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“Layla, I truly don’t know how this is supposed to help me relax.“ Marc huffed out with a roll of his eyes.
Layla was currently straddling his lap as he was sitting in the middle of the couch, legs spread and arms crossed, his back leaning against the soft cushions.
“You know if you wanted to get out of this you could.” Layla smirks and smoothes his hair back some more before fixing it with a glittery hair band.
“Oh yeah like that one time I didn’t want to watch that weird super model show and you got all pouty at me?” Marc raises an eyebrow at her. “Or maybe that one time you quite literally tackled me down onto the floor because I wanted to go out with a friend instead of meeting your mother?”
“First of all that friend had an insanely massive crush on you and it is sad that you never noticed that, secondly I didn’t tackle you, I held you back.” She nods determinedly. “It didn’t even hurt.”
“I had a bruise on my arm from that woman!”
“Okay!” She holds her hands up in surrender. “Okay I’m sorry but you were laughing at me so I figured you were aware that we were joking around.” She turns her upper body around and grabs a black bag from the table before looking back at him.
“Oh so we were joking now?” Marc leans his head to the side, his eyebrow raised at her quizzically.
“We were indeed.” Layla nods and grabs a brush. “About everything except the ‘friend’ part.” She smirks and gives him a quick peck on his lips, which he gladly returns, chasing after her lips after she’s pulled away.
“Hold still.” She mumbles and tugs some loose strands of hair behind the pink hairband to secure them away as Marc just silently grumbles at her.
She smirks brightly as she fishes a strawberry scented face mask from her makeup bag.
“Ugh not that stuff Layla.” Marc scrunches his nose up in disgust. “You know that’s slimy and weird.”
“It’s not slimy and it will be good for your face.” She nods proudly and picks some of the product up on the brush before applying it onto his forehead. “Besides, I’m pretty sure you secretly like it.” She nods.
“Like what?” He asks while leaning his back further into the cushions, letting go of some of the tension in his shoulders.
“Me taking care of you.” She smiles and keeps applying the strawberry mask onto his face.
“It’s merely a means to an end.” Marc grumbles back at her as his arms untangle themselves and his hands fall on her waist to hold onto her softly.
“And what would that be exactly?” Layla asks him while smoothing the mask out, the cool product somehow refreshing and soothing against his skin.
“Happy wife, happy life.” Marc answers, making her snort out a chuckle.
“Here.” She says and holds the brush out to him. She ties her hair up to keep it away from her face before relaxing in his lap.
Marc grabs the container from her as well and puts the brush into it before lifting it up to her face. He carefully swipes the product over her cheek and spreads it out, careful as to not have the cold startle her.
“This isn’t an art class assignment babe.” She teases him with a smirk, her eyes sparkling just the slightest bit as she tries to hide her happiness behind a mocking smirk but Marc knows her better than that. He knows how to see through her and Layla knows that he does as well. She drops the mask then and decides to just enjoy spending this time with her husband, to cherish and remember this moment for a while.
“Don’t go all sappy on me now woman.” Marc pulls her out of her thoughts with a smirk on his own lips now.
“I’m never sappy.” She returns, feigning offense. “The only sap I know is you.” She crosses her arms and Marc laughs as he swipes the brush down the bridge of her nose. He puts the brush down once he finished putting the light pink product on her face, then wraps his arms back around her waist tightly to pull her in closer.
She pushes against his chest and leans back with a chuckle, arching her back to get away from him when he tries to kiss her. “Hey!” He exclaims, offended.
“No you need to wait until we can take the mask off again you crazy person!” She chuckles and keeps pushing him back on his shoulders, her eyes crinkling in genuine joy.
“I let you put this goo on my face and I won’t even get a kiss in return?” He narrows his eyes.
“It’s not goo, you idiot!” She looks at him, lightly slapping at his shoulder. “Only the best stuff for my baby, don’t you know?” She teases him with a smirk, just earning a scoff from him in return.
He quickly scoops her up in his arms, making her gasp in surprise before he swiftly places her on the couch beneath him, her back sinking into the soft cushions and her legs wrapped around his waist loosely.
“You still won’t get a kiss.” She shakes her head determinedly as she wraps her arms around his neck.
“You do realize that I’m at a vantage point, yeah?” Marc asks her while running his fingers up and down her waist softly.
“Cause you have the high ground?” She smirks brightly, making him roll his eyes. “I’m not that obsessed with Star Wars Layla.” He retorts matter of factly to which Layla just shrugs her shoulders with a simple ‘eh’ of disagreement.
Marc decides to dismiss the topic with a simple roll of his eyes. He leans down to capture her lips in a kiss. “No!” Layla quickly angles up her head, making him frown in confusion when his nose nudges against her jaw. He pulls back and looks at her unimpressed.
“Are you serious right now?” He asks her.
“Yes.” She nods.
