Since we've no place to go
Title: Since we've no place to go
Pairing: Gabe/William
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Notes: Side-story to 'Tis the season. Thanks to adellyna and zarah5v2 for the beta work.
Summary: “Bill,” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open and not just continue fucking William into the ground. “I think…I think pollination season’s started.”
They weren’t living together so much as they were holed up together. There’d been an unexpected cold snap right as spring was starting to shine through and melt the frost, and William had promptly burrowed back into the gardenia he’d been inhabiting all winter to wait for the weather to turn again. The fact that Gabe had joined him there was entirely incidental, really. He enjoyed the company. Besides, it was a pretty sweet gardenia.
They hadn’t gone out since the renewed frost. The fact that they hadn’t put any clothes on either was just a coincidence.
“So hey,” Gabe said, taking advantage of William’s distraction in aggressively denuding an acorn of its cap to ogle his ass. “At some point we might actually want to venture out. Make sure fairy-kind is still thriving and all that.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” William replied, pausing to blow a loose strand of hair out of his eyes. “Skipping among the dead, withered remains of seasonal plant life.”
“Pessimist,” Gabe accused. “We haven’t been out in a week. There might be crocuses.”
William stopped pulling at the acorn cap to shake out his arms and stretch. His wings folded in against his back, shimmering rainbow-iridescent. Gabe got in a few great seconds of ogling and had almost forgotten what they’d been talking about when William said, “The ground is still frozen.”
Gabe reached out a hand to snag William’s ankle and drag him back down into their nest of leaves and moss. “It thawed yesterday,” he said, pulling William close and sliding a hand around to the back of his thigh. “We could see the sunlight.”
“But baby it’s cold outside,” William pouted, although he wasn’t doing anything to stop Gabe’s wandering hands, rolling easily when Gabe pushed him onto his back.
Gabe slid his hands up William’s stomach, pausing to flick a few flakes of dried come off of his skin. “You do have a point,” he admitted. His acquiescence wasn’t submission, it was totally a tactical withdrawal. It was cold outside, and William was very naked and very warm.
“Mmm,” William agreed, amiably hitching his leg over Gabe’s hip when Gabe prompted him with encouraging fingers. He yawned, stretching out under Gabe’s hands like a lazy cat. “I’m waiting for spring. Wake me up when September ends.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow, looking up from his investigation of William’s inner thighs. “It’s March. But wow, you’re on a roll now, aren’t you?”
“It’s been a long December,” William replied seriously, but his breath hitched when Gabe’s fingers slid inside him, twisting with the ease of practice and familiarity.
“I’ve got better things for you to think about,” Gabe informed him, and cut off William’s inevitably witty riposte with the long, slow curl of his fingers. William made a satisfyingly strangled noise and turned his head to the side, eyes falling shut. His wings were trapped beneath them, spread out on their bed of leaves, but Gabe saw the muscles in his shoulders contract in what would have been a flutter.
“Fuck,” William whispered when Gabe wiped his fingers off and shifted forward to replace them with his cock. “Yes.”
“Good, yeah?” Gabe said, smirking as he rolled his hips. Fishing for compliments usually yielded nothing but sarcastically cutting replies with William, but Gabe didn’t even really need them. He knew how good he was.
“Fuck,” William said again, with slightly more emphasis. Gabe circled his hips experimentally, waiting for the bob of William’s Adam’s apple to give away when he hit the right spot, and then set about rocking his world. It was a faster pace than he usually set this early on, but they’d already gone two rounds today, so he was nothing but stamina.
“Seeing God yet?” Gabe asked, trying for conversational but failing a little, because William was starting to writhe, twisting against the pull of his trapped wings and gasping for breath. The heaviness in Gabe’s balls pulled a little tighter, just enough to give him incentive to keep up the pace.
“Don’t stop,” William ordered, gripping Gabe’s hips tighter as if he thought Gabe would actually be going anywhere right now. “Fuck. Gabe.”
Gabe leaned down to lick at the gathering sheen of sweat on William’s throat, judging his angle by the answering tremble in William’s thighs. “Can you come like this?” he asked, curious.
