Fourteen Days Until Christmas
Eden
It had been Luke's idea to make Christmas cards to send to his and Tenor's families for the holidays. Perhaps that should have been her first warning that something truly unhinged was about to happen.
She'd helped her students make them before as art projects every December, so she had agreed to the idea quite readily, thoughts of thumb stamp reindeer and beaded Christmas trees flashing through her head.
But when she looks over at Luke where he's sitting beside her at the dinner table, he's gluing what looks like at least forty googly eyes onto an amorphous blob on a piece of red construction paper.
"Um... what exactly is that?" She doesn't want to offend him, but the... creature? monstrosity? looked more like an eldritch horror than a cheerful Christmas greeting.
"A biblically correct angel, obviously," he says, like she should know this very obvious fact.
He folds the paper in half and with a sharpie he writes on the inside 'BE NOT AFRAID! Merry Christmas! Love, Eden, Luke, Tenor, and Julius.'
Tenor blinks at it a few times, then looks down at his own doily cutout angel that he's gluing to a green piece of paper with 'Good Tidings of Great Joy!' written across it in red glitter. "Okay... yeah, we'll be sending that one to your family," he says after a minute.
Eden watches with mute horror as Luke starts on another creation, which apparently requires twelve pipe cleaner legs and glitter wings, and she decides not to question him this time as she carves out another potato stamp in the shape of a Christmas tree for her own tidy stack of cards in front of her.
They're almost finished when Julius comes home, and she's wanted to decorate the tree so badly ever since he brought home the decorations, but a wave of fatigue hits her as soon as she sees him. He holds her close and presses a kiss to the top of her head.
It's like he can read her mind, because purrs out a reassuring sound that settles in her belly as he nuzzles a lazy scent mark into her hair, his hands holding her body against his securely. "We can decorate tomorrow, baby. Don't push yourself. Did you take the evening dose of your antibiotic?"
She nods.
He presses another kiss to her lips this time, and it warms her up in a wholly different way.
His eyes darken as he looks down at her, his grip around her tightening, but then he seems to shake himself and he steps back from her, leaving her feeling cold and empty. "Soon, baby. When you're better. Just be patient, I don't want you to overdo it. You're still recovering."
They eat dinner together at the table, and Luke only got a little bit of hot glue on it, which Eden thinks is a much better outcome than it could've been.
Julius pretends not to notice the hungry looks she throws him.