A/N: think Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, but just the Tango and Foxtrot part.
This was a cute little idea that came to my mind tonight while dancing (alone lol).
Hope you enjoy!
Elizabeth had just sat back down at the dining room table while Henry finished the dishes behind her, putting just a few more glasses away. She had protested at first, telling him she'd help, but he insisted she get her grading finished. "You have a few papers left, right?" he asked, and she nodded. He shooed her away then and she got the papers from her briefcase before sitting with them.
He walked over as she was about halfway through her first paper, one of two, and she looked up at him, "What's this?" she asked, extending her arms with her pen wedged between her fingers, reaching out for the cup.
Henry shook his head, "It's hot," he said, setting the cup of piping hot tea down on the table and gently scooting it toward her. A yelp came from the living room, "Kids!" Henry's voice boomed, and it got silent again. Elizabeth had only heard parts of their earlier bickering while Stevie had told Henry she was going up to her room to finish her math homework.
"Are they still fighting over the TV?" she asked, wrapping her hand carefully around the mug. The cold February afternoon felt like it had seeped into her bones all day, and she never had quite gotten warm since being home. Walking on campus in the whipping wind sometimes got the best of her.
He sighed as he sat down, dragging over his own stack of papers. "Yes," he said, his voice sounding tired. "I told them that they needed to be in bed in forty minutes anyway," he said, and Elizabeth glanced over at the clock on the wall, "So I don't even know why they're arguing over a movie when they're not going to be able to finish any movie in forty minutes."
Elizabeth snorted and took a cautious sip of her tea, letting the steam rise up and warm her nose. "Especially at this rate," she murmured, a smirk rising to her lips as she looked at Henry over the other side of her mug, "They're not even going to be able to finish an episode of a show if they don't shut up and pick something."
Henry snorted, too, and he shook his head as he prepared to read the paper in front of him. She took another sip of her tea and let it linger in her mouth for a moment before swallowing, soaking in the chamomile flavor.
She set her cup down and looked back at her paper, letting out a sigh. She'd known better than to save the worst for last—she did that her first year teaching, and now seven years in, she should have learned her lesson. Yet, the two papers in front of her were done by the two students who she had barely seen all semester, and so far, this paper showed that they had no idea what was going on in her PLIR 3760 course, Geopolitics & International Relations. She wasn't even sure if this student had known what was going on in his freshman writing course, either, since he didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason with punctuation and capitalization.
She sighed aloud and rubbed her palm over her face, marking up more sentences in her blue ink pen, "Henry," she murmured, then looked up at him and furrowed her brows, "Remember that paper you got that you thought was fully copied and pasted from Wikipedia?"
He laughed, his brow darting up, "Yeah," he said, "It was terrible. That was my intro to ethics course, too."
She rubbed her brow harder and clenched her eyelids tight, feeling like she may be getting a migraine, "What are the odds that I have that same student?"
He tilted his head, "No way," he said, his curiosity causing him to lean over the table.
She shielded the name on the header, though, "It's not ethical," she said, her voice mocking the ethics professor.
He pursed his lips and huffed, "Elizabeth," he said, his voice dropping to be quieter and more firm, "I've seen his professor naked."
She bit her lip and tried to keep from looking amused, bringing her eyes up to meet his gaze as he hovered his entire body over the table now. She tried to look as unimpressed as she could. "That is wildly inappropriate," she reminded him.
"Come on, babe," he said, his smile taking over his face again as he tried to egg her on, "If it's the same guy, it's my professional obligation to commiserate with you."
She held her breath and arched her brow, looking at him for a few moments longer and then bringing her eyes back to where her hand covered the last name. "Well that's your professional obligation," she said, her voice dropping down into a more sultry tone, "but what about your marital one?" she asked.
Henry's grin faltered for only a second as he adjusted his body over the table, getting more comfortable as his grin came back twice as amused as before, "Oh?"
She lifted a shoulder casually, looking down at the paper and avoiding eye contact with him so she could keep up the charade, "I mean, here I am, suffering through this paper when my perfectly capable husband is over there…just…over there." She looked at the empty chair where he'd just been sitting for added emphasis.
He looked back, meeting where her eyes were fixed, and he looked at her. "Are you really flirting with me over a student paper?"
