(no subject)
Title: Trick or Treat? Chapter 20.
Characters: Eden/Gabriel.
Rating: R.
Word count: 2,145.
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summery: They make a deal of convenience together.
Note: Very, very AU. Gabriel talks with his mother.
Overall WC: 43,703.
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
The winter of 1861 rolls in and with it the start of the Civil War. News of battles, death and victory met the peoples of the village and they eat it up hungrily. At first the men had volunteered in their thousands, eager to serve their country and newly elected president. But as another year rolled by and then another the enthusiasm that they could win against the south waned with every report of loss of life. But those reports were just something that was happening in another place, making an impression but not governing the day to day life of unaffected people.
Eden wakes him with teasing kisses, pulling the sheet down as she pressed her lips his chest, his abdomen. She feels him stir and he look down at her in sleepy bemusement. For the last two years they had relaxed with into the grove that they had made together. The only irritation being Eden’s hope and disappointment at her lack of conceiving and Gabriel’s fear and then relief when it didn‘t happen. He had given into her wishes, sleeping with her as she wished but she wasn’t satisfied. She had been aggravated by that nag and Gabriel felt guilty for thanking god it wasn’t replaced with anything he feared. Like now.
“Any reason why you’re down there? Not that I‘m complaining…”
She just smiled and dipped her hand under the sheet covering his hips and took him in hand. She kissed his stomach again, touch tickling. “I just wanted to say thank you…” Her finger slowly circled around his head and she stroked him into hardness.
“Wh - what for?” He got up on his elbows and watched her, feelings of pleasure mixing with apprehension. Her hand stopped and she looked up at him. Her eyes were nervous, cheeks red but she couldn‘t stop that ecstatic smile from appearing. Her hand squeezed convulsively and Gabriel jerked and moaned softly.
“You know for what.” Neither of them spoke up again. Gabriel fell back onto his pillow as she lowered herself down, her mouth, lips and tongue replacing her hand and fingers. He grips the sheet below him in tight fists and closes his eyes, trying to focus on the sucking and licking sensations she was giving him but he couldn’t. She was working him into a frenzy and the anxiety that he had been keeping bottled inside was about to be released.
“You’re pregnant? After all this time?” Her lips paused on him at the sound of his voice before swallowing him, taking him into her throat. She just wanted him happy, just wanted him to be happy for both of them. But she then felt his hands on her forearms and she was pulled off and over turned onto her back. He was breathing hard, erection pressing into her belly as his eyes looked at her with a burning intensity.
“Yes Gabriel.”
He couldn’t look at her. He had been living with the foolish hope that if it hadn’t happened after they had stopped taking precautions then he was safe. He was very, very wrong. “How far along?” He talked to her throat.
“I missed my monthly last week. You know I‘m regular as clock work.” She was rubbing his back, a tremble in her voice. “Please look at me Gabe…Gabriel?”
He looked up at her, lost. “I hoped, I hoped that…” He trailed off unable to speak when she was looking at him with so much worry and upset. He kissed her, whispering hurried apologies as he mirrored her intentions from earlier and moved down her naked body. She was stiff with tension, had been all along and he took her thighs in his hands as he spread her legs, kissing the inside and digging his thumbs in with a gently firmness, loosening her muscles. He moved his face between her legs and applied his tongue to her, making her shudder and moan his name in pleasure with every lick and twirl until she was arching off the bed, hand slapping over her own mouth to stifle her shouts. She had guided him into her afterwards and he came quickly with a unavoidable feeling that he shouldn’t be in her, not anymore.
The summer was here and the it only elevated the tension, not just in their home but all over the country. But Gabriel couldn’t think of that, not when he had Eden. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, her belly in particular watching for the tell-tell rounding but she remained flat. But she still maintained that she was pregnant. Another month was almost at an end and he had to accept the fact that he was going to be a father. Now that it was an actual fact he feels himself acting differently then he thought he would. On one hand he was at a loss of how to move around her or even touch her anymore. She was evolved into something else that wasn’t solely focused on him anymore, or even herself. She was preoccupied absolutely on the life growing inside her, nursing it to be born while Gabriel was terrified of it happening.
