It had only been a few weeks since they’d started dating – could they even call it that, really? – but something was different. Cadence had been positively giddy all night; even before she’d told him about the Windenburg Symphony, Nick had known something was up.
And now he was sitting at the piano, two glasses of wine sitting on the windowsill beside him while he waited for her to finish freshening up downstairs.
Nick’s fingers were flying across the keys, playing anything and everything that came to mind, playing riffs and arpeggios and everything in-between, fragments of songs and made-up melodies interspersed with chords and etudes and scales.
He didn’t hear her walk up behind him, but he wasn’t startled, even as her hands slid down his chest and along his arms to shadow his hands on the keys as he finished the final phrase.
He half-turned, sliding his hand around her waist, and was raised his eyebrows at seeing her in a silky negligée that didn’t reach her mid-thigh. “Well,” he said, failing to mask his surprise. “Look at you.”
He saw a burgundy tint creeping into her cheeks and she turned her grey eyes away from him, one hand attempting to tug the hem of the nightgown further down on her thighs. “Is it too much? It’s too much. I’ll go change–”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, catching her by the wrist. “Come here.”
Still blushing furiously, she allowed him to pull her down into his lap.
“You look amazing.”
“Amazing? Really?”
“Amazing,” he said. “Really. I mean, you always do, but…” He allowed himself a moment to really look at her. He noticed in addition to changing, she’d touched up her makeup and must have run a hand through her ashen hair to give it a careless sort of style. Her crimson cheeks were still tinted with burgundy, her teeth worrying away at her bottom lip as she waited for his verdict on her appearance. He couldn’t help but think that here, in this moment, just as in every moment, she was absolutely perfect. “I’ve got to say,” he said, changing tacks, teasing, “as good as this dress looks on you… I think it would look better on my floor.”
“Oh, is that so?” she gave him a sly smile. “Well, we could always test that theory.”
Now it was his turn to blush, and he felt heat rush to his face as he quickly tried to backpedal, stammering a half-apology. “Oh – I mean, I was kind of kidding – but I mean, if you want to – I know we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, but – I don’t want you to feel obligated – I mean, I really – you don’t know how much–” He broke off, grimacing, embarrassed, but she was grinning at him, her own embarrassment having fallen away.
“Nick,” she said, “I want this. If – if you do. Do you?”
He blinked at her for a long moment, hardly daring to believe the words she was saying. “You have no idea,” he said finally. “Now come on, let’s go see how that dress looks on my floor.”
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Nat glanced over his shoulder to see Jefferson sauntering into the kitchen, looking, as usual, like he was up to no good. "Are you going to say that every time you see me in the kitchen?"
"Not every time," Jefferson said, sliding up beside Nat to peek into the mixing bowl. "Only when you're actively cookin'."
Nat elbowed Jefferson out of the way. "You're ridiculous."
"...ly cute, right?" Jefferson grinned and dodged a playful swat from Nat, dancing just out of reach, ducking under his arm long enough to drag his finger along the rim of the mixing bowl to get a taste of whatever it was Nat was cooking up. Sticking his finger into his mouth as he hoisted himself up onto the kitchen counter (and ignoring a frown from Nat -- "I prepare food on that counter, you know"), Jefferson grimaced at the taste. "Ugh, that's awful."
"That's because it's not done, chou," Nat said, snagging a dishrag off the counter and popping it in his partner's direction.
"Yeah, but what is it?" Despite himself, Jefferson's curiosity was getting the better of him and he found himself reaching out for another taste of the batter. A swat on the back of the hand from Nat's wooden mixing spoon kept Jefferson's fingers out of the bowl. He frowned, looked at the batter on the back of his hand, and gave it a hesitant lick before grimacing again. "Still gross."
"I haven't changed anything!"
"Don't the spices like… percolate or somethin' while they're sittin' there?"
"Percolate?"
"Yeah, you know. Percolate."
Nat laughed and swept the bowl out of Jefferson's reach as his fingers made another attempt at another taste. "Apparently it can't be too bad, since your fingers keep percolating in my batter--"
Jefferson pouted and folded his arms across his chest, sulking. "I'll show you percolating in your batter," he muttered, but his sulky mood quickly dissipated as Nat began dumping more spices in the batter, and he sat up, trying to peer into the mixing bowl, once again interested. "So what's that you're puttin' in?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Does matter." Jefferson slid off the counter and crossed the kitchen to investigate properly, standing behind Nat to wrap his arms around the other man's waist, looking over his shoulder. The batter was still an indeterminate brown color, the same consistency was it was before. "I get another taste, right?"
