(no subject)
TITLE: Noah’s First Christmas
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: Elle/Gabriel, plus baby Noah
RATING: Light R for so much fluff it HURTS and an ickle bit of smut. Also Gabriel never went crazy on the beach. That crap doesn’t happen in this ‘verse. Pretend they just had sex instead.
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Noah Gray’s first Christmas.
Thank you to mrstater for the beta!!
This is for the Sylar/Elle Christmas Challenge Day 8
Elle is aware that Noah isn’t quite a year old yet, but she’s finding it hard to care that he won’t remember the day without the help of pictures. She’s gone all out - taken everything she’s seen on TV or heard from people and combined them into the Christmas wonderland that will be Noah’s First Christmas.
She’s spent the morning in the kitchen, baking cookies and even a pie. In between swapping trays of raw cookie dough with the golden brown cookies from the oven, she’s been twining garland around the banister of the stair case and hanging little ornaments on the top half of the tree so that Noah can’t reach them. She wants to make this Christmas even better than their last, and she can’t wait to give Gabriel his present.
Gabriel has been sent to the store to get a few last minute things she needs for their dinner, and Noah is happily babbling to himself as he stacks his blocks into a tower.
It’s a future that Elle never imagined. As a child, her only goal was to make her Daddy happy - a goal that extended through her teens and into her 20’s. What made Daddy happy was his little girl being an agent, being a sharpshooter with her bare hands, and following the rules he set up for her to the letter. A family of her own and a little house decorated for the holidays were never really part of the equation.
“Mama, look.” Noah points gleefully at his tower, then wobbles, thrown off balance by the excited gesture. He drops to his bottom, cushioned with a diaper, and giggles, swiping at the tower until the blocks tip to the side and crash over.
Elle can’t help but return his cheesy smile, and when Noah opens his mouth to laugh she can see the little teeth that have poked their way though his gums - two on the top and two on the bottom. She leaves the kitchen to scoop her little boy into her arms.
“Merry Christmas, Noah,” she says, lifting him into the air so he’s flying above her, clutched safe in her hands. The baby cracks up, clearly thrilled, and holds his arms out like superman flying.
Elle’s just brought his little tummy to her lips to plant a raspberry on his chubby belly when the front door opens and Gabriel stomps in, kicking the snow from his shoes and wiping at his red nose.
“We are moving back to California,” he says, the seriousness of his voice displaced by the smile he shoots Elle and Noah, “because the Midwest is no place to spend winter. Like dealing with the crowds isn’t hard enough, I do not need to do it in a foot of wet, nasty snow.”
Elle laughs, setting Noah on the floor next to the pile of blocks and taking the grocery bag from Gabriel’s outstretched hand. He pulls off his coat and kicks his shoes aside, then makes a beeline for Noah, who has resumed building his tower.
He sits down across from his son and watches him as Noah very seriously stacks the blocks. The little boy looks up at his father with wide eyes and then shoves the blocks at him. “Daddy,” the boy demands, and Gabriel obediently stacks the blocks Noah hands him.
Elle pulls the last tray of cookies from the oven, and checks the ham. As she looks around the full kitchen, she has a momentary thought that maybe she’s taken this Christmas thing to the extreme. There is no way the three of them are going to be able to eat the six dozen cookies, full sized Christmas ham, scalloped potatoes, veggies, rolls and pie before all the food goes bad.
Then she decides she doesn’t care, not even a little, and picks up the camera just in time to see Noah crack his father on the forehead with a blue block.
She’s never been so happy in her life, never imagined this would be hers. When Gabriel kissed her for the first time, she’d been wary, unsure of what his intentions were. As she’d slowly learned that his intentions extended about as far as just wanting to love her, she’d let down her own walls and started loving him back the best she could.
The positive pregnancy test had been a shock, about six weeks into their admittedly shaky relationship. Gabriel had reacted on instinct, packed up their things, and moved his little growing family to a small town in the Midwest, away from Primatech and Pinehearst and anyone who knew them.
