around a mouthful of food as Minho’s face turns from tired to horrified.
“It looks like Santa Clause threw up in here.”
Luckily, Newt is too busy humming along to their Christmas CD to hear Minho’s muttered words over the state of their living room. Thomas is grateful for that, because he’s really not in the mood for refereeing another one of their arguments, especially not when Newt’s been so cheerful lately.
Unfortunately, though, Minho’s observation is kind of true.
“It could be worse,” Thomas mutters, letting his eyes travel from the glowing Christmas tree to the tinsel-decked mantelpiece. “Remember Halloween?”
Minho gives a mock-shudder, and then yawns, leaning against the doorframe. It’s six in the evening, but Minho’s been working nights at the bar down the road, so Thomas doesn’t blame him for being tired.“I kept finding those fake spider-webs in the weirdest places for weeks afterwards. There were even some in my trainers the other day.”
“That was me,” Thomas mumbles around another mouthful. He makes a face as he chews; watery, cold, slimy noodles aren’t exactly his favourite meal, but Thomas doesn’t have a clue about cooking. Minho throws him a dirty look at the confession.
“If you can wait ten minutes, I’ll make you something that’s actually edible. You know something that hasn’t been sitting in the fridge for a week.” Minho yanks the box away from Thomas without waiting for an answer, then turns and whistles loudly. Thomas winces at the piercing noise, rubbing his abused ears. Newt, on the other hand, almost trips backwards in shock, dropping several Christmas cards onto the floor.
“Bloody hell, Minho, don’t do that.” Newt has one hand on his chest, and his face is an adorable mix of a pout and a glare. “You shucks are gonna give me a bloody heart attack.”
Minho shrugs unapologetically. “I’m cooking something so that Thomas doesn’t end up being a patient instead of the doctor. You got any requests?”
Thomas doesn’t bother pointing out that he’s an intern, not a doctor, mostly because his roommates already know that, and also because Minho tends to steamroll over any logical points that poke holes in his sarcasm.
“Pasta,” Newt says decisively, and Thomas’s stomach grumbles loudly in agreement.
Minho grins. “Pasta it is.”
Whilst the other boy disappears into the kitchen, Thomas is treated to a tour of his own living room. There are snowflake stickers plastered to the windows, and a net of lights hanging behind the cream curtains. Clusters of unlit red and white candles sit on each available surface, there’s fake snow on the TV Unit, and the mantelpiece looks like something off of a Christmas card, complete with a roaring log fire and plastic robins.
“Sorry,” Newt says, looking anything but apologetic. “It’s just that we always celebrate Christmas back home, and I love holidays. You don’t think I’ve gone overboard, do you?” He starts to look a little nervous as he finishes speaking, twisting his hands in the sleeves of his sweater. It’s blue, with green sleeves and a snowman on the front, and Thomas can’t help but grin.
“Nah, don’t worry,” Thomas says reassuringly, tugging Newt’s hands apart. “We only ever had small Christmas’s in our family, but those were mostly for Chuck’s benefit, so this is nice.” He lets his hands linger longer than he probably should, but lets go before Newt can notice.
Newt watches his hands withdraw and opens his mouth, but before he can reply, Minho shouts for them to get there asses in and help. Thomas grins, and Newt shakes his head, leading the way into the kitchen.
By the time Thomas’s shift is over, he’s exhausted. It’s been almost twenty-four hours of working in the pit, which normally Thomas wouldn’t have minded, but Christmas is the busiest time of the year for hospitals. Thomas stares mournfully down at his top, which is stained with vomit and gunk and other disgusting things that he doesn’t want to think
about.
He changes, rinses his face, and pours anti-bacterial soap all over his hands. He doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief until he’s safely behind the wheel of his car, away from nurses and sick patients and arguing couples. He puts the car into gear and smiles, eager to get home.
When he does get home, the house is unnervingly quiet. Thomas knows immediately that something’s wrong. It’s eight o’clock on a Friday, which means that Minho should have finished working until Monday, and since Newt works from home, he should probably be bustling around the kitchen making Christmas cookies and singing along to the radio.
The hallway light is on, but when Thomas pokes his head around the living room doorway, there’s no Minho on the couch with a bottle of beer in his hand, no Newt hanging candy canes on the Christmas tree. The television is off, and so are the tree lights. He tries the kitchen, but it’s cold and dark, and it doesn’t look like Minho’s done any cooking since he made pasta the other day.
“I’m gone for twenty-four hours,” Thomas says out loud. “And you shanks disappear.”
Thomas checks upstairs, but Newt’s door is shut tight, and when he knocks, there’s no answer. He keeps knocking, and calls out a few times, but there’s no reply. Uneasy, Thomas heads towards Minho’s room. When he raises his hand to Minho’s door, he catches sight of a note, that reads Had a fight with Newt, he stormed out. Taking another shift at the bar. Meal in the microwave.