"When it's done," Nat answered.
Jefferson pressed his chin into Nat's shoulder, inhaling the scent of his chef's coat. It was comforting -- not something he'd ever imagined himself coming home to, really, but now something he couldn't imagine not coming home to. It was filled with the scent of spices and and seared meat in the kitchen, and the sweetness and tartness of the baked goods that had become the latest Big Thing at the restaurant, and another smell that was indescribably Nat that was intoxicating and wonderful.
Nat flinched at the feel of Jefferson's breath on the side of his neck. "All right, now," he said. "I see what you're trying to do."
"Mm? What's that?"
"Get something started."
"Maybe I am." Jefferson kissed Nat's neck right above the collar of his chef's coat, in that spot just below his ear that he knew drove him crazy, crazy.
"Chou, I've got to finish this." Another half-hearted swat, a feeble attempt to push Jefferson away, but Jefferson only tightened his grip around his waist, grinning as he continued kissing at Nat's ear. Despite himself, Nat was grinning, and found himself setting the mixing bowl down on the counter, turning to face Jefferson, immediately finding the other man's lips on his.
When the kiss ended, Nat gave Jefferson a mock-scowl. "Jefferson Maguire, you're the worst, you know that?"
"Yeah, I know," he answered, and leaned forward to kiss him again.
Taz frantically tried to placate Gretta as a handful of people in the nearby vicinity turned their heads to look in their direction. “Shh, babe, I told you, don’t panic—”
“Tzuriel Dekresh, you’d better start explaining right now, or—”
Taz shushed her again and began frantically trying to steer her out of the middle of the crowded food court as a few more heads turned in their direction. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “I promise, it’s no big deal—”
“No big deal?” she spluttered. “No big deal? Our three-year-old is missing—”
“No, no, not that child. He’s fine. See? Right here where I left him.” Taz gestured at the ashen-haired toddler happily riding a coin-operated badger.
“Oh, good, so it’s just our twelve-year-old that’s missing. That makes it better.”
“No, no, she’s fine, too. Look, right there with her GameBoy.”
Gretta frowned, looking at her two children. “So, wait — which one did you lose?”
“Our first child.”
“Taz. She’s sixty-nine. How in the hell did you lose her?”
Taz threw up his hands helplessly. “I don’t know, she just — wandered off with that musician!”
Gretta clapped a hand to the side of her face. “Taz. His name is Nick. You’ve known him for fifty years.”
“That doesn’t mean I want him trying to cop a feel every time—”
“They’re married.”
“—just trying to get our daughter into bed with him—”
“They have two kids.”
“—kids these days—”
“They have three grandkids.”
“—no respect—”
“They have a great-grandkid.”
“—gonna show that curly-haired asshole what’s what—”
“Sweetheart, I really can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Cadence is with Nick. She’s fine.”
“Who’s fine?”
Taz and Gretta looked up to see their oldest daughter and her husband standing with ice cream cones in their hand, Nick managing to carefully carry four cones at once, but quickly passing off the smaller two to his wife’s younger siblings.
“I think your father was trying to be funny,” Gretta said, accepting an ice cream cone from her daughter.
“Oh, then no one’s fine,” Nick said, grinning.
“We just didn’t know where you two went,” Taz said, frowning. “You just disappeared.”
“We came back with ice cream,” Cadence said, shrugging. “That’s what matters, right?”
Taz’s frown deepened and he narrowed his eyes at Nick, who gave him a large wink that Cadence didn’t miss.
“Oh, stop it,” she said. “We got ice cream for everyone, that’s it. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not discussing that with my parents.”
“Cadence,” Gretta said, “weren’t you wearing a hat earlier?”
Her daughter’s eyes widened and one hand flew to the back of her head where, sure enough, her favorite hat was missing. “Oh, it must have fallen off while we were—” She stopped abruptly.
“Buying ice cream, dear,” her mother finished for her.
“Yeah. That.”
Nick stepped up beside her and put his free arm around her waist. “We should probably go look for it, Cay. Don’t want someone else to run off with it, right?”
“Yeah, we should go look,” she said, and they walked off, Nick glancing back briefly to mouth round two at Taz and give him another large wink.
Taz turned helplessly to Gretta, his mouth open in a sign of silent distress.
“You know he only does that for your reaction,” Gretta said with a shrug, licking her ice cream.
“By that do you mean our daughter in a mall bathroom?”
Gretta shrugged again. “Like we’ve never done it in a mall bathroom—”
Nat + Jefferson | Everyone-Is-Happy AU | @exi-sim-stial
this one’s super short, so not going under a cut, sorry not sorry
“He’s pampering me, let him be.”