The move had been horrible. Elle hated the stupid little town, hated being away from everything she’d known her entire life, and even more had hated not using her ability. She was already hormonal and emotional, and suddenly being dropped into the cute little split level house with its cute little picket fence had just about done her in.
Gabriel found a job that he absolutely hated, but never said a word to Elle about how miserable he was. They had no idea how to be normal, not really, and getting up every morning to put on a suit before going to an office for eight hours was something that made Gabriel’s skin crawl.
But then Elle’s belly had started to curve, and the baby became something more real to them. Elle began going out on her own while Gabriel worked, finding charming shops where she picked out candles and pictures to decorate their living room, bought themed towels that she hung on the handle of the stove.
And slowly, their house became a home. She had fun staying home, digging through recipe books and dumping the burned messes into the garbage before ordering Chinese. Gradually, the burned messes turned into edible dinners, and when Gabriel came home from work, she was no longer sitting in bed pouting, but smiling and kissing him.
Gabriel learned that as much as he hated his job at first, he wasn’t bad at it, and that his charming smile worked a serious number on the clients. He got a raise and a promotion, and decided that maybe a regular job wasn’t so bad.
Their first Christmas had passed a little less extravagantly than their current one. They weren’t particularly religious, but Elle still set up a Christmas tree in their living room. She’d been nine months pregnant at that point, and they had spent the night before Christmas exchanging gifts and watching silly holiday movies on television. It had been the best Christmas Elle had ever had.
When Noah had been born only a week and a half later, Elle had expected to love him right away, and know exactly how to take care of him. She’d read all the books, anyway, and thought she was ready. But then she learned she had no idea what a normal childhood was supposed to be like, and didn’t really know what to do when Noah cried. She had no one to show her how to warm a bottle, and she resented Gabriel for how easily he seemed to interact with their son.
It wasn’t fair that he’d had a normal childhood, even if his mother had been a little overbearing. She couldn’t even remember her mother and too much mother still seemed better than no mother at all.
But then Gabriel had to go back to work, and she was left alone with Noah for eight hours every day. Elle was nothing if not resourceful, and in the quiet mornings alone with her son, she started to learn. She tested the temperature of the bottle on her wrist and changed his diapers carefully like Gabriel did, and Noah cuddled in her arms and drank his bottle, watching her with dark eyes.
She liked to take him to the mall in town and push him in his stroller because it was fun to see people coo over something she’d made. Grandmas and teenage girls stopped her to tell her how beautiful her baby was, and Elle grinned proudly. She already knew.
Elle liked to walk through the baby stores and pick out tiny outfits for Noah; onesies with ducks and bears, and miniature jeans and sweater vests like Gabriel used to wear. She bought tiny shoes with fabric for soles, and silly little bibs with sayings on them.
And then one day she woke up, and she knew that she loved Noah more than she loved anyone else, ever, and his cries didn’t bother her so much as make her want to make things better for him. She learned that he liked it best when she cradled him against her body instead of in her arms, and that he calmed down much more quickly when she sang to him.
Happiness had really snuck up on Elle and Gabriel, desired but absolutely unexpected, and Elle learns that the warm feeling in her stomach is something called contentment.
She wants to make sure that her son is never surprised by his happiness, that he isn’t in his 20’s before he learns about all the beautiful things in life, so when Christmas started approaching again, Elle threw herself into the holiday with gusto. And so it is that now she’s standing in their little kitchen, watching her wobbly son tease his father with his prized block collection.
Noah is wearing a red outfit with fur trim - Gabriel had argued it was too girly until Elle produced the red Santa hat that she wanted him to wear, then promptly shut up and went to work, carefully avoiding the headwear.
“It’s going to be time to eat soon,” Elle says as she wipes her hands on a towel before going to join her little family in the living room. The lights from the tree cast colored spots around the room, and Elle turns down the lights so that the tree is the only part that’s illuminated.