Thomas blinks at the note, and swears loudly and creatively.
The thing is; Minho and Newt are both best friends. They’re all best friends, all three of them, but they’re also quite explosive people, and they tend to clash. Thomas is a little quieter and more curious than the other two, and Newt is usually the one who keeps the peace between all three of them, and Minho is brash but sweet. Still, when Newt and Minho fight, it turns into the most tense, awkward, painful days of Thomas’s life.
“But it’s Christmas,” Thomas whines to himself, and then sighs. He puts the note back on the door, and stumbles gracelessly to bed, his exhaustion catching up to him now that he knows his friends are at least safe. He flops face first onto the bed, punches the pillow a few times, and falls asleep with his shoes still on.
Thomas spends Saturday night at the hospital, on scut duty. He files notes and updates charts and admonishes several patients who pull out their IV’s, although he knows none of them will do it again, not now that they realise how much it hurts to do.
Mostly, he tries not to think about the fact that he spent all of yesterday alone, when he had hoped to spend it with his friends.
He’s not sure where Newt is staying, although he suspects it’s at Alby’s. The thought makes Thomas’s stomach churn with jealousy and anxiety, because Alby is handsome and strong and smart, and one of Newt’s only links to the city he left behind. Newt and Alby are close, and Thomas is man enough to know why he hates that, even if he won’t admit it out loud.
He knows that Minho has a bunk at the back of the bar he works at, which is probably why he hasn’t been home either. Gally owns the bar, and he’s also handsome and strong and smart, and Thomas grinds his teeth down on the pen that he’s supposed to be writing with.
“What did the stationary ever do to you?” Teresa quips, coming up beside him to lean against the nurse’s station. She quirks an eyebrow at him, her wild hair pulled back in a knot, and crunches down on an apple. Teresa is an intern like Thomas, although she’s a lot sharper and more focused than he is. He thinks that they’d have made a good couple, if he weren’t hopelessly in love with his best friends.
Thomas sighs. “Minho and Newt are fighting again.”
Teresa winces sympathetically. “Are they doing the whole passive-aggressive thing, or is this like the time Newt blew up the microwave?”
Thomas holds back a shudder, refuses to think about That Incident. It had turned into a week of Thomas practically living at the hospital to get away from the shouting. “No, thank God. I don’t know what it was about, I got back on Friday and neither of them were there. And they haven’t been back since.”
Teresa frowns. “That’s unusual. It must have been pretty bad.” Her frown melts into a sly, calculating look.
“Your shift is almost over though, so maybe they’ll be there when you get back.” She says the words innocently, but Thomas is still wary.
“I hope so,” He says slowly. He does only have a half hour left before he can leave. He blows out a breath and tips his head towards the ceiling, rubbing his eyes. He hears a sound, and then a snicker as something moves in front of him, and he snaps his head back down in time to see Teresa jogging backwards, a triumphant grin in place and Thomas’s chart in her hands.
You snooze, you lose, Green,” She calls out, sidestepping a scandalised woman in a wheelchair.
“Hey!” Thomas yells back. “That was my aneurism!”
Teresa cackles, and slips out of sight, just as Thomas’s pager beeps. He looks down, sees 911 trauma emergency, and resigns himself to not getting home until Sunday evening, at the latest. At least he might get the chance to scrub in, although with his luck lately, Thomas doubts it.
Thomas stops by the nearest shopping mall on the way home, battling harassed looking, desperate shoppers. He fills three bags up with boxes of colourful baubles in all different colours. He buys a box of four baubles in the shape of snowmen heads, feeling a bit like a child. Candy canes, packets of cookies, tubs of cashews and peanuts and a huge box of sweets follow the baubles. He hates tinsel, because it falls apart and he has to vacuum it up within an hour of putting it up, but Thomas buys it anyway.
He storms into a clothes shop and buys three pairs of thick, fluffy socks. He hovers near the men’s section, staring indecisively at a rack hosting Christmas jumpers. He buys a grey one that’s two sizes too big for him with snowflakes all down the front, because at least then he can claim it’s too big if Newt tries to make him wear it past December. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs one for Minho too. It’s an obscenely bright red thing with a gingerbread man smack bang in the centre. He grins to himself as he pays the cashier.
Then he buys beer, and a lot of it, just in case he's disappointed.
There’s just something missing from the tree as a whole, Thomas thinks. He’s warm and relaxed, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to his fourth bottle of beer. The jumper is definitely too big, but it’s nice, he thinks, and cosy, especially with the fire behind him and Chuck’s favourite film on the television. Thomas doesn’t like The Snowman, purely because of the high-pitched song that sets his teeth on edge, but it’s festive, and it reminds him of Christmas’s when he still lived with his parents.
