@killianjxnes (continued from here)
The holidays weren’t the best time of the year for the pirate. He’d been around far too long to retain any of that Christmas cheer that people seemed to catch around the last week of November. He didn’t have anyone to spend time with, so that made it fairly unpleasant as well.That’s why he found himself right here in Granny’s diner. There were few other guests here and it was the perfect setting for someone who wasn’t looking to be reminded that he was painfully alone in a world he barely belonged in… If he belonged at all.
As he took another sip of the bitter drink, he caught movement in his peripheral vision heading right towards him. He watched her carefully as she sat down with some sort of strange structure… A gingerbread house… Or what should be one soon? ❝ Well, love. I’m not exactly an expert at building gingerbread houses. ❞ He raised his hook and an eyebrow to her. Really, building gingerbread houses? Very much not Captain Hook’s song and dance. However… When she smiled at him the way she did, he couldn’t find it within himself to deny her. ❝ But, I suppose I could give it a try… ❞ He sighed, feigning his disinterest. In earnest, it did seem like it could be fun… It also saved him from eating alone in a diner near the holidays. It certainly didn’t hurt that Ruby was a beautiful lass. ❝ What would you have me do first? ❞
His reluctance -- however feigned ( the pirate was fooling no one, least of all her ) -- to give into her request only widened the grin on her lips, the brunette already setting the house down on the table and taking a seat before he’d even consented. For all that pirate bravado he paraded around on an almost constant basis, there was a soft side to Killian Jones, and Ruby was hell-bent on bringing just a bit of it out of him. Consider it a Christmas present to herself.
❝ Oh ... ❞ she looked down at the gingerbread squares in front of her when he asked how he could be of assistance, the pieces haphazardly ‘glued’ down with frosting and a concocted sugar glue. ❝ Wow, this ... is a sad sight, isn’t it? ❞ Laughing, she surveyed the damage she’d done, wondering if any of it would be salvageable -- though, really, she hoped it wouldn’t. Spreading frosting and candy decorations on bits of gingerbread cookie and eating them sounded much more fun than erecting a structure from the ingredients. ❝ We should probably start with, you know, straightening the walls. ❞ A hesitant hand reached out for one of the crooked walls, attempting to move the already hardening frosting. Though she managed to move the piece a few precious centimeters, the cookie broke off, causing Ruby to wince. Whoops.
