kiramaru7 | Fall Fest Bingo/Holiday Prompts (Autumn) 16

Title: Sketching a Still life
Author: kira
Table: Autumn: Images (Holiday Prompts)
Prompt: Image 16; books, pinecones, candle, and tea
Fandom: Original
Characters: Didi, Tino, mention of their family
Word count: 416
Rating: G
Summary: Tino sketches a still life he set up...
Author’s note: Special thanks to my beta Kat for pinking this. Please also note that this was also written for Holiday Prompts Autumn: Images table.

“Tino! What are you doing?!” Didi cried as he came into their bedroom with a basket of laundry. While his beloved had an interesting vignette set up to sketch, Didi felt the lit candle on the bed was asking for trouble. He tried not to wince when Tino, who was sitting on the bed, shifted slightly.

“Sketching. Wanna see it?” Tino looked over his shoulder and beamed at his husband.

Didi sputtered wordlessly. He took a deep breath to calm himself down and said, “Yes, but can we put out the candle?” Didi set the basket of laundry on the floor and hurried over to Tino. He gazed over his beloved’s shoulder at the sketch. “I like it, but…”

Tino frowned as he looked over his shoulder at Didi. “But what?”

“The candle. If that falls over…”

Tino giggled. “If it falls over, it’ll probably go out. Besides, it’s in a jar and it’s on that wooden tray Bernd got us at the Fall Fest last week.” He looked up at Didi and smiled impishly. “You’re mad at the candle and not at the book?”

“The book?” Didi frowned.

Tino waved his hand at the pile of books. He had a small stack of three, the top one, a paperback, had its cover curled back under it. Despite knowing how much Didi hated any sort of “book abuse,” it looked far more interesting than a simple stack. He basically wanted a vignette that showed someone had been reading and got up, with little elements of autumn mixed in. That was why Didi’s fisherman’s sweater was tossed in there, along with a couple of leaves and pinecones. He even snuck his husband’s reading glasses in. To round things out, he added the earrings Amber had left behind when everyone came over for Thanksgiving dinner and the old photo Didi found in the hardcover book.

“It’s not a new book; it’s that one you got at the used bookstore. You know, the one you said had an abusive previous owner, who bent the spine and dog-eared the pages. I thought, since it had already been put that way, it wouldn’t mind if it did it again for art…”

Didi heaved a long suffering sigh.

Tino gave him his best cute and adorable smile.

Didi shook his head, He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and groan. When he turned to pick up the laundry basket and carefully set it on the bed, Tino knew all was forgiven.