Work Text:
Trinkets
“No fucking way.”
“Yes fucking way. Try be a little festive for once in your life, okay? It’s fun.”
“No, it isn’t. It actually really isn’t.”
“You’re supposed to be a strong willed veteran! Haul ass and help me.”
Gideon seemed to contemplate his retort. “Mhmm,” He began uncertainly before nodding, as if he’d come to a decision of what-snarky-comment-will-get-me-out-of-this-situation he wanted to go with. “Just this one time, you can be the brawn and I’ll be the brains, okay?”
“The brains of what, exactly?” Mitchell asked, an amused smile tugging at his lips. “Helping me bling up the tree? Oh man, I fear Ilona entrusted you with too much responsibility.”
Gideon gave him the stink eye, made himself more comfortable in the corner of the couch he’d claimed and took a sip of the hot cocoa he firmly denies he ever (ever) drinks. “Good, cool, so I’ll direct where you hang those…” He gestured to the bright red ornaments in Mitchell’s hands.
“Ball-balls.” Mitchell said, frowning.
Gideon snorted. “Seriously? Seriously? Who names this shit? That’s worse then the ones called baubles.”
“They are the same thing.”
Gideon sighed explosively and threw his free-non-cocoa-holding hand up.
“Ilona’s gonna be through that door in like, five seconds. At least pretend you’re helping. She’s the only one that can hand you your ass.”
Gideon waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “That’s not what you said last night.”
Mitchell threw a well aimed bauble at his boyfriend’s head and Gideon caught it with ease, laughing. He still didn’t get up, though, and Mitchell could hear Ilona’s heels clicking across the parquet floor outside the dining room. There was a slim chance that she wouldn’t beat the blonde into submission. A slim chance, though still wide enough for Gideon, apparently.
“Sometimes I forget what a sanctimonious prick you are.” Mitchell hums, walking over to the blonde and making a grab for the bauble he was still holding captive.
“Your words, they hurt. They cut.”
“Mhmm.”
“You know you love me.”
Mitchell nodded gravely. “I do.”
Gideon rolled his eyes good-naturedly and let out a sigh that was just about as subtle as a gunshot.
“Just to think I used to sweat nervously whenever you walked into a room.”
Gideon smirked and elevated himself so he could press a quick kiss to the corner of Mitchell’s mouth and again properly to his lips. Before he could come up with any kind of sarcastic or bawdy remark however, Ilona entered the dining room, the black dress she’d decided to wear flowing just below her knees. She smiled warmly at Mitchell but frowned when her gaze rested on Gideon. She sighed, but it wasn’t one of her disappointed-in-you sighs or her I’ll-crack-your-neck-with-my-thighs sighs. It was just a slightly worn out sigh. Maybe her I’m-so-done-with-your-shit sigh. “What are you doing?”
Gideon rolled his shoulders in a negligent shrug. “Thinking about chicken feet.”
“Of course you are.”
She graced her way past him, putting a box full of tinsel on top of the mantel above the fire place.
Mitchell pulled out some long green tinsel and began wrapping it around the tree. Gideon watched with vague interest, his fingers tapping on his cup absently as he followed Mitchell’s hands with his eyes. He nearly dropped the cup of warm chocolatey goodness when Ilona threw a bunch of tinsel at his face.
He sputtered and put his cup down, yanking the decoration off and away as if it were a bundle of pit vipers. He looked over at Mitchell who was watching him no longer with the usual exasperated mirth, but a weird expectant expression. It seemed his participation was important to the man in a visceral way.
With a grudging sigh, Gideon stood up and padded his way to the tree, regarding it with distaste before he all but threw the tinsel on it.
The tinsel drooped pathetically and some of it slipped to the floor, taking some of the loose baubles with it.
Ilona was positively livid, but Mitchell just laughed, loud and carefree, beaming when he’d stopped.
Gideon decided then that maybe, just this one time, it would be correct to rethink his decorating strategy because that smile—that genuine smile? It made everything worth it.