“Jefferson.”
Jefferson cracked one blue eye open to frown at his sister, who was frowning right back at him. Her frown passed for a moment as she grimaced, but returned deeper than ever. Jefferson’s eye slid over to Nat, who was seated at the opposite end of the couch, Jefferson’s foot in his lap. He wiggled his toes. “Keep rubbin’, man. She’s fine.”
“I’m not fine,” Ellie said. “I’m having a baby.”
“God, we know,” Jefferson said. “It’s all y’all two’ve been talkin’ about for the past—” He frowned, counting on his fingers.
“Nine months,” Ellie said pointedly. “I mean I’m having a baby. Like right now.”
Jefferson let up a cry of protest as Nat pushed his foot out of his lap.
“Sorry, chou,” the redhead said, shrugging as he pulled on his high-tops. “Sounds like I’ve gotta go—”
“No, no, no, no, he doesn’t get to be chou. I’m the only chou today,” Ellie said. “And so help me God, Nathaniel Adams, if you don’t get me to the hospital right now—”
Nat grinned at her and stood up from the couch, throwing an arm around her shoulders and steering her toward the front door, snagging his keys from the kitchen counter as he passed. “Sorry, Jefferson. Gotta go. We’re having a baby!”
“Y’all’re disgusting and I hate you both,” Jefferson called after them, but the door had already shut.
it delights me to no end that y’all both sent me this one
“Just frost the damn cupcake.”
Jefferson shot Nat a sidelong frown, chartreuse frosting leaking from the end of the bag in his hand. “You can’t rush art,” he said pointedly.
Nat rolled his eyes. “Please,” he said. “It’s not like they’re even going to see the cupcake. He’s probably just going to shove the whole thing into his mouth like last time.”
Jefferson turned back to the cupcake, piping frosting onto the top of it. “You’re probably going to shove the whole thing into your mouth like last time,” he grumbled.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“I didn’t say nothin’.”
Nat frowned and crossed the kitchen to stand behind Jefferson, letting his chin rest on the other man’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around his waist as he watched him decorate the cupcake. “Question. Why did you have to pick that, of all colors?”
“It’s the most gender-neutral.”
“Gender’s a social construct, chou.”
“Says the guy who bakes half a dozen gender-reveal cakes a week.”
“Hey, I just give the people what they want. They want a pink cake, they get a pink cake. They want a blue cake, they get a blue cake. I just take the orders and bake the cakes, what they do with them is their business.”
Nat watched as Jefferson swirled the frosting around the top of the cupcake, expertly piling it into a small, sugary mountain. He set down the bag of chartreuse icing and picked up the one beside it, beginning to speckle the cupcake with small, burgundy polka dots.
“Chartreuse and burgundy? Jesus. I thought you were an artist.” Nat dropped his arms from Jefferson’s waist and crossed the kitchen to the sink, turning on the water and grabbing a sponge to start washing dishes.
“Hey, you ain’t washin’ all that yet, are you?”
“Well, I was going to…”
“C’mon, man, you said I could like the spoon.”
“You’ll live,” Nat said, turning back to the pile of dishes. A moment later he felt Jefferson’s hand on his back and glanced sideways to see him standing with the bag of chartreuse frosting in one hand.
“Then I guess you’ll live without this,” he said.
“Guess so,” Nat said, turning back to the sink and beginning to scrub at the inside of a mixing bowl.
“You sure are missin’ out,” Jefferson said, squeezing some of the frosting into his own mouth. “Sure is sweet. It’s buttercream — your fave.”
“I know it’s buttercream, chou-chou. I’m the one that made it.”
“Mm, that must be why it’s so good.” A pause as Jefferson squeezed more frosting out of the bag. “Man, I could eat a whole bucket of this stuff.”
Nat turned and caught Jefferson’s wrist in his hand, pulling his hand away from his mouth. “Frosting goes on the cupcake, not in your mouth,” he said, relieving Jefferson of the frosting bag. He caught sight of a smear of frosting on Jefferson’s cheek and wiped it off with his thumb. “Look. No wonder this kitchen is always a wreck.”
“Yeah, it definitely ain’t ‘cause you’re always pushin’ everything off the counters so we’ve got room to—”
Jefferson was interrupted by Nat’s mouth on his. When Nat pulled away a moment later, Jefferson cocked an eyebrow at him. “So… you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
Nat wiped another stray bit of frosting from Jefferson’s cheek and licked it off the end of his finger before placing the frosting bag back into the other man’s hand. “I’m thinking you’d better frost the damn cupcake, chou.”
