Road To Happiness ✔

EXTRA - Christmas Special

A.N: So last month was Inksgiving over on tapas and we hit the goal for a free release of RtH's christmas special! I'm a bit late to posting it here, but I figured you guys deserved to read it to. If you want to read more extras from RtH and my other books, check out my patreon on my profile!

As much as Stefan liked his hearing aids, sometimes noise became too much. Especially during the Christmas season, when the shopping malls were packed with people and their screaming children. So, he would turn his aids off and wander through the densely packed in as much peace as he could get.

He had a list, a few shops he had to go to, then he could be back in his apartment with Renee, where it was quiet without the need to turn off his hearing aids. He'd bought every gift except one, the one he was struggling the most with. Hugo's.

His first thought had been a set of photos of the two of them together, but Hugo already had so many. It would be a cheap gift, thoughtless. It was their first Christmas together, he had to make sure that the gift was as perfect as it could be.

But no matter how hard he looked, he wasn't able to find anything that could possibly suit how he felt about his boyfriend. If there was anything, it had probably already been bought by the hundreds of other shoppers around him. He had left it too late, even though he'd been searching for months.

With three days til Christmas, Renee had shoved him out of the apartment, half laughing and half irritated, with the order not to come back until he had something he could give to Hugo. As if Stefan wasn't worried enough. If he had nothing, how bad would Hugo feel? The man was already dealing with enough anxiety, he wasn't going to make it worse.

His final stop in the shopping mall before he gave up and went with the dumb photo idea was a generic home store, one he had bought most of his furniture from. He didn't know why he decided that was one of the stores he wanted to check, but it was better than nothing.

Hugo had been with him for months now, just over half a year, and it was good. So much better than he had ever expected it to be, not that he had expected to actually be with Hugo in the first place. He had believed the man to be too anxious, too caught up in his recovery to try a relationship. He had been pleasantly surprised.

And Hugo was about to be unpleasantly surprised if Stefan didn't hurry up and find him something.

He wasn't going to see him for Christmas. Both of them had decided to spend it with their families, despite the invitation for Hugo to spend it at Stefan's. It would be better for him, but apparently his father was trying. Stefan still expected to get a text sometime in the early afternoon asking to come over.

The workers in the furniture store were busy, faces flushed as they rushed around trying to help all the customers. Stefan waved one away, bothering to sign for only a second before he remembered that they wouldn't understand him. He'd gotten too used to being around Renee and Hugo, too used to people who actually bothered to learn his language.

It was probably the quietest shop in the mall and he took a moment to breathe in the temporary peace. He was able to walk down the aisles without knocking into another person, eyes skirting over decorative items that would never suit Hugo's tiny apartment.

A photo it would have to be. What kind could he possibly give him that he didn't already have? In a photo album on Hugo's bookshelf were photos of them together, of them with Renee, of Hugo alone and smiling, or with his slowly growing group of friends. There were no other photos he could give him that wouldn't seem like he hadn't put any thought into the gift. He was a photographer, but he didn't want it to be his only trait.