Lars wasn't exactly sure when he and Matthew had shifted from roommates, teammates, and best friends to lovers.

It had begun, undeniably, with hockey, each studiously pretending not to notice the other noticing his muscles as they benched next to each other or continued their unspoken rivalry over which could tolerate exercise in the cold with the least amount of clothing on. After half a season, Lars didn't sit as stiffly as Matt's head dropped to his shoulder on a late bus ride home after a game, and by the end of their freshman year, he was slowly acquiescing to the Canadian's persistent urgings to accept physical contact as separate from effeminacy. After all, as dainty as the Canadian might seem with his fair skin and silky blonde locks, he was six months older than Lars, screamed the filthiest curses ever heard on a hockey rink, spent his summers in Australia, and hid muscles tough and strong beneath his baggy sweatshirts and jeans.

Over their sophomore year, the room that they shared at their boarding school bore witness to fantastic late-night gaming, movies, and talking, and Lars began to notice more – how Matthew's eyes lit up when he laughed, just how soft his hair was, how his wit was subtle enough to miss if you blinked but brilliant when you caught it, how the mornings when they woke up curled up together on their sofa were becoming increasingly more frequent and how Lars was discovering that he didn't mind. Unbeknownst to him, Matthew was following the same path – watching the lazy amusement in his expressive green eyes, the uncertainty in his movements as he wrapped an arm around Matthew's shoulders, the way he unconsciously hugged his pillow in his sleep. Of course, no friends jump from comfortable to kissing without a healthy dose of sexual tension, and awkwardness followed accordingly – an uncomfortable discussion about sexuality in which several revelations occurred and nothing was resolved whatsoever, a staring contest that lasted just a little too long and a little too close, a New Year's party at which they found themselves sitting next to each other in the curious situation of being the only two people in the room who weren't kissing anyone.

But the lip-locking did follow eventually, initially slam-bang in the middle of finals when Lars was nearly tearing his hair out over his French exam and groaning something about conjugations as he thrashed around on their ratty old carpet at 10 P.M. the night before the exam. Matt, curled into a ball and with lips moving silently as he furiously declined Latin verbs, moved out of the sheer frustration of having spent half of his sophomore year in a heart-fluttering state of he loves me-he loves me not when he leaned down and delivered a brief peck to his best friend's shocked lips.

Lars was taken completely by surprise, staring up at Matthew with his mouth forming a perfect O. Matt had seen him smile, chuckle, glare, and shout in his deep baritone, but the complete shock on his face was a rare expression of emotion, and had the Canadian redder than his sweatshirt with a heart going double time as he stammered out something about his brother's favorite cartoon where one species could learn a language by kissing someone who spoke it.

Lars knew bullshit when he heard it.

Matthew was bent over his Latin textbook again, cheeks scarlet. He couldn't have seen it coming when Lars suddenly pushed himself up from the floor, smoothly flipped the Canadian over, and kissed him until he couldn't form full sentences.

Six months of stolen kisses, secret glances, involuntary blushes, and shyly clasped hands later, Matthew and Lars were moving on to the next level of couplehood: interior décor.

Christmas décor, to be specific. Matthew had insisted on stringing Christmas lights in disorganized patterns along the beams of their bunk beds, the window and door frames, and the clothing bureaus on either side of the room, and nailing a sprig of mistletoe above their door. (Lars had no idea where he'd gotten the mistletoe. Did anyone even grow mistletoe?) He'd even drawn festive red-and-green placards to denote what was in each drawer of aforementioned bureaus. Lars amiably went along with the decorating frenzy, because a cutesy little index card with "Lars' Underwear" written in flowery cursive was ironic in the I'm-going-to-tease-you-about-this-in-twenty-years way, and because Matt had snuck a crude dick into the swirls of the light strings. For his part, Lars had a connection to a connection in the kitchens, and he and Matthew had finagled an hour of spattering flour on each other and sucking cookie dough off each other's fingers. They decorated the sugar cookies with red icing and yet more badly drawn phalluses, and if a little something illicit found its way into the cookie dough, well, that wasn't Lars' fault, was it.

It wasn't quite picking out china together, but for a pair of teenage boys living together in a cramped, messy dorm, it was close enough.