Noah’s eyes go wide as he stares, and Elle puts a wrapped box in his chubby little hands. He holds it for a minute, staring at it, before carefully placing the box on top of his block tower.
“No, Noah. It’s a present for you,” Elle encourages, taking the box off the tower and ripping a little bit of the paper with her fingernail before handing it back to him. “See, open,” she says, and Gabriel snaps a picture of Elle helping Noah clutch the present.
Noah learns quickly the point of these presents and rips into the paper, pulling it apart. Inside the package is a fluffy teddy bear and Noah eyes it critically before hugging it close.
He opens a few more without help, gleefully ripping into paper and pulling out new toys, fancy blocks with animals inside, a book that makes sounds, a fat little car that he can push around. Santa will come that night with more gifts for him, but Elle enjoys watching him open these toys the night before.
They eat dinner together, Noah sitting tall in his high chair and feeding the floor more than himself. Elle and Gabriel do their best to put a dent into the huge amount of food that Elle cooked.
Noah lights up at the cookie Elle places in his hand and chews it gleefully while Gabriel pulls Elle into his lap and feeds her bites of the (nontraditional, but still delicious) peach pie.
“I love you,” he murmurs into her ear, kissing her neck, and she sighs happily, laying her head against his chest and breathing in the smell of his cologne.
“Merry Christmas,” she says back, turning her head for a proper kiss, “I love you too.”
They tuck Noah into bed together that night, taking turns reading from “The Night Before Christmas” before kissing his soft head and laying him down in his crib. The little boy clutches at his new bear and sighs as he falls asleep.
Elle likes to watch him drift off, and Gabriel wraps his arms around her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder so he can kiss her cheek. “Come to bed with me,” he murmurs, and Elle turns her face to kiss him gently before leaving Noah asleep in his nursery.
They make love in the dim light of their room, gentle brushes of lips against soft skin as he slowly undresses her. She slips her palms under his shirt and scratches gently at his chest, her fingers pressed against the coarse hair as he raises his arms so he can pull the shirt over his head. She leaves a trail of kisses from his neck to his stomach, and he picks her up so he can hold her little body against his and kiss her properly.
There are no hurried movements, and Elle stretches languidly on the bed when Gabriel lays her down, then rubs his hands down her stomach, over her thighs.
“I love you,” he tells her again, kissing gently just below her belly button and Elle giggles, tugging at his shoulders until his body covers hers on the bed. She arches her neck for kisses and he obliges happily, kissing her hard as he guides himself into her slick folds. She mewls, her fingernails scraping for purchase against the taut skin of his back.
She comes first, closing her eyes as gentle pleasure rolls through her body, pushing herself against Gabriel’s muscled chest. He follows seconds behind her, groaning her name and cupping the sides of her face with his big hands so he can hold her while he kisses her senseless. She curls around him, happy and sated and comfortable while he tugs the covers over her still trembling body.
She snuggles closer, curling against his chest, and lets the feeling of his fingers combing through her hair lull her to sleep.
The next morning, Noah’s happy babbling wake them up, and Gabriel tugs on his boxers and a t-shirt before going to Noah’s room while Elle takes a quick shower and wraps herself in a robe. She pulls the rest of the gifts from the closet and puts them under the tree in the living room before Gabriel comes in with Noah, who is happily clutching his bottle and sucking contentedly.
While Noah eats, Elle and Gabriel exchange gifts.
“Open this one first,” Elle tells him, handing him a small, rectangular box. He unwraps it and opens the box, pulling out a white stick.
It takes him a few minutes to realize what he’s holding, and Elle loves his expression when he realizes, turns the stick over so that he can read the word that appears in the little window.
Pregnant.
“Really?” he asks, staring at the pregnancy test like it’s going to explode in his hands. Elle nods, biting her lip, and he shouts, throws the test into the air and scoops her up off the couch, kissing her.
“We’re gonna have another baby,” he says, and his voice catches on the word ‘baby,’ so Elle kisses him again.
“Merry Christmas,” she offers, mirroring his joyful smile.
