Vigilante | ✔

Annual #1

Perhaps the most surprising thing was his profession.

After all the mystery surrounding Matthew's life, all the wild speculations the public and media had about the man behind Vigilante's mask, it turned out his day job was about as far as you could get from the slightly insane man who spent his nights beating up people in the name of justice — a children's book illustrator. Eli wasn't going to lie, he'd laughed when he found out. The last bit of his faith in the world had probably left him with that laugh too.

He supposed at least it gave Matthew the chance to make a working schedule that suited him. Not to mention, it gave him time to go out at night on what Eli thought was the world's worst hobby. And really, Eli wouldn't mind it so much if Matthew didn't end up getting hurt so damn often.

With a sigh of frustration, Eli grabbed the tv remote from the coffee table, intending to watch something to take his mind off Matthew's latest attempt at getting killed. He watched about half of a classic holiday film before he dozed off, Matt the cat resting on his lap (where he'd perched after seemingly forgiving Eli for trespassing on what he deemed his property). Eli was, in his state of deep sleep, unaware of the warmth and pleasant aroma filling the apartment. Neither did he hear the painfully off-key Christmas carols drifting from the kitchen.

It wasn't until the redhead was awoken by some not so subtle poking that he noted something was different. Of course, this was after shooting a glare Matthew's way. The man was standing at the other end of the couch, leaning against it while he used one of the crutches he'd been given to poke Eli into wakefulness. Eli could think of better ways to be woken up.

"What?" he asked groggily, rubbing his now aching neck. He paused and sniffed the air, brow furrowing as he caught a sweet and familiar scent. "Why does it smell like cookies?" he asked, looking at Matthew with a confused — and still sleepy — expression.

"Because I made cookies," Matthew answered easily, as if that weren't just about as unexpected as, well, as anything else Matthew ever did. Eli should probably not have been surprised by this point.

"You made cookies," Eli stated flatly. He was still having a hard time processing this. Then again, he had just woken up.

"Well you can't have Christmas without Christmas cookies," Matthew said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I think you're missing the point here," Eli said, sitting up and earning a glare from Matt, who still rested on his lap. "Since when the hell can you bake?" he asked. Honestly, Matthew had no right to look that insulted.

"Just because I don't usually do it doesn't mean I can't," he said, and okay, fair point. Eli was still wondering if he was having some weird dream. When Matt dug his claws into Eli's leg he knew that wasn't the case, his life was just that weird.

Maybe it was a bit sad that he would find something as mundane as Christmas cookies so out of the norm. Eli still stared at the plate of freshly baked treats that sat on his kitchen table, seeming to greet him in all their perfectly frosted glory when he walked into the room. And they were perfectly frosted. With no small amount of disbelief, Eli picked one up and examined the magazine cover worthy little tree, complete with tiny strings of lights and a star at the top. His gaze went back to the plate which was filled with more Christmas tree shaped cookies along with candy canes, peppermints, stars and snowflakes, each and every one of them looking like they'd come out of a holiday issue of Good Housekeeping.

Eli bit into the cookie he was holding and braced himself because surely, surely, they couldn't taste as good as they looked. After all, Matthew was an illustrator, of course he could frost a couple of cookies. He felt his eye twitch a bit as he realized that no, they really were delicious.