pairing: john tucker x f!reader
summary: Thanksgiving w Tucker! based on this ask <3
contains: established relationship, fluff, cuddling, kissing, cooking, cursing, u and tuck being a sweet couple!
author’s note: i’m kinda sick so i didn’t edit this super well, but i hope it’s not horrible lolol
You awoke to the sound of, what you assumed was, a metal pan clashing and clanging to the kitchen floor.
You groaned and squinted as you rose from your pillow, your cheek feeling hot where it was pressed against the crinkled fabric. You knew it was ungodly early, the sun wasn’t even out yet, but you glanced over at the alarm clock positioned on the bedside table beside you to confirm. And like you thought, the chunky digital numbers were indeed arranged in an order that meant way too fucking early.
You groan as you ease out of bed, your bare feet meeting the cold hardwood of your boyfriend’s bedroom and shiver as the cool air hits your bare legs. You decide to wrap his comforter around yourself for extra warmth, too sleepy to care about the sheets clinging and dragging behind you on the floor as you make your way down to the kitchen.
“Tuck,” your voice is hoarse and obviously displeased as you round the corner to find him peeling potatoes in the kitchen. “It’s four in the morning.”
“Allie texted at midnight telling me Dexter’s coming with, like, five friends now. I only prepped enough for half of our headcount.”
You make your way around the island to stand behind him and hug his back, your cheek pressed to his spine, feeling his shoulder blades move with each overly aggressive pass of the vegetable peeler. You close your eyes and try your best not to fall asleep standing up.
“I told you I would help you tomorrow, no one’s expecting you to do everything by yourself.” You can’t help the yawn that comes out of you.
“It is tomorrow already, sunshine.”
“It’s too early for semantics,” you murmur and feel his back rumble with the laugh you pull from him. You smile against the soft cotton of his shirt. “Just come back to bed, honey. I get you want everyone to have a good time tomorrow, but it shouldn’t cost you your own Thanksgiving.”
“I’ll have a good time when I know everyone else is having a good time.”
You sigh heavily, reluctantly unraveling yourself from around him. “Alright, I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice.” You wedge your body between him and the counter and he makes a sound of protest but lets you push him.
“Darlin’, please.” You shush him quietly, your hands sliding into his thick hair and watching his face immediately relax.
“C’mere,” you whisper, running your palms down his face to hold his cheeks and bring his lips to yours. It’s nice to know that even after all these years of you guys being together, you can still melt him with a simple touch.
You kiss him until his hands completely abandon his task and move to hold your hips over the comforter still wrapped around you, and once he’s distracted enough, you snatch the peeler he’d been using and abruptly pull away.
His mouth follows you and looks a bit dazed as he watches you walk away, but he soon realizes what you’ve done and chases after you. It’s too late, though. You’ve already opened the front door and chucked the kitchen utensil hard into the front yard, watching it disappear into some of the bushes.
You close the door and lean against it, smiling proudly at yourself as he gapes at you in disbelief.
You shrug. “I’ll buy you another.” He blinks and continues to stare at the door like he can see past the wood.
“Now I won’t have enough to feed everyone tomorrow.
“Baby, you have enough to feed an army.” You walk back over to him, take his hand in yours, and guide him back up the steps. “Now, let’s go back to bed. And tomorrow, at a reasonable hour, I will help you cook.” He follows behind you, but his head keeps swiveling with each turn like he still can’t believe you threw out his only vegetable peeler.
People start showing up at about two, despite Tucker’s instructions for Logan to tell everyone no earlier than three. The hockey house was full and crowded by two-thirty, and you could tell your boyfriend was getting close to his breaking point.
“Oh my god,” you hear him panic behind you. “I completely forgot about dessert.”
You rush over to him, shaking your head and take his hands in your own. “I made the desserts already, sweetheart. Last week. I took them out of the freezer to thaw in the back room.”
You had told him so a few days ago, but in the chaos of the last few hours, you weren’t surprised he forgot. He visibly deflated, giving your hands a squeeze in silent thanks, but before he can voice his appreciation, his eyes are catching on something behind you.
“Jules!” His sudden exclamation makes you jump a bit as he rushes over to the younger Logan sibling. “Put the damn marshmallows back!”
You spend the next few hours playing hostess, making sure everyone is generously liquored up in hopes they won’t complain too much about how long the food is taking. You try to split everyone up into equal groups, switching them every so often so the house doesn’t feel too full. There’s a group out back, the fire pit going and various chairs and blankets scattered around the yard. There’s a group in the living room, whom you did have to confiscate the remote from on multiple occasions when the channel kept getting changed from hockey to football.
And there was a very small group allowed in the kitchen, consisting of only Birdie, Logan, and only when supervised; Jules. You couldn’t fault the Logan’s, they hadn’t had many traditional family holidays, and therefore didn’t really understand the attention to detail Tucker possessed, but it was important to him, and so it was important to you. You wouldn’t allow anyone to ruin this for him.
