Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

[witchoftheflesh]

Unlike some beleagured librarians, Adrian was having a lovely day with the candles. He had the lights turns off, letting the candles and the sunlight provide the illumination, there were plenty of plants around to add to the festive feeling, and he'd spent much of the last few days baking, so there were plenty of moddable Christmas cookies around for people to enjoy, as well as merry carols playing quietly in the shop.

Christmas wasn't exactly one of his holidays (Blackwood witches celebrated Yule), but it was close enough and the important thing was that it spread joy and cheer, right?

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

When Rey came in, she stopped at the door for a a second, looking around. "I like what you've done with the place."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Thank you," Adrian said with a laugh, "I worked very hard. Especially on the candles."

[thatwaslucky]

"If I hadn't seen these all over my warehouse I'd probably have believed you," she said, walking over for a hello kiss.

[witchoftheflesh]

And any responses clearly needed to wait until after the very important hello kiss. "Do I still get points for making the cookies, though?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Yes. Especially since I know you didn't just buy a tube of cookie dough."

No shame. She did it.

[witchoftheflesh]

"What's the points-to-kisses conversion rate?"

Important math to be done here.

[thatwaslucky]

"Oh, it's very high. It has to be at least three kisses per cookie made," Rey told him. And asked, "How many did you make?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"...Are we just counting the ones I made for you?" he checked, pulling out the tin of cookies from his jacket pocket. "Or all of them?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Oh," she said, very amused. "First of all, you didn't have to do that and thank you. Second... you know what, I'm counting all of them but I'll have to owe you some."

There may not be time in a day.

[witchoftheflesh]

"I know I didn't, that's the whole point," Adrian said. "I wanted to." He leaned in and stole a kiss, which clearly didn't count against his conversion total, because he'd stolen it.

[thatwaslucky]

"Point," she said, with a kiss back, which also didn't count for some made up reason she wasn't going to explain. You had to stop doing this at work, kids. "Though you might owe me a few kisses in return for not inviting me over while you were baking."

[witchoftheflesh]

Very important reason, that.

"I couldn't invite you over and have you help make your own Christmas cookies!" Adrian protested with a laugh. "Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut..."

He grinned at her.

[thatwaslucky]

"Wait. This may have backfired on me," she realized. "Now you might not invite me over when you're baking."

Because of the kissing.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Lucky for you, I'm pretty sure I can get more kisses with you present than the other way around," Adrian teased. "And, lucky for me, I like having you around. Which was why I was wondering if you wanted to come over later this week and bake cookies for me to bring home to my family for Yule."

[thatwaslucky]

"Absolutely," she said, not even having to think about it. "Though I don't know much at all about Yule."'

[witchoftheflesh]

"I mean, as far as cookies go, you don't really need to worry about it," Adrian assured her. "Yule itself is just a celebration of the return of light after the longest night of the year. A reminder that light and warmth will return and the world will flower and flourish again after a season of rest."

[thatwaslucky]

"I like that," she said with a soft smile. "That's sort of why I like New Year's, too."

Optimism'll do that.

[joan_of_bark]

"Wait, you made cookies?"

So much for Pam's self-possessed walk down through the store.

[witchoftheflesh]

"It's Christmas!" Adrian protested. "Of course I made cookies. These are just the store cookies, though."

He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a container. "These are your cookies."

[joan_of_bark]

Well. It did take a little to get Pam to look that taken aback. "... What's the difference?"

In a good way. She just needed a second.

[witchoftheflesh]

The ones he was giving to people were the best of their individual batches, but he wasn't going to say that.

"These ones aren't for sharing," he said instead, handing the container over with a grin.
"At least, not unless you want to."

[joan_of_bark]

"Some of them are going to wind up stolen by Harley," Pam warned, but she took them with a smile. "Thank you, Adrian."

And you knew she trusted you because she didn't ask what was in them.