"I'm home!"
Madeline barely looks up from her laptop when a warm mass plants itself beside her on the couch and wraps its similarly warm arms around her. Sighing, she saved the file and placed the device on the coffee table before turning to promptly receive a kiss.
Placing her arms around his shoulders, she deadpans, "How was work, dear?"
Alexander snorts and kisses her once more, something short and full of smiles. "Domestic doesn't really suit you," he tells her, despite every other mannerism seeming to suggest that it might as well, since everything does.
"And being on my knees with a mouthful of your cock would?" she returns, and clarifies as Al's face reddens, "Not right now, though. I was halfway through a chapter before you interrupted."
He doesn't miss a beat nor her smirk from his reaction. "I'll leave you to it," he says, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her mouth before withdrawing his warmth. He left the living room for a few minutes, before coming back and unceremoniously dropping a plastic bag full of chocolates on the coffee table.
Maddie sighs. "Am I not allowed to work on this chapter in peace now that I have invoked your wrath?" she asks, closing the laptop and setting it beside her.
"It's Valentines Day, so I suppose not. We can go out to do fun stuff once you're done, though."
Her hands were digging through the plastic bag before he finished his proposition. Might as well take a break now that her flow was interrupted twice, and what better way to take a break than with chocolates?
"Your loot's surprisingly small this year, not enough ladies to charm for their chocolate goods?" Having selected her first victim, she gets up to store the rest of said goods in the fridge, lest they melt into what she assumed their hearts would be like when they realise who has been eating their chocolates the whole time. She scoffed. It's not her fault her boyfriend was a vegan and, well, her /boyfriend/.
"Maybe I'd get a bigger loot if I worked at the café today, you of all people know just how charming baristas can be." He grins, following behind her.
"It's not my fault the barista was you," she mumbles, and closes the fridge door before trying to tear open her first chocolatey victim. It was a generic bar of chocolate, the packaging annotated with 'tear here' on the side. Unlike a generic bar of chocolate, however, the material on the marked edge seemed to apparently be made of the latest development of tear-proof plastic. And so was the other end.
At times like this, she will not back down from a simple flaw in packaging. She will overcome, for there are yet more ways to bypass the chocolate's first line of defence than following its instructions or handing it over to the ever helpful Al, who, having seen her struggle, was already waiting with—
She sighs, and takes the scissors. Perhaps assistance won't hurt this time.
Madeline had returned to writing, and Alexander had decided to tend to the plants.
Armed with a glove, watering equipment, and a bucket of a strange mixture of water and whatever helps the plants grow best, he makes his rounds in the house.
Prodding for dry soil to get a feel of each plant's thirst, he makes quick work of the living room's greener occupants before moving on to the kitchen, balcony, and giving his attention to the smaller plants in the rooms.
The guest room's pots of flowers are just starting to bloom; the room itself is clean, if not dusty from lack of use. He should clean it up sometime, he thinks. The study—with windows dotted with succulents for Maddie's tendencies to lock herself in for days at a time—has little to no need of his care, though the small fridge does need a refill, he takes note as he enters the next room. The master bedroom is where the bulk of Al's love for plants lie, as well as some of the stocks from his shop.
The dying sunlight flits through the blinds, and a memory stirs in him.
Maddie is sitting on the bed, having been hit by inspiration since the middle of the night and typing away furiously ever since, and dust dancing gently in the light that beams through the gaps in the curtains. As eloquently as a disgruntled writer, she asks without looking up from her work, "What the hell is that thing you're doing?"
Said thing that Al was caught in the act of was rolling a shelf of plants carefully albeit loudly into the room. "We've run out of space in the shop," he says, shrugging, and gestures widely to the room, "and I figured our room was quite, well, spacey."
Maddie makes a noise of concern, typing with one hand to point with the other vaguely at where she supposed a dirt trail would be. Her estimated guess proves correct, plus-minus a meter or three.
"It's a Monday," Al explains, "I've got enough time to clean it up."
He resumes his work when she makes a sound of satisfaction.
He gets to work, emptying most of his bucket (but not all at once) on the shelved greenery before distributing the rest on the different plants by the window. The wind must've picked up at some point, as stray leaves seem to have found their way on the floor, some even lying delicately on the bed. He picks them off the floor one by one before placing them on the different potted soils, where they would be found more useful. He removes his dirt-stained glove to get the leaves off the sheets, before finding a stalk peeking beneath one of the folds of the blankets. Thoughtlessly he lifts the covers to find a single red tulip attached neatly to a brown paper package with a red ribbon.
Stray leaves forgotten, a smile graces his lips as he turns the package to see the words written in a recognisable scrawl.
It's vegan, I checked. You should try some. Chocolate isnt named the food of the gods without reason, you know?
Anyways, Happy Valentines Day.