“Can you keep this up?” William shot back breathily, his heel skidding against the back of Gabe’s knee.
Gabe swore a little and closed his eyes, dropping his head against William’s throat and mouthing at his skin, ignoring the growing ache in his muscles in favor of making William dig fingernails into his back. When he opened his eyes again, he was seeing stars. Bright, hazy stars, glittering across his field of vision and over William’s face, his eyes closed and mouth open, arched back into Gabe’s thrusts.
Damn, he was good, he thought distractedly, and then stuttered and lost the rhythm. The stars were gold. They weren’t stars. They were…
Fuck. “Bill,” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open and not just continue fucking William into the ground. “I think…I think pollination season’s started.”
William’s eyes flew open at that, wide and surprised, but they shut again almost as fast when Gabe lost his resolve and thrust in deep. The fight to keep his hips still was being lost completely when William added himself to the equation, rocking back faster the more Gabe lagged. “If you stop I will fucking kill you,” he said sincerely, and then he bit his lip hard enough to flush the skin red, and Gabe gracefully capitulated and threw himself back into fucking.
It was pretty, actually. His wings were purple and gold, and the fairy dust falling from them now glittered sharply in the air, swirling around them like fog. William’s wings were still outstretched, pinned and fully extended, gold flecks spangling the bright colors of the rainbow. His head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and in between one breath and the next he came and took Gabe with him, and this time Gabe really did see stars.
“Fuck,” Gabe said again, reverently. He peeled himself back to look more closely at William, who was lying spent and sated with his head turned to one side, a lock of dark hair curling around the curve of his ear. William’s wings were trying to twitch again, faintly stirring the fairy dust still floating in a cloud around the two of them. Gabe’s wings gave a little involuntary shiver, sending more dust into the air in a chaotic swirl.
William finally pried his eyes open, studying the gold haze with detached interest. “If you cross-pollinate with me, they’ll never find your body,” he said conversationally.
Gabe looked at the bright gold flecks still clinging stubbornly to William’s spread wings and said, “Fuck.”
+ + +
Three days later, there was no denying it. “Kill you,” William repeated, but his heart wasn’t in it. His wings were flapping despondently behind him, drooped so low that the tips trailed on the ground. Gabe had finally coaxed him out into the warm spring sunlight, and the rainbow shimmer of his wings caught the light with a scattered glimmer of gold.
“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Gabe crooned, slipping in behind William to wrap an arm around his waist. “It’ll be over in three weeks, anyway. And everyone does it. You won’t be alone.”
“It’s involuntary and non-consensual reproduction. It’s unfair. It’s a seasonal incapacitation,” William said venomously. “Nature has no right.”
“You can’t argue with biology,” Gabe pointed out reasonably. “Besides, at least this year we won’t have to worry about not having sex until it’s over.” He always hated that. William got so crazy during pollination season that he wouldn’t even let Gabe near him most of the time. Or anyone else, for that matter. This year, at least, they wouldn’t have to be so careful.
“You’re kidding me, right?” William said balefully. “We’re not having sex. I’m going to turn into a balloon because my body has been accosted and is now harboring an unwanted fairy seed pod. You’re not even allowed to look at me for the next three weeks.” His wings flapped a little pathetically at that, slapping harmlessly against Gabe’s sides.
“I think it’ll be hot,” Gabe said, honestly, because when wasn’t William hot? He stroked his thumb over one of William’s sharp hipbones and wondered how long it would take for them to disappear. Probably not long; it would only take a week for the seed pod to grow beyond what William’s body could counterbalance.
“I’ll look like a blowfish,” William said, eyes narrowed as he craned his neck around to glare at Gabe. “That’s not hot.”
Gabe slid his hand over the tiny pudge of William’s stomach, rubbing in a slow circle. “You’ll look like you’re mine,” he corrected, nipping at William’s ear. “And that’s fucking hot.”
It was pretty exciting, actually. They were making a fucking seed pod. Gabe ran carefully light fingertips over William’s wing and watched him shudder back into the touch, eyes falling shut. Gabe’s fingers spread out to touch five different points of gold, pressing just hard enough that William pushed back against him.