But knowing that she was carrying his son or daughter made him extra watchful, worrying that something would happen to her. He watched what she ate, what she wore and where she walked. Eden grew increasingly annoyed at his conflicting intentions towards her, pulling away from her while treating her like some priceless, precious trinket that could shatter at any minute unless treated with care. He touched her with only light watchmaker fingertips.
“You don’t touch me anymore.” They’re in bed, trying to get to sleep in the sticky heat.
Gabriel turned his face to her. “I do, I’m touching you now.” He had his fingers on her belly, resting gently.
“No you’re not, not really. You don’t hold me properly anymore; I get the feeling of your finger-pads brushing on my skin put it’s insubstantial. I want you to make love to me but you won’t. I - I don’t think I’m showing very much, just a little. Do I put you off? D-disgust you?” Her eyes where tear rimmed and she was trying to hold it in.
“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, that will never change.” He bent over her and pressed soft kisses to her cheek, repeatedly.
“Then why won’t you touch me!?”
“Because I don’t feel that you’re mine anymore. I’ve been replaced.” He hadn’t even intended to say it but it escaped him, the thing that had been on his mind, eating away at him.
“Gabriel…” She stared at him with a frown. “This is your child to, it’s not a thing that is just exclusive to me. Having it won’t change my feelings towards you.” She curled herself around him and he drew her closer, curling his own body around hers. “I love you…”
Gabriel felt his heart expand. Every time she said those words to him he just soaked it up like sunshine. He bent down and kissed her rounding belly with a firm kiss. This seemed to placate her and she fell asleep with a troubled free face. He settled around her again and joined her in rest.
*
“…Isaac. Please…Isaac, show me it. Oh…yessss. Mmm.”
Gabriel had those words running through his mind for days, collecting them every night to brood on after. She had been talking in her sleep. Moaning in her sleep another man’s name. In the daylight hours she goes around like nothing was happening, just accepting his sulky, frosty attitude as another of his turns. But her emotions grew more volatile as the weeks past and she found it best to just leave him be if he was in a nervous worry and likely to anger.
Gabriel saw this as justification that she was growing tired of him and sunk deeper into his own insecurities. After a particularly angry argument about Eden going out to help his mother in the garden with the planting Gabriel was left sitting alone in the kitchen, shoulders knotted with tension and breathing laboured with the inability to stop himself weeping. He covered his face with his hands when Virginia stepped inside.
“Gabriel? What’s the matter?” She made to place her arms around him but he swivelled in his seat away from her. She just set her mouth in a line and sat down next to him. Even though she found it all but impossible to do so, she knew when to back off, or at least she was trying to. “What’s gotten you upset my angel?”
Her soft voice made him turn to her tearfully. “Oh you know what mom.”
“Eden? Gabriel…you’ve got to take care of her, she’s so lucky to have someone like you and don’t forget that she knows it. Having a baby changes you Gabriel.” Her eyes lit up. “Like you, when I knew I was going to-”
“Please, I can’t handle hearing about my birth again.” He sat back in his chair, sniffing and miserable. “I know that having a baby is life changing and the way she acts now won’t last.” He suddenly eyes his mother quickly. “Hopefully.” He whispered under his breath.
She carries on staring at him, wanting to speak, to prod, but she stayed silent, waiting. Gabriel looked down at the wedding band still on her finger, shining dully he thought. He looked back up. “Why do you still wear that?” His mother looks down at the ring in surprise then back up at him.
“It’s stuck Gabriel.”
“You never told me that.”
Virginia smiled gently. “You never asked.” She didn’t ask for it to be removed as he probably could do and he didn’t offer. He let the silence stretch, the need to speak, to off load growing strong with every passing tick of the clock hand.
