Page 126 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

Never forgotten.

“Why he chose here this year…?” Kenny pondered the thought, flicking through his memory banks of research and behavioural analysis. “Perhaps it was because he wanted it over. He would’ve known he’d get caught here. That the dots would link eventually.”

“And I was here.”

“We still don’t know that full story.” And Kenny wasn’t sure they ever would.

Aaron rubbed his nose along Kenny’s chest. “And this whole Christmas thing? The Santa and the ritual?”

Kenny stroked though Aaron’s hair, the glow of the fire painting it in soft gold. He could have said Margaret. Could’ve traced the whole grotesque thing back to her and her brittle, terrifying righteousness. How she was a consequence of the same place Aaron’s mother had come from. And how there would be a whole legacy from that torture, still waiting to manifest however it would. A lineage of belief turned blade. A legacy of trauma, waiting to bloom in whatever shape the next shadow took.

But that wasn’t what Aaron needed tonight.

Still, hedeserved the truth.

“It started the year her husband left,” Kenny said. “Walked out at Christmas after having an affair with a young runaway he’d been counselling. Margaret was part of a deeply conservative church. Doctrine ruled everything. Family. Obedience. Appearances. So when he left… it wasn’t abandonment. It was sin. A public one. A betrayal of God. And it happened at the most ‘holy’ time of year.”

Kenny exhaled, dropped into a gentler cadence. Measured, clinical, but not cold. “For her, Christmas stopped being joyful. It became judgment day. A time when sinners revealed themselves. When the mask slipped. And she passed that belief down like scripture. Especially to Jonathon. A boy raised by a mother who believed God had handed her pain as a test and saw obedience as the only reward.”

Aaron stayed still, but he gripped the fabric of Kenny’s dressing gown lapel.

“All the Christmas stories… Santa, the nativity, the carols. They became moral tools. Be good or be punished. Be righteous or be erased. That was the message. Jonathon grew up with a mother who told him the world was failing. That people were failing. And that it washisjob to restore the balance.”

Kenny kissed the top of Aaron’s head. Held him tighter.

“He didn’t pick Christmas for drama. He chose it because it’s the only time of year society agrees to play pretend. We all perform goodness. Wear the costume. Tell the story. And Jonathon took that script and weaponised it. Turned the myth into judgment.”

Aaron gave a small, broken laugh. “Then killed people for not fitting the script.”

“Exactly. Especially people who lived their truth. Who stepped outside the lines he’d been raised to see as sacred.”

Aaron didn’t answer. On the screen, an ensemble of actors shouted a gleeful, “Merry Christmas!” over a swelling string section.

Kenny waited. Let the silence stretch, soft and long, and he held Aaron in the stillness, letting him melt against him. Letting himrest. Safe. Seen. Loved. He knew Aaron was filing questions away. As always. Tucking the hard ones behind his ribs for another time, when it wouldn’t hurt so much to touch them. But Kenny could feel the ache beneath his skin. The lingering fear that the past would never quite let him go. That even now, it was waiting at the door.

So, when he felt Aaron soften enough, Kenny leaned close and brushed his lips against his ear. “Marry me.”

Aaron went completely still.

And for one wild second, Kenny wondered if he’d fallen asleep. Or passed out. Or died from the sheer audacity of the timing.

But then Aaron slowly lifted his head and gaped at him.

Kenny swallowed hard. He looked devastating. Tousled, flushed, eyes wide with disbelief. It made the question feel even more absurd. And even more necessary.

“Did you just propose to me,” Aaron blinked, “while I’m in a burrito?”

“It’s the perfect time. You can’t run away, or roll off, or pretend you didn’t hear me.”

“You think I’d do that?”

“Yes.”

Aaron let out a breathy, broken laugh then dropped his forehead onto Kenny’s chest. “Fuck.” And with his face hidden, heartbeat hammering through his ribs hard enough for Kenny to feel it, he bashed his head on Kenny’s scar with every curse, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Kenny cupped his face and lifted it back up. “If theemotional toll is too much to handle mid-burrito, I could offer some practical reasons.”

“Oh, perfect. Let’s completely ruin this sentimental moment with logic.”