#I dub he this season's anime Tony Stark

[syncopatedid]

Fugou Keiji Balance: Unlimited : Daisuke Kambe

[hybridowllymain]

Here is an idea/prompt, which I have mentally dubbed 'Pine Needles.' And yes, it is a Christmas story, but fluff has no season.

Stephen is a hotshot big city veterinarian, but gets in major trouble when he refuses to give an influential asshole his very abused dog back; Stephen wins the lawsuit, keeps the dog, but loses his job, and the full function of his hands. 

He's in a bit of a funk, sulking about his apartment and cuddling his dog, and complaining that pretty much the only thing his physical therapist can get his hands to do with any consistency is the motions for knitting of all things, his bff/ex Christine starts bringing him jobs from upstate (because he got blacklisted in the city hard) it's not a vet job, but something else involving animals (horse doctor/animal documentation researcher, specifically? Idk), so after he's lost enough money that he kinda has to do it, he packs up and goes. When he expresses to Christine (who helps him pack) that he will be bored out his mind, Christine flippantly says he should take up knitting.

Once he gets there, first day he runs into Tony, who is obnoxiously attractive and obnoxiously annoying, a Christmas tree farmer with a gaggle of foster kids, who has a reply for anything Stephen can throw at him and makes Stephen's heart race (but Stephen chooses to think of it as extreme loathing).

Wong is his coworker at the animal job, and doesn't think Stephen is funny, and listens to Beyoncé when he thinks no one can hear him; don't question it.

And he is bored in between his job and running into tony, so he does take up knitting after all, getting surprisingly good at it surprisingly fast, to the point where he starts throwing things he's made at people and basically running away before they force him to talk about it.

Things happen (baking competition, Stephen and Tony inexplicably thrown together by tony's kids? A ton wide snowball fights that Stephen and Tony get really competitive about and end up liking in the snow next to each other, breathing hard from exertion and from laughing so hard, grumbling at how the kids had stolen Stephen's dog? Ice skating? Idk, fluffy Christmas stuff) and their interactions get softer, sweeter, and Tony and Stephen get closer and closer, and Stephen realizes that he's gone and fallen for the guy. 

Tony admits he has heart problems, that his former partner couldn't take all the hospital visits, even if he was able to turn it around eventually; he doesn't blame her. Stephen does his best not say 'let me. Let me hold your hand at doctor visits, and help make dinner with your crazy, wonderful kids, and knit a thousand stupid gaudy sweaters for you. Let me love you. Love me, too.'

But he doesn't say that, makes his excuses and leaves.

He does his best to deny it, to bury himself in work, even look into a job in the city again when someone comes looking for him and says that he's the best and he'd be welcomed back now that everything's blown over. The kids try to check on him for Tony, but Stephen sends them away. He keeps thinking about Tony, and his kids, and how full he feels when he's with them, like something that has been missing isn't missing anymore.

It finally gets to the point where he's all packed up in his car, ready to go back to the city. He's said his goodbyes, even the hard one to Tony, and he's miserable but determined. And the dog. Refuses. To leave.

This has never happened before; he's the most obedient dog ever. But he's not leaving. The dog steals his scarf, and leads Stephen on a merry chase, before finally being caught in the park. Stephen makes an impassioned speech about how he doesn't want to leave, either, but Tony is never going to love him back, and it's killing him, and he has to leave. And Stephen looks up when he hears a noise; and Tony is there.

Yadda yadda yadda, getting together, admitting mutual pining, kisses, the dog jumping on Stephen and locking his face happily. They stay, Stephen spends Christmas with the Starks, and every Christmas thereafter.