“I - I’m scared Ma. It’s not Eden I’m really upset at, well not much.” Isaac flashed through his mind like a stab. “I sometimes think that the baby isn’t mine and that would be ok because the alternative…It’s me, I think something bad will happen when the baby is born, something will change and it will be me.” He was speaking faster now, powered by everything that had been troubling him since her first started sleeping with Eden. “I’ve always wanted to be someone else, someone with importance, I just wanted to change. And I think I will, I know I will when the baby is born. I’ll become a monster mom.” He looked at her fearfully. “I’ll become like him and I’ll just hurt everything I touch.” His eyes pinned themselves to her wedding ring. “I don’t want to be that.”
His mother leaned forward and cupped his face in her worn hands, tilting his face up. She brushed the fingers of one hand down his cheek like she was touching butterfly wings. “He’s dead Gabriel, dead and not coming back. You’re not your father and never could be. You’re my special boy and you’d never hurt anyone or anything.”
He stared at her as his eyes grew wet. He took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers tight. “I love her so much. I feel like I could untether from the ground and I’ll just float when she looks at me. But I can’t say it: I love you, I love you, I love you. Because when I do she’ll stop pretending. Because how can she love me? I can’t understand why she wants to stay with me, from the first moment we meet she wanted to be with me…”
“Why wouldn’t she want to be with you? You’re a good person Gabriel and you’ll be a good father. She loves you, I can see it, and that’s all that matters. And you are a success Gabriel! The work you do with that watch factory has been indispensable to the war effort.” It was true, he had helped invent more precise railroad timers that spread across America.
“She’s cheating on me Ma.” His mother sat back with a flick her hanky at him.
“With who Gabriel? You haven’t let her set ten paces from the house since she became pregnant.” Virginia stood and bent down to kiss the top of is head. “You have to take care of her Gabriel. She’s your responsibility now.” His mother always had the knack of turning Eden into some abused kitten that Gabriel had adopted or a doll that he had fixed back together again and taken home to keep.
She bustled out into the garden and Gabriel looked down at the paper. He felt somewhat better but the nagging fear and paranoia were still there.
The president had called up for drafts to fight in the war. Men aged from eighteen to thirty.
Characters: Eden/Gabriel.
Rating: R.
Word count: 2,145.
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summery: They make a deal of convenience together.
Note: Very, very AU. Gabriel talks with his mother.
Overall WC: 43,703.
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
The winter of 1861 rolls in and with it the start of the Civil War. News of battles, death and victory met the peoples of the village and they eat it up hungrily. At first the men had volunteered in their thousands, eager to serve their country and newly elected president. But as another year rolled by and then another the enthusiasm that they could win against the south waned with every report of loss of life. But those reports were just something that was happening in another place, making an impression but not governing the day to day life of unaffected people.
Eden wakes him with teasing kisses, pulling the sheet down as she pressed her lips his chest, his abdomen. She feels him stir and he look down at her in sleepy bemusement. For the last two years they had relaxed with into the grove that they had made together. The only irritation being Eden’s hope and disappointment at her lack of conceiving and Gabriel’s fear and then relief when it didn‘t happen. He had given into her wishes, sleeping with her as she wished but she wasn’t satisfied. She had been aggravated by that nag and Gabriel felt guilty for thanking god it wasn’t replaced with anything he feared. Like now.
“Any reason why you’re down there? Not that I‘m complaining…”
She just smiled and dipped her hand under the sheet covering his hips and took him in hand. She kissed his stomach again, touch tickling. “I just wanted to say thank you…” Her finger slowly circled around his head and she stroked him into hardness.
“Wh - what for?” He got up on his elbows and watched her, feelings of pleasure mixing with apprehension. Her hand stopped and she looked up at him. Her eyes were nervous, cheeks red but she couldn‘t stop that ecstatic smile from appearing. Her hand squeezed convulsively and Gabriel jerked and moaned softly.
“You know for what.” Neither of them spoke up again. Gabriel fell back onto his pillow as she lowered herself down, her mouth, lips and tongue replacing her hand and fingers. He grips the sheet below him in tight fists and closes his eyes, trying to focus on the sucking and licking sensations she was giving him but he couldn’t. She was working him into a frenzy and the anxiety that he had been keeping bottled inside was about to be released.
