notanightlight:

Gimli hated working late at the office. He trudged up the stairs of his home with heavy feet, shrugging off his suit coat as he climbed.

He knew he missed dinner by at least an hour or two. He glanced down at his watch to see exactly by how much and winced. Gimli was going to slaughter the idiot who botched the Moria deal he had to spend the last half of his day untangling. He was just lucky that Legolas was understanding.

Days like this made Gimli want to find a way to work from home the way Legolas had.

He just figured that he’d just change into some comfy clothes and grab some leftovers from the fridge when he heard a voice wafting down the hallway.

“My shiny teeth and me!” his husband’s voice sang. There was a slightly poppy tone to it, so unlike the soft lullabies Gimli was used to hearing him sing.

“My shiny teeth that twinkle, just like the stars in space,” Legolas’s voice floated out of the open door of the bathroom. Gimli followed it there, leaning against the door jam to watch the scene inside.

Legolas was bopping as he sang, their little girl bopping along with him as she scrubbed her Princess Merida toothbrush over her teeth.

“My shiny teeth that sparkle, adding beauty to my face!” Legolas sang. He caught Gimli’s eye in the bathroom mirror and winked, grinning as he apparently ran out of lyrics he knew.

“Sing the shiny teef song ‘gain, Daddy!” their daughter chirped, foamy toothpaste still smeared around her mouth.

“Those must be some really shiny teeth,” Gimli said, grinning as the little girl squealed ‘Papa!’ as high as she could!

Legolas put a hand on her shoulder.

“Rinse and spit so Papa can see how shiny they are,” Legolas instructed with a smile as he set a cup of water in her reach.

She quickly grabbed the cup, swished, and spat before rubbing her little face dry with the hand towel. Then she sprang into Gimli’s arms as he scooped her up.

“Look how shiny my teeth are!” she cried, before showing off her freshly brushed pearly whites.

Gimli inspected them critically, humming in a very serious manner before declaring, “Why, Gracie, those must be the shiniest teeth I’ve ever seen!”

Legolas was giggling behind a hand, positively beaming.

“Have you decided what PJs you’re wearing tonight?” Gimli asked his little treasure.
She shook her head.

“Then you go pick out a pair and I’ll help you finish getting ready for bed,” he said, setting her back on her feet.
Legolas walked over to him, giving him a quick peck on the lips as Gracie raced off to her bedroom to pick out some PJs.

“Thank goodness for that show,” he murmured, a little laugh still lingering in his voice. “It made toothbrush time fun for her. Hard day?”

Gimli let his head fall on to Legolas’s shoulder.

“You have no idea,” he groaned.

Legolas gave another peck to the crown of his head, lifting a hand to rub at the tense muscles of Gimli’s shoulder.

“I’ll heat up some spaghetti and garlic bread for you while you tuck Grace in,” he said.

“Thanks,” Gimli said gratefully. He stood a moment more enjoying the closeness before he felt a smile steal over his face at the sounds of Gracie discussing pajama choices with her stuffed elephant.

“Think she’ll choose a matching pair this time?” he asked with grin.

“Well there’s a first time for everything,” Legolas said wryly before heading downstairs to make up a plate of dinner.

Later that night, after he had gotten Grace dressed in her PJs of choice (ballerinas on the bottoms and spaceships on the top), tucked into bed, and told her a bedtime story, Gimli stood in the doorway and couldn’t bring himself to move away. He still hadn’t changed out of his work clothes and he could smell garlic and tomato sauce from downstairs, but he just couldn’t help but pause and count his blessings that this was his life.

It had been a long, frustrating, drawn out process to adopt Grace, but from the first time he ever held her as a tiny, lonely baby to now as he watched her sleeping peacefully he had never regretted a moment of it. And he knew he never would.

“So what story was it tonight?” Legolas asked quietly as he came up to stand by Gimli’s side.

“Tonight she wanted a story about how the littlest elephant in the herd fought a scary dragon and freed the jungle,” Gimli replied.

Legolas just shook his head with a fond smile. Gracie’s imagination was something of a marvel.

“We’ll have to take her to the zoo again soon,” he said, looking at their daughter with such a tender expression on his face that Gimli felt humbled. He reached for Legolas’s hand, running his thumb over the ring there.

“How did we get so lucky?” he murmered.

“I don’t know,” Legolas replied, leaning into Gimli’s side. “Ten years ago I wouldn’t have thought any of this was possible, and now it’s just…”

“Perfect,” Gimli completed. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

“It’s more than perfect,” Legolas said. “It’s ours.”

And as Gimli stood there, married to the man he loved, watching over the best daughter he could dream of, he found he really couldn’t argue with that.
End.

(Thank you for the prompt! This was the silliest one I’ve gotten and so it got the most tooth rottingly fluffy ficlet I could write!)