When Christmas Eve rolled around, hormone levels were running higher than ever. Neither boy had chosen to return to his home country for the measly four days allotted to the break, and for the first time, they were completely alone together. Oh, they shared a room, and there had certainly been summer sleepovers featuring no small amount of heated groping, but there had always been someone there – teachers, parents, Antonio and Lovino making an ungodly racket in the room next to theirs. Now, there was nobody to listen to them through paper-thin walls – the only teacher remaining at the school was spending his break in a lonely, drunken haze. The first night, nothing had happened except for a rather frisky Matthew, who didn't get past slyly popping the button and zipper on Lars' jeans to rub him just enough to excite before hopping up off the sofa and smugly announcing the necessity of spending the night on Skype with their families.

Lars had gaped at him in shock and indignation for a moment before grumpily stalking over to his computer and opening up a Skype call to his sister. That little tease would get what was coming to him, he vowed to himself. And so the next night, Christmas Eve itself, he'd nabbed some lube and something else from Antonio's nightstand drawer next door, and spent the evening staunchly resisting Matthew's unashamed teasing with the self-satisfied knowledge that Blondie's ass would be his by the end of the night.

It was none too easy, though, to refuse the bait his boyfriend was dangling in front of his face. They ate pizza and chocolate milk in the caf after a day of stubbornly refusing to admit that paintball season had ended just because there was snow on the ground, to retain some semblance of a normal eating and sleeping schedule during their break, and Matthew's stockinged feet (because shoes weren't sexy at all and you couldn't slide around on slick floors in them) kept rubbing up and down the inside of his thighs in a way that was nigh-unbearable – all while Matt kept up a steady conversation and a satisfied smile. And normally, walking closely behind people on the stairs made Lars uncomfortable anyway thanks to the obvious problem of who would be landed on if they tripped, but damn, with such a glorious ass in the tightest jeans ever seen on a male swaying right in front of his face – it was all Lars could do to keep from slamming Matthew up against the wall and ravishing him right there. He shifted unconsciously just thinking about how the other would look – face twisted in unbearable pleasure rather than such a teasing smirk, messy hair, glasses askew, a thin sheen of sweat on his face, cock jutting up proudly into the air as he pleaded to be allowed to come. And now, when his roommate was swaying his hips in the doorway to "Jingle Bell Rock" in nothing but his red moose-printed boxers, Lars was wondering exactly how long he was going to wait.

"Lars," Matthew purred, tone dripping with sultriness, "come dance with me." He leaned against the doorframe, proudly displaying his silhouetted frame against the light of the hallway. Lars narrowed his eyes, refusing to look away from the TV as he furiously let off a last spray of bullets before red splashed his screen. "Lars..."

A small smile quirked up the side of Lars' mouth. Matt wasn't normally this forward; it was usually Lars who initiated any sort of merrymaking. For the first time all vacation, he'd made it obvious that he was just as hot for it as Lars was. Lars dropped his controller and in two strides was at the door, pressing Matt up against the doorframe as he kissed him sloppily. "Oh, you're going to pay for all that teasing, you know," he breathed into his boyfriend's ear, sending a trail of goosebumps down his neck.

Lars swiftly moved downwards, nibbling and sucking at the sensitive skin of the jaw and neck. Matt flung his head back and let out a small noise of mixed triumph and pure lust, meanwhile letting his hands wander down to firmly explore Lars' ass through his jeans. The Dutch boy pressed his leg between Matt's, letting the Canadian begin to slowly rub against his thigh. They both groaned in unison, and Matt snuck a surprisingly tender kiss before fumbling for the buttons of Lars' shirt.

When suddenly, Matthew wasn't the only boy being ravished in the doorway.

A pair of strong, gloved hands grasped Lars' shoulders, gently but firmly turning him to face a pair of innocent violet eyes. "Ah, I believe the custom is to kiss beneath a mistletoe, da?"

Oh.

So they weren't the only ones who had stayed at the school for the holidays…

Lars' eyes widened, but Ivan Braginski had pushed him inside and up against their wall in a matter of seconds, and was quite obviously taking control of the other. He opened his mouth to protest and found, to his great surprise, an extra tongue in it, as Ivan thoroughly explored his mouth. Before he knew what was happening, teeth and lips were whispering along his own neck, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realized that he was going through exactly what Matt had been begging for. He let out an involuntary moan. Damn, he could see why his boyfriend loved being sub so much.