"You started it," she pointed out, then slyly moved her hand away. His eyes were too busy getting lost in hers to realize, and then she finally broke into a smirk. He looked down and saw the name, widening his eyes.
"Oh," he said, "Him."
"Is it the same one?"
Henry sighed, sitting back down, "Same one," he confirmed, "He was absolutely a menace in my class. He even—"
His sentence was interrupted when, from the living room, he heard a blaring noise coming from the TV. He peeked around the corner, and Elizabeth also saw that there was some silly cartoon on. She watched and missed the days of her kids watching cartoons, even though they're not that old now, they still were more interested in Disney Channel.
"L is for the way you look at me…"
She furrowed her brows and tried to figure out what cartoon was playing Nat King Cole's "L-O-V-E," but she was interrupted by Henry.
"Dance with me," he said, scooting his chair out loudly and stepping over toward her with an extended hand.
"O is for the only one I see…"
She just looked at it, "Henry," she groaned, "I have papers to finish grading, if you've already forgotten."
"Oh, come on, it's Nat King Cole," he said as though that made all the difference, tilting his chin down at her, "You need a break. You know the rule in this house: if Nat King Cole is playing, you have to stop and dance."
"V is very, very extraordinary…"
"Since when is that a rule?" she asked, laying her pen down.
"Since now," he breathed with a smirk, "Come on," he said again, his voice now chocked full of mischief.
"E is even more than anyone that you adore…"
Before she could protest further, he'd taken her hand and pulled her to her feet, causing her to stumble into him, "Henry, what are you—"
Her giggling interrupted her this time as he spun her around, doing something like a foxtrot around the dining room table one full time before taking her back out toward the kitchen. Only something like a foxtrot because, for all her talents, dancing was not one of them. Henry was just dragging her through, though, and she found it fairly easy to follow his lead. Cole's voice lead them through the chorus as Henry's body lead them around the kitchen island, his hand encompassing hers perfectly.
Her bare feet padded against the cold tile through the kitchen and past the stove, her laugh filling the air as she continued to attempt a protest, "Henry! What are you doing?" she asked, though she didn't want him to stop, either—it was clear by the way she was looking up at him with a big smile on her face.
He twirled her again, and she caught the smile on his face before being spun, and she giggled as she bumped into the doorway he was leading her through. They looked as though their bodies were gliding across the floor, and she caught only a glimpse of Jason in the recliner and Alison on the couch when he'd spun her again. She couldn't begin to suppress her giggles, especially when he started mouthing the words to her with a face that made him look, in her mind, a little constipated.
"Love is all that I can give to you..."
His arm was wrapped around her waist, and his body was swaying both of their bodies together as they leapt through onto the carpet. She looked up in his eyes and bit her lip, "You're too much," she said, her voice light and airy though she was already becoming breathless from the great strides they'd made from the table to the front door of their farmhouse.
"Love is more than just a game for two…"
Henry grinned and leaned down, "But you love it," he said as they continued their gliding back toward the kitchen, past the living room and past the staircase.
She'd become much lighter on her feet somewhere near the kitchen, and she felt like she was floating.
"Two in love can make it, take my heart and please don't break it…"
She moved her left arm so that it was wrapped around the back of his neck now, sliding it from his shoulder, "I do," she said softly, avoiding panting and giving into the fast beating of her heart.
"Love was made for me and you…"
He smiled at her and they made it back to the edge of the kitchen and living room, and he paused there and just swayed them in place as the music died down, the trumpet playing loudly over the TV speakers.
"What just happened?"
Elizabeth's head whipped over from where she'd been stuck staring at Henry for their entire sway time, and Henry also looked over. They both saw Stevie first, standing at the end of the staircase that they'd both passed twice without noticing her.
Stevie's arms were crossed over her chest, her sweatshirt engulfing her as it went down to her knees. The look on her face was a mix of mild disgust and confusion as she perched herself on second step from the bottom, her feet planted firmly on the hard wood.
Elizabeth's face flushed, and she pulled away from Henry slightly, but she couldn't help but smile down at the floor. She looked like she had just been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing, and Henry was rubbing her back, almost reassuringly.
Jason, who'd been watching from the recliner, apparently, chimed in. "Yeah," he said, "Why were you dancing like that?"