But there’s still something missing from the tree.
It’s not Newt and Minho, although they’re not here either. Thomas takes another gulp of beer sulkily. He’s hungry, but he’d already devoured the cookies when he realised that the house was empty, and the candy cane that he’d half unwrapped has mysteriously disappeared. He wishes Minho was here to cook him some food. Maybe potatoes, Thomas loves potatoes.
The tree looks nice. The baubles are sparkly, and everywhere, although there are still some that he hasn’t hung up, because he over-estimated how many baubles this tree needed. He also didn’t realise that he would have to hand-thread each bauble.
The tinsel is a bit wonky, but at least it’s up. Thomas doesn’t even like tinsel, he’s only doing this because Newt likes Christmas, and tinsel is Christmassy, but Newt isn’t even here.
Somehow, Thomas ends up on his back with his head under the Christmas tree. He suspects that he got there sometime after the sixth beer, but he can’t quite remember. Besides, it’s not bad under here, Thomas thinks. The lights are really pretty and… flashy.
He’s so busy watching the lights that he doesn’t hear the front door open and close, doesn’t hear the two sets of footsteps until they come to a stop in the doorway.
“What the shuck?”
“Tommy?”
Thomas sits bolt upright in shock and promptly buries his head in the mess of branches and lights above him. He flails, and then gives up, flopping back down to lie flat on the carpet. He’s glad they don’t have hardwood flooring, because this wouldn’t have been nearly as comfortable if they did.
“Lights,” Thomas says vaguely, by way of explanation, waving a hand and knocking off a bauble.
“I think the word you’re looking for is lightweight, actually, Tommy.” Thomas frowns, because he knows that voice.
There's a lot of coughing as someone hastily covers their laughter, and a suspicious flash and a click. He feels two strong hands wrap around each ankle and then suddenly he’s moving, and instead of staring up at the tree lights, he’s staring up at Minho and Newt instead.
Thomas grins goofily, reaching out to boop Minho on the nose. Minho gives him an amused, tired look and peels smething off of his face. He waves it in front of Thomas's eyes, and Thomas focuses enough to recognise his lost candy-cane. "That's where tha' went," He slurs, and Newt snorts, standing up straight.
Newt starts picking up the empty bottles on the floor, and Minho drags Thomas to a somewhat vertical position. Thomas slumps against Minho as Newt moves from bottles to sweet wrappers, and a couple of broken baubles that had tried to get the better of Thomas.
“I only had some beers,” Thomas argues blurrily. “They were fo’ all of us, but then you guys weren’t here again.” He yawns and stumbles a little, misses the guilty look that Newt and Minho exchange. Minho hoists his arm around his very strong, muscly shoulder, which is clad only in a tight T-shirt.
“You must be cold.” Thomas pokes at Minho’s shoulder, missing by a mile and jabbing at thin air. “I bought you a jumper. And me a jumper. I’m wearin’ mine, but you’re not wearin’ yours, ‘cause you weren’t here.” He tries to glare accusingly at Minho, but the other boy keeps swaying backwards and forwards, which makes it extremely difficult.
Newt steps forward to grab hold of Thomas’s other arm, and together they hoist him towards the couch. Newt picks up the shopping bags that Thomas dumped there and places them on the armchair whilst Minho wrestles Thomas back into his horizontal position.
“I was already lyin’ down, you didn’t hafta move me,” Thomas grumbles. He falls asleep almost immediately, but not before he hears Newt whisper, “We’ll apologise properly tomorrow, you daft shank, when you can bloody remember it.” He feels Minho brush a hand over his head, feels something drop across his shoulders, and then he’s out like a light.
The morning starts with Thomas racing upstairs to the bathroom and throwing up. Luckily, no matter how badly he holds his alcohol, his hangovers are never very strong, nor do they last very long. He only has a slight headache as he pads slowly back downstairs, after thoroughly cleaning his teeth and practically gulping down the mouthwash. He might even be able to stomach some food in about an hour or so, if he’s extra lucky.
Thomas turns into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and stops dead in the doorway. He blinks at Newt, who’s still in sweatpants and an old black t-shirt, a cup of coffee in one hand. And then at Minho, who’s manning the stove wearing the Christmas jumper Thomas bought him. They both looks up hesitantly at he takes a step forward and Thomas’s brain decides that now is a brilliant time to remember everything that happened last night in vividly embarrassing detail.
“We’re just going to ignore how pathetic I was last night.” Thomas says firmly, nodding decisively. The corner of Newt’s mouth twitches, and Minho outright smirks.
