A/N:

Surprise, but I miscalculated and this still has five chapters lmao. It ends on the twelfth chapter.

DAYS IN, Christmas coming soon, and Orion still couldn't get over one measly fact. Hanging it over my head like a mistletoe or poison ivy. He perceives it as something nice and sweet as mistletoe, I say it feels more like poison ivy ready to attack my esophagus.

This afternoon, Orion's chance to pinch me with it again came while we were both working out the dough for my Christmas biscuits. I had prepped ingredients over the counter, both of us elbow deep in flour and kneading when he popped it in again like a bomb, leaning close to me that I stopped and stared at him with a dead-fish stare while a slow, burning smile rose on his lips.

"You said I'm your boyfriend," he said, grinning.

I gritted my teeth, looking away. "I never said boyfriend."

"Your beau."

"Shut up."

"I get it, I get it." Then he was snickering again, a minute into a supposed silence. I exhaled, trying to ease up my jaw. "You needed a cover story just in case anyone tries to visit you and they see me here." He raised an eyebrow. "I just didn't expect that excuse."

"They know I don't need a lot of things, I've been living alone for years now and have survived for years without companion nor help from anyone. Second, I can't say you're a relative because my dads side of the family is gone and my mom... Well, she grew up in foster care in the city. She never liked it out there so when she found my dad - lives literally in nowhere - it was perfect for her."

"Can I... Can I ask about your parents?"

"Sure, but there's not much to ask. They've been dead since I was a kid. My nonna never talked, I never felt the need for any answers, so I don't know much. I only have photographs of them. I look a lot like my mother, but my eyes are Amon eyes. All seeing and wide as a deer."

Orion peered, moving close. I stopped and watched him asses with a tilt of his head and a narrow of his own eyes. At this proximity, I notice his green eyes were lighter than I thought, with flecks of gray that made it lighter. He had a small birthmark close to one side of his nose like a scar, and it was so very small. He had moles too. A constellation of them.

I held my breath as he began speaking.

"I wouldn't say a deer. A deer has surprisingly small eyes. I'd say more of a cow's."

I raised both my eyebrows. "Gee, thanks."

"No, no, it's a compliment, haven't you heard of it before? I mean it is a pretty old compliment, but cow's eyes are so big and pretty. They have nice lashes and they look innocent."

"I look innocent?"

Orion only smiled. "I said what I said. So you're making biscuits this time? For the diner?" Before I could reply, "You should really think about selling them. You make a batch every work day and you just... give them out. There's some serious profit here, enough for, well, a fund."

Interest stop the refute, I tapped his hand over the dough. "Flatten it now. Not too thin though. Enough for a sizeable biscuit. What do you mean about a fund?"

"Enough for travel, I suppose."

I blinked. "Did I seem that desperate to leave my house?"

"No," Orion said. "But that's the problem isn't it? Sometime, at some point, you should have a healthy idea to escape your house and find the Big Adventure."

Hunter's conversation a few days back rose like a hungering thought. Two people have said this to me now. "Is it always a healthy to want to escape your home?"

Orion smiled. "At some point."

"Really," I hummed. "When was yours?"

"A very first thought - is this enough thinnes?" At my nod, he nodded back, bobbing his head to silent tune. " - would've been six, my dad was preparing me what to do with my shifting and how I could prevent it or better yet, employ hiding techniques. The fight training came later and was almost always assumed it be my last stand. After a rigorous training that ended up getting hilariously black and blue, I was shivering in the corner of the stables - don't laugh, I lived in a farm - when I just thought of packing up and leaving. As if I left, I'd stop whatever was happening. Coming like an omen over my head with someone nailing the coffin just one closer each day."

A minute of silence, then I whispered. "I knew it."

"Hm?"

"No stable household would let a kid want to leave it."

Orion stared. Then burst out laughing. "That's true."

"But I'm sorry too. As a child, you never had a choice. But it isn't something you should be ashamed of."

"I'm learning that now. Living with you has helped that. In fact... I've been going outside on my own."

I stopped. My hands paused at a star shaped cookie cutter. "What?"

"It's nothing to worry about, you've taught me well. Just a couple of spots outside while you're at work. I mean, it can get boring being stuffed inside for so long. Not that your house is horrible it's just - the fresh air. The running. I know to spot the traps now. Especially the deadly ones, so don't worry. I'm fine," he assured, heavy on the last part. "I'm working on it and it's been... well, it's been a different adventure on its own."

I exhaled a long breath, realized I'd kept it for so long until he finished his explanation. I didn't know what else to say.

"Just be careful."

"I am. You're a brilliant teacher." Another silence where it felt punctured now, he shifted and hummed. "So... I'm just noticing we're doing Christmas cookies." He twirled a red cookie cutter of a reindeer. Then a santa shaped one.

"I do it every year."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Obviously not."

"Then why are you tense?"