“You’re pregnant? After all this time?” Her lips paused on him at the sound of his voice before swallowing him, taking him into her throat. She just wanted him happy, just wanted him to be happy for both of them. But she then felt his hands on her forearms and she was pulled off and over turned onto her back. He was breathing hard, erection pressing into her belly as his eyes looked at her with a burning intensity.
“Yes Gabriel.”
He couldn’t look at her. He had been living with the foolish hope that if it hadn’t happened after they had stopped taking precautions then he was safe. He was very, very wrong. “How far along?” He talked to her throat.
“I missed my monthly last week. You know I‘m regular as clock work.” She was rubbing his back, a tremble in her voice. “Please look at me Gabe…Gabriel?”
He looked up at her, lost. “I hoped, I hoped that…” He trailed off unable to speak when she was looking at him with so much worry and upset. He kissed her, whispering hurried apologies as he mirrored her intentions from earlier and moved down her naked body. She was stiff with tension, had been all along and he took her thighs in his hands as he spread her legs, kissing the inside and digging his thumbs in with a gently firmness, loosening her muscles. He moved his face between her legs and applied his tongue to her, making her shudder and moan his name in pleasure with every lick and twirl until she was arching off the bed, hand slapping over her own mouth to stifle her shouts. She had guided him into her afterwards and he came quickly with a unavoidable feeling that he shouldn’t be in her, not anymore.
The summer was here and the it only elevated the tension, not just in their home but all over the country. But Gabriel couldn’t think of that, not when he had Eden. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, her belly in particular watching for the tell-tell rounding but she remained flat. But she still maintained that she was pregnant. Another month was almost at an end and he had to accept the fact that he was going to be a father. Now that it was an actual fact he feels himself acting differently then he thought he would. On one hand he was at a loss of how to move around her or even touch her anymore. She was evolved into something else that wasn’t solely focused on him anymore, or even herself. She was preoccupied absolutely on the life growing inside her, nursing it to be born while Gabriel was terrified of it happening.
But knowing that she was carrying his son or daughter made him extra watchful, worrying that something would happen to her. He watched what she ate, what she wore and where she walked. Eden grew increasingly annoyed at his conflicting intentions towards her, pulling away from her while treating her like some priceless, precious trinket that could shatter at any minute unless treated with care. He touched her with only light watchmaker fingertips.
“You don’t touch me anymore.” They’re in bed, trying to get to sleep in the sticky heat.
Gabriel turned his face to her. “I do, I’m touching you now.” He had his fingers on her belly, resting gently.
“No you’re not, not really. You don’t hold me properly anymore; I get the feeling of your finger-pads brushing on my skin put it’s insubstantial. I want you to make love to me but you won’t. I - I don’t think I’m showing very much, just a little. Do I put you off? D-disgust you?” Her eyes where tear rimmed and she was trying to hold it in.
“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, that will never change.” He bent over her and pressed soft kisses to her cheek, repeatedly.
“Then why won’t you touch me!?”
“Because I don’t feel that you’re mine anymore. I’ve been replaced.” He hadn’t even intended to say it but it escaped him, the thing that had been on his mind, eating away at him.
“Gabriel…” She stared at him with a frown. “This is your child to, it’s not a thing that is just exclusive to me. Having it won’t change my feelings towards you.” She curled herself around him and he drew her closer, curling his own body around hers. “I love you…”
Gabriel felt his heart expand. Every time she said those words to him he just soaked it up like sunshine. He bent down and kissed her rounding belly with a firm kiss. This seemed to placate her and she fell asleep with a troubled free face. He settled around her again and joined her in rest.
*
“…Isaac. Please…Isaac, show me it. Oh…yessss. Mmm.”
Gabriel had those words running through his mind for days, collecting them every night to brood on after. She had been talking in her sleep. Moaning in her sleep another man’s name. In the daylight hours she goes around like nothing was happening, just accepting his sulky, frosty attitude as another of his turns. But her emotions grew more volatile as the weeks past and she found it best to just leave him be if he was in a nervous worry and likely to anger.