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Ha! Bet y’all thought I’d forgotten about these. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.) Another spoiler alert - the drabble below contains spoilers for Malignant Virtues, so consider yourself warned! I wanted to make this longer but it was already getting long enough and kind of a mess, so…. enjoy?
“Just go talk to him.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Aspen frowned and rolled her eyes. It was easy to imagine the moody teenager Fugue had grown out of, especially here, sitting on the edge of his old mattress, dressed in a set of his old pajamas, surrounded by posters tacked to the walls advertising half a dozen different “edgy” bands that she had never heard of.
“I’d like to remind you that you were the one who cut him out,” she said pointedly.
“Yeah, well…” Fugue’s shoulders dropped a little and he sighed. He hadn’t met her eyes – or left his room, for that matter – since they’d arrived. His step-mother had offered Aspen a set of pajamas and directed her to the powder room to freshen up while Fugue slipped silently into his old bedroom and disappeared from sight.
And that was where she’d found him, sitting on the edge of his bed, sulking.
“Dad doesn’t want me here.”
“You might be surprised.” She waited a beat, but he didn’t respond, and she tried again. “He’s glad to know you’re still alive.”
He scoffed, his eyes still turned toward the floor, and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, “yeah, right.”
“He is,” she said firmly. She frowned and crossed to him, lightly pressing her fingers under his chin to tilt his face up to look at her once she’d reached him. “You have a lot of people who care about you, Fugue. We’re all glad you’re safe.” She leaned down and let her lips brush lightly across his before drawing away an instant later. “Go talk to him.”
Fugue felt color rising to his pale cheeks, but Aspen was already turning away. “Hang on – can we… talk about what just–?” His hand reached out to catch hers, to stop her from walking out, but she was already out of reach, nearly out the door.
“Talk to him,” she said again over her shoulder, and disappeared through the doorway.
Fugue sat on his bed, looking at the door she’d just disappeared through, raising his fingertips to his mouth, gently touching the place her lips had been moments before. But she had already walked out and the kiss – did that even count as a kiss, really? – was over.
He stood and followed her out the door, but she was already out of sight, having disappeared into another room. There would be plenty of time to talk to her later – for now, the priority was his father. He headed down the short hallway and into the kitchen, where he found Nat standing at the stove, stirring a pot of macaroni. Rhyme was perched on the kitchen counter beside the stove, peering eagerly into the pot at the boiling noodles from a careful distance.
The little girl tugged at Nat’s sleeve and pointed at Fugue as he walked down the hallway. Nat glanced up at his son without comment and then turned back to the toddler, gently scooting her back a little further from the stove as he pulled the pot from the eye to drain the noodles into the sink.
Fugue slid onto a barstool and tried to ignore the fact his little sister’s violet eyes hadn’t left him since he’d entered the room.
“She’s pretty,” Nat said suddenly, and Fugue jumped, so startled that he nearly fell off his barstool. “The girl you showed up with,” Nat went on. “She’s pretty.”
“A-Aspen?”
“Aspen,” Nat echoed, nodding as he dumped the noodles back into the pot and turned back to the stove to stir in butter and milk.
“And cheese!” the toddler said.
Nat smiled and handed Rhyme the wooden spoon he’d been stirring with. “And cheese,” he agreed, tousling the little girl’s hair. “Next Iron Chef, right here,” Nat added over his shoulder to Fugue, turning to the fridge and pulling out a block of cheese.
Fugue’s brow furrowed as he watched his father grate the cheese into the pot of macaroni, the toddler stirring the noodles with a look of intense concentration on her face.
“So?” Nat prompted. “Are you going to tell me about her, or what?”
“Am I going to tell you about – Aspen?” The question was ludicrous. Here they were, sitting in the kitchen where, twenty years before, Fugue had sat on the countertop and helped cook macaroni, just as his little sister was doing now, and Nat was asking about the pretty girl that had come home with Fugue, as though she were his prom date and not his bodyguard, as though just hours before he hadn’t been convinced he wouldn’t live to see another day.
“Yeah, Aspen,” he said. “What’s her story? How’d you two meet?”
Fugue couldn’t believe his pointed ears, his mouth agape as he stared at the back of his father’s head. Nat may as well have asked how long ago Aspen had descended from the mothership for all the sense he was making. Rhyme giggled at the expression on Fugue’s face, but Nat seemed unaware of his son’s distress, humming quietly to himself as he fished several bowls out of a cabinet and began spooning out helpings of macaroni, handing a bowl to Rhyme before turning to pass one to Fugue.
