Sugarbell hummed merrily to herself as she washed the dishes in the wee hours of the morning. Her new boyfriend's apartment didn't nearly have as big a kitchen as the one back home, but of course it wouldn't be when it didn't need to provide for the meals of several hundred elfs, each of which wanted some amount of input. She'd heard the adage that too many cooks spoiled the broth, and found it to be good advice, no more than two were ever overseeing any given pot; as for the rest, they each had decades to centuries of expertise keeping out of one another's way in the most elbow-banging-est workshop ever up at the north pole.
So, down in America, in what Rick had called a very small kitchen, she said she felt that she had all the space she could possibly need. Now all she had to worry about was obtaining proper cookware, as the neighbors she'd been borrowing from would soon enough be back from their vacations for the winter season. Rick had told her to stop 'breaking and entering', sure, leaving her to make do with a couple frying pans, a pot, and a baking pan so corroded that she didn't feel comfortable feeding him from it. Silly, what did it matter if they wouldn't ever know?
The leftovers from Christmas night had lasted three whole days and when she'd asked what his plans had been to feed himself, he said he likely would have gone down the street for takeout.
"Well, that just won't do!" she'd said. "Not when a bag of potatoes is only four dollars and you have plenty of eggs in the fridge." Her newfound pride in being a girlfriend had flared and now the only reason the fridge wasn't full to bursting was that she'd merely transformed its erstwhile contents into weeks of delicious meals rather than going out and spending more money.
Her cheeks pinked as she remembered the praise he'd heaped on her for the simplest things. One might believe the man hadn't had a home-cooked meal in his life for how eagerly he came to the table when the clink of plates perked his ears.
A swish of the hips pinked her further, memories piling up from a whole week of intimacy. Her lover was still sleeping off their last torrid night and she so wished she could be there within his arms; she would make sure to slip back in without him noticing and wheedle some extra snuggling out of him before sunrise intruded through the clouds with its silvery clarity.
Then, she knew, he would retreat to his work after breakfast, diligently going over sheets of numbers and codes she couldn't exactly understand. That fastidious nature of his was just one more reason for her love, but she would be lying if she said that she didn't want to spend his entire week off in his arms, resting her head against his broad chest.
As the desire began winning her over, she finished wiping dry the last plate and returned to the bedroom. With footfalls so soft and skillful that they would have hardly left an imprint in snow, she snuck to the side of the bed and softly, slowly, crawled back into the imprint she'd left behind with Rick's strong arm draped over her belly.
Time itself subtly roused her slumbering prince, she felt his breath deepen against the top of her bright, blonde head as he drew her in closer. Sugarbell nuzzled her head back against him in silent acknowledgement that she, too, was awake, and the two remained as they were for long minutes in the simple pleasure of one another's company while the darkness of the night remained.
She wished the dawn would never come, held Rick's arm in place once the silvery rays cut into the room through the gap in the drapes so that she might have him for only a few moments longer.
"Good morning," he said with a yawn, but he did not attempt to get up.
"It is, isn't it? Happy New Year's eve."
"Already? I could have sworn that wouldn't be for another few days."
She turned in his arms, giggling, spread her fingers across his broad chest beneath the warmth of the blankets they shared, and she bought herself in for a little peck on the lips. It wasn't an invitation as such, but he knew she wouldn't have said no, she'd made as much perfectly clear. "You can't tell me that when I see you looking at the calendar every day, dreading the day when you have to go to work again. Time does fly when you're having fun, doesn't it?"
"I'll say," he said. "Most years I'll spend the whole time looking at the clock, wishing it would just be over already. It's not that I like work, at all, because nobody does, but being there and having the normal rhythms helps the time go by, I think."
She kissed his neck and whispered, "I like my work. But I know what you mean, the air is different when it's full of the noises of a job well done. Some of my cousins say the workshop is so noisy, but that's the whole reason it's fun."
"Right, Santa's workshop," he said. "So, you never did say what you actually do there. Is it anything like greeting cards say?"