Marc, always up for a little challenge, narrows his eyes once more and pulls her further down the couch on her hips, making her yelp in surprise.
And before she can process what happened he already squishes his lips onto hers, making sure to move his face left and right in an effort to smear around the strawberry product on both of their faces and ruin the carefully applied masks entirely.
Layla doesn’t have anything left to do but laugh at his dorky tantrum, trying to squirm out from under him or push him back at his chest but he won’t let her.
Once he’s done with his antics he leans in more to kiss her again and this time she gives in, kissing him back with the brightest smirk possible on her face.
“I love you.” He mumbles against her lips, relaxing further into her touch when she tells him how much she loves him as well, her fingers slowly moving through his curls and her lips never leaving his, letting him know how honest she was with him.
-
“Did you bring the stuff?”
“Hey Jake, yeah my day was great, how was yours?” Layla shakes her head with a smirk, flicking the switch to turn on the lamp.
“Turn it off!” Jake quickly exclaims and leans forward on the couch, his focus never once leaving the tv.
“Jesus okay.” Layla turns the light off again rather quickly.
It was January 4th… maybe 5th…. The point was it was already dark out despite it being barely 6pm and she couldn’t see as well as she would’ve liked to, considering she was running a constant threat to trip over Stevens books.
But she managed her way around the apartment to the fridge and put away the groceries she’s brought home with her.
“What are you doing?” She calls over to the couch where Jake was still perched on the edge of his seat, focusing on the screen in front of him.
“Killing people.”
“Tough guy.” Layla nods her head mockingly impressed, a small smirk playing across her lips when she walks over to Jake and plops down on the couch next to him.
As soon as she comes in contact with the soft cushions Jake groans annoyed and slumps back. “You distracted me.” He groans, making her laugh. “Me?!” She chuckles while looking at him.
“Obviously why else would I have died eh?” He gestures at the screen while looking at her.
“Can I?” Layla holds her hand out with a chuckle, making Jake's eyes narrow. “Think you’re better than me?”
“I think we can make use of each other's skill sets.” She nods and simply snatches the controller from his hands.
“What is it?” She asks as she presses play.
“It's call of duty. Marc and I play it, Steven watches sometimes to tell us that we suck at it.” Jake nods and leans back to watch her play.
“And do you suck at it?” She smirks.
“Marc sucks at it, I don’t.” Jake nods proudly and grabs the chips from the table that he’d asked Layla to bring for him.
“Okay and I need to do what exactly?” Layla asks him after a few moments of just sneaking around, he leans over and presses a button on the controller, making the objective of her mission pop up on the screen.
“Oh ‘get a sharp weapon’ I can do that.” Layla nods determined and looks at the controller for a second before pressing a button, making her character crouch so she can keep walking undetected.
Jake smirks at her focus and shakes his head softly. “Pick up some of the stuff laying around so you can craft bombs and stuff with it.” He nods and props his legs up while leaning back more.
“Okay, got it.” She nods and immediately picks up a container of chemicals. “So what if I’m detected?” She asks him.
“Well you’ll be killed obviously.” Jake nods with a snort. “Could’ve figured.”
Layla doesn’t answer, too focused on her mission to think about something cheeky to retort. Then she opens a door and walks out without checking her surroundings. A guard gets alerted and shoots her, leaving her to throw her head back with a groan. “That was unfair.” She snorts.
Jake laughs and takes the controller from her again, starting off at her last checkpoint. “You can distract em with bottles so they walk away and check out the noise.” He nods and shows it to her, throwing a bottle before quickly slipping past a guard.
“Why are they even killing all these people.” Layla snorts and snatches the bag of chips from Jakes lap.
“Dunno, they’re just dumb, basically the guy who leads this group wants to get some recognition for catching a terrorist and he’s completely loosing his mind about it cause he doesn’t want anyone to take the prize from him, so he thinks if he threatens to shoot the people they’ll tell him what he wants to know and if they don’t he kills em.” Jake explains to her while crafting another smoke bomb.
“Oh yeah, sounds like a really smart guy.” Layla quips sarcastically.
“Happens all the time.” Jake shrugs and Layla knows he’s no longer talking about the game now. She obviously knows that they’ve been in the military before. She decides she knows enough and doesn’t need to inquire anymore, so she lets the topic go.
She watches him play for a while until she grows bored and swiftly decides to cover Jakes eyes right as he was about to stab a guard.
“Eh! What are you doing!” He tries to sit up quickly but doesn’t manage to get Layla's hand away from in front of his eyes, as her arms are wrapped around his neck.
“Oh no Jake!” She pouts as she pulls away. “You died.” She huffs and grabs the controller from Jake's hands, sitting cross legged on the couch to get ready to take out the remaining guards.
She doesn’t spare Jake a glance when he just looks over at her unimpressed. He pushes her shoulder, making her drop over on the couch.
“Ey!” She exclaims offended while pushing herself back up in a sitting position.