“We’re not having sex anyway,” William said. “I’m punishing you for being the cause of this.”
“It takes two to tango,” Gabe murmured, rubbing his cock slowly against the cleft of William’s ass. He was painfully hard, imagining the two of them hanging a cocoon on a tree, seeing William’s wings glitter with flecks of color from his own. It was surprisingly arousing.
“Your fertile devil dust,” William replied, but he sounded distracted, dropping his head to one side when Gabe nuzzled in for access to his throat. One of his hands covered Gabe’s on his stomach, holding them closer together.
“I say we make the best of it,” Gabe said lightly. “Today, anyway. By tomorrow you might be too huge for me to even get a grip on.”
He was ready for it when William twisted in his grip, but his wings still flared out to balance them, blocking some of the sunlight slanting across William’s narrowed eyes. “Against this tree trunk,” he challenged. “You’re holding me up for twenty minutes, just for that remark.”
“Just for that, huh?” Gabe asked lazily, already shifting his grip to brace William as he pushed him back against the rough bark. “What if you’re already too heavy?”
William’s wings spread wide behind him just before his back hit the tree, catching the sunlight and momentarily so bright that Gabe was blinded. “Then I guess you’ll just have to sweat for it,” William said, tipping his head back against the bark and letting his eyes narrow to slits.
Gabe lifted him up so William could hook his legs around Gabe’s waist. Their wings beat against each other briefly, catching the breeze and steadying their position. Gabe felt the tingle in his spine each time William’s wings brushed his and bared his teeth in a grin. “I guess I will.”
+ + +
Gabe took his time scouting around, but he was satisfied enough by sunset to bring William with him out of the gardenia where William was currently hiding.
“They’ll understand,” Gabe promised. “Shit like this happens all the time. It’s not like anyone can blame you for not knowing when the season started.”
“Last year I said that if I cross-pollinated I would stake myself out in a meadow so that my lifeblood could water the weeds and choke the flowers until they withered and died,” William reminded him. His hair was falling into his eyes, but he didn’t reach up to brush it aside. His arms were busy, outstretched to keep him from tipping over and falling on his face, and his wings were working overtime, beating against the air to balance the added weight curving his belly. Gabe reached out and did it for him, automatically tucking his hand under William’s elbow to steady him when he flailed slightly stepping over a tree root.
“This is it,” Gabe said, turning them both around to face his prize. He grinned at the sturdy young mangrove, then turned expectantly to bask in the glory of William’s gratitude.
William frowned. “I’m not living in a fucking tree,” he announced.
That wasn’t exactly the reaction Gabe had been hoping for. “It’s dry,” he said. “It’s out of the way of everyone else. It’s got hidden depths.” Well, it was a tree, but there were lots of roots, so those counted as hidden depths, right?
“Roots are not hidden depths,” William said, before Gabe could persuade him otherwise. “Living in trees is so passé. They have bark. And bugs. And it’s cold.”
“Not in the tree,” Gabe soothed. “Underneath the tree.”
William looked distinctly skeptical, but he allowed Gabe to guide him down into the maze of mangrove roots. He didn’t have much choice, anyway, because he couldn’t balance very well on his own for long.
“Do you see?” Gabe said excitedly once they reached the center of the intricate web. He put his hands out to the side and gripped two roots, rising from the earth to entwine well over their heads.
William frowned and said, “No.”
Gabe gestured to the roots all around them. “You can walk,” he explained. “You can hold onto the roots and you won’t tip over. You won’t have to be an invalid for two weeks.”
William’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” he asked. He put one hand out to steady himself on a root, testing. Gabe stepped aside, arm making a sweeping invitation to investigate the terrain, and watched as William picked his way through the roots. Finally he turned back, still looking stunned. “Gabe, this is…”
“I know,” Gabe said smugly. “I’m the best babydaddy ever. Be glad you’re in this with me, sweet cheeks.”
William’s face made a minor contortion that Gabe interpreted as being sincerely touched but still desperately wanting to say something sarcastic. “I am,” he said when the conflict was over.
