Matrimonial Surprises (7a/?)
Summary: What happens after Jeff and Annie's unplanned Las Vegas wedding.
Rating: R for sexytimes
Word Count: 8,000
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: You know what's surprisingly time consuming? Taking care of a guinea pig who is in heart failure and starting a new (and last!) semester. Sorry. This is broken up into three parts because LJ is being a little bitch. I don't know what's going on with it but it took me well over an hour.
“We need a Christmas tree.”
Jeff craned his neck around the Annie shaped figure who was suddenly blocking the TV. “Uh huh,” He mumbled blankly.
Annie huffed and put her hands on her hips, “Jeff!”
He looked up at her, “What?”
“Did you even hear what I said before you blindly agreed to it?”
“Umm…yes?”
Annie narrowed her eyes, “Then what did I say?”
“Uh, something about Christmas, right?”
“We need a Christmas tree,” She repeated.
“Why?”
“Because family holiday traditions are important! By next Christmas we’re going to have a six month old and we need to start them now! We don’t even have any decorations.”
Jeff pointed to a little penguin figurine wearing a green and red hat sitting on the counter, “What do you call that?”
“A present a co-worker gave me.” She moved to sit on the couch with her legs folded under her so she was facing him head on. “Come on, some of the only good childhood memories I have are holiday traditions. I know the baby isn’t here yet but I really want him or her to have that. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tradition that we can say ‘mommy and daddy have been doing this since before you were born’?”
He sighed and rolled his head to look at her. “This is important to you, isn’t it?” Annie nodded. “Alright, how about this, let me finish watching this show then we’ll go and get a tree and ornaments and stuff.”
Annie squealed happily and planted a kiss on his cheek before lifting up his arm and settling herself under it, “Deal.”
Jeff’s arm draped around her shoulder and his eyes wandered from the TV to the view he had down her sweater. She hadn’t let him touch her breasts in weeks because they were so tender. He understood and felt bad that she was uncomfortable on top of the morning sickness, but it was even harder than usual to look and not touch because they were bigger and firmer than ever. It was like they were taunting him. Jeff stared down her cleavage as her chest rose and fell with every breath and he had to bite his lip to suppress a growl. Before the bad idea warning even had time to go off in his brain his hand was slowly inching towards her boobs.
“Touch the boobs and lose your hand,” She warned without looking away from the screen.
Jeff didn’t even acknowledge it, he just slowly moved his hand back to her arm.
Three hours later after a trip to Target for lights, ornaments, and a tree stand and a stop at two different places selling the actual trees Jeff kicked the apartment door open while wrestling with seven feet of tied up branches and needles.
He got the tree inside and leaned it up against the living room wall then proceeded to pick needles off of his coat. “We couldn’t get a fake one,” He grumbled.
Annie put the bags from Target on the coffee table and pulled out the stand, “Real ones are so much better. It wouldn’t have been so bad if you let me help you carry it up.”
“It’s not that heavy it’s just big,” He panted as he took off his coat and went to the front closet to hang it up. “Not to mention a fake one wouldn’t be such a mess or taken an hour and a half to pick out the perfect tree that will be dead and in a dumpster in a few weeks.”
She got on her toes to give him a quick peck on the lips, “Oh don’t be such a Grinch, it could have been much worse.”
Jeff frowned, “Annie, you rejected countless trees and I had to stand there twirling every single one around for you like some sort of Christmas-from-hell Vanna White.”
Annie tilted her head to the side and considered the tree that Jeff was currently spinning slowly. “Hmm, no, the branches look too shaggy.”
“It’s a tree, of course its branches look shaggy.”
“No, that one doesn’t,” She said pointing to the one two spots down.
“So get that one.”
“But that’s the one with the big hole in the middle of it!”
“So? We’re just going to cover it with stuff anyway.”
Annie ignored him, “Let me see the one to your left again.”
Jeff sighed and moved a step to his left, “You mean the one you just rejected two minutes ago because you thought it looked crooked?”
“Yes, I want to make sure I was right. Hmm…I was, I don’t like it.”
“Oh my God,” Jeff groaned.
She glared at him, “Well which one do you like then?”
“I don’t really care, Annie! It’s a tree that will be up for a couple of weeks then we’ll throw it out and never see it again. It’s not like we’re buying a house or something. Just pick one.”
