before you read! i changed my pseud from Annie Carter (an old old middle school pseud) to coerulus, which matches my ao3 for continuity purposes. but yes, i'm still here, just underwent a name change. carry on!
"You're going to get an earful if you don't hang up soon."
Puck sighs, a cloud of misty breath visible in the dawn air, and the keys in his right hand clatter loudly in his search for the one that opens the door to his and Sabrina's brownstone.
"Couldn't help it though," he says, tilting his head so his mouth is closer to the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. "She'll get it. Goblin liaison isn't exactly a walk in the park, you know." He fumbles the keychain and swears rather loudly, until he locates the one key wrapped in duct tape that'll open the damn door.
"It's not," the voice on the other end agrees. "All the same, you should be resting-you've done a lot in the past few days. Goodnight, Puck."
"Goodnight, Mustardseed." A twist and a click, and suddenly, warm air comes spilling out of the room, a delightful contrast to the still coldness of the outside.
Of course, it's too much to expect of her to be asleep.
Sitting at the dining room table is a girl wearing a holey green hoodie three or four sizes too large, her bright blonde hair sticking every which way from sleep. She slowly returns the phone to its cradle, staring at him with narrowed, disbelieving blue eyes.
She's wearing my hoodie, he observes in surprise. Truthfully, that's all he can register at the moment—the long, suntanned legs, the creases of the blended cotton that hang from her shoulders, the pink of her yawning mouth. He can only recall one other instance when Sabrina has ever willingly worn his hoodie, and honestly...he'd rather not recall it.
She makes no sound as she stands up and pushes back the chair, and Puck is starting to think that backing out over the threshold and retreating into the snow is a better idea than staying in the apartment to face Sabrina's rage.
"Hey, babe," he offers weakly, but the sweet-talk is lost on his girlfriend—not that he can really blame her.
"Where," she intones, as slowly and steadily as her voice allows, "have you been?"
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, the word flow halted in his debate of whether he should say something witty or compliment her hair in an effort to get back on her good side. What he settles for, then, is a sigh, and he shuts the door so he can lean on it and scuff his shoes on the doormat. He shrugs off the thick winter jacket—the one that she made him buy, despite his protests that fairies don't catch colds—and hangs it up on the hook by the door, all the while trying to avoid Sabrina's glare.
"Do you know how many days it's been?"
"Since…?"
"Since you came home," Sabrina snaps. He can tell her fists are still tightly clenched at her sides, even though they're hidden in the length of the hoodie sleeves. "Don't play dumb with me, Puck."
"I'm not playing," he jokes, hoping the self deprecating humor will coax a smile, or even a twitch from his girlfriend. (It doesn't.)
"Three," she says, ignoring him. She holds up the appropriate number of fingers and waves them in Puck's face. "Four, if you want to count today. You've been gone since Tuesday!"
He stays silent—it's a little hard to argue against the facts, not to mention Sabrina is already halfway there to getting her juris doctorate, so he would immediately lose any fight he tried to pick with her.
"I had to call Mustardseed!" she continues. He winces. Sabrina hates talking to her in-laws, and the fact that she went and called someone as high up as Mustardseed shows just how rattled she was about his absence. "He was the one who told me you weren't—I don't know—lying facedown in the duck pond or something!"
"I was...busy," he says lamely. He winces. It's the worst possible excuse he could come up with, even if it happens to be true. Telling the truth is overrated, he thinks to himself.
"Busy," she repeats, spitting out the word with such ferocity he backs up a little, until his hip touches the doorknob.
"You know how it is with goblins!" he says. "It's like dealing with shorter, smellier clones of you." Once again, his attempt at levity is fruitless, and actually has the opposite effect on Sabrina. He'll never understand why it's not a compliment to be called short and smelly.
"You didn't call," she says. "You didn't text, or—or even send an email or anything."
What does she want him to do? The three way goblin-yahoo-dwarf underground conflict isn't just a little turf war he can fix within the span of an afternoon over a box of frosted donuts. And even after spending Tuesday, then Wednesday and Thursday, in the castle, he's only managed to work out a flimsy resolution that's liable to tear through within the time frame of a week, and he'll probably have to sleep at the castle for a few days next week, too.
She doesn't need to know that, though.
"But I got us—you—hot cocoa," he says hopefully, pulling two packets of Swiss Miss from the inside pocket of his suit.
"I asked you to buy cocoa two weeks ago," she says, unimpressed.
Huh, he thinks. In that case, it's best to not let her know that he didn't even buy those, but nicked them from the castle breakroom, hoping he could use them to placate her legendary anger when he got home.
"But at least they're here," he says earnestly, daring at last to take a few steps forward. It feels like he's on a very urbanized episode of Crocodile Hunter and he's Steve Irwin, holding out an offering to a potentially dangerous animal, praying to escape with all (or most) limbs intact. "I'm here, and let's face it-that's already cause for celebration."
Sabrina rolls her eyes and crosses her arms more tightly across her chest; the overhang from the hoodie is slightly comical, offset only by the intense glare on her face. The tension is palpable for almost a minute, and then Sabrina drops one arm and raises the other so her fingers can massage her eyelids.
"Make two cups," she says.
His lips move into a triumphant grin until he hears her snap, "I'm still mad at you."
There's a soft shing sound as Puck slides two ceramic mugs across the counter to where the kettle is bubbling, and he pours the packets of mix into the mugs with hot water. He hands a steaming mug to Sabrina, who adds a small handful of marshmallows to the top. In contrast, Puck fills his mug with mostly marshmallows and adds cocoa until the entire mess threatens to overflow.