“Best Christmas.”
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: Elle/Gabriel, plus baby Noah
RATING: Light R for so much fluff it HURTS and an ickle bit of smut. Also Gabriel never went crazy on the beach. That crap doesn’t happen in this ‘verse. Pretend they just had sex instead.
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Noah Gray’s first Christmas.
Thank you to mrstater for the beta!!
This is for the Sylar/Elle Christmas Challenge Day 8
Elle is aware that Noah isn’t quite a year old yet, but she’s finding it hard to care that he won’t remember the day without the help of pictures. She’s gone all out - taken everything she’s seen on TV or heard from people and combined them into the Christmas wonderland that will be Noah’s First Christmas.
She’s spent the morning in the kitchen, baking cookies and even a pie. In between swapping trays of raw cookie dough with the golden brown cookies from the oven, she’s been twining garland around the banister of the stair case and hanging little ornaments on the top half of the tree so that Noah can’t reach them. She wants to make this Christmas even better than their last, and she can’t wait to give Gabriel his present.
Gabriel has been sent to the store to get a few last minute things she needs for their dinner, and Noah is happily babbling to himself as he stacks his blocks into a tower.
It’s a future that Elle never imagined. As a child, her only goal was to make her Daddy happy - a goal that extended through her teens and into her 20’s. What made Daddy happy was his little girl being an agent, being a sharpshooter with her bare hands, and following the rules he set up for her to the letter. A family of her own and a little house decorated for the holidays were never really part of the equation.
“Mama, look.” Noah points gleefully at his tower, then wobbles, thrown off balance by the excited gesture. He drops to his bottom, cushioned with a diaper, and giggles, swiping at the tower until the blocks tip to the side and crash over.
Elle can’t help but return his cheesy smile, and when Noah opens his mouth to laugh she can see the little teeth that have poked their way though his gums - two on the top and two on the bottom. She leaves the kitchen to scoop her little boy into her arms.
“Merry Christmas, Noah,” she says, lifting him into the air so he’s flying above her, clutched safe in her hands. The baby cracks up, clearly thrilled, and holds his arms out like superman flying.
Elle’s just brought his little tummy to her lips to plant a raspberry on his chubby belly when the front door opens and Gabriel stomps in, kicking the snow from his shoes and wiping at his red nose.
“We are moving back to California,” he says, the seriousness of his voice displaced by the smile he shoots Elle and Noah, “because the Midwest is no place to spend winter. Like dealing with the crowds isn’t hard enough, I do not need to do it in a foot of wet, nasty snow.”
Elle laughs, setting Noah on the floor next to the pile of blocks and taking the grocery bag from Gabriel’s outstretched hand. He pulls off his coat and kicks his shoes aside, then makes a beeline for Noah, who has resumed building his tower.
He sits down across from his son and watches him as Noah very seriously stacks the blocks. The little boy looks up at his father with wide eyes and then shoves the blocks at him. “Daddy,” the boy demands, and Gabriel obediently stacks the blocks Noah hands him.
Elle pulls the last tray of cookies from the oven, and checks the ham. As she looks around the full kitchen, she has a momentary thought that maybe she’s taken this Christmas thing to the extreme. There is no way the three of them are going to be able to eat the six dozen cookies, full sized Christmas ham, scalloped potatoes, veggies, rolls and pie before all the food goes bad.
Then she decides she doesn’t care, not even a little, and picks up the camera just in time to see Noah crack his father on the forehead with a blue block.
She’s never been so happy in her life, never imagined this would be hers. When Gabriel kissed her for the first time, she’d been wary, unsure of what his intentions were. As she’d slowly learned that his intentions extended about as far as just wanting to love her, she’d let down her own walls and started loving him back the best she could.
The positive pregnancy test had been a shock, about six weeks into their admittedly shaky relationship. Gabriel had reacted on instinct, packed up their things, and moved his little growing family to a small town in the Midwest, away from Primatech and Pinehearst and anyone who knew them.