Annie’s eyes began to get watery and wide. “But this is our first Christmas tree together! I just want it to be the perfect one because that’s a big milestone you know? Don’t you care?”
Jeff swallowed hard, he was slowly beginning to recognize her hormone induced tears and had figured out that if he acted quickly enough sometimes he could stop them before she started outright crying. “I’m sorry, baby. I know this is important to you and you want to make it nice. I’ll be fine with whatever tree you pick. I care more about being with you on Christmas than about finding the perfect tree, that’s all.”
Annie ‘aww’d’ and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Come on, lets go look in the other section.”
He sighed and followed her through the narrow aisles to the other side of the display.
Annie got the scissors out of a kitchen drawer and cut the ties off the tree while Jeff held it upright. “Where do you want it?”
“Umm, in the corner by the window. It’ll fit there, right?”
“Yeah, it should. If not I’ll move the side table over. You put the base down and hold it in place and I’ll pick it up and put it in.”
Annie sat on the floor and held the base still while Jeff lifted up the tree and wrestled it into the green contraption, mumbling curses under his breath the whole time. Something about fucking sap on his sweater that will never come out and the goddamn needles stabbing him in the face. Annie listened to him rant with an amused smile on her lips, “You know this is the only year muttering obscenities while decorating for Christmas is going to fly, right?”
Jeff glared at her through the sea of pine as he twisted the metal spokes against the trunk to hold it upright, “Well then I better make it count. This is a fucking pain in the ass.”
“I bet you’ll be glad we did it when it’s all done,” She sing-songed.
She heard him sigh out a “yeah yeah” from under the tree and poked at his back. He finally pulled himself out from under the tree and stretched out a kink in his back from the awkward position he had twisted himself in. Annie looked at him and tried to suppress a little giggle. “What?” He frowned.
“You have needles stuck in your hair,” She said as she reached forward and began picking them out.
He looked up through his eyelashes in an attempt to see her hand pick through his hair. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I found needles in my ass crack at this point.”
“Neither would I, we all know how high it is,” She teased.
“You love my ass and you know it.”
“God help me, I really do. It sure can fill out a pair of jeans.” She finished combing through his locks of short hair then stood up and went to the kitchen to throw away the needles. “Okay, time to decorate!” When she turned back around she found Jeff lying flat on his back with his hands folded over his chest.
“Can’t, too tired now,” He mumbled.
Annie marched over to him so she was upside down in his field of vision with her hands on her hips. “All you did was put a tree in a stand.”
“And get it all the way up here from the car. I’m older than you, I don’t have as much energy.”
“Well I’m pregnant, so I have even less energy on top of the nausea. I win. Get up.”
Jeff sighed as he pushed himself up from the floor. “You’re going to keep pulling the pregnancy card aren’t you?”
“When necessary.”
“Enjoy it while you can, it won’t last very long.”
Annie grinned at him, “No, but afterwards I’ll have the ‘I just gave birth to your child’ card.”
“I’m screwed,” He grumbled as he grabbed a box of lights and tore it open.
They eventually got the multi-colored lights and silver garland on without too much trouble, other than Jeff insisting on replacing a broken bulb himself because he didn’t want her to somehow get electrocuted and Annie constantly stopping to ensure that everything was evenly spaced, then moved on to the ornaments.
“You don’t want to do Hanukkah?” Jeff asked suddenly as he hung an ornament on a high branch.
Annie shrugged one shoulder, focused on untangling two green and silver balls that had become intertwined. “It already started anyway.”
He looked at her, “It did? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even notice until yesterday when I saw something about it online. We did both when I was a kid but I always liked Christmas better. After my parents got divorced my mom didn’t acknowledge it at all and I always missed it. Since I’m not really practicing either religion now I’d rather do Christmas, it’s more fun.”
“Well, if you ever want to celebrate Hanukkah I’ll light the menorah with you for eight days or whatever it is if you want.”
Annie looked up at him with a smile, “Thanks, sweetie. Maybe when the baby is a little older we can do both.” Suddenly she spun around and grabbed one of the plastic bags from Target, “Oh, when you weren’t looking I got some ornaments just for you. A sports car, a bottle of red wine, a cell phone, a Broncos one, and a yellow lab,” She said handing each one to him. “Put them wherever you want.”
Jeff laughed and looked at the decorations in his hands, “Wherever I want, huh? Even if it messes up your order?”
