Valentine's Day

by Apple and Kiwi

One-shot by Kiwi It's Valentine's Day and Red actually has a date! Takes place almost immediately after the end of Book 2.

Title: Valentine's Day -OR- The Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs
Author: Kiwi
Pairing: Wolf x Red
Rating: G
Warnings: Male/male fluff
Word count: 3,617
Summary: It's Valentine's Day and Red actually has a date! Takes place almost immediately after the end of Book 2.

Once upon a time, there lived a youth in a cottage in the middle of a great forest.

His name was Red Reaper, and he lead a fairly quiet life, baking pastries and sweets for deserving children and adults everywhere.

One morning, he was busy working industriously away in the kitchen of his quiet little cottage when he heard a knocking at his front door. Curious, because he wasn't expecting any company and because it was a little early for customers, he left the kitchen and crossed to the front of the house, where he opened the door.

A small girl stood on his doorstep. She was nearly obscured by the enormous bouquet of roses and lilies she held in her arms.

"Are you Mister Reaper?" she asked, staring at him with her blue eyes.

"I am," Red responded.

"These are for you," she told him, offering the bouquet. He bent slightly to relieve her of her burden.

"Um, thank you," he said. He blinked when he saw what she was wearing. Dressed in a simple white shift, her golden-brown hair was braided at the nape of her neck and hung down between two feathery white wings attached to her back.

"You're welcome!" she said cutely. And before he could ask her where she'd come from, and, more importantly, where the flowers had come from, she was already running down the path that lead to his doorstep and had disappeared into the forest.

Shrugging, Red turned his attention back to the flowers in his arms. They were red and white roses and pink and yellow lilies. He noticed a card nestled in among the leaves and fished it out.

My Dear Red,

It began,

I hope you are doing well. If you're not busy this afternoon, I hope you will do me the honor of joining me for tea. I'll wait for you at the usual place around 4:30.

Love always, Your
Wolf

Red smiled even as he blushed. It always gave him a funny feeling in his stomach when Wolf signed letters like that - which he always did. But it certainly wasn't a bad feeling. In fact, Red rather liked it. Going out to meet Wolf would mean closing shop early, though, which was - on Valentine's Day - probably not wise for business. But he had spent too many Valentine's Days working late, just in case some poor schumck had a last-minute emergency.

Well, this year, Red was going to have a Valentine's Day! There was no good reason that poor planning on someone else's part had to constitute an emergency on his, after all.

So at four o' clock, Red threw his trademark red cloak over his shoulders, locked up his home, and ventured into the woods on the path that would lead him into town.

"The usual place" was a little tea-house on the near side of Baker Town. Since arriving home from his last unwanted adventure, he and Wolf had taken to meeting there for an hour or two once a week when Red came into town to buy groceries.

Wolf was already there, waiting for him at their regular table. He looked up when Red stepped in out of the cold, and smiled warmly when their eyes met. Red smiled back, and hurried to hang up his cloak on the coat-rack by the door, deliberately draping it over a familiar black leather jacket.

"I'm happy you could come!" Wolf said as Red took his accustomed seat across from him. Red grinned nervously.

"Well, I didn't have much else to do..." he responded, not entirely truthfully. Wolf raised an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything regarding that. If Red was choosing to spend time with him instead of doing something else, he certainly wasn't going to complain!

"Oh! Um...thank you for the flowers," Red said, before he could forget.

"You're welcome," Wolf replied. "Did you like them?"

Blushing, Red nodded. "Very much," he affirmed.

"Good!" Wolf said, clearly pleased. "I'm glad."

The two made small talk as they waited for their tea. When they each had a steaming cup, Red cleared his throat and asked Wolf something he'd wanted to ask for over a month now.

"Wolf? Would you mind telling me about your father?"

His curiosity was understandable - all he knew about Wolf's family was that his mother was an adorably accident-prone librarian, and that his father was an evil overlord. Well, ex-evil overlord.

"My father?" Wolf seemed surprised. "Why do you want to hear about him?"

Red squirmed a bit. "Well, he's a part of your life, isn't he? At least, when you were growing up, right?"

"Hm...true," Wolf paused, considering for several moments. Then he cleared his throat and took a sip of his tea before speaking again. "Well, you've probably heard all the stories..." he trailed off briefly until he saw Red nod, then continued, "They're all true, from what I know. But that's not all there is to him. He's actually a fairly decent man. Most of the time." Red waited while Wolf swallowed another mouthful of tea before continuing, and listened with great interest as the man began speaking, describing an incident from his youth.