"I'm always tense."

Orion shook his head. "Not really. Just as you are not as... cold as you think you are." At my pause, Orion backtracked quickly. "I'm not saying anything, I mean it's pretty necessary when you live alone and you live in the woods. I also notice how... you miss some social cues. I just notice you. I'm sorry if that's too invasive. I guess living together for a while with not a lot to do, I just... I notice things. I'm sorry, just ignore what I said."

"I'm not angry," I finally said. "It's understandable if you notice all of those things in close quarters and long periods of time. I... I actually don't know what to say to all of what you just said."

"I'm sorry," he repeated even when I shook my head.

Silence overtook again, this time a little tense where every little sound felt punctured and loud. But I pushed through it, wanting to finish my first batch as I pondered, realizing that whatever Orion and I have... we're going through and noticing things about each other. Differences and ticks that could only be seen during a time this close and lengthened.

And for god's sakes, I was making him a sweater for Christmas.

We're on for another dough, the first batch already on the oven. The smell of spices today was a blend of cinnamon and vanilla, something warm and nice just days before Christmas. Orion had even started up Christmas songs from his phone, a repeated mix of Mariah Carey and a chipmunks version.

"Look," he started after a while again, our hands sticky as we forced out the new dough to cooperate. "Will I be properly cleared if I promise that you'll love your Christmas present?"

"I'm getting a Christmas present?"

He smiled softly. "You don't have to get me one, I promise. It was supposed to be a thank you but it might also be a sorry now."

"You don't need to."

"I want to."

"Okay."

He laughed softly. "You are very easily convinced to accept presents, I'm surprised. I thought you'd fight me more."

"You'll go possibly catatonic when you realize I enjoy presents then. I absolutely enjoy receiving them and even more giving them."

"Well now I feel pressured."

I stared at him in the way that assured him to exhale. That we were okay. "You should be."

And it worked. He cracked a laugh. His laughter felt so warm, something that vibrates in his chest and made his eyes half grin in a way that I strangled a smile of my own.

Later that day, several batches cooling and ready to be packed in tupperwares, I was knitting several presents so it wouldn't be too obvious when Orion woke up from his nap, rousing from my bed. We've made an arrangement that when he wasn't in wolf form, he could sleep on my bed as long as it's free to use.

He stretched then stuffed himself on the other end of the couch. Watchful of his sleepy eyes, I pushed back his own gift further into the pillow I was using, covering Elsie's blue skirt I was working on over it.

"I'm... going out."

I raised my head. His smile was wry. "I didn't want to spring it on you, but I've been trying to venture out everyday and this is the first time you don't have a shift so -"

"- It's fine," I said, voice poised. "As long as you come back alive, I did train you to practice loving being in your wolf form. It's only right that you do your routine."

"You can come?"

I raised my half done skirt. "Busy."

He nodded then untangled himself. Going for the door, I couldn't help it and blurt out, my throat catching. "Be careful, Orion."

He turned with that smile, wry and sweet, and said, "I'll come back with some digestible wild mushrooms. Saw we had some tomato sauce and I may or may not have an Italian recipe for pizza that has blown the socks off Italian mothers... maybe we can have pizza tonight?"

"Considering I'm half Italian, you can bet it's going to be a challenge."

He smiled at the challenge, then his eyes softened.

"I'll be back, Bree. I promise."

I blinked, throat clogged again but let it go, nodding as he soon left, the door falling shut.

"I'll be back, little bee. I promise."

Words my nonna said every time she left me alone. A promise she followed through until she got sick, my hand over her own at the local hospital two towns over. The smell was sharp and I could smell her illness. Old enough to understand she won't be back to the house, old enough to understand it will be one of the only promises she would ever break.

But I shook my head, working out furiously on Elise's skirt.

He'll be back. He's smart and he learned from me. He's fast and he's brilliant.

But I couldn't stop worrying, and only until he's back in the house, safe and sound that I would be reassured.

That... I realized, was a moment that I came to the conclusion that I care about Orion. A werewolf in a world where it kills people like us. Different and traitors.

Great, Bree. Good sense of self-preservation.

But it was only until Orion scratched the front door with his massive paw and I led him inside, almost jumping out of the couch where I had finished two more knitted gifts - his own, done - and even prepped the supposed pizza contest we were going to have, that I confirmed in my released breath. If there was anything to happen to him, it would affect me.

And that is very, very dangerous.

And yet...

He came out of the bathroom, hair half wet from the snow, grin wide and beaming, as he showed and brushed off the mushrooms he found. "I took them in my jaw because I didn't have a basket, so they might be... a little slobbered, but I will still use them and bury you with my pizza."

And yet, I smiled back, welcoming him into that part of my heart that felt protective and understood the smidge of what my nonna said was love. Love for family and friends, love that understood.

"Fine, wolf boy. Prepare to slave away to your loss."