“Wherever you want,” She assured. “I’m trying to be better about giving up control of every little thing.”
He leaned down and planted a kiss on her lips, “Thanks, babe.”
She watched as he hung each ornament one by one, briefly pausing to consider where to put each before placing it on a branch. When they were all up he took a step back, “There, how’s that?”
“I wouldn’t have put the red bottle of wine so close to the red ball but if that’s where you want it then that’s where it’ll stay,” She said with a flip of her wrist and her voice a pitch higher than normal.
“That’s going to drive you crazy isn’t it?” Jeff asked with a smirk.
“No, no. It’s fine. It’s not going to ruin anything by having two red ornaments that close together,” Annie said with a resolute nod.
He chuckled at her attempt to let it go and handed her another ornament, “Here. You can think way too much about where to put this one.”
Annie took it from him with a playful grin, “You do know me so well.”
He gave her ass a little slap, “It just wouldn’t be you if you didn’t put too much effort into making something look random.”
She hung the glass snowflake on her chosen branch with a happy little squeak. “Hey, I admit it. I’m well aware of my neuroses.”
“They do say admitting it is the first step.”
“Exactly.” Annie picked up the glittery silver star from the coffee table and held it out to him, “Alright Mr. 6’4, it’s your job to put the star on top.”
He took the star from her and put it on the tippy top without even having to get on his toes. “How’s that?”
She took a few steps back to look over the whole tree, colorful lights, sparkling garland, ornaments and all, and clasped her hands in front of her chest, “Perfect.”
Jeff went to stand beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her into his side. “Yeah, we didn’t do too bad did we?”
“Nope. It looks great, like a real Christmas tree. Well, I mean, I know it’s a real tree, but it’s like you know…”
He looked down at her with a warm smile as she rambled and bounced against him. “Christmasy?”
“Yes! I love it. It’s just like the tree my grandma used to put up at her house.”
Jeff ushered her closer and she wrapped her arm around his stomach. “My mom always made sure we had a tree. Even if it was just a small one because that was all she could afford that year. After I moved out I never bothered to get one myself, she still puts one up every year though.”
Annie rested her chin on his chest and peered up at him, “Aren’t you glad I made you get one this time?”
He looked down at her sparkling eyes and smiled as he kissed her forehead, “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Part 7b
Rating: R for sexytimes
Word Count: 8,000
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: You know what's surprisingly time consuming? Taking care of a guinea pig who is in heart failure and starting a new (and last!) semester. Sorry. This is broken up into three parts because LJ is being a little bitch. I don't know what's going on with it but it took me well over an hour.
“We need a Christmas tree.”
Jeff craned his neck around the Annie shaped figure who was suddenly blocking the TV. “Uh huh,” He mumbled blankly.
Annie huffed and put her hands on her hips, “Jeff!”
He looked up at her, “What?”
“Did you even hear what I said before you blindly agreed to it?”
“Umm…yes?”
Annie narrowed her eyes, “Then what did I say?”
“Uh, something about Christmas, right?”
“We need a Christmas tree,” She repeated.
“Why?”
“Because family holiday traditions are important! By next Christmas we’re going to have a six month old and we need to start them now! We don’t even have any decorations.”
Jeff pointed to a little penguin figurine wearing a green and red hat sitting on the counter, “What do you call that?”
“A present a co-worker gave me.” She moved to sit on the couch with her legs folded under her so she was facing him head on. “Come on, some of the only good childhood memories I have are holiday traditions. I know the baby isn’t here yet but I really want him or her to have that. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tradition that we can say ‘mommy and daddy have been doing this since before you were born’?”
He sighed and rolled his head to look at her. “This is important to you, isn’t it?” Annie nodded. “Alright, how about this, let me finish watching this show then we’ll go and get a tree and ornaments and stuff.”
Annie squealed happily and planted a kiss on his cheek before lifting up his arm and settling herself under it, “Deal.”
Jeff’s arm draped around her shoulder and his eyes wandered from the TV to the view he had down her sweater. She hadn’t let him touch her breasts in weeks because they were so tender. He understood and felt bad that she was uncomfortable on top of the morning sickness, but it was even harder than usual to look and not touch because they were bigger and firmer than ever. It was like they were taunting him. Jeff stared down her cleavage as her chest rose and fell with every breath and he had to bite his lip to suppress a growl. Before the bad idea warning even had time to go off in his brain his hand was slowly inching towards her boobs.