“No,” Thomas says immediately. “You two do not get to tease me about that.”
Newt falters, biting his lip, but Minho rolls his eyes. “C’mon Thomas, you were pretty pissed last night.”
“Well I’m not pissed now, I’m pissed off,” He snaps. He barely stops to register the way Newts eyes widen and Minho takes a surprised step backwards, steamrolling over any protests. “I have no idea where either of you have been all weekend, I have no idea what happened beyond the fact that you had a fight, and stormed out. I’ve texted, and called, and neither of you have shucking answered.”
“I was at Alby’s,” Newt interrupts quietly, loosening his defensive stance. He still looks a bit surprised at Thomas’s outburst, but mostly he just looks guilty. “My battery died, or I would have texted, and Alby has a different charger than mine.”
“Then you use Alby’s phone, or you go and buy a damn charger,” Thomas says, still angry. “Or, you know, you could have just come home.”
“I was with Gally,” Minho offers, when Newt doesn’t answer. “I meant to call, but I got a bit drunk the first night, and when I came back the second night to grab some stuff, neither of you were here.”
Thomas groans in frustration, tugs roughly at his hair.
“It was only a few days, Tommy.” Newt says soothingly. “I’m bloody sorry, but I was always going to come back. I just wanted to avoid that idiot for a while.”
“I’m sorry too,” Minho says, and Thomas hides a grin at how uncomfortable he sounds. Minho isn’t one for apologies, if he can help them.
They both keep looking at him earnestly, and Thomas feels kind of stupid all of a sudden. It’s not like he has any right to yell at them; they’re two grown men with their own lives. Just because he’s used to having them here doesn’t mean they have to be there all the time. Just because he worries about them and wants to know they’re safe, doesn’t mean they worry about him too. Just because he’s in love with them, doesn’t mean they’re in love with him too.
He takes a deep breath. “It’s fine,” Thomas assures them, smiling awkwardly. “It really is. I overreacted anyway. I mean, you can do what you want, really, I guess I just see a lot of accidents and stuff in this job, that it worries me if I don’t hear from you.”
He keeps smiling, but it feels horribly wrong on his face, and Newt and Minho aren’t smiling back. He thinks back to the tree, all of a sudden, and groans internally. “Just because we’ve fixed all of this doesn’t mean we’re talking about last night,” Thomas blurts out. “I’m not acknowledging that level of pathetic-ness until I’ve had at least ten years to get over it.”
“Tommy,” Newt says, sounding exasperated. “Just bloody shut up a minute.”
Thomas pauses, glares weakly at Newt. Minho snorts, flicks a switch on the stove and rounds the counter. He stalks towards Thomas with an expression that Thomas can’t decipher, although he’s seen it directed at him more than once.
Minho comes to a stop in front of him. “I’m wearing your stupid jumper, and I know you only bought it because it looks shucking ridiculous. Newt’s wearing your socks, and he fixed the tree because it really did look like Santa threw up on it, especially on the one side.”
Thomas blinks at him in confusion, and Minho moves closer, just as Newt comes to join them. “I called the hospital, and I told them you were calling in sick, so you’ve got at least three days off before you have to go back in, unless there’s an emergency.”
Thomas is almost too distracted to focus on Newt’s voice, even though it’s one of his favourite things to listen to, because Minho moves behind him and wraps two strong arms around Thomas’s waist. Thomas sucks in a shocked breath as Minho presses a chaste kiss to the back of his neck, and Newt moves one pale hand up to cradle Thomas’s jaw.
“I forgot to get a star,” Thomas says shakily, against Newt’s lips. “For the tree, I forgot to get a star.”
Newt pauses, and Minho steps forward until he’s flush against Thomas’s back, his teeth moving to bite at Thomas’s ear.
“I thought I was supposed to be the one whose bloody obsessed with Christmas?” Newt asks, kissing Thomas’s cheeks, the tip of his nose, down to his jaw.
“Yeah, well, you’ve rubbed off on me,” Thomas mumbles, letting his eyes flutter closed.
He can feel Minho smirk against the back of his neck, the chuckle that vibrates in his chest.
“Not yet, Tommy, not yet,” Newt says, a wicked grin curving his mouth, before he moves in to kiss Thomas properly, and Thomas forgets all about fights and trees and Christmas, although later, he’s convinced that he definitely saw stars.
It's not until next Christmas that Thomas spots it, and no matter how many times he yells for them to take it down, it stays up.
The photographic evidence that Christmas trees should not be decorated whilst drunk is proudly presented in a frame on top of the mantlepiece. Thomas will forever be grateful that he had his head under the Christmas tree at the time, so that nobody can see the candy-cane that was stuck to his cheek.