Work Text:
It had been a long day, Kirk decided as he came home and set the laptop case that doubled as his briefcase on a chair in the living room. He just wanted to get dinner and a shower and...honestly, maybe just pass out. He wasn’t sure. Maybe spend time with his kids and his wife, but frankly, he was tired and the negotiations he was going through to expand the original center that had been in New Orleans were a real pain in the ass and if he could just sleep until they were done, that’d be great.
Then it hit him that the house was mostly silent except for some kind of low volume Beastie Boys coming from the vicinity of the kitchen.
This was...unusual. The twins were two now, so usually there was some Disney movie or something on that had them fascinated. Kenzi was usually chattering away with somebody on her phone; even though nearly all of her friends except Noah were older than her she had just turned eighteen so now she could occasionally go out to some of the clubs so Jenny and Em took her out when her studies at Tulane would allow it. And there were constantly people over because his house seemed to be a hub for in-person social networking.
So for it to be mostly quiet was really weird.
He’d been through too much stuff, both good and bad, to not let his hackles be a little raised, and so he went on high alert while he made his way towards the kitchen. “Rose?” he called out when he was a little closer.
“In the kitchen,” she called back. She didn’t sound like she was scared or annoyed, like she was under any duress, so he relaxed a little more. He went in and saw her standing by the stove, stirring something on top of the stove, and then she turned and gave him a grin. “Ease up on the defensive stance. Molly and Bones have the twins, Kenzi’s having a girl’s night out with her friends, I unplugged the landline and I even got Regina to put a spell on the place where no one can bother us unless it’s a really big emergency, and even then it’ll literally only be her or Molly who can teleport over here and bug us.”
He finally relaxed all the way. “Why’d you go to all the trouble?”
“Because you bend over backward to pamper the hell out of me, so I figured why not give you a night where you get to just relax and not have any responsibilities?” She grinned at him even wider and gestured to the stove. “And don’t worry, I didn’t actually cook all this. Regina was fairly sure I couldn’t fuck up the gravy. I think she was giving me a bit too much credit, but so far I’m doing okay.”
He came over to her and put his arms around her waist, pressing a kiss to her neck. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked.
“Mmm, went to a different universe a couple hundred years in the past, made some really bad and or weird dating choices, including a Disney princess, nearly got the crap beat out of you by my ex-boyfriend and a couple random bar dudes and then let random Seal weirdness let you do something stupid?” she said.
“Mostly true, except for one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?” she said.
He pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “Kissing you after the bar fight wasn’t stupid.”
She shivered slightly. “True,” she said. "But I might do something stupid if you keep doing that, like burn the sauce.”
“I don’t mind burnt bits. I’ve gotten used to it with your cooking,” he said.
“But there’s less of it these days,” she pointed out.
“Quite a bit less,” he said, removing his lips from her skin and resting his chin near the crook of her neck. “Have any suggestions on what I should do while you’re busy since you don’t want me distracting you?”
"I doubt vodka is the answer, but it's worth a shot," she said.
He groaned at that. “And you say I have the bad sense of humor.”
“What? That was the perfect answer! You totally set yourself up for that,” she said with a laugh, setting down the wooden spoon in her hand and turning to face him. He looked down at her and she reached up to caress his face. “Seriously, though. Tonight we can get completely shitfaced if we want. You don’t have to work tomorrow, the kids will be gone till the late afternoon, and I even got the good stuff. Like, the stuff you brought back from Russia when you went with other Kenzi in Lawrence.”
“Yeah?” he said, pulling her closer for a moment before reaching over and turning the heat off under the sauce and then moving it to another burner. Then he paused. “Is dinner still cooking?”
“Just warming in the oven,” she said.
“Well, I’m turning the heat off, and we’re going to get the bottle out of the freezer and go somewhere and drink and talk and just see what happens,” he said.
“You know, we could always introduce a deck of cards into the equation,” she said with a grin, bringing her hands up to play with the buttons of his shirt.
“Maybe,” he said. “Not in the mood for strip poker, though.”
“Hmm...” she said. “We have a ton of board games. That could be fun?”
“I could just see us playing Monopoly and you asking for a divorce by the end of it,” he said with a chuckle.
“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “Chris told me what happened the last time you sat down and played with him and Rhea and Kenzi. You put that damn wish knowledge of yours to use and had all the money and land and everyone hated you. You were cheating like crazy.”
“Hey, just because I know the art of making good business deals isn’t a bad thing,” he said, sliding his hands around to the small of her back and sliding his hands under her shirt. “My negotiation skills have been known to come in handy.”
“I wonder what you can negotiate for yourself tonight,” she said with a grin before she wound her arms around his neck and leaned in more.
“I’m pretty sure I can make some advantageous deals for both of us,” he said before he lowered his head and kissed her, a kiss that became more passionate before he lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He had the feeling that the evening probably wasn’t going to go exactly how she planned but he also had the feeling neither of them were going to complain all that much, and that was perfectly fine with him.