Gabe leaned back against one of the sturdy roots and crossed his arms over his chest casually. “So,” he said. “How about we christen this place while we still can?”
William’s lips curved up slowly the way that Gabe loved, and he shifted his weight, definitely bulkier now than he used to be but somehow still hanging onto grace with his fingernails. “Maybe we should,” he murmured, sultry. He took one sauntering step forward, flailed abruptly and fell flat on his face.
“Oh shit,” Gabe managed, and then unfroze and rushed over to where William was windmilling on the ground, wings snapping open and closed chaotically. “Are you okay? Shit.”
“I hate my life,” William informed him, muffled into the dirt. “And I’m crushing our seed pod.”
Gabe paused in providing assistance and sat back on his heels for a minute. William smacked his arm until he remembered to help, and once he was finally upright and sitting back against a root, glared suspiciously at Gabe’s grin.
“What?” he asked warily.
Gabe shrugged, but it didn’t dim the grin. “You called it our seed pod,” he said. “Not ‘the seed pod,’ or ‘the thing I’m incubating,’ or ‘the parasite currently sucking away at the marrow of my soul.’”
William flushed, but one of his hands came up almost involuntarily to curve over his swollen stomach. “Yeah, well,” he said awkwardly. “It is ours, so. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.”
“It’s so cute,” Gabe told him, still grinning like a maniac. “We should give it a name. Something to call it, so it knows us.”
“Don’t be Pete,” William said sternly. “I’m not having a seed pod with Pete.”
“Aw, come on,” Gabe coaxed, trying to steal William’s other hand. It was unfortunately difficult to woo William the way he usually did, now that the baby bump was in the way. Usually Gabe just had to hold onto him and croon and nuzzle a bit. “We could pick something gender-neutral.”
“It’s a seed pod,” William said firmly, but Gabe knew William. He saw the first cracks appearing in the defensive I-hate-reproduction armor. And since he knew damn well this was the only chance he was getting to do the whole cross-pollination thing with William, he was determined to make the most of it.
“What about something classical?” he suggested. “Hermes. Aphrodite.”
William eyed him. Gabe tried to sidle a little closer. “You said gender-neutral,” William reminded him.
“Hermaphrodite,” Gabe said promptly. “It’s like both at once. The best of two worlds.”
William opened his mouth, undoubtedly to argue, but instead his shoulders slumped a little and he said, “I’m tired.”
“Sleep,” Gabe said immediately. “We can christen later. I’ll think up names while you nap.”
“I can’t wait,” William muttered, but he was hiding a smile. Gabe wasn’t fooled. He wondered if William would get suspicious if Gabe suggested they name the kid Venus. Probably not; William had never seen himself smile.
Gabe spooned up behind him, helping them both settle in the moss Gabe had laid carefully amongst the roots. “Sleep,” he crooned again. His fingers slipped between William’s, both of them cradling the gentle bump of William’s belly. He was pretty sure William was already dreaming.
+ + +
“Hey,” Gabe said when he got back to the mangrove in the afternoon. “Spencer’s been looking for you. Everyone has, really. Your absence has been noted.”
“I’m in my confinement,” William said solemnly. He was curled up against a thick pillow of moss, on his side with his head propped up by one arm. The other was curled around his stomach, which was now nearly the size of William himself. Gabe hadn’t known skinny people could get that round when they didn’t have any fat anywhere else on their body.
“How are you doing?” Gabe asked, running a critical - although not unappreciative - eye over William. He looked more like hell than usual, with dark circles under his eyes and a paler complexion than he normally had. Even his wings were drooping. “Did you sleep? It’s a lot of work carrying a seed pod around, you should rest.”
“I think it’s cocooning,” William said tiredly, one hand absently massaging his stomach. “It hasn’t stopped moving since yesterday afternoon.”
Gabe made a little noise of sympathy. “I brought you some more of that mint shit you’re so addicted to now,” he offered. “Maybe that will help.”
“Maybe,” William agreed, but he sounded doubtful. “I haven’t been able to keep anything down today.”
“You should eat something,” Gabe said. “Something light. I could find some berries or something, they’re starting to pop up here and there.”