"Cheers, Grimm," he says, and he downs the mug's contents. Out of courtesy, Sabrina clinks her mug gently against Puck's but doesn't take a drink
He sneaks a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. Her shiny, blonde hair looks so out of place against the filth of his hoodie, but she makes it work somehow. "You're still mad at me."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious."
He winks. "No problem, Captain Doodieface, me matey." There's just the slightest of smiles when Sabrina brings the mug up to her face, and he knows he's winning. She may never forget this episode, or the time he doodled on her face, but he definitely has a shot at forgiveness, especially when there's hot chocolate involved.
"I just—" Sabrina blurts out, accidentally breaking her vow of (mostly) silence, then takes a large gulp of cocoa to rectify her mistake. Puck lifts a curious eyebrow. "Nothing."
"What?"
"You'd make fun of me if I told you," she retorts, and he laughs like it's the funniest thing he's heard all day. Which, considering he's only heard various treaties and boundary disputes and general crabbiness, probably is the funniest thing he's heard. Either that, or he's suffering from intense sleep deprivation, or both. He's inclined to go with the latter.
"Grimm," he says, "I'm always going to make fun of you. Might as well get it through your pea brain now." She sends a cold glare his way-it's almost enough to make him stop laughing, but not quite. "Or are you too chicken?" He spins twice on his heel and morphs into a molting hen, squawking as loud as he can. It's only until after Sabrina threatens to turn him into a pot pie does he reluctantly morph back, still expecting an answer from her.
"I was worried about you," she says at last, and her statement genuinely takes him by surprise a little. "Okay? You've inherited a ton of political enemies from your jerk dad, and I bet a whole lot of them want to kill you, even after all these years. I've watched you almost-die too many times, Puck. I don't want to remove 'almost' from the equation." The blues of her eyes are snapping fire, and he notes her milky white knuckles clenched around the mug handle.
There's a beat. Maybe two, or three.
She's right, and he wishes she wasn't all of the damn time. He's almost died in front of her at least five times, which, in his opinion, is at least five times too often. But he could say the same about her, too, to be honest.
Puck looks into his now empty mug, eyes following the brown ring that the cocoa has left behind. It's not the fear of assassination that's on his mind, actually. He's got the castle loaded with booby traps positioned in strategic places, there are cameras everywhere, and he's got a great guard detail, so he's not worried about dying. Not to mention he can throw a killer right hook.
But her concern for him—it's touching. He's got assassins and trade deals and the fragile economy factored into his life, but this—this isn't something he's taken any time to consider.
Her mouth disappears behind the curve of the mug again, which has surely gone cold by now (since she's no longer using the fabric of his hoodie sleeves to insulate against the hot ceramic). When she comes back up, her voice is husky. "You're not laughing." It's clear she's waiting for him to make fun of her, but at present, he's a little too stunned by her (almost) declaration of love for him to come up with an insult that's cooler than 'crybaby'.
"You were worried about me," he says, tasting the words slowly, carefully.
"Yeah," Sabrina mutters. "That's what I just said, egghead."
He's trying really hard—really, he is—to conceal the smile pulling at his lips. "No," he says, "you missed me."
"I don't anymore," she says sourly. "It's all coming back to me now."
"Come on," he says, the smile quickly evolving into an obnoxious smirk, "you did." His laugh is smothered by her hand when she pushes his face away from her.
"I fall for this every time," Sabrina mutters. "Open up to you and then have you laugh at me." She takes her mug of cocoa with her and tilts it to get the last drops out, then throws it in the sink and runs some water in it before wiping it dry with unnecessary force and practically throwing it back into the proper cupboard.
He stumbles a little upon getting out of his chair. "Hey."
She turns around, displeasure written across her face as obviously as it was the time Captain Doodieface made his first appearance.
"You know…" he says, one hand shoved resolutely in his jeans pocket and the other rubbing nervously at the back of his neck, "I...I missed you too. I thought about you, during the time I was doing goblin liaison. I thought about what you would have said, if you were there."
It's Sabrina's turn to look shocked now. Puck thinks it's a good look on her, but a shame he can't bring it to her face more often.
"Some of the things you said were not very professional," he adds slyly, wiggling his eyebrows and making a highly inappropriate gesture with his mouth and index finger in a terrible attempt to dispel the tension that always lingers after talking about feelings. His punishment for keeping his mind in the gutter is a slap to the face.
"Ow," he says, but only out of habit.
"Stupid," she says, and a real smile breaks over her face this time.
He grins back and cups her cheek with one hand. "So does this mean you're not going to throw me out to live with the rats anymore?"
"The jury's still out," she teases, and punches him lightly in the chest upon seeing the alarm on his face. "Don't even think about doing that again, though."
"What, daydream about my girlfriend and the way her legs can—"
"Shut up," she says, cheeks turning warm under the palm of his hand.
He grins. "Will do," he says, pressing a kiss to her lips. His mouth moves slowly down the plane of her jaw, then her neck, and the high ridge of her collarbone, drawing a long sigh from her.
"Can't tell you to do the same, though."
(all author's notes are prefaced with a declaration of my undying gratitude for faatima aka ember53608 for tirelessly betareading my fics and putting up with my shoddy grammar and typos 25/7. i love you, dude)
ANYWAYS...i'm going to take this time to gloss over the fact that i haven't posted anything sg related since march 5th but i'm back now! i hope you all had as much fun reading this as i did writing it-it was genuinely a lot of fun to write even though i stayed up until three last night doing it.
as always, please please please leave a review and a favorite if you enjoyed!