You would be lying if you said you weren’t a tad overwhelmed, but it was in a good way. You worked well under pressure, in fact you liked it most times. Your house was always the hosting house; your mother ever the hostess. She would memorize the smallest things about her guests so they never had to ask for a thing. She knew how they took their water—how much ice, what type—and their favorite desserts so she could pull them out and surprise them. You’d felt first hand the joy of not only feeling wanted in someone’s space, but being known so intimately.
It was one of things that first attracted you to Tucker. He had always been a caring person, but he was at his best when he was hosting, and more importantly, feeding others. It made you so happy helping him do just that, and maybe even giving some of that love and care back to him when he’d let you.
You’d been together so long, the both of you worked together harmoniously, and often times communicated without a single word passing between you. You moved through the kitchen like it was a dance the both of you knew by heart, shuffling from counter to counter, or stove to oven and never bumping or even grazing each other.
Birdie and Logan did not have that sort of chemistry yet with Tucker. At least not in the kitchen. On the ice? The whole team seemed like one mind. But here, with several dishes cooking all at once, and Tucker barking out orders for things the other guys probably haven’t even heard of, it was not a very cohesive workspace.
Tucker was backing away from the stove carrying a pan of hot cranberry sauce and Birdie was taking the green bean casserole out of the oven when you noticed the possible collision. You jolted forward, steering Tucker just slightly to the left to avoid crashing into his teammate and likely spilling the boiling, cherry red sauce all over him.
“Okay!” You exclaimed sweetly, trying to distract from the stress. “Birdie, why don’t you grab a beer and go relax on the couch, I’ll keep an eye on the casserole.”
You don’t allow him to argue, you just guide him by the shoulders out into the living room and send him on his way with a beer in his hand.
The Logan’s sit at the island, mostly surveilling the scene, while you and Tuck move throughout the space with a practiced sort of ease. You hand him utensils you know he needs before he asks, and taste various sauces and things whenever he lifts a spoon out in your direction. And you don’t even really recognize you’re doing all of it without a single word exchanged between you two until Jules lets out a disbelieving sort of scoff.
“What?” Both you and your boyfriend ask at the same time.
The Logan siblings look to each other and then back at you, a knowing smirk pulling on their lips.
“Nothing,” they respond at the same time as well.
When everything is just about finished, you excuse yourself to change out of your cooking clothes and into something a tad nicer.
You opt for a simple red dress, one you’d worn on quite a few occasions, but it was one of your favorites, and your college budget didn’t exactly allow for variations of nice and new clothing.
As you made your way back downstairs, you could hear the chaos that had erupted in your absence.
“Tuck, I swear to god I didn’t do anything with them!”
“Yes you did, Jules. You’ve been attempting to swipe the marshmallows all night.”
Your eyes wander over towards the couch in the living room, finding a very guilty looking group consisting of Dexter and his friends, huddled around the “missing” bag of marshmallows.
You give them a look, but can’t completely hide your smile as you reach out for the bag and one of them reluctantly hands it over, their cheeks swollen with the gooey sweet.
“Look what I found,” you announce as you rejoin the group in the kitchen.
Your boyfriend’s eyes immediately soften at the sight of you and then again at the sight of you holding the marshmallows.
“Told you,” Jules mutters bitterly. You pat them on the shoulder.
“Alright. Everyone, outside. We’re gonna fry the turkey.”
Everyone rises from their spots to head out back, all muttering all different variations of, “finally.” You let everyone out the backdoor first before joining, but are halted by Tucker’s arm sliding around your waist.
“You look,” he pauses, his eyes raking down your form and back up again. There’s hunger in his eyes; the kind that never fails to bring heat to your cheeks. “Good enough to eat.”
You laugh and shove at him lightly, but he doesn’t let you go far.
“Still blushing, huh?” He teases you further, which only makes the situation worse. “After all this time. Good to know we still got it.”
“We’ve been together five years, not fifty.”
“I know.” He nods, his smile never softening. “But it’s five going on fifty. And someday we’re gonna be doing this with a house full of our kids, not just the overgrown babies of Briar.”
You giggle and lean in to kiss him, anticipating just a quick peck, but he wraps both arms around you to ensure you won’t be going anywhere and kisses you like he has all the time in the world. Like there isn’t a vat of hot oil bubbling in the backyard, or a group of thirty hungry people waiting impatiently.
When he pulls away, the both of you have goofy sort of smiles on your face, and you wipe at his lips to get some of your gloss off.
“Alright. Let’s go fry this bird.” He lets you go and leaves out the back door to join everyone else, but you stay where you are for a minute.
“Honey?” You call after him.
“Yeah?” He turns back to look at you still in the kitchen.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Your eyes flick back to the kitchen counter where said bird is still laying.
“Ah.” He walks back in, his cheeks a tad pink from embarrassment, and goes back for the turkey. “Thanks, baby.” He pecks you on the cheek once more on his way back by and enters the backyard to a chorus of pleased hollering.
“I hope you dried that bird off,” you yell out to him, though you get no response.
Either way, it’ll be a Thanksgiving to remember.
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