"There are a bunch of differences, but yes," she said, burying her head beneath his chin and curling herself to slip one knee between his legs. "There's the wood shop, the metal shop, the glassblowing furnace, and the plastic molding area, sure. It's hard to source raw materials up at the north pole, even though we do the last leg of shipping ourselves, so we end of having to make most of it from scratch. And that's just the toy-making shop."
"Hm," Rick said. "But he, Santa I mean, doesn't really deliver presents to all of the children, like the stories, does he? I never-" he started, before realizing a present was currently nuzzling up to him, "until this year, I never got one from him. I don't know if I should count you; seems like I should credit you for yourself."
"No, not all of them," she said, tracing small, ticklish circles on his bare chest with her fingertip. "Only a couple hundred million of them these days, and it's not always the sorts of things you would recognize. After all, most of the people who do the rituals to summon Him already have plans to buy presents for their own children, so his actual presence isn't really required except to sip milk and bite cookies." Sugarbell reared up so that her boyfriend was sure to see her smug grin. "And so many of them ruin it anyway by planning to eat the offerings themselves. I mean, I know they don't believe, so they're just making sure there are teeth marks to be found in the morning, but they're lucky He isn't one of the more dangerous fey."
"Rituals? Summoning? Why are you talking about Santa as if he's a demon or something."
Sugarbell pushed her boyfriend onto his back and resumed her snuggling like an attention-starved kitten, stopping just short of purring since her cheeks already burned. "He is, we are,
something
. And you know the ritual, I know you do. Milk and cookies, decorated tree to put the presents under, a doused fireplace for hopefully obvious reasons, and stockings hung for smaller treats. It's changed over the years, but most people who prepare their homes for him are already on the case for giving in the spirit of the season."
"So my mom was right when she called her and dad 'Santa's little helpers'?"
"Haha, she did? That's what we call those things when you have one of those fat men dress up like the man Himself and let him take pictures with the kids."
"A mall Santa?"
"That's the thing," Sugarbell said. "You know, He didn't used to like those guys, because He thought they were mocking Him, but it's really more like a form of worship in the end."
Rick laughed to himself and sighed, at last too awake to even consider going back to sleep, and he rose to get dressed. While he pulled on his pants for the day, even though he didn't think he would be leaving this apartment. Sugarbell watched from beneath the blanket, peeking over the edge, innately aware of the feeling of her silky pajamas sliding against her skin. Licentious urges rang in her head like tingling bells and she waved them away so she could join her man in getting ready for the day.
"Say," she said, already-pinked cheeks deepening in color. "Did you have any plans for New Year's?" She fidgeted, so cute~
"Not as such, I suppose. The actual plan was to be lonely on the couch, finish off that box of fudge in the kitchen, and go to sleep early. Can't really do that anymore now that you're here."
Sugarbell smiled, pressed her face into his back and encircled his belly with her arms, then rocked gently as the scent of his laundry filled her head again with naughty ideas. "Sorry to ruin your fun, Beau." She sounded slightly anxious for some reason.
As a gesture of faux comfort, Rick took her hands in his and stroked her skin. "I mean, I certainly won't be lonely this year. I wouldn't want to stuff my gob with store-bought treats when I have your cooking to look forward to." He paused, because he wasn't used to playing the part he'd had thrust upon him, and Sugarbell patiently waited for the best part. "... Can't go to sleep before midnight..."
"Oh? Why is that?" she asked, hips swaying happily.
"Well... we have to kiss at midnight, don't we? That is the tradition after all."
She couldn't help skipping around to his front, reaching up to cradle his cheeks in her palms, and tugging him down. Her tongue flitted between his lips, playing with his as their breath melded and time beyond their embrace became meaningless. Rick wasn't the type to kiss without meaning, without acknowledgement of his partner; she knew that she would be his whole world for the duration, that he wouldn't hurry along to get this gesture of affection out of the way. She knew, and was not jealous, that every time he'd kissed another woman, he had done so with every intention of continuing on well after physical pleasure failed them.