William opened his mouth to reply, and then bit his lip and curled up a little.
Gabe dropped down beside him immediately, abandoning the mint leaves for the moment and placing his hand over William’s. He could feel the seed pod moving restlessly, twisting and rolling. “Hey now,” he crooned, rubbing William’s stomach in between his splayed fingers. “Stop that, you’re making your dad sick.”
“I don’t think it particularly cares,” William admitted, pain-lines creasing his forehead. “Maybe it doesn’t like me.”
“Maybe it’s just hitting the teenage rebellion phase a little early,” Gabe suggested. To William’s stomach, he said, “Is that it? Are you having your revenge while still in the pod? You could care less, as long as someone will bleed?”
He sang the last part, to make William laugh, but when he succeeded he also felt the restless movement beneath his hand cease. William’s laughter cut off abruptly, and both of them held their breaths for a moment before they felt the first twitch again.
“Do that again,” William whispered in a rush. “Sing to it. I think…”
Gabe raised his eyebrows, but bent his head closer to William’s stomach and said, “Hey in there. You like that? When we were young the future was so bright…”
William closed his eyes with a soft sigh. Gabe was honestly shocked by his success, but gamely kept going until he couldn’t feel any movement at all beneath his hand and William’s breaths were falling in the slow, even rhythm of sleep.
+ + +
Gabe ended up singing for most of the day while he cleaned up under the mangrove a little and rummaged around looking for berries, and when William called urgently, “Gabe,” he was right there with cold-brewed mint-water tea and Morrissey.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this parenting thing, actually,” Gabe said with a touch of smugness. “You and I have this down pat.”
William sipped his tea and said, “Don’t get cocky,” but he didn’t object when Gabe made himself at home straddling William’s legs and singing nonsense songs.
“Welcome to the world, it’s awfully bright out here most of the time,” Gabe sang, and stopped when he saw the funny look William was giving him. “What?”
William shrugged, but Gabe didn’t relent, so he finally gave in and admitted, “You like this, don’t you? You’re glad we’re doing it.”
“I’m glad I’m doing it with you,” Gabe corrected. He ducked his head until William was forced to make eye contact. “We don’t have to do it again, fuck that noise. Once is enough.”
William smiled a little, just the first fractional curl, and Gabe coaxed it out with tickling fingers along his sides. “I am glad we’re doing it, though,” he said. “I mean, since we had little choice in the matter.” Before William’s smile could darken into the lines of a pre-lecture on the injustice of fairy biology and issues of consent, Gabe hastily added, “I’m glad it’s me and you.”
William’s eyes softened again, and his hands slid up Gabe’s chest. “I’m glad, too,” he said.
There was too much invitation in that tone for Gabe not to slide his tongue along William’s, even with the awkward seed pod-bulge between them. It had been a while since they’d done this, especially after William’s hormone-crazed weekend had passed, and Gabe wasn’t sure how much William wanted right now, so he kept it slow and easy, one finger circling William’s navel until he shivered and bit down on Gabe’s lip.
“We could,” William said softly. “If you wanted to.”
William’s hands were currently on Gabe’s chest and Gabe’s cock was at full salute, so whether Gabe wanted to was kind of a moot point. “You sure?” he asked, rocking his hips forward just a bit to make sure William knew his interest wasn’t in question.
William flushed a little, moving out of range of Gabe’s questing tongue. “Well,” he said awkwardly. “You’re the one who has to…I mean, if you want to wait until I’m not so…”
“Oh, fuck that,” Gabe said pleasantly, tipping William backwards onto the moss. “Like having sex with you is such a hardship.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work like this,” William said breathlessly a few minutes later, when there had been quite a lot of groping and making out but no actual sex. “The…” he gestured vaguely at his stomach, “…is in the way.”
“You know I like you on your back, baby,” Gabe crooned, just to see William’s eyes darken with intent, but he relented for the sake of sexual expediency, which was always a plus. “No problem. There’s a reason God invented spooning.”
“For fucking while incubating?” William questioned sarcastically, but he shut up fast enough once Gabe got a hand on his cock. Gabe congratulated himself for being amazing at this.