“You suck.” Jake leans back with crossed arms.
“Oh yeah sure.” Layla nods and leans over against his shoulder. “Love you too Jakey” she smirks and keeps playing.
“Don’t call me that.”
"Okay, jakey." She smirks playfully.
For a moment she thinks she’s made him upset or uncomfortable. She frowns softly and wonders if she overstepped some kind of boundary.
All that is washed away when Jake attacks her with his hands, making her shriek loudly as he tickles her mercilessly.
“Okay!” She shouts. “Okay surrender! I surrender!” She tries to push her hands against him, the controller, now laying on the floor, long forgotten.
“Oh no Layla.” Jake pouts at her while still tickling her by her waist. “Look at that you died.” He mocks and holds onto her tighter when she tries to squirm away while laughing. He doesn’t let up for at least another minute.
-
“Are you sure that’s…not too much?” Steven asks cautiously.
“I doubt there could ever be ‘too much’ seasoning in food Steven.” Layla tells him and dumps some more cayenne pepper into both pans, one with chicken, one with tofu.
“Uhm… I mean… I don’t want to discredit your cooking abilities but-“
“But what?” She looks over to him and raises an eyebrow. “Marc just said you might like things a bit more… uhm… strong.” He says while scratching the back of his neck.
“And I don’t want to offend you at all but you already put salt in that five times, I really can’t eat that.” He shakes his head determinedly.
Layla huffs in response and shoves the pans to the back of the stovetop. “Show me how you’d cook it.” She tells him.
“You sure luv?” He asks, a slight frown on his face, worrying he might’ve hurt her feelings.
“Yeah I wanna know how you’d like to eat it.” She nods with a smile and kisses his cheek.
He nods and grabs a new pan, an onion, some tomatoes and two courgettes. “Can you cut those in half circles?” He asks her while holding them out to her, she nods and grabs them with a smile.
“You cook often?” She asks him as she grabs a knife.”
“Not really, I’m not particularly great at it, Marc cooks most of the time, Jake is good at it too but leaves it up to Marc most of the time even though he likes it a bit more spicy too.” He nods and fills a mid-sized pot with water before putting it on the stove.
“Yeah I’d always wondered about Marc’s cooking.” She nods thoughtfully. “He was the first guy I knew who’s been really good at it and wanted to cook too.” She chuckles and puts the zucchini pieces into a small bowl to get them out of her way.
“He’d had to learn it early I suppose.” Steven nods, not particularly thinking about the conversation too much. “And he’d like to know what’s in the meals that he eats.” He trails off and keeps cutting the tomatoes.
Layla thinks about that for a moment. Then decides to force her thoughts away from that topic. She knows enough to connect the dots, she doesn’t need to keep asking. She doesn’t need to keep them in that time period.
“Then how’d you get by?” She asks him.
“Vegan burritos.” He nods determinedly, making her laugh. “That’s all? Just vegan burritos morning, noon and night?” She chuckles while looking at him.
“No noon is cake time.” He smirks and puts the pasta in the pot with the hot water.
“Oh yeah right, how could I ever assume anything else.” She shakes her head, faking disappointment and Steven chuckles.
“When’d you decide to be vegan by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask.” She looks at him and hands him the zucchini to add into the pan with the garlic and onion.
“Went vegetarian first when they showed us a video in school, I’m sure you heard of it, with the chickens and the nuggets.” He nods and adds the tomatoes as well.
“Ergh.” Layla scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “That’s gross.”
“Exactly.” Steven nods and stirs the sauce.
“Maybe we can teach each other some cooking?” Layla looks at him with a smile.
“You wanna teach me cooking?” Steven asks while looking at her.
“Sure why not?” She asks with a smile.
“Think I’ll pass.” Steven nods determinedly, earning an offended gasp from her, making him laugh out loud. “Did you see how much salt you just threw into that sauce?” He chuckles.
“Don’t be mean Steven.” She points at him with narrowed eyes.
“Or what else hm?” He smirks at her, an unspoken challenge.
“I won’t bring you lemon bars from that bakery you like anymore.” She nods and grabs the salt again to pour some into Stevens' newly made sauce.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Steven takes the salt away from her quickly.
“Okay that’s it!” Layla exclaims and stomps away. “That’s the tip on the iceberg.”
“Don’t be like that now luv.” Steven chuckles and pulls her back softly on her arm, he hands her the salt but keeps holding onto her hand so they end up adding it into the sauce together.
She looks at him unimpressed which he simply responds to with planting a quick kiss on her cheek.
She rolls her eyes at him lovingly and returns the kiss to one of his cheeks before pulling away to grab two plates from the cupboard.
Steven smiles softly while finishing the pasta.
The next morning there’s a small plate with lemon bars standing on the kitchen table, next to a bowl of strawberries and a bag of those weird barbecue chips that Jake likes so much.
‘To my idiot(s). See you tonight. Love you.’