The weeks leading up towards Christmas were always busy at Rooster Teeth. In a way, they were often reminded of the crunch-weeks they would have when cramming in things for Red vs Blue, RWBY, and their other shows. Nevertheless, they were always an unforgettable experience.
The festivities would start early, and would end late. Those who didn't celebrate Christmas celebrated their own holidays and even those who didn't celebrate anything at all loved the sheer amount of hot chocolate and mince pies now available, but there wasn't a single person who didn't enjoy the novelty of it all. Even Geoff, who claimed he had far too much work to be doing to lose himself in Christmas fun, had been persuaded by Jack into wearing a tacky Christmas jumper.
"There's no way I'm wearing this, you asshole. Fuckin' get Michael to wear it."Geoff had complained, crossing his arms over his chest and attempting to walk away from the conversation, only to notice said man wearing a Santa hat as he sat editing at his desk.
"C'mon Geoff, you've gotta wear it at least once," Jack gave Geoff his own rendition of puppy-dog eyes and held the jumper out for Geoff to take. Which he didn't. "I even got Ryan to put one on." He said that as if it was the big turning point in Geoff's decision.
"Fine." Geoff huffed, scowling mockingly as he shrugged his jacket off and pulled the green knitted jumper over his head. Fine. Maybe the fact that Ryan was wearing one had been the turning point. The sweater was a berry red on the collar and cuffs with 'Ho Ho Ho' written in white on the front; it was surprisingly soft and comfy for what was probably a $5 jumper from Walmart but Geoff made a show of pretending it was itchy.
Jack grinned and shook his head at Geoff, patting him on the shoulder as he walked past him to leave the room to find Ray, another Christmas jumper in his hands.
However, it was when Ryan walked into the room with an equally tacky jumper with a similar sweater to his (although his was red with white decal) that Geoff decided he was glad for whatever bribery Jack had used to get him to wear it. The red fabric hugged Ryan's chest – evidently Jack had bought the wrong size – and his strong arms were even more evident than usual.
After that, Geoff decided he liked Christmas a whole lot more than before.
And as tinsel had worked its way into every room and fairy lights hung around doorways, everyone at the company was in high spirits (even though the workload they had was almost double the usual). Geoff had allowed the Lads and Lindsay to decorate the Achievement Hunter office with some apparently tasteful crimson red decorations, and by the end of the day there wasn't a single desk or doorway which didn't have at least five different Christmassy items on it.
In short, there were decorations everywhere. There wasn't a single are in the AH office where you could stand and not be blinded by shiny streams of tinsel or ropes of colourful fairy lights. Which was why Geoff was so surprised when it turned out that there was one piece of decoration he'd missed.
It was a week before Christmas and Geoff had been on his way out of the office; he had been working on editing the same video for the past three hours and he had finally awarded himself with a long-overdue coffee break. He made sure to push Gavin's Santa hat down over his eyes as he walked past, and he had been too busy sniggering to himself and watching Gavin scramble to sort his hat out to pay attention to where he was going.
Unluckily, he walked into the solid frame of a person with a thud before he'd realised what was going on. But he was mostly glad that he'd walked into someone on his way to get coffee rather than on his way back from retrieving it.
"Fuck, sorry 'bout that," an apology had fallen from his mouth before he'd even looked up to see the unfortunate soul he'd walked smack-bang into. But when the person hadn't replied, Geoff glanced up to be met with a devilish smirk, a handsome face, and a Santa hat expertly placed on top of swooping dark blonde hair. "Shit," Geoff knew he was probably blushing a little bit (he always did when he got close to Ryan) so he tried to mask it with an excuse, "you're not gonna kill me and hide my body in a landfill now, are you?"
"Nah," Ryan answered, and for some reason it didn't sound as convincing as Geoff would have liked. "You'd go in the hole." Geoff nearly shivered when Ryan spoke in a deeper voice, intimidating Geoff slightly. However, he was rendered confused when Ryan pointedly looked up above their heads for a few seconds, smirking at whatever was above them for a few seconds before catching Geoff's eyes again.
This time, Ryan's gaze was purposeful and his smirk was even more alluring than usual (something Geoff honestly didn't think possible) and his eyes quickly flickered from the ceiling, to Geoff's eyes, to slightly below his, and back to maintaining their eye-contact again.