He peppered William’s shoulder with kisses while he got them both ready, abating the urgency of his cock with a quick squeeze before he eased inside. William couldn’t do much to help him from this position, but his head dropped back to lean against Gabe’s shoulder, and the soft pants of his breath along with the way his fingers tensed and relaxed rhythmically on Gabe’s hip were more than enough.
“You’re really sure?” Gabe asked, like a complete girl, but hey, he wasn’t the one incubating here. The bearer of the seed pod got to make the calls, it was an unwritten fairy rule or something.
“Yeah,” William breathed. He twisted around a little, enough to catch Gabe’s lips briefly with his, and whispered, “Go slow. I want it to feel this.”
Gabe paused. “You want our seed pod to feel me fucking you? That’s a little bit kinky, and in kind of a creepy way.”
William turned pink again, but he shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. “I want it to feel the…intent, or whatever,” he said. “That it was conceived in love. Even if it was by accident.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said fervently, and had to do the squeezing thing again to keep their seed pod from finding out what it was like when Gabe completely lost control and just ravaged the shit out of William. It probably already knew what that felt like, anyway. The hormonal sex-craze weekend had been a lot of fun.
“Gabe,” William said suddenly, and Gabe stroked his cock, felt the gentle roll and bump against his wrist where it was pressed against William’s stomach.
“Yeah?” he asked, breath caught from holding back, thrusting slow and sweet and steady while William trembled against him.
William arched his head back, licked his lips and said, “Yeah.”
+ + +
“Bill?” Gabe called when he got back to the mangrove with fresh mint and honeysuckle. “Bill?” he repeated when he saw William stroking a tree root with a blissed-out expression on his face, and then, “Shit,” because he knew what that meant.
“Gabe?” William replied, and then got distracted by a piece of grass. “Come look at this, I think a found a ladybug. Lady-love, lady-bug. A lady-love-bug.”
“Shit,” Gabe said again. “Hey, maybe we should sit down, yeah?”
This part of the incubation process he was quite familiar with. This was the part where the seed pod shed its shell so the cocoon could emerge, ready to enter the world, and in the process dissolved the shell and flooded its host body with all sorts of feel-good muscle-relaxant hallucinogens to make the whole thing easier. This was the part that had led to Frank climbing a tree last year claiming he could fly to the moon, and to Ryland spending most of the day talking to mushrooms he claimed were talking back.
It was not the part that Gabe had been most looking forward to.
William’s arms wrapped easily around him when Gabe turned him away from the invisible ladybug, and they swayed together for a minute before William hummed something giddy-fast and said, “All the pretty colors.”
“Oh yeah, you’re on the good stuff,” Gabe agreed, trying to maneuver them both towards the ground, where it was safe and there was nowhere William would try to fly or leap off of.
“I feel like a cloud,” William told him seriously, hand splayed haphazardly across Gabe’s face. He looked incredibly curious about what Gabe’s nose was doing on there.
“I know you do,” Gabe told him. “But how about we stay down here on the nice soft ground for a bit, yeah? It’s going to be seed pod time soon.”
“Yeah? That’s going to be awesome,” William said, and started nibbling on one of the forgotten mint leaves.
“It’s going to be fucking hell,” Gabe disagreed politely, but since William wasn’t trying to climb anything - shit, why had he thought mangrove roots would be a good idea? - he counted his blessings and settled them both into their nest of moss.
“Tell me about the cats,” William murmured, drowsy-soft. He smelled like fresh mint and Spanish moss. Gabe told his hormones to cool it, because now was really not the time.
“The cats?” he asked belatedly. He wondered how long this would take, and if William would kill him before it was over or wait for after.
“The marmalade cats,” William said, “with caramel whiskers,” and then he moaned softly and his hand twitched towards his stomach.
“Right, those cats,” Gabe replied. He would have said more, made some shit up or something, but William’s eyes went abruptly wide and his grip on Gabe’s hand got about one thousand times tighter all at once. His wings snapped out, tangling with Gabe’s for a second before they pulled free again.
