A Daddy For Christmas: Ryu
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Who the fuck would be knocking this late?
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Grumbling, Hank heaved himself out of the cozy depths of his easy chair, displacing the orange tabby who’d been napping on his lap. She let out a rumbling mew of protest and stalked off as he limped to the door.
Whoever it was beat on the wood again, only a half-shade less intense than a police knock.
“For fuck’s sake, I’m coming!” Hank roared, hurrying to reach it.
Halfway there, his knee giving a particularly severe twinge that made him regret not grabbing his cane, and he considered going back for it. At least the knocking had appeared to stop, so he took the opportunity to backtrack so he wouldn’t wind up flat on his face in the entryway, or worse, in the snow he kept forgetting to sweep off the stoop.
Old habits, and a lifetime spent a little left of the law meant he peered out through the glass before unlocking it, expecting to see a badge held there for his inspection, instead, all he saw was lightly falling snow, footprints, and two thin lines of wheel tracks running up his walkway.
What the hell?
It was the wrong season for trick or treaters and he sure as hell hadn’t ordered any food. The last time he’d tried the whole Door Dash fad he’d wound up with the wrong order and an inedible meal that reeked of cigarette smoke. It had taken three phone calls, over twenty minutes on hold and a whole litany of curse words to get those charges removed from his account, and he’d damn sure delated the app once the whole mess was through.
Huffing, he dug the heel of his palm into one eye and rubbed. He’d been half asleep, damnit. Now it would be hours before his mind settled back into that drifty place again.
Son of a bitch.
At this point, he’d have loved to give someone a piece of his mind for the sheer aggravation of a it all, but from the looks of things, all he was going to find on the other side of the door was a whole lot of nothing. Was probably a flyer for some bullshit community event he had no interest in or one of those free newspapers filled with coupons and ads.
The last thing he expected to see when he snatched the door open was a huge, festively decorated gift basket sitting there with brilliant brown eyes in a tanned face staring up from out of all that packaging. The young man they belonged to looked to be in his mid-twenties, with a slightly curling mop of brown hair streaked through with gold peeking out from beneath a blue and white beanie with snowmen all over it. There was even a shimmering Christmas bow stuck to the top of his head.
“What the hell?” He muttered, peering around and seeing no one else anywhere in the vicinity. “This is a joke, right?”
A pacifier poked from between full lips, a snowman adorning that too. Something told Hank that beneath the wrapping paper that covered the rest of him there would be other snowmen as well. It seemed to be the theme, seeing as how the glittery wrapping paper depicted them too. Two small hoop earrings adorned the young man’s ears, the glow from a nearby streetlight glinting off of them.
In a different setting, he’d have been positively adorable, exactly the type Hank would have sought out in the playroom at the club he used to frequent. Here, unexpectedly crashing his otherwise peaceful night, he was just a mystery.
“Who the fuck are you?” He asked, nudging the basket with the toe of his slipper, “And who the hell put you up to this.”
The pacifier was the only thing that moved as the young man sucked on it and stared up at him like he was waiting for Hank to do…what? Bring him in? Like that was happening. For all he knew there was a gun beneath all of that packaging, and this was someone’s cleaver attempt at finally ridding the world of him.
Leaning heavily on his cane, he reached for the pacifier and plucked it free, those brilliant eyes widening a little more as Hank scowled at him and snapped, “Answer me!”
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“I pressy,” the young man declared, then had the nerve to flash him a bright, cheeky smile. “Merry Kissmas.”
Slapping a hand to his face, Hank groaned and shook his head. If one of the boys down at the club had done this, they had to know he’d kick their ass when he saw them. Of course, that would mean Hank would have to end his self-imposed exile and go down there to deal with them, which might have been the exact result they were hoping for with this little ploy, damn them.
Hank shivered as a cold wind whipped past him, reminding him that he was letting the heat out and he couldn’t afford to warm half the neighborhood. It made the paper crinkle, too, or maybe it was the young man shivering beneath it. Hank couldn’t imagine it to be very warm and hoped he was at least wearing a couple layers beneath the thin paper, ‘cause he was going to be out here a little bit longer while he got to the bottom of this mess. If someone from the club had dropped him off here, well then they’d best get their asses back over here and get him.