“Touch the boobs and lose your hand,” She warned without looking away from the screen.
Jeff didn’t even acknowledge it, he just slowly moved his hand back to her arm.
Three hours later after a trip to Target for lights, ornaments, and a tree stand and a stop at two different places selling the actual trees Jeff kicked the apartment door open while wrestling with seven feet of tied up branches and needles.
He got the tree inside and leaned it up against the living room wall then proceeded to pick needles off of his coat. “We couldn’t get a fake one,” He grumbled.
Annie put the bags from Target on the coffee table and pulled out the stand, “Real ones are so much better. It wouldn’t have been so bad if you let me help you carry it up.”
“It’s not that heavy it’s just big,” He panted as he took off his coat and went to the front closet to hang it up. “Not to mention a fake one wouldn’t be such a mess or taken an hour and a half to pick out the perfect tree that will be dead and in a dumpster in a few weeks.”
She got on her toes to give him a quick peck on the lips, “Oh don’t be such a Grinch, it could have been much worse.”
Jeff frowned, “Annie, you rejected countless trees and I had to stand there twirling every single one around for you like some sort of Christmas-from-hell Vanna White.”
Annie tilted her head to the side and considered the tree that Jeff was currently spinning slowly. “Hmm, no, the branches look too shaggy.”
“It’s a tree, of course its branches look shaggy.”
“No, that one doesn’t,” She said pointing to the one two spots down.
“So get that one.”
“But that’s the one with the big hole in the middle of it!”
“So? We’re just going to cover it with stuff anyway.”
Annie ignored him, “Let me see the one to your left again.”
Jeff sighed and moved a step to his left, “You mean the one you just rejected two minutes ago because you thought it looked crooked?”
“Yes, I want to make sure I was right. Hmm…I was, I don’t like it.”
“Oh my God,” Jeff groaned.
She glared at him, “Well which one do you like then?”
“I don’t really care, Annie! It’s a tree that will be up for a couple of weeks then we’ll throw it out and never see it again. It’s not like we’re buying a house or something. Just pick one.”
Annie’s eyes began to get watery and wide. “But this is our first Christmas tree together! I just want it to be the perfect one because that’s a big milestone you know? Don’t you care?”
Jeff swallowed hard, he was slowly beginning to recognize her hormone induced tears and had figured out that if he acted quickly enough sometimes he could stop them before she started outright crying. “I’m sorry, baby. I know this is important to you and you want to make it nice. I’ll be fine with whatever tree you pick. I care more about being with you on Christmas than about finding the perfect tree, that’s all.”
Annie ‘aww’d’ and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Come on, lets go look in the other section.”
He sighed and followed her through the narrow aisles to the other side of the display.
Annie got the scissors out of a kitchen drawer and cut the ties off the tree while Jeff held it upright. “Where do you want it?”
“Umm, in the corner by the window. It’ll fit there, right?”
“Yeah, it should. If not I’ll move the side table over. You put the base down and hold it in place and I’ll pick it up and put it in.”
Annie sat on the floor and held the base still while Jeff lifted up the tree and wrestled it into the green contraption, mumbling curses under his breath the whole time. Something about fucking sap on his sweater that will never come out and the goddamn needles stabbing him in the face. Annie listened to him rant with an amused smile on her lips, “You know this is the only year muttering obscenities while decorating for Christmas is going to fly, right?”
Jeff glared at her through the sea of pine as he twisted the metal spokes against the trunk to hold it upright, “Well then I better make it count. This is a fucking pain in the ass.”
“I bet you’ll be glad we did it when it’s all done,” She sing-songed.
She heard him sigh out a “yeah yeah” from under the tree and poked at his back. He finally pulled himself out from under the tree and stretched out a kink in his back from the awkward position he had twisted himself in. Annie looked at him and tried to suppress a little giggle. “What?” He frowned.
“You have needles stuck in your hair,” She said as she reached forward and began picking them out.
He looked up through his eyelashes in an attempt to see her hand pick through his hair. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I found needles in my ass crack at this point.”
“Neither would I, we all know how high it is,” She teased.
“You love my ass and you know it.”
“God help me, I really do. It sure can fill out a pair of jeans.” She finished combing through his locks of short hair then stood up and went to the kitchen to throw away the needles. “Okay, time to decorate!” When she turned back around she found Jeff lying flat on his back with his hands folded over his chest.
