Chapter Text
Most people hate working on Christmas Eve. They just want to be home with their families, snuggling their pets and feeding cookies to their children and wrapping the presents that they’ll place under the tree after everyone goes to bed.
However, those people don’t work at NORAD.
Jared’s been volunteering to work during the Santa Tracking for three years now, and every year is more fun than the last. Everybody around him is in a great mood, there are plenty of free cookies and donuts and brownies in the break room, and when you’re in the military, providing good news to anybody is something you pretty much never get to do, so Christmas Eve is the only day of the year that Jared wakes up excited to get to work.
Jared’s shift starts at 0800, and he’s already taken about a hundred calls when he gets the one that he’ll always remember.
“NORAD Santa Tracker, this is Jared,” he says, just as he has the last hundred times.
“Say hi, Logan,” says a smooth baritone voice. It’s the kind of voice that would sound really, really hot talking dirty, and Jared tries to get that impression out of his head.
“Hi!” chirps a young boy’s voice.
“Hi, Logan! And who else am I speaking to?” he asks, just because he wants to know the name of they guy who’s going to star in Jared’s fantasies for a few weeks at least.
“I’m Jensen,” says the older voice. “I’m his uncle. He’s been really excited about calling NORAD.”
“Well, that’s great!” says Jared, grinning. “So, you want to know where Santa is?”
“Yeah!” Logan shouts.
Jared pretends to be engrossed in data. “Well, according to our radar, Santa just left Sri Lanka and is heading for New Delhi, India.”
“Where’s that?” asks Logan, sounding dismayed.
“Do you know the continents?” says Jared.
“No,” answers Logan.
“What state do you live in?”
“Texas,” he answers, sounding even more confused.
Jared does some quick calculations. “Okay, India is 8,800 miles from Texas, and Texas is 660 miles wide. So you’d have to drive from one end of Texas to the other end 13 times to get to India.”
“Wow!” Logan sounds impressed. “That’s really far! That’s even farther away than you live, Uncle Jensen, isn’t it?”
“Where do you live, Jensen?” asks Jared. Just because he’s curious, that’s all.
“I work in Vancouver,” answers Jensen. “How many Texases is that?”
Jared does more math. “That’s 2,245 miles, so it comes to 3.4 Texases,” he answers.
“Doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way,” says Jensen. “Feels longer than that on the flight.”
“Do you get back to Texas often?”
“Not often enough,” says Jensen, a hint of regret in his voice.
“Neither do I,” replies Jared. “I’m from San Antonio. Where are you?”
“Richardson, outside Dallas.” Jensen pauses, and then Jared hears his muffled voice say, “Logan, go play.” Another short pause, and then Jensen speaks at regular volume. “You guys are in Colorado Springs, right? That’s not so far.”
“I don’t get home much,” says Jared. “Far less often than I’d like.”
“That’s too bad,” says Jensen, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “You got anyone special up there to spend time with?”
Jared shakes his head, forgetting momentarily that Jensen can’t see him. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Yeah, me either,” replies Jensen. “It gets cold up in the mountains, you know? Those long nights, where it seems like the sun’ll never come up?”
“Yeah,” Jared breathes. He knows it well. “It’s even worse when you’re inside the mountain.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be.” Jensen takes a deep breath. “I know this is probably totally against the rules, but—would you give me your number, so I can call you when you’re off-duty? Just to talk, no strings, I promise.”
Jared smiles. “I would—I would really like that.” He drops his voice and recites his cell number into the phone. “My shift ends at 1600, that’s 3 pm your time.”
“Thank you,” says Jensen. “I love my family, but—I don’t know if this is weird, but I really like talking to you.”
“I like talking to you, too,” says Jared warmly. “I look forward to doing it again.”
“Me too.” Jensen hesitates. “I guess I should let you go do your job.”
Jared glances at the clock. He’s been on the phone with Jensen for almost five minutes, which is way longer than he should have been. “Yeah, unfortunately, I have to go. But call me later.”
“I definitely will,” promises Jensen. “Nice talking to you, Jared.”
Jared grins. “Nice talking to you too, Jensen.”
He hears a scrambling sound on the other end of the line, and then Jensen speaks again. “Logan says to tell Santa hello for him.”
“Will do,” replies Jared with a grin. “Merry Christmas, Jensen.”
“Merry Christmas, Jared.”