“You stay right there,” Hank said, wagging a finger at him. “I’ll be right back.”
Cell phone. Cell phone. Where the hell had he put the damn thing?
He checked the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the top of the fridge and the glass dish beside the door before he found that it had slipped down into the depths of his chair. One of these times he was going to be forced to dismantle the damned thing to get it out. It was a good thing he’d transferred the number into his contacts when he’d replaced the phone he’d broken earlier in the year, or he’d have been forced to call one of the friends he was currently ghosting. As it was, there was the risk of one of them answering the phone and peppering him with questions before giving him the answers he was after.
Fortunately for him, it was an unfamiliar voice answered. “Velvet Illusions, how may I direct your call?”
“Put Callahan on the phone.”
“Yes sir, right away.”
He heard the click of the call transferring and drummed his fingertips on the glossy wood of the coffee table while he waited for Cal to answer.
“Velvet Illusions, Callahan speaking.”
“You should know me well enough by now to know that I hate surprises,” Hank growled the moment Cal stopped speaking.
“Who is this?”
“Who the fuck do you think!” Hank snapped.
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be asking.”
“It’s Hank, damnit, now send someone over here to retrieve the little package you all dumped on my doorstep.”
“Hank…shit, I don’t remember seeing your name on the list. Hang on, let me figure out what’s going on.”
He heard papers rustling in the background, muttering, then Cal speaking to someone else, asking them to find Donovan for him.
“Look, Hank, I’m not sure what happened,” Callahan said when he got back on the phone. “And I can’t find the fuckin’ spreadsheet to try and figure out what went wrong!”
He roared the last part, clearly frustrated with whichever poor soul was acting as his assistant this week. It was a well-known fact that the turnover rate for that position was quite high, as Cal had some pretty exacting standards.
“What does the card say?” Callahan asked after several more moments of rummaging around and clearly producing nothing.
“Card? What card?”
“The one attached to the basket! How else did you know we were the ones to send it to you?”
“I didn’t see any card! I took one look at the boy all wrapped up on my porch and assumed it had to be one of you fuckers. Hang on, let me go outside and check.”
“Outside? Hank, it’s fuckin’ freezing out there you asshole! Bring him in for fuck’s sake.”
“Well, now that I know there isn’t a gun waiting for me under all of that wrapping paper, I will.”
“For fuck’s sake, paranoid much?”
“You should know that by now,” Hank muttered and tossed the phone on the couch so he could go find this card they were talking about. With his bum knee, there was no way he was going to be able to lift that basket, so the boy better be willing to climb out of it, or on the porch he’d remain.
The boy in the basket was right where Hank had left him, only there was no question that he was shivering now and looked quite sad and confused, though his eyes brightened when they landed on Hank and he attempted another smile, despite the way his lips quivered. The light flakes that had been falling when he’d first answered the door had grown thicker and heavier too, the wind whipping a blizzard of them in a swirl across his porch.
“Come on, I need you to get up out of there unless you’d like to freeze to death,” Hank said, crooking his finger at him.
“Unwrappy?”
Groaning, Hank muttered a litany of curses beneath his breath as he reached for one of the elaborately tied ribbons.
“Yeah, yeah, unwrappy,” Hank muttered, struggling to manage it and the cane. Finally, he just tore at the paper until enough of it fell away that he’d revealed the young man was, in fact, sitting there in a snowman onesie with a polar bear stuffy held in his hands. He found the card too, tucked alongside him in the basket. Sealed with purple wax, it bore the elegant VI logo of the club.
“Come on then,” Hank said once the young man was free. He climbed to his feet unsteadily, clinging to that bear and shivering as he shambled through the entryway. Hank snatched a throw blanket off the back of the couch and chucked it his way before opening the card and perusing the contents.
Here’s a Little something to make your holidays brighter. His name is Ryu. I trust he’ll bring you plenty of merriment and joy.
Pax
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