Chapter Text
“I’m back,” you hear Fox call a second after the door to your apartment opens.
It’s time for your annual holiday sugar cookie giveaway and you’ve been baking most of the day. You usually give a plate of cookies to your closest neighbors, your friends, a couple dozen for the people on your team at work, and now that your dating Fox, cookies for his hoard of brothers. It’s a tradition your grandmother started. Unfortunately, you’d run out of sugar, eggs, and a few other things and Fox had volunteered to run to the store to get more.
You think he may never want to look at another cookie again.
As Fox walks into the kitchen, you look around. Every available surface is covered with cookies; cookies on cooling racks, cooled cookies piled into precarious towers, cookies decorated in royal icing, and buttercream frosted cookies that have been doused with sprinkles. You start shuffling things around so Fox will have some place to put the purchases from the store.
“Hey, love,” he says.
You plant a kiss on his cheek as you take a couple of bags. “Hey, back at ya.”
You grab a bag of sugar and a carton of eggs and march over to your mixer to begin a new batch of cookies. You sneak a look at Fox as you begin measuring out ingredients. He looks a little overwhelmed by the state of your kitchen. To be honest, you’re a little overwhelmed. But you’ve done this tradition ever since you were old enough to stir batter without spilling it everywhere. Still, this is your tradition, not Fox’s.
“Hey,” you say, moving up behind him and sliding your arms around his waist. You lean against his broad back and feel his hands cover yours. “You don’t need to stick around. Go see your brothers. I can handle this.”
You feel his chest expand as he takes a breath. “I can’t leave you at the mercy of all these cookies,” Fox says. His hands tighten on yours. “I don’t know that I’d ever see you again. I’d come home to find the cookies had finally reached sentience by sheer mass alone and trundled off with you to start a new life with you as their deity.”
You chuckle and press your lips to his shoulder. Fox turns in your arms and leans in for a kiss, then presses his forehead to yours.
“It’s my first time doing this without mom or grandma to supervise,” you say softly, running your fingers through the silver-sprinkled curls at his temples. “I may have gone a little overboard.”
It’s Fox’s turn to chuckle. “I’m here to help. It’s only fair, after all the brothers that keep stopping in to visit.”
“I like your brothers.” You give him one last kiss and go back to the mixer. “I don’t mind them dropping in.”
Fox sits at the table and pulls a pile of cookies and a bowl of buttercream close. “That’s because you haven’t met Wolffe yet. He can be cranky.”
You scoff. “No one’s crankier than Thorn before caf.”
Fox shoots you an unimpressed look and you cackle. “Except you, of course, love.”
He pretends to flip some buttercream at you.
“Careful there, hot stuff. I can retaliate with uncooked cookie dough.”
“Force preserve me,” Fox said, pretending to swoon in his chair.
Just to be a brat, you lob a little ball of dough at his head. He catches it and pops it into his mouth.
“I like it better cooked,” he says.
“Most people do,” you say, grimacing.
You expect some kind of retaliation but instead Fox just goes back to icing cookies. You smile. It’s so nice to see him relaxed and at ease in your apartment. It had taken a while, when you first started dating, for him to take off his armor, metaphorically speaking.
The two of you work in companionable silence, Fox decorating cookies while you roll out the dough and start cutting shapes. You put the cookies on a sheet pan and place it in the oven. You turn and have a second to register Fox right next to you before he slathers a fingerful of chocolate icing across your mouth.
“Fox!” you yelp.
His grin is wicked. “You attacked me unprovoked. I’m just defending myself.”
“Partially provoked,” you say, licking at your lips. “You threatened buttercream.”
Fox cups the back of your head and pulls you in for a kiss. He runs his tongue over your chocolate covered bottom lip and deepens the kiss when you open for him, leaving you both breathless.
“Tease,” you gasp when he pulls back.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Fox says, running his thumb over your lips. “I have a reputation to uphold.”