“Oh fuck,” William moaned. “I hate you so fucking much right now.”
“I figured as much,” Gabe said regretfully. “Maybe you’ll love me again tomorrow when this is all over.”
“I doubt it,” William told him seriously, and then, “Oh hey, the colors are still here. That’s pretty.”
“Maybe we should concentrate on those,” Gabe said, but William’s grip tightened again and he choked out something that sounded like one or two on the long list of the many ways he was going to kill Gabe, so Gabe figured using pretty colors as a distraction technique was destined to fail.
William’s grip relaxed slightly and he blinked, looking dazed. Gabe squeezed his hand and William dropped his head back, eyes closed. “You’re staying, right?” he asked.
Gabe smoothed the hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead. “Right here,” he promised. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
+ + +
Gabe wanted to stay with William, but the cocoon really needed to be hung out to dry and harden, and he couldn’t resist the urge to show off what they’d made. He was absurdly proud, considering that he’d done barely anything for the past three weeks besides sing and make tea. He thought William would be proud, too, but right now he was too wrung out to do anything but sleep, passed out in a clean bed of new moss.
He hung the cocoon at least a dozen times, looking for the right branch to show it off in the light; somewhere that it wouldn’t fall into the shade, someplace safe from predators, and hopefully where it would stay nice and dry.
Finally the need to go back and check on William overrode his desire to stay with their seed pod, and he left it sparkling and new on a branch next to what was probably Patrick’s. It looked like a good place, and Pete was notoriously choosy about his branches.
William stirred when he slipped in, his wings fluttering weakly. “Hey,” Gabe said. “Go back to sleep, it’s just me.”
“Where’s…?” William asked, blinking open eyes that looked too heavy to stay that way for long.
“I hung it on a branch in the sunshine,” Gabe told him, crawling into the moss to spoon up behind him. William was light and pliant in his arms, nearly a feather now that the seed pod was gone. “It’ll be safe, you can go look at it in the morning.”
William murmured something that sounded like he thought he was actually going to take care of it tonight, so Gabe wrapped his arms around William’s waist more firmly and repeated, “Sleep.”
“So tired,” William murmured, already halfway there.
Gabe cradled him and kissed his forehead, his wings falling open and closed slowly in time with William’s breaths. “Hey baby,” he murmured, smiling into William’s hair. “Wait until you see what we made.”
Pairing: Gabe/William
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Notes: Side-story to 'Tis the season. Thanks to adellyna and zarah5v2 for the beta work.
Summary: “Bill,” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open and not just continue fucking William into the ground. “I think…I think pollination season’s started.”
They weren’t living together so much as they were holed up together. There’d been an unexpected cold snap right as spring was starting to shine through and melt the frost, and William had promptly burrowed back into the gardenia he’d been inhabiting all winter to wait for the weather to turn again. The fact that Gabe had joined him there was entirely incidental, really. He enjoyed the company. Besides, it was a pretty sweet gardenia.
They hadn’t gone out since the renewed frost. The fact that they hadn’t put any clothes on either was just a coincidence.
“So hey,” Gabe said, taking advantage of William’s distraction in aggressively denuding an acorn of its cap to ogle his ass. “At some point we might actually want to venture out. Make sure fairy-kind is still thriving and all that.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” William replied, pausing to blow a loose strand of hair out of his eyes. “Skipping among the dead, withered remains of seasonal plant life.”
“Pessimist,” Gabe accused. “We haven’t been out in a week. There might be crocuses.”
William stopped pulling at the acorn cap to shake out his arms and stretch. His wings folded in against his back, shimmering rainbow-iridescent. Gabe got in a few great seconds of ogling and had almost forgotten what they’d been talking about when William said, “The ground is still frozen.”
Gabe reached out a hand to snag William’s ankle and drag him back down into their nest of leaves and moss. “It thawed yesterday,” he said, pulling William close and sliding a hand around to the back of his thigh. “We could see the sunlight.”
“But baby it’s cold outside,” William pouted, although he wasn’t doing anything to stop Gabe’s wandering hands, rolling easily when Gabe pushed him onto his back.