Gabriel saw this as justification that she was growing tired of him and sunk deeper into his own insecurities. After a particularly angry argument about Eden going out to help his mother in the garden with the planting Gabriel was left sitting alone in the kitchen, shoulders knotted with tension and breathing laboured with the inability to stop himself weeping. He covered his face with his hands when Virginia stepped inside.
“Gabriel? What’s the matter?” She made to place her arms around him but he swivelled in his seat away from her. She just set her mouth in a line and sat down next to him. Even though she found it all but impossible to do so, she knew when to back off, or at least she was trying to. “What’s gotten you upset my angel?”
Her soft voice made him turn to her tearfully. “Oh you know what mom.”
“Eden? Gabriel…you’ve got to take care of her, she’s so lucky to have someone like you and don’t forget that she knows it. Having a baby changes you Gabriel.” Her eyes lit up. “Like you, when I knew I was going to-”
“Please, I can’t handle hearing about my birth again.” He sat back in his chair, sniffing and miserable. “I know that having a baby is life changing and the way she acts now won’t last.” He suddenly eyes his mother quickly. “Hopefully.” He whispered under his breath.
She carries on staring at him, wanting to speak, to prod, but she stayed silent, waiting. Gabriel looked down at the wedding band still on her finger, shining dully he thought. He looked back up. “Why do you still wear that?” His mother looks down at the ring in surprise then back up at him.
“It’s stuck Gabriel.”
“You never told me that.”
Virginia smiled gently. “You never asked.” She didn’t ask for it to be removed as he probably could do and he didn’t offer. He let the silence stretch, the need to speak, to off load growing strong with every passing tick of the clock hand.
“I - I’m scared Ma. It’s not Eden I’m really upset at, well not much.” Isaac flashed through his mind like a stab. “I sometimes think that the baby isn’t mine and that would be ok because the alternative…It’s me, I think something bad will happen when the baby is born, something will change and it will be me.” He was speaking faster now, powered by everything that had been troubling him since her first started sleeping with Eden. “I’ve always wanted to be someone else, someone with importance, I just wanted to change. And I think I will, I know I will when the baby is born. I’ll become a monster mom.” He looked at her fearfully. “I’ll become like him and I’ll just hurt everything I touch.” His eyes pinned themselves to her wedding ring. “I don’t want to be that.”
His mother leaned forward and cupped his face in her worn hands, tilting his face up. She brushed the fingers of one hand down his cheek like she was touching butterfly wings. “He’s dead Gabriel, dead and not coming back. You’re not your father and never could be. You’re my special boy and you’d never hurt anyone or anything.”
He stared at her as his eyes grew wet. He took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers tight. “I love her so much. I feel like I could untether from the ground and I’ll just float when she looks at me. But I can’t say it: I love you, I love you, I love you. Because when I do she’ll stop pretending. Because how can she love me? I can’t understand why she wants to stay with me, from the first moment we meet she wanted to be with me…”
“Why wouldn’t she want to be with you? You’re a good person Gabriel and you’ll be a good father. She loves you, I can see it, and that’s all that matters. And you are a success Gabriel! The work you do with that watch factory has been indispensable to the war effort.” It was true, he had helped invent more precise railroad timers that spread across America.
“She’s cheating on me Ma.” His mother sat back with a flick her hanky at him.
“With who Gabriel? You haven’t let her set ten paces from the house since she became pregnant.” Virginia stood and bent down to kiss the top of is head. “You have to take care of her Gabriel. She’s your responsibility now.” His mother always had the knack of turning Eden into some abused kitten that Gabriel had adopted or a doll that he had fixed back together again and taken home to keep.
She bustled out into the garden and Gabriel looked down at the paper. He felt somewhat better but the nagging fear and paranoia were still there.
The president had called up for drafts to fight in the war. Men aged from eighteen to thirty.