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The world is white outside. Snow falls thickly on the ground, blown into tall drifts along the windows. If the storm keeps up, even for another half day, they’ll have to clear away the drifts from the windows if they want to keep the bright sunlight. Inside, the room takes on a grey sort of brightness, hazy with how the sunbeams fall through the glass.
“Here.”
A hot mug, pressed into her hands, and the smell of chocolate his her lips at the same time that she realizes that her fingers will probably burn if she keeps trying to hold onto it like that. Victor chuckles, as she runs her lips over the edge of the mug, slips just a little of the foamy hot chocolate, and then puts the mug on the floor.
“Sorry. Should have warned you.”
Victor has his own mug in his hands, and shows no sign of feeling any sort of discomfort with holding onto the steaming hot liquid. With ease, he settles down to sit next to her on the carpet, his big legs folded up underneath him.
“It’s alright.” She quirks a smile, the burn on her tongue still painful. “Should have known that was coming.”
His fingers still warm from holding onto his mug, Victor takes her hand in his, and pulls it up to his lips. Softly blows on them, and then delicately licks them. One by one. His tongue is rough on her skin, but she can’t think about the slight pain when he’s looking at her with just that sort of look in his eyes, and a smirk on his lips.
“Better,” he asks, and the teasing is plain in his voice. He even dares to wink at her.
Daisy leans in, nearly rising all the way up onto her knees to get close enough, because the bastard doesn’t lean in one single degree. She presses her lips to his, soft and gentle. He still has the taste of hot chocolate in his mouth. She feels him smiling against her lips, but when she leans away, the smile is gone.
“Better,” she replies, and winks at him.
He laughs. His arm comes around to cradle her shoulder, and Daisy lets herself be pulled into a hug. Leaning against his side, and he’s far warmer than even the fireplace they sit so close to.
For a long while, it is comfortable silence. Daisy leans her head on Victor’s muscled shoulder, feels his breathing underneath him. He occasionally takes a sip from his mug, and she can how his body moves. Intimacy. It feels like perfect intimacy.
“Something on your mind,” he asks, the rumble of his voice echoing against her ear. “You looked pretty deep in thought.”
“I....” She thinks of denying it. First instinct; deflect, deny. Throw him off with some excuse or another, say she had another present she had meant to buy him and forgot to. A quick, easy lie that would work on anyone else but him.
Daisy thinks that even if Victor wasn’t her soulmate, he would know whenever she was lying.
Victor makes a noise in the back of his throat, and she throws all the ideas of letting things be a lie slide away.
“I never had a christmas before this.”
The admission has never been painful. Others talk about feeling shame, or pain, when they think of all the things that they’ve lost. Every chance they’ve missed, the childhood memories that so many talk about but can so easily be missed out on.
She has never felt that.
Not even now.
Now, she just feels the urge to hide. Victor takes it personally, every time, when she misses out on something, or doesn’t have a positive experience, and how much more will it be now? Will he rage, at the nuns, for preventing the orphans from having that? At the team, for not making christmas as special as an event as they do birthdays or rocket launches?
She lifts her eyes up to his face.
Victor is studying her. Across their bond, she feels a sort of careful peace that rings more of the battlefield than of their quiet little living room. But there is no rage beneath it, as is so often the case instead.
Victor carefully and slowly sets his mug down on the floor.
“You expecting more? Needed something else to meet your expectations?”
Daisy shrugged.
“It was just us. We stayed home all day, had sex in places Mack will pass out if he ever knows about-”
“Which he won’t.”
“-Which he won’t. Burned dinner, and ordered take out. It doesn’t feel like anything special.”
He looks like he’s reaching for words, and utterly failing to find them where he remembers putting them. There’s something special about a man’s face that can make that sort of specific expression. When Victor’s eyes go wide like that, like they are right in that moment, Daisy can’t help but feel utterly endeared.
Before he can open up his mouth, she puts her fingers over his lips, pressing them closed.
“And that’s quite alright. I enjoyed myself.”
Since she won’t let him speak, Victor just raises one eyebrow, and floods there bond with confusion.
“I just.... I expected more. And I think I’m okay with it not being anything more.”
The moment she moves her fingers a centimeter away from his lips, Victor replies. There’s no thought in the words, no carefully planned out expressions of support and love. Just him, speaking off the tip of his tongue and the racing nature of his thoughts.
“Anything you want, baby. I’ll it for you. Whatever it takes to make this day special.”
Daisy laughs, and loops her arms around his neck. She pulls herself into his lap, and Victor grips her hips with his massive hands, and she can feel his claws pressing in on her jeans. Just a reminder. That they’re there. Still laughing, she kisses him. It starts off light and slow. And then Victor growls in his chest, and she presses her tongue against his lips. He pushes his tongue back against hers, and drags his fanged teeth over her bottom hip. Daisy thrusts her hips into his hands.
When she breaks the kiss off minutes later, breathless and flushed, it takes her a couple of deep breaths before she can form any words.
“You’re the best present I could ask for. And I don’t need anything more.”