When Wolf had been about seven or eight years old, he had gone traveling with his parents - as usual. Wolfgang Loosestrife was restless when he remained in one place too long, and his wife Russet loved seeing new places, so they were almost always on the road.

They were passing through Ghost Town to attend an opera before moving on to their final destination in Tempus. Wolf had found stray cat and picked it up to show his parents. However, in his brief moment of distraction, his parents had become "otherwise engaged." Disgusted as only a young child can feel upon witnessing a romantic encounter between his parents, Wolf wandered away in search of something more worthy of his attention.

It wasn't long before he found that something. Almost as soon as he had turned a corner and gone from sight of his parents, Wolf encountered a flashy sky-blue Fae. Wolf had seen fairies before, of course, but this was his first encounter with an apparently gender-confused specimen. The creature was draped in deep blue, gauzy fabric that only just covered key areas of his anatomy and left very little to the imagination.

"Oh my!" the Fae exclaimed upon catching sight of Wolf. "What beautiful hair! Are you lost, little boy?"

The cat in his arms yowled in protest and scratched him, demanding to be released. Had he been older and more familiar with animal reactions, he might have followed the cat's obvious advice and excused himself as well, but he was intrigued by the fairy, who was much more interesting than his parents.

"Not really," he said, setting the cat down on its feet and watching as it ran away and out of sight.

"Hmmmm...." the Fae said, tapping his chin as he looked down at Wolf with clear blue eyes. Wolf waited patiently to see what the creature would do.

"My name's Svin," the Fae said after several moments. "What's yours?"

"Wolf," Wolf responded easily enough.

"Oh, my! And don't you look like one, with your pretty eyes! Would you like to come see my house?"

Figuring that his parents would probably be snogging for quite some time yet - if past experiences were anything to go by - Wolf nodded. Why not? The Fae - Svin - seemed harmless enough. He was certainly interesting enough. And he smelled like fresh-cut grass - which seemed somewhat at odds with his coloring, but it was a nice smell nonetheless.

So Svin lead him quite a way through town, and then a little bit outside it, to where he had his house. Wolf could see immediately why the Fae smelled the way he did - his entire house seemed to be made from straw.

"Come inside, dear child, and I'll find you some biscuits," Svin said cheerfully, ushering him through the doorway.

Meanwhile, Wolfgang and Russet Loosestrife were just recovering from their latest bout of embarrassingly passionate public snogging, and were just as quickly noticing the absence of their precious only child. Russet was immediately beside herself with worry, and Wolfgang's expression darkened as he looked up and down the street and failed to spot his errant son.

A plan of action was quickly agreed upon between the two, and they separated - Russet to search the town, Wolfgang to search the outskirts.

"Please try to keep the structural damage to a minimum, my dear," the dark-haired woman admonished before they parted. Wolfgang nodded dutifully, though he privately thought to himself that her idea of "minimum" was quite a bit different from his. That aside, though, there was no need to go round ripping buildings from their foundations in search of his son - yet.

Using his keen senses inherited from his father, Wolfgang managed to pick up the boy's trail fairly quickly, and strode imperiously out of town up to a tiny straw house on the outskirts. He banged very politely on the door and waited. He could hear very plainly that there was someone within the lazily constructed building, and that they were keeping quiet purposely. He knew his son was in there, though, or he had been, and banged once more on the door, slightly less politely. When that failed to produce results, he snarled quite wolfishly and spoke.

"I know you're in there. What have you done with my son? Let me in at once!" he demanded.

"I have done nothing," came a voice from inside - Wolfgang could tell immediately that it belonged to a Fae, and that he was lying. "And I shan't let you in," he continued. "Not by the hair on my chinny-chin chin!"

Wolfgang highly doubted that there was any hair at all on the Fae's chin.

"Huff-puff!" he growled - it was what passed for swearing in his family, as Russet was very firm that no strong language be used around their impressionable young son. Annoyed with the Fae's stubbornness and worried for his son's safety, Wolfgang - with very little effort, it had to be said - ripped the house from its foundations and tossed it away to directly confront the owner.

"I'll ask you again," he said, looming over the surprised blue Fae. "Where is my son?"

"He's with my brother Mochyn, just up the road," the creature blurted, pointing. Wolfgang could tell he was being truthful this time, and spared him his life - though he did leave him unconscious before moving on; both as a lesson and to prevent the Fae from following directly and causing more mischief.

