Beth teaches Marcus to cook or see or something craft related and Rio watches unnoticed at first. You pick the timeline.
He hears them before he sees them, the clatter and scrape of silverware against bowls, water rushing in the sink, Marcus’ elated giggle. As he edges closer, Elizabeth says, “Lift your elbows, don’t want to get frosting on your shirt, huh?”
“No way,” Marcus says solemnly. “I don’t think Daddy would like that.”
“Probably not.” A pause and then, “Let me get you a stool, okay? That way you’ve got a better view of all your hard work!”
“But you helped!”
She laughs, loud and tickled. “I did. But the dinosaurs were your idea.”
Rio leans to look around the corner from the hallway to the kitchen, smilin’ when he sees Elizabeth help Marcus up onto the child’s step stool, curling her arms around his shoulders and her fingers around his little hands, keepin’ him from squeezing the frosting bag too hard in his excitement.
“Okay, let’s do the outlines on the--”
“T-rexes!” he shouts, twisting to grin up at her, flashing his teeth.
Elizabeth grins back and boops his nose with her finger. “You got it.”
She helps him trace the borders of each cookie, patient and warm, at one point propping her chin on the crown of his head and lettin’ him do one himself. Rio slides his hands into his pockets and rests his hip against the wall. Somethin’ bright starts coiling in his chest, snaking up his shoulders and dropping to his belly, like a supernova unfurling light and fire through him until his fingers are tingling with it. He wants so badly to stride over and touch her, pass this spark to her, watch it ignite in her eyes and her throat and on her skin. But he doesn’t. He hovers and watches, enjoyin’ the show.
“Miss Elizabeth?”
She swaps the green frosting bag in his hands for the blue. “Mhm?”
“Are me and my daddy gonna live with you soon?”
She freezes, startled by the question. Marcus doesn’t notice, just keeps squeezing frosting onto a cookie. Rio watches her eyebrows furrow, unsure how to answer. “I don’t know, honey, do you want to live here?”
They’d discussed movin’ in together very briefly, more of shared quick thought, somethin’ to consider. They definitely hadn’t decided anything.
And he sure as fuck ain’t gonna move into this white picket fence, Suburban Mom fantasy house.
Marcus takes a long moment to think about it, rocking his mouth from side to side in consideration. “I dunno. Daddy says that your house is like ‘a goddamn circus’ where all the animals got loose. And he said you have a big clown!”
The look of absolute disbelief and offense on Elizabeth’s face, combined with the innocent way his son presents the observation hits Rio right in the gut so hard that he throws his head back and guffaws.
“Daddy!”
Marcus ducks under her arm and sprints, flinging himself bodily into Rio and wrapping his arms around his waist. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is completely still, disapproval etched into her sharp frown.
“Hey, Pop,” he says as he rubs Marcus’ head, smilin’ mischievously at Elizabeth through his lashes. “Hey, Mama.”
She sniffs and looks down her nose at him.
“Whatchu up to, little man?” Rio unlocks Marcus’ arms from around him and leads him back to the kitchen island. “Yo, you make me some cookies?”
“Yeah! We made some T-Rexes, and some Stegosauruses, and --”
As Marcus lists all of the shapes they made and the colors they used and breaks down every step of their afternoon, Rio presses himself against Elizabeth’s side, buryin’ his nose in her hair, pointedly ignoring her frosty glare. His exuberant affection catches her off guard, though, melts her ice. She turns into him and raises her hand to scrape her nails through his beard until he hums and kisses her, cupping her jaw and holding her in place so that he can deepen it, his other arm curving around her back.
“Ewwww, Daddy!”
They break apart, Elizabeth already flushin’ in embarrassment, both of them looking down to see Marcus watching them through his fingers.
Before she can pull away, Rio drags his finger against her forehead, tucking her hair behind her ear and pinching gently at her chin. They don’t really talk about their feelings, it’s not who they are, but he hopes she can feel that supernova swirlin’ in his chest, hopes it seeps into her, too.
And by the way her eyes sparkle, he thinks that spark caught and flared.
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Open for prompts! Something made up or something from a list.