“Well?” he said, sticking a fork into his own bowl and taking a huge bite. “C’mon, let’s hear it.”
Fugue opened and closed his mouth several times, at a loss for words. “Dad,” he said finally. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he said, looking down at his bowl of macaroni as he jabbed his fork back into it. He glanced back up at his son when he didn’t answer. “What, your old man can’t be nosy?”
“Dad–” Fugue foundered for a moment, struggling for what to say. “We haven’t spoken in years,” he managed finally. He could feel his voice catching in his throat but powered through. “I’ve been – I’ve been awful, to everyone, but really to you, I mean you were just trying to help, and I didn’t want to listen to you, and I should have, and I thought I could do everything on my own, and I thought I had it all figured out, and I didn’t, and you were right, and I’ve never even tried to apologize, and–”
He stopped himself and realized his hands were shaking. He shut his eyes and willed himself not to cry, clenching his fists to steady himself. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes to see his father standing beside him, giving him a gentle half-smile as he pulled his son into a close embrace.
And suddenly Fugue was twelve years old again, seeking reassurance from his father after a fight with his sister; eight years old, looking for care for the scrape on his knee after a bigger kid pushed him down on the playground; six years old, looking for protection from the monster living under his bed; three years old, trying to understand why Mama wasn’t coming home.
The years of silence between father and son melted away, and Fugue was crying into his father’s shoulder, stammering apologies and stumbling over his words as he tried to explain why things had happened the way they did.
“Hey, bud, listen to me,” Nat said gently. He held his son at arm’s length to look at him, and Fugue saw that his eyes were glistening with tears, too. “Listen to me. It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“I thought – I was just trying to keep everyone safe – I thought you’d hate me and wouldn’t want me to ever come home–”
“You’re my son.” The statement was firm, but not unkind. “I love you. You always have a home here.”
“Daddy?”
The two men looked up at the small voice to see Rhyme still seated cross-legged on the spot on the countertop, bowl of macaroni cradled in her lap, half-forgotten.
Nat gave Fugue’s shoulder another squeeze and walked back to the other side of the kitchen island while Fugue furiously wiped the tears from his face. “I don’t guess you remember Rhyme? It’s been a while,” Nat said, scooping the little girl up to balance her on one hip. “Rhyme, this is your big brother Fugue.”
“Fugue?” she asked, testing out the name.
“That’s right, lovebug. Want to say hi?”
Rhyme turned her face away from her big brother, hiding behind her hands, peeking through the cracks in her fingers.
“Sorry, she’s a little shy around strangers,” Nat said. “She’ll warm up.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be a stranger, then? Maybe I’ll come around more often.”
His dad smiled again. “I think we’d all like that,” he said.
Gretta’s golden eyes snapped open as she felt herself being shaken awake. She was startled, but ultimately unsurprised, to see Taz’s blue face inches away from her own.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “Can I stay here?”
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Gretta slid herself over to the other side of the mattress, pulling back the comforter and patting her recently vacated place in the bed. The blue daemon slid into bed, laying on his back to stare up at the ceiling, one arm folded across his chest as he gnawed at a hangnail on his other hand.
Gretta cleared her throat. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
He shook his head a fraction of an inch, but otherwise didn’t move.
She watched him for another moment, but he didn’t look at her, his teeth continuing to worry at cuticles. “Hey,” she said softly, and reached out a hand to lightly touch his shoulder.
He jumped at the touch and turned his head to look at her, but still said nothing, his mouth still occupied with his hangnail.
“Hey,” she said again, softer, and pulled his hand away from his mouth, squeezing it in her own. “If you don’t want to talk, I get it, but I’m here if--”
“I miss her.”
She squeezed his hand tighter, giving him a sympathetic half-smile, willing herself not to cry. “I do, too,” she said, but her voice caught in her throat, and the words came out as little more than a whisper, and she knew there would be no stopping the tears.
She released his hands and opened her arms, and he slid over to her, burying his face into her shoulder as his own shoulders shook with ragged sobs. She held him close as her own quieter tears ran down her crimson cheeks, her fingers combing through his ashen hair, trying not to think that just hours earlier she’d seen her best friend buried in the memory garden across town. “We’re going to be okay,” she said, more for her own benefit than for his. “It’s what she’d want. She would want to know we’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”
She held him close until his ragged sobs finally subsided and his breathing slowed and his shoulders stopped shaking, and soon she was drifting off to sleep, too.
“We’re going to be okay,” she whispered again. “I promised her.”