The move had been horrible. Elle hated the stupid little town, hated being away from everything she’d known her entire life, and even more had hated not using her ability. She was already hormonal and emotional, and suddenly being dropped into the cute little split level house with its cute little picket fence had just about done her in.
Gabriel found a job that he absolutely hated, but never said a word to Elle about how miserable he was. They had no idea how to be normal, not really, and getting up every morning to put on a suit before going to an office for eight hours was something that made Gabriel’s skin crawl.
But then Elle’s belly had started to curve, and the baby became something more real to them. Elle began going out on her own while Gabriel worked, finding charming shops where she picked out candles and pictures to decorate their living room, bought themed towels that she hung on the handle of the stove.
And slowly, their house became a home. She had fun staying home, digging through recipe books and dumping the burned messes into the garbage before ordering Chinese. Gradually, the burned messes turned into edible dinners, and when Gabriel came home from work, she was no longer sitting in bed pouting, but smiling and kissing him.
Gabriel learned that as much as he hated his job at first, he wasn’t bad at it, and that his charming smile worked a serious number on the clients. He got a raise and a promotion, and decided that maybe a regular job wasn’t so bad.
Their first Christmas had passed a little less extravagantly than their current one. They weren’t particularly religious, but Elle still set up a Christmas tree in their living room. She’d been nine months pregnant at that point, and they had spent the night before Christmas exchanging gifts and watching silly holiday movies on television. It had been the best Christmas Elle had ever had.
When Noah had been born only a week and a half later, Elle had expected to love him right away, and know exactly how to take care of him. She’d read all the books, anyway, and thought she was ready. But then she learned she had no idea what a normal childhood was supposed to be like, and didn’t really know what to do when Noah cried. She had no one to show her how to warm a bottle, and she resented Gabriel for how easily he seemed to interact with their son.
It wasn’t fair that he’d had a normal childhood, even if his mother had been a little overbearing. She couldn’t even remember her mother and too much mother still seemed better than no mother at all.
But then Gabriel had to go back to work, and she was left alone with Noah for eight hours every day. Elle was nothing if not resourceful, and in the quiet mornings alone with her son, she started to learn. She tested the temperature of the bottle on her wrist and changed his diapers carefully like Gabriel did, and Noah cuddled in her arms and drank his bottle, watching her with dark eyes.
She liked to take him to the mall in town and push him in his stroller because it was fun to see people coo over something she’d made. Grandmas and teenage girls stopped her to tell her how beautiful her baby was, and Elle grinned proudly. She already knew.
Elle liked to walk through the baby stores and pick out tiny outfits for Noah; onesies with ducks and bears, and miniature jeans and sweater vests like Gabriel used to wear. She bought tiny shoes with fabric for soles, and silly little bibs with sayings on them.
And then one day she woke up, and she knew that she loved Noah more than she loved anyone else, ever, and his cries didn’t bother her so much as make her want to make things better for him. She learned that he liked it best when she cradled him against her body instead of in her arms, and that he calmed down much more quickly when she sang to him.
Happiness had really snuck up on Elle and Gabriel, desired but absolutely unexpected, and Elle learns that the warm feeling in her stomach is something called contentment.
She wants to make sure that her son is never surprised by his happiness, that he isn’t in his 20’s before he learns about all the beautiful things in life, so when Christmas started approaching again, Elle threw herself into the holiday with gusto. And so it is that now she’s standing in their little kitchen, watching her wobbly son tease his father with his prized block collection.
Noah is wearing a red outfit with fur trim - Gabriel had argued it was too girly until Elle produced the red Santa hat that she wanted him to wear, then promptly shut up and went to work, carefully avoiding the headwear.
“It’s going to be time to eat soon,” Elle says as she wipes her hands on a towel before going to join her little family in the living room. The lights from the tree cast colored spots around the room, and Elle turns down the lights so that the tree is the only part that’s illuminated.
Noah’s eyes go wide as he stares, and Elle puts a wrapped box in his chubby little hands. He holds it for a minute, staring at it, before carefully placing the box on top of his block tower.