"It was weird," Alison added from the couch, and Elizabeth raised her brow as Henry let out a low chuckle that vibrated the front of her body. He'd pulled her back into him when Jason spoke.
Alison's eyes said she didn't know why it was weird, but just that her older sister was clearly finding it weird, so she was going to also find it weird.
Elizabeth looked back at Henry and pressed her lips together, trying to keep a smile from appearing and ultimately a laugh from gushing out. But he did the same, and it became harder for her to hold back her giggles.
"We're in love, kids," Henry said in an overexaggerated voice, looking at the two in the living room first, then at Stevie for just a few seconds longer. "It's what happens when you've been together as long as we have," he said, looking back at Elizabeth and into her eyes, "You just dance like no one's watching."
Elizabeth nodded, listening to the sincerity seep into his voice when he settled his gaze on her, "Exactly," she said, "You'll understand when you're older." Her voice was warm, but it also had a touch of amusement.
"Gross," Stevie murmured, and Elizabeth looked over Henry's shoulder at their eldest daughter, only letting her eyes show as she hid her smirk in his shirt. Stevie had turned her gaze to the TV that was now playing some other random cartoon, and though she'd said it was gross, Elizabeth also couldn't help but notice the corners of their daughters lip pull up in a hidden, quick smile.
Even at fourteen, she was starting to understand the weight of love, and the fact that her parents had it—this seemingly effortless, joyful, easygoing bond that filled the house—was something that wasn't lost on her entirely, even if she pretended it was.
For a strange moment, the family just settled there in a kind of standoff. Stevie's gaze was fixed on the TV as though Elizabeth couldn't see the little flicks her eyes did toward her and Henry. Jason had his head slightly tilted before going back to focusing on the TV, and Alison was still watching them, too, seemingly unable to determine whether she should be disgusted or intrigued.
Stevie looked over pointedly toward Elizabeth and Henry, and Elizabeth tapped Henry on the back to get him to look at her, too. He'd been resting his chin on her head before that, and when he looked at Stevie, the top of her head felt cold. "I'm going to bed," Stevie said.
"Don't forget to brush your teeth," Elizabeth reminded.
"You guys are so weird," Stevie called down as she'd gotten to about the seventh step.
Henry and Elizabeth both let out a breath, one of amusement but also one that had been filled with tension they didn't even realize they had. Having a teenage daughter is sometimes scary work—you never know when they might lose it over the slightest thing. Elizabeth remembered those days well, and though she tried to have grace with all of her kids, Stevie was definitely giving her a payback for all of Elizabeth's teenage years.
As Stevie turned the corner toward her room, Elizabeth brought her eyes back down and trailed her fingers down Henry's chest. She checked to make sure Ali and Jason were distracted before kissing him on the lips, lingering there a moment as she felt her heart still calming down from all the fast-pace dancing they'd done.
"You know," she whispered, pulling away just slightly and opening her eyes lazily to see his, "I think you've earned a reward for that little escapade."
He raised his brow and ran his hands along the small of her back, tucking them up inside her shirt and making her shudder. "Oh yeah?" he asked, "What reward would that be?"
He was always trying to get her to say dirty words to him, and sometimes she would, but tonight she was going to make him work harder for it than just that. "Something about a naked professor intrigue you?" she asked, leaning into his ear on her tippy toes and whispering it so close to his lobe that it made him shudder this time.
"I have just recently been called capable," he reminded, smirking at her as they pulled away to see each other's faces.
She bit her lip and took a deep breath filled with anticipation, bubbling out through her smirk.
"Kids," Henry said, turning his attention toward the two who had been five minutes past their forty-minute threshold, "Bed, now."
"But—"
"Now," Henry said, getting firm with them.
Elizabeth turned away from them and held back a chuckle while Henry stood firm, but she could feel his stomach holding back a laugh. She, too, was holding one back, and she couldn't believe how giggly she had gotten just from a quick little dance around this old farmhouse.
"Like that?" he asked once the kids were upstairs.
She nodded, "Good job, Dr. McCord," she whispered, letting herself be lead once more by Dr. McCord himself, but up the stairs and to their bedroom this time for a dance that was much different than the foxtrot.