Gabe slid his hands up William’s stomach, pausing to flick a few flakes of dried come off of his skin. “You do have a point,” he admitted. His acquiescence wasn’t submission, it was totally a tactical withdrawal. It was cold outside, and William was very naked and very warm.
“Mmm,” William agreed, amiably hitching his leg over Gabe’s hip when Gabe prompted him with encouraging fingers. He yawned, stretching out under Gabe’s hands like a lazy cat. “I’m waiting for spring. Wake me up when September ends.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow, looking up from his investigation of William’s inner thighs. “It’s March. But wow, you’re on a roll now, aren’t you?”
“It’s been a long December,” William replied seriously, but his breath hitched when Gabe’s fingers slid inside him, twisting with the ease of practice and familiarity.
“I’ve got better things for you to think about,” Gabe informed him, and cut off William’s inevitably witty riposte with the long, slow curl of his fingers. William made a satisfyingly strangled noise and turned his head to the side, eyes falling shut. His wings were trapped beneath them, spread out on their bed of leaves, but Gabe saw the muscles in his shoulders contract in what would have been a flutter.
“Fuck,” William whispered when Gabe wiped his fingers off and shifted forward to replace them with his cock. “Yes.”
“Good, yeah?” Gabe said, smirking as he rolled his hips. Fishing for compliments usually yielded nothing but sarcastically cutting replies with William, but Gabe didn’t even really need them. He knew how good he was.
“Fuck,” William said again, with slightly more emphasis. Gabe circled his hips experimentally, waiting for the bob of William’s Adam’s apple to give away when he hit the right spot, and then set about rocking his world. It was a faster pace than he usually set this early on, but they’d already gone two rounds today, so he was nothing but stamina.
“Seeing God yet?” Gabe asked, trying for conversational but failing a little, because William was starting to writhe, twisting against the pull of his trapped wings and gasping for breath. The heaviness in Gabe’s balls pulled a little tighter, just enough to give him incentive to keep up the pace.
“Don’t stop,” William ordered, gripping Gabe’s hips tighter as if he thought Gabe would actually be going anywhere right now. “Fuck. Gabe.”
Gabe leaned down to lick at the gathering sheen of sweat on William’s throat, judging his angle by the answering tremble in William’s thighs. “Can you come like this?” he asked, curious.
“Can you keep this up?” William shot back breathily, his heel skidding against the back of Gabe’s knee.
Gabe swore a little and closed his eyes, dropping his head against William’s throat and mouthing at his skin, ignoring the growing ache in his muscles in favor of making William dig fingernails into his back. When he opened his eyes again, he was seeing stars. Bright, hazy stars, glittering across his field of vision and over William’s face, his eyes closed and mouth open, arched back into Gabe’s thrusts.
Damn, he was good, he thought distractedly, and then stuttered and lost the rhythm. The stars were gold. They weren’t stars. They were…
Fuck. “Bill,” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open and not just continue fucking William into the ground. “I think…I think pollination season’s started.”
William’s eyes flew open at that, wide and surprised, but they shut again almost as fast when Gabe lost his resolve and thrust in deep. The fight to keep his hips still was being lost completely when William added himself to the equation, rocking back faster the more Gabe lagged. “If you stop I will fucking kill you,” he said sincerely, and then he bit his lip hard enough to flush the skin red, and Gabe gracefully capitulated and threw himself back into fucking.
It was pretty, actually. His wings were purple and gold, and the fairy dust falling from them now glittered sharply in the air, swirling around them like fog. William’s wings were still outstretched, pinned and fully extended, gold flecks spangling the bright colors of the rainbow. His head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and in between one breath and the next he came and took Gabe with him, and this time Gabe really did see stars.
“Fuck,” Gabe said again, reverently. He peeled himself back to look more closely at William, who was lying spent and sated with his head turned to one side, a lock of dark hair curling around the curve of his ear. William’s wings were trying to twitch again, faintly stirring the fairy dust still floating in a cloud around the two of them. Gabe’s wings gave a little involuntary shiver, sending more dust into the air in a chaotic swirl.
William finally pried his eyes open, studying