He detected Wolf's trail just where the Fae had directed him, and was soon striding impatiently up to a slightly larger, slightly less shabby house made of sticks. He banged politely on the door.

"No one's home!" a voice called from within, just as Fae as the first.

"Where is my son?" Wolfgang demanded

"No one's home!" the voice insisted, and Wolfgang rolled his eyes. How stupid did the Fae think he must be?

"Let me in, pig!"

"Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin!" came the defiant response. Wolfgang knew full well that the chin of the creature in this house would be just as hairless as the other, and wondered why they said such odd things, even as he ripped the stick-house from its foundations and smashed it into oblivion.

Again, Wolf was nowhere to be found. Wolfgang learned that his son had since passed into the hands of yet another Fae sibling, further up the road, and left the greenish-blue fairy here just as terror-stricken and unconscious as he had the first.

The house further up the road was made of brick. Again, Wolfgang banged politely on the door and demanded entrance.

"Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin!" the occupant taunted.

Huff-puff!, but this was getting annoying!

"But it sounds like my dad..." He heard his son say.

"Oh, then by all means-" the voice began, but Wolfgang had already smashed through the front door and entered. Wolf was seated at the kitchen table, and stared guiltily at his father over a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. The aquamarine fairy sitting with him looked equal parts scandalized and horrified.

"Wolf! What in the name of the Overpower do you think you're doing!?" Wolfgang demanded, striding over to his errant son and pulling him from his seat by the arm.

"Um..." was all Wolf could think to say for himself.

"You know how your mother and I feel about you wandering off on your own, talking to strangers, and, of all things, spoiling your appetite with this...filth." He gestured at the plate of cookies, which looked to be home-made, chocolate-chip, and perfectly delicious.

"I beg your pardon!" the owner of the house had recovered somewhat from his shock at Wolfgang's literal busting down of his front door.

Wolfgang simply glowered at him as he slung Wolf's slim form over his shoulder. The boy didn't struggle - it would only be worse for him later on if he did, he knew. The Fae gulped and thought better of what he wanted to say.

"Sorry, Choiros," Wolf apologized as his father strode back through the ruined doorway carrying helplessly along. The Fae simply watched them both go with wide eyes and said nothing.

Wolf received such a lecture as he had never heard before from his father as the man carried him with no sign of strain back into town to search for his mother. Once they found her, he endured altogether a different kind of guilt as she smothered him in kisses and cried all over his head, relieved and joyful to have her precious son back safely.

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"You were abducted by three fruity Fae and they fed you sweets?" Red asked incredulously once Wolf had finished speaking and finished the tea in his cup. They had had to order a second pot as Wolf had talked.

"Not abducted," Wolf corrected with a small, fond smile. "And they were all perfectly nice. Mochyn taught me how to play poker."

Red couldn't help but laugh, though he shook his head. But he felt like he had a little better understanding of Wolf, now that he knew a bit more about his past. And that made him smile.

Together the two finished their second pot of tea, and got up to leave. As he was shrugging into his jacket, Wolf said,

"Um...you don't have to if you don't want to, but there's a little ice cream shop I noticed that just opened up a couple blocks from here..."

Red hesitated. Ice cream in February sounded like a terrible idea, but ice cream with Wolf sounded...very nice. He debated internally for a few seconds, and then decided, what the heck, it was Valentine's Day, and so he nodded.

"That sounds good," he said. "Let's go."

Wolf beamed at him, and together they left the tea shop. As they walked, Wolf casually draped his arm over Red's shoulders, causing Red's heart to do funny things in his chest. It felt so warm and nice to walk like that...he slipped his arm around Wolf's waist beneath his jacket, as he had done once before on a snowy day only a few short months before.

The walk was very cozy despite the cold, and the ice cream shop was cozy too, when they entered. It was also rather busy, despite the cold weather outside, full of couples sitting at cozy tables and sharing sundaes and other confections.

"Welcome!" the young woman at the counter said. Red blinked. Her black hair was shoulder-length and perfectly straight, setting off her olive complexion and accenting the exotic tilt of her dark eyes. He thought for a moment that he'd seen her somewhere before, but also thought he would have remembered a girl who looked like she did, and so figured he was just imagining things.

She and Wolf had a short conversation about her Valentine's Day specials, and after consulting momentarily with Red, Wolf ordered for them both before they turned to look for a seat.