When the Russian finally released him, with that same childlike smile, Lars was breathing heavily, but still angry as a hornet. He glared at Ivan, who beamed back. But before he could snap out a "what the fuck?", Matt interjected.

Matthew Williams had a look on his face that Lars didn't like at all, a look telling him that Matthew had thoroughly enjoyed what he had seen. "Ivan." He wrapped his arms around Ivan's waist from behind, but looked straight at Lars. "Join us. For tonight…" He kissed Ivan's neck softly, and squirmed not-so-subtly against the taller boy's behind.

And so in a fumbling tangle of limbs and discarded clothing and somehow managing to fold out the futon in the sofa, the three blondes found themselves discovering all the joys of a threesome in a mess of sloppy tongues and not knowing who was kissing who. Matt had already lost his ridiculous underwear, and Ivan was stripped down to nothing but boxers. Matt nudged Lars' sole remaining clothing, one sock, off with his foot, leaving everyone almost completely nude. Nobody was going to be holding back tonight.

"Your ass, Lars," Matthew ordered, and he would protest but Ivan's teeth working the sensitive skin of his neck were doing bad things to him, and so he barely hesitated to scoot halfway off the futon and grab the two things out of his pants pocket.

"I…lube," he managed to gasp out, jerking his head towards the small bottle that he'd dropped on the sheet. "And…" He held up the cock ring, cheeks flaming. "For you…" and he was face-down on the sheet and Ivan was kneading his asscheeks in a way that it would be a lie to say he didn't like…

Matt grinned in a dangerous way, seized the ring, and quickly snapped it onto his cock before backing up to watch. "M-Matt? Where are y-y-you- ah!" Lars choked, feeling a cold finger probing somewhere that he hadn't known was that sensitive.

He twisted his head around to see Ivan peacefully fingering him. At his glance, the Russian flashed him a cheery smile. "Lars appreciates this, da?"

"Fuck you," he choked out, arching his back as another finger prodded his rim and then began to scissor. "Ngh…"

Suddenly, low vibrating noise made itself known from somewhere above Lars' head on the sheet. He glanced up to a glorious sight – Matt just as he appeared in every fantasy, slightly sweaty, red-faced, and eyes hooded. The ring was buzzing around his cock on the lowest setting, and he was rubbing himself slowly and steadily as he stared unashamedly at his writhing boyfriend. Precum already dripped in a steady flow down his rock-hard cock, and something a lot bigger than a few fingers was pressing itself to Lars' entrance.

"Ah!" he nearly shrieked as Ivan began to bury himself. It was true what they said about Russians, damn it. And he wasn't being gentle, either – when Ivan was fully inside him, he began thrusting steadily, rubbing along his walls in a manner foreign but absolutely fantastic. The vibration switched up a setting and Matthew moaned desperately, but Lars was far too distracted to give him the stare he deserved. Maybe some cameras next time…

Blood was pumping straight to Lars' cock as Ivan sped up. A large Russian hand was reaching around to jack him off, rubbing and flicking at the tip, swirling his precum around the head, teasing him, keeping him on the edge. And the thrusts were faster now, and Matt's ring was at the highest setting and he was writhing and shrieking and gripping the sheets in desperation to come.

In a rush, Lars lunged up to snap off the cock ring and take Matt's cock into his mouth, sucking and licking furiously. And – AH! He screamed as Ivan finally hit his prostate, striking it again and again. Such glorious friction. It was too much, too good – he couldn't – he was gonna–

With a choked sob, Lars spilled his load onto the sheet. With a groan, Ivan came deep inside Lars. And with a delicious noise, Matthew shot straight down Lars' throat.

They lay quietly for a moment before Ivan withdrew with a slight squelch, hoisted himself off the futon, and began assembling his clothing matter-of-factly. When he went to the door, he turned and smiled beatifically at the two exhausted boys.

"Merry Christmas," he told them, and left.

And Lars and Matthew fell asleep in each others' arms.