"Ryan, what-?" Geoff was cut off when Ryan leaned forward, wrapping one arm around Geoff's back to spread his fingers between his shoulder blades. He let out an incredibly manly squeak of confusion and shock when Ryan used their contact as an anchor to press their bodies together before he closed the distance between them and kissed Geoff firmly on the lips.
In his shock, Geoff found that he could do nothing but lean closer to Ryan, who had his other hand on the dip of Geoff's lower back as he maneuvered Geoff in order to both replicate a cliché embrace and to give Geoff time to reject the kiss if he so wished. And he didn't. In fact, Geoff even bent one leg in order to allow Ryan to lean even closer to his body.
When he finally came to his senses (which was after longer than he would have liked), Geoff parted his lips to allow Ryan to deepen it. He had raised one hand to rest on the back of Ryan's neck to encourage him in the kiss, urging him to take control and show off how spectacular of a kisser he was to Geoff – who was well aware of how much Ryan liked showing off his skills. His other hand was braced on Ryan's back, his fingers splayed over the taut fabric of the red jumper in which Ryan's attractive body was only enhanced, in Geoff's opinion.
Ryan's touch was like fire; every point of contact burned in the most pleasant of ways, and Geoff's heart felt like it was a furnace, fuelled by everything Ryan was giving him. Usually Geoff would dominate any given situation, but he was enthralled by the way it felt to have Ryan all but stand over him, handing him everything he has to offer through touch and touch only. Geoff wanted nothing less than to soak in Ryan's presence as he lost himself in the addictive kiss.
Geoff had a passing thought about the fact that he had no idea what brought this on, but he didn't care. Nor did he care about what anyone else thought as they watched the scene unfold. Ryan was kissing him and holding him as close as he could without resulting in them crashing to the floor, and Geoff couldn't care less about anything else. The only thing that mattered was that Ryan kept moving his mouth like that, and occasionally nipping at his lips like he was, and continuing with everything he was doing in that moment.
When they finally broke the kiss for air, it was for Ryan to chuckle softly through his heavy panting, their warm breath mingling, and for Geoff to stare at Ryan wide-eyed as he gasped for breath like he'd almost drowned in Ryan's kiss. Although, if that were to happen, Geoff honestly didn't think there was any better way to go.
It took him a good few seconds of stunned silence before he looked slightly to the right of Ryan's head and caught a glimpse of the green leaves, white berries, and red ribbon hanging in the doorway.
"Fuck." Geoff muttered, almost feeling self-conscious after noticing the mistletoe above their heads. "Mistletoe. That explains a lot," he said with a laugh. But the mistletoe didn't explain everything. Usually a typical mistletoe kiss was a short peck on the lips and not much thought to it; and their kiss hadn't even started as a short peck.
"Well, I'll admit that I may have taken advantage of the situation just a little bit." Ryan replied, his voice quiet enough so that only Geoff could hear what he was saying, and boy was Geoff thankful for it. "And by the way you responded… I assume you don't mind."
Geoff licked absently at his kiss-swollen lips, eyes hooded as he smirked back at Ryan. "Nope, I didn't mind at all." He answered confidently. "In fact, I'd mind even less if you did that again."
Ryan chuckled, and Geoff could feel his chest moving with the action. "Maybe later," he answered with a wink, pulling Geoff back to his feet before sneaking in one last kiss and striding over to his desk, leaving a rather dazed Geoff stood in the doorway.
"Well, fuck me," he sighed, an uncontrollable grin on his face as he sauntered out of the office, uncaring of the other Achievement Hunter's reactions as he absently touched his lips with his fingers before he made his way to the kitchen. Nobody could blame him for being so distracted that he nearly poured salt into his coffee instead of sugar, they would have done the same if they'd just been blown away by how talented of a kisser and how smooth of a flirter Ryan was.
There were only a few things on Geoff's mind that afternoon; the biggest one being how he was going to ensure he and Ryan were the last two in the office. Perhaps they could pick up from where they left off before Geoff asks Ryan out for dinner. And Geoff had a funny feeling that Ryan was going to say yes.