“No, Noah. It’s a present for you,” Elle encourages, taking the box off the tower and ripping a little bit of the paper with her fingernail before handing it back to him. “See, open,” she says, and Gabriel snaps a picture of Elle helping Noah clutch the present.
Noah learns quickly the point of these presents and rips into the paper, pulling it apart. Inside the package is a fluffy teddy bear and Noah eyes it critically before hugging it close.
He opens a few more without help, gleefully ripping into paper and pulling out new toys, fancy blocks with animals inside, a book that makes sounds, a fat little car that he can push around. Santa will come that night with more gifts for him, but Elle enjoys watching him open these toys the night before.
They eat dinner together, Noah sitting tall in his high chair and feeding the floor more than himself. Elle and Gabriel do their best to put a dent into the huge amount of food that Elle cooked.
Noah lights up at the cookie Elle places in his hand and chews it gleefully while Gabriel pulls Elle into his lap and feeds her bites of the (nontraditional, but still delicious) peach pie.
“I love you,” he murmurs into her ear, kissing her neck, and she sighs happily, laying her head against his chest and breathing in the smell of his cologne.
“Merry Christmas,” she says back, turning her head for a proper kiss, “I love you too.”
They tuck Noah into bed together that night, taking turns reading from “The Night Before Christmas” before kissing his soft head and laying him down in his crib. The little boy clutches at his new bear and sighs as he falls asleep.
Elle likes to watch him drift off, and Gabriel wraps his arms around her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder so he can kiss her cheek. “Come to bed with me,” he murmurs, and Elle turns her face to kiss him gently before leaving Noah asleep in his nursery.
They make love in the dim light of their room, gentle brushes of lips against soft skin as he slowly undresses her. She slips her palms under his shirt and scratches gently at his chest, her fingers pressed against the coarse hair as he raises his arms so he can pull the shirt over his head. She leaves a trail of kisses from his neck to his stomach, and he picks her up so he can hold her little body against his and kiss her properly.
There are no hurried movements, and Elle stretches languidly on the bed when Gabriel lays her down, then rubs his hands down her stomach, over her thighs.
“I love you,” he tells her again, kissing gently just below her belly button and Elle giggles, tugging at his shoulders until his body covers hers on the bed. She arches her neck for kisses and he obliges happily, kissing her hard as he guides himself into her slick folds. She mewls, her fingernails scraping for purchase against the taut skin of his back.
She comes first, closing her eyes as gentle pleasure rolls through her body, pushing herself against Gabriel’s muscled chest. He follows seconds behind her, groaning her name and cupping the sides of her face with his big hands so he can hold her while he kisses her senseless. She curls around him, happy and sated and comfortable while he tugs the covers over her still trembling body.
She snuggles closer, curling against his chest, and lets the feeling of his fingers combing through her hair lull her to sleep.
The next morning, Noah’s happy babbling wake them up, and Gabriel tugs on his boxers and a t-shirt before going to Noah’s room while Elle takes a quick shower and wraps herself in a robe. She pulls the rest of the gifts from the closet and puts them under the tree in the living room before Gabriel comes in with Noah, who is happily clutching his bottle and sucking contentedly.
While Noah eats, Elle and Gabriel exchange gifts.
“Open this one first,” Elle tells him, handing him a small, rectangular box. He unwraps it and opens the box, pulling out a white stick.
It takes him a few minutes to realize what he’s holding, and Elle loves his expression when he realizes, turns the stick over so that he can read the word that appears in the little window.
Pregnant.
“Really?” he asks, staring at the pregnancy test like it’s going to explode in his hands. Elle nods, biting her lip, and he shouts, throws the test into the air and scoops her up off the couch, kissing her.
“We’re gonna have another baby,” he says, and his voice catches on the word ‘baby,’ so Elle kisses him again.
“Merry Christmas,” she offers, mirroring his joyful smile.
“Best Christmas.”