"There's a table in the back there, in the corner," the woman behind the counter said with a smile, pointing to a semi-private, cozy little table, atop which a small vase containing a single red rose and a spray of baby's breath was set. They thanked her and seated themselves.

Red was quiet as he studied the little establishment, sneaking surreptitious glances at Wolf as he did so. Wolf seemed to be taking in the sights as well, though when their eyes accidentally met after a minute or two had passed, Red blushed and realized Wolf had been studying him just as much as Red had been studying him. He squirmed in embarrassment, still somewhat unaccustomed to such interaction with Wolf, and still just a little uncomfortable receiving such attentions; ten years was a long time to go disliking someone before a change of heart, after all. Old habits were hard to break.

Thankfully, he was spared thinking of that much more because their ice cream arrived. They had decided on an enormous hot-fudge sundae, which was served in a long, wide, boat-shaped glass dish supported by a stem and round base much like a wine glass. Peanuts and fresh strawberries (delivered that same day from the Spring Fields, no doubt) were sprinkled liberally over the fudge and floated in the sauce in the bottom of the dish. A very generous dollop of whipped cream had been placed on top of that, and was sprinkled with more peanuts, finely chopped this time, and crowned with two cherries.

Wolf plucked one of the cherries from atop the mountain of whipped cream and placed it carelessly in his mouth. Red watched, almost mesmerized, as it disappeared between his lips. He was struck once again by how good-looking and - he could admit it to himself, at least, in the privacy of his own thoughts - how sexy Wolf was. How on earth had the man settled on him to devote all his affections to? He was handsome, very well off (as Red had learned these past few months), generous, and (as Red had also learned) very, very kind.

"Want your cherry?" Wolf asked, plucking the second cherry from its bed of whipped cream.

Red nodded mutely and lifted a hand to take it, but Wolf ignored the gesture and reached across the table to press the small fruit to Red's lips. He opened his mouth involuntarily in surprise, blushing. Wolf smiled, and Red blushed even more. This wasn't good - so far they hadn't even gone beyond the cherries...how in the world would he survive sharing the small mountain of ice cream that waited between them?

He did it though, somehow. Somewhat embarrassed but mostly enjoying himself, he and Wolf finished off the entire sundae. Wolf let him have the last strawberry. Red had thought eating ice cream would make him cold, but under Wolf's delighted gaze, the frozen treat didn't stand a chance. He barely shivered as they walked out into the icy streets afterward, Wolf's arm firmly about his shoulders and his arm tucked firmly around Wolf's waist once more.

They walked slowly out of town towards the Fluffy Forest. Several hours had gone by between the tea-shop and the ice cream, and the sun had long ago disappeared beyond the horizon. It was getting late - time for Red to go home and get to bed, as he had to rise early as always to begin baking the next day's confections.

Wolf walked him as far as the forest's edge - the sometime-scruffy man in leather never actually entered the wood, out of respect for (and maybe a bit in fear of) the patron demon who lived there. This was beginning to annoy Red somewhat; it would have been nicer than he'd admit to have Wolf walk him all the way to his front door...where maybe he'd invite him inside, and maybe prepare some more tea or perhaps some hot cocoa, and they could sit in his small but cozy living room in front of the fireplace and talk...or maybe...cuddle...or...

"I'm glad you came," Wolf said quietly, interrupting his thoughts before they could embarrass him any more than they already were. Red smiled, and responded with genuine honesty,

"I'm glad too."

And Wolf leaned down and kissed him gently on the mouth, though he pulled away almost immediately. Red frowned slightly and tugged at Wolf's scarf - the same scarf he'd bought for him in Saison - pulling him back down and bringing their lips together once more.

They stayed like that for some time until Red finally, reluctantly, pulled away. He really did have to get to sleep. Wolf didn't protest, merely smiled at him, eyes shadowed but warm in the starlight.

"See you soon?" the silver-haired man asked, unabashedly hopeful.

Red nodded, smiled. "Day after tomorrow," he said.

Wolf nodded in response. "Good night, Red."

"Good night, Wolf."

Then Red turned, surprised by how reluctant his feet were to cooperate, and walked into the forest. He could feel Wolf watching him from the border, knew the man would continue to watch him until he disappeared. He turned and waved just before the road curved and would take him from view, and Wolf, still where he had been, lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Then Red continued onward, out of Wolf's sight, and he sighed, even as he smiled.