Slapping his hands together in anticipation, Angus carefully examined the empty room before him. It had taken months of planning and finagling to get Bindhi to agree that it was high time that the twins each had their own room. Even more time working together to figure out how to best use the extra rooms in the house (gods bless having a rich, hot wife who came with her own enormous home) and he'd done most of the clearing and cleaning to appease her inner wounded mamma bear.

And now, he had the whole weekend alone to pull his vision together and surprise her. He’d bundled her and the children off to visit out of town friends, promising that he wouldn’t be lonely or miss them too badly (he was and he did). The moment that he’d been sure that they were safely away, he’d dashed to the garage to bring out the painting supplies. He’d even roped Daisy into helping on the basis that they hadn’t visited in a while and she was better at painting than him. They’d each tackled a room and had managed to finish only a little after dark. Fans had been set up to help everything dry a little quicker. And now, with mostly dry paint, the little rooms sat side by side, radiating possibilities. Another call to co-workers got him help moving the kids’ furniture in and getting it arranged and set up.

By that point, Daisy had swung back by to drop off lovely little personalized knick knacks for the children.

“I mean, think about it, lunk,” she’d scolded. “They each have windows that catch the sunrise. Hang these up and they’ll have rainbow sparkles for days. They’re about the right age to be enamored with that.”

She’d laughed and left after dropping off handmade suncatchers. And he’d had to admit that she’d been right. The kids would love them and the little dancing rainbows would show up well against the soft, creamy white walls. Because he and Bindhi had decided a long time ago that they weren’t going to force their kids into gendered slots. So, unless asked for, there’d be no pink or blue themes anywhere.

The rest of that day had been spent in hanging pictures and little nets to hold stuffed animals and applying all the finishing touches that would showcase each little personality that would inhabit the rooms. Anne was particularly in love with all things woodland right now, so she had small hedgehogs, rabbits, deer and badgers hiding behind smiling mushrooms and wild flowers. He’d even managed to find a little round, braided rug in red and white that resembled a mushroom cap for her floor. And for her bedding and curtains, he’d found the loveliest shade of soft, mossy green. One twin down.

Aarne, much to his delight, also delighted in woodsy stuff, but with a decidedly medieval bent. So, he got dragons, mice in armor and foxes cosplaying as Robin Hood. His floor rug looked like weathered stone, such as one would find on a castle, and his various linens were a rich, wine red. By the time he’d finished getting everything just so, Angus was sweating. Wiping his face and pulling his hair up into a manbun, he hung the suncatchers in each window, surveyed his work and decided it was good. Neither room looked fancier than the other. Once she was done being surprised, he was sure Bindhi would love it. Grinning, the delighted papa ran to fetch one last touch for each room. These were small touches, but he was proud of them. He’d found them ages ago when the whole family had gone to Scotland to meet his kin. Seeing his own grandmother kiss the babies had been something that he’d never known he’d needed before that point. And, before they’d left to fly back home, she’d given him two small, soft dolls that she’d sewn together, one for each twin. He’d held onto them all this time, wanting to wait until the kids would be old enough to not destroy something so precious. Especially since Granny had since passed.

But now, now was the perfect time to bring them out. The dolls were homey things, sewn in the shape of rabbits. But each wore a small tartan jumper and jaunty hat. The only difference was the one for Anne featured a thistle blossom while Aarne’s had a feather. The love and workmanship of the rabbits had touched Angus’ heart then and now, they made him want to cry out of pure happiness. Setting each rabbit on it’s respective bed, he decided that everything was as perfect as he could make it.

All that was left was waiting for his family to come home so he could surprise them. And that would, hopefully, be in about an hour. Which meant he had time for a shower and starting dinner cooking. As he headed for the bathroom, he started to laugh at himself as he muttered happily under his breath, “Ah’ll be damned. Ah’ve been fecking domesticated.”

Word Count = 848