I just wanted this to be a real celebration and what is a day like this without cake? Who: Billy and Cora Where: Egypt What: Billy and Cora celebrate together a mixed holiday and do their best to coexist. When: Seven Months into their stay in Ancient Egypt Warnings/Rating: PG-13 for brief instance of nudity Status complete
Billy grinned as he stepped into their place, secured the door and windows and sighed with relief as he spoke the magic word in an undertone. His magic had grown and so the magic lightning happened invisibly now, and he shuddered and stretched as he slid back to his normal form.
“God, that feels better.” He hefted the bags and carried them in, grinning as he stepped into the kitchen, where magic now fueled something like a real oven, even if it looked like a very odd version of a firepit. He placed the ribs he had acquired on the top rack and then set about slowly mixing, carefully, the painstakingly acquired elements of a cake, until, with a grin, he slid it into the ovenspace, and spoke the magic word to make it start cooking. Those would both be done quickly, and he went to shower, and wait for Cora to come home. Today was the day of their birthday christmas celebration thing.
Soon, he was showering in the open shower area, and enjoying the water, the magic he had finally nailed down with Cora’s help making the water supply run through a loop, hot and good feeling, over and over.
Cora heard the water as she entered the house, and politely averted her eyes. She thought that the hot water system was probably the best gift they could have made for each other, short of a working time machine, but she was still looking forward to the celebration. It wasn’t really Christmastime, of course--more like Easter--but that was okay. With luck, they’d be celebrating actual Christmas back home.
Showering in the hot water, Billy relished it and the pleasure of it made him go hard, even as he washed off. Billy finished showering and stepped out with the towel above his head, drying his hair, and it was only as he lowered it that he realized he was standing, facing Cora, naked and almost running into her, then he was falling, and laughing, as he hit the floor, losing his grip on towel and dignity. His mouth moved soundlessly, then he lay there and chuckled. “Well, so much for dignity.” He covered himself as best he could as he slowly sat up. “Sorry.”
It wasn’t until the water shut off and Billy’s naked, wet body was suddenly standing in front of her that Cora realized maybe she ought to have tried to make some noise when she came in. She forgot, sometimes, just how quiet she could be with her innate, spidery stealth. “Oh! Um…”
Her cheeks flamed, visibly pink without the dark complexion of her Egyptian disguise to camouflage it, and her eyes darted up, down, and sideways as she tried to find somewhere--anywhere--else to look but at Billy’s lap. That sight was meant for someone else’ eyes...but it was hard not to see when it was right in front of her, even if she wasn’t really looking.
“My fault,” she said, turning her face away and scratching her head. Maybe she ought to braid some bells in her hair, or something. “I forgot to say, ‘Lucy, I’m home!’”
“Not your fault, Cora. Really. It’s okay. It was inevitable that one of us would see the other naked, sooner or later, with us living in such close quarters.” He was blushing badly, but nodding. “I didn’t mean to ah, put it in your face like that.”
“It’s…” She wasn’t sure if ‘okay’ was the word she’d use. It was still a little startling, even if it wasn’t the first one--or the most startling one--that she’d ever seen. But she’d recover. “It’s not actually in my face. I come up to here now.” She put her hand on the top of her head, measuring approximately how tall she stood next to Billy. When he was standing up, that is.
“And I’ve seen one before.”
Billy laughed, and then nodded. “Good. At least it’s not completely alien. And thank you.” He reached for a larger towel and stood, briefly flashing her again as he wrapped it around him. He smiled softly, then and hugged her, before nodding. “The food should be done soon and I managed to get stuff for the cake, so, yay!” Yes, ignoring that he was still hard under that towel, yes. And blushing, yes.
And that hugging her against him had felt very good.
Nope, not completely alien. In fact, it looked very human--not that Cora was looking! Or paying attention to what she could or couldn’t feel under the towel. Nope. Definitely not thinking about penis-shaped cake pans!
“Have I mentioned that you’re amazing?” she asked, concentrating on the fact that there was going to be cake in any shape at all. Cake! In mythically ancient Egypt!
Billy blushed and smiled to her. No penis shaped cake pans. Not exactly penis shapes, anyway.
“Thanks. I just wanted this to be a real celebration and what is a day like this without cake?”
Then the oven and top binged, and he led the way to it, to remove the ribs and the cake. The cake looked amazing!
“Yes!”
“I am sufficiently impressed,” Cora said, trying not to look at Billy’s backside when he took the cake out of the oven. It did look amazing. The cake, that is. She would deny having any sort of opinion regarding Billy’s backside.
Billy, had he known she was so determinedly not looking at his backside, might have shaken it a little, but since he did not, he instead just unbent and then set the cake aside to cool, even as he cut the ribs and put them on the stone plates. “Happy BirthChrisDayMas.” He handed her a plate.
Cora giggled, accepting the plate, and inhaling the aroma of the food. “Thank you,” she said, “And Happy Easter. I almost forgot about that.” There would probably be some native spring fertility festivals to mark that, though. And some of them would probably make her blush. “This smells amazing. Have you always liked to cook?” It seemed like Billy did as much, if not more of the cooking than she did.
”Oh yeah! I forgot too!” He chuckled and then lifted his ribs, before pausing. “Yeah. Mostly just because I was always wanting to be independent, because we had too many kids and i was the odd one out.” He smiled ruefully. “So I cooked, and slowly learned to cook more.”
Then he started eating, nudging her with one towel concealed hip.
“You’re pretty good at it,” she said, fighting a strange urge to glance down when he nudged her. Thankfully, her plate made a good screen, and she was anxious to taste Billy’s ribs--the cooked ones, not the ones inside his bare chest. So she did. “Really good.”
He blushed again and felt a warmth inside, even as he started eating the ribs. It was nice, being around her, and working with her. They were good partners and friends. And she was hot, something he was suddenly aware of. He pushed that aside and concentrated on eating. When he finished his first plate, he washed his hands and passed her the magic towel, not the one on his hips, and nodded.
“Ready for cake?” Maybe they could celebrate and get through this, somehow.
Cora was glad that the awkward, uncomfortable moment had passed; proud of herself for not getting so worked up about what she’d seen. She knew if she had gotten upset, then Billy would have probably been even more embarrassed, and she didn’t want that.
She smiled, sighing contentedly as they finished the main course, setting down her plate and cleaning her fingers--and her chin. “I’m ready when you are.”
Billy rose to cut the cake, then served them each pieces and small cups of brandy, hard won here and now. Not the Brandy of their time, but something different that he called by that name, here. He broke it out only on special occasions and poured them each a half cup.
“To us, and to surviving and getting home, sometime soon.” He nodded and raised his cup to her.
Cora thanked him, and raised her glass, smiling at him as she joined the toast. “To friends, who make the waiting more…” She searched for words. Bearable seemed to fall short. “More of an adventure.”
And that would make it okay, he hoped. That had to make it okay.