“Can’t, too tired now,” He mumbled.
Annie marched over to him so she was upside down in his field of vision with her hands on her hips. “All you did was put a tree in a stand.”
“And get it all the way up here from the car. I’m older than you, I don’t have as much energy.”
“Well I’m pregnant, so I have even less energy on top of the nausea. I win. Get up.”
Jeff sighed as he pushed himself up from the floor. “You’re going to keep pulling the pregnancy card aren’t you?”
“When necessary.”
“Enjoy it while you can, it won’t last very long.”
Annie grinned at him, “No, but afterwards I’ll have the ‘I just gave birth to your child’ card.”
“I’m screwed,” He grumbled as he grabbed a box of lights and tore it open.
They eventually got the multi-colored lights and silver garland on without too much trouble, other than Jeff insisting on replacing a broken bulb himself because he didn’t want her to somehow get electrocuted and Annie constantly stopping to ensure that everything was evenly spaced, then moved on to the ornaments.
“You don’t want to do Hanukkah?” Jeff asked suddenly as he hung an ornament on a high branch.
Annie shrugged one shoulder, focused on untangling two green and silver balls that had become intertwined. “It already started anyway.”
He looked at her, “It did? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even notice until yesterday when I saw something about it online. We did both when I was a kid but I always liked Christmas better. After my parents got divorced my mom didn’t acknowledge it at all and I always missed it. Since I’m not really practicing either religion now I’d rather do Christmas, it’s more fun.”
“Well, if you ever want to celebrate Hanukkah I’ll light the menorah with you for eight days or whatever it is if you want.”
Annie looked up at him with a smile, “Thanks, sweetie. Maybe when the baby is a little older we can do both.” Suddenly she spun around and grabbed one of the plastic bags from Target, “Oh, when you weren’t looking I got some ornaments just for you. A sports car, a bottle of red wine, a cell phone, a Broncos one, and a yellow lab,” She said handing each one to him. “Put them wherever you want.”
Jeff laughed and looked at the decorations in his hands, “Wherever I want, huh? Even if it messes up your order?”
“Wherever you want,” She assured. “I’m trying to be better about giving up control of every little thing.”
He leaned down and planted a kiss on her lips, “Thanks, babe.”
She watched as he hung each ornament one by one, briefly pausing to consider where to put each before placing it on a branch. When they were all up he took a step back, “There, how’s that?”
“I wouldn’t have put the red bottle of wine so close to the red ball but if that’s where you want it then that’s where it’ll stay,” She said with a flip of her wrist and her voice a pitch higher than normal.
“That’s going to drive you crazy isn’t it?” Jeff asked with a smirk.
“No, no. It’s fine. It’s not going to ruin anything by having two red ornaments that close together,” Annie said with a resolute nod.
He chuckled at her attempt to let it go and handed her another ornament, “Here. You can think way too much about where to put this one.”
Annie took it from him with a playful grin, “You do know me so well.”
He gave her ass a little slap, “It just wouldn’t be you if you didn’t put too much effort into making something look random.”
She hung the glass snowflake on her chosen branch with a happy little squeak. “Hey, I admit it. I’m well aware of my neuroses.”
“They do say admitting it is the first step.”
“Exactly.” Annie picked up the glittery silver star from the coffee table and held it out to him, “Alright Mr. 6’4, it’s your job to put the star on top.”
He took the star from her and put it on the tippy top without even having to get on his toes. “How’s that?”
She took a few steps back to look over the whole tree, colorful lights, sparkling garland, ornaments and all, and clasped her hands in front of her chest, “Perfect.”
Jeff went to stand beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her into his side. “Yeah, we didn’t do too bad did we?”
“Nope. It looks great, like a real Christmas tree. Well, I mean, I know it’s a real tree, but it’s like you know…”
He looked down at her with a warm smile as she rambled and bounced against him. “Christmasy?”
“Yes! I love it. It’s just like the tree my grandma used to put up at her house.”
Jeff ushered her closer and she wrapped her arm around his stomach. “My mom always made sure we had a tree. Even if it was just a small one because that was all she could afford that year. After I moved out I never bothered to get one myself, she still puts one up every year though.”
Annie rested her chin on his chest and peered up at him, “Aren’t you glad I made you get one this time?”
He looked down at her sparkling eyes and smiled as he kissed her forehead, “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Part 7b