Under the Mistletoe - Caleb X MC
[Door 13] Ever wondered how Christmas for certain fics look like? Well, I'm here to introduce you to 'the Christmas AU' where I'm taking five of my past fics and am going to show you what they are up during the holidays! ─ .✦ original: In Bloom (Language of Flowers) ─ .✦ word count: 1208 ─ .✦ Christmas countdown masterlist!
“So I have been meaning to ask this for a while now but.. what exactly are you hiding behind your back?”
Caleb flinches, but tries to play it cool by pretending he hasn’t heard your words at all. He starts looking around the room instead as if it hadn’t always looked that way and he has been over enough times to realize that. He knows, he cannot lie, especially when you directly call him out like this, the embarrassment practically written on his face by the redness of his ears.
You don’t know when exactly you noticed something was off. Maybe it was the way he was weirdly side-stepping around the room, trying to hide that little paper bag behind his back as if you didn’t already notice. Or maybe it’s the way there was a permanent grin on his lips that he hasn’t been able to wipe off his face since he came over.
Now that it has gotten colder - too cold for your plants that have been sitting pretty on the balcony - Caleb’s almost weekly orders of fresh bouquets have slowly come to a stop. You haven’t told him yet that you have started to write down all of their possible meanings in a little notebook which you keep safely by your bedside, afraid that the words you are picking out are just a wrong interpretation on your part and not real at all. It’s the one thing that would drive a smile to your face weekly, so maybe it’s a secret you can keep to yourself a little bit longer.
Because at the end of the day, Caleb did buy that book about the language of flowers. Surely, he must know about the dangers of double-meanings?
-
The holidays are just around the corner, and when you asked him if he could help out to put up your Christmas tree with you, Caleb immediately agreed, filing for a vacation the moment he finished all his reports and got back from his mission. And just a couple of days later, he was already in front of your doorstep, luggage in one hand, fresh groceries in another - ready to cook up a feast for you once more.
While the dough for the sugar cookies is resting in the fridge, Caleb starts assembling your tree for you while you start opening up the boxes full of ornaments and Christmas lights.
Because he doesn’t seem to want to talk about that suspicious paper bag peeking out from his back pocket, you decide to move on, hoping to catch him in a lie later on when he least expects it.
“Remember this one? That used to be your favorite”, you hold up one of the ornaments you just unwrapped: it’s a green apple - the one, Caleb always used to hang up the highest when you two were decorating as kids. He smiles, “Yeah, it was. Can you hang it up for me?”
Just like he always did, you make sure it’s sitting on the highest branch before going back to taking out more. There’s a comfortable silence that follows as you two continue decorating, accompanied by the carols quietly playing on the TV which you occasionally hum along to.
“Looks great”, you exclaim once everything is finally set up. Your living room looks so much more festive now that you feel a little child-like excitement for the upcoming days bubbling up in your chest, especially now that Caleb is over to spend it with you.
You’ve already planned to take him to the big Christmas market at the town center to have hot chocolate and mulled wine, go snow tubing together if he’s up for it (You know he is) and for the grand finale, you have actually managed to get him one of those extremely ugly Christmas sweaters you know he will be wearing throughout this whole week.
Caleb hums, “We did great. Let’s see if the cookies are done baking now!”
It’s a couple of hours later and you are pretty sure you’ve had way too many of those cookies after dinner, because now that Caleb and you are sprawled out on your couch with way too many blankets to count draped over you,
It’s a couple of hours later and you’re pretty sure you’ve had way too many of those cookies earlier, that now - as Caleb and you are sprawled out across the couch draped in blankets, sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching cheesy but hilarious Christmas hallmark rom-coms - you don’t feel like moving at all anymore. Your head is resting on his comforting shoulder and he is playing with your hand mindlessly, tracing shapes and lines across it.
“..So what was it that you were hiding?”, you ask, eyes still focused on the screen.
Caleb freezes, his finger lingering in the air before he continues slowly. “Oh, it was nothing. I figured it was stupid after all.”
Now this time you turn your head to look at him, “Wait, why?” you pout. “There clearly was something. You looked so giddy about it”
“I did?”, you see the tips of his ears turn red slowly, a little blush evident on his cheeks. You simply nod, focusing your gaze back to the screen, “But if it’s nothing, that’s fine too. You can also show me later, if you feel like it then.”
-
You wake up the next morning feeling well rested as if you and Caleb didn’t end up watching movies until two in the morning and he had to drag you into bed. Every time Caleb is over, you feel like your body subconsciously relaxes more, making you sleep for a lot longer than usual.
By the time you got dressed and walked into the kitchen, you noticed that Caleb already prepared breakfast for you - a little note sitting on the counter that read: ‘out to get some groceries! You were running out of milk and eggs. Text me if there’s anything you’d like!’
You sit down and have your coffee with it, humming at the absolute delight which is Caleb’s cooking and how much you’ve been missing it recently.
While you wait for him to come back, you think about continuing that movie you both didn’t finish last night. It was so incredibly cheesy that about twenty minutes in, instead of actually watching, Caleb and you started discussing something completely different until you realized how late it had gotten.
But as you walk into your living room you notice it: hanging just above your door wrapped around one of the fairy lights you attached there the day before, is a little mistletoe branch.
You could’ve easily missed it. It’s barely visible. But the moment your eyes land on it, there’s only one thought in your head:
That’s what Caleb was hiding behind his back yesterday.
“..So you’ve found it already”, Caleb walks up from the entryway, holding bags of groceries in hand, which he gently puts down on the counter. Your head whips around in surprise, a small blush on your cheeks, “O-oh, Caleb! Welcome back-”
“You don’t need to research anything for these, right?”, he says as he stops next to you, pointing up to the little branch above your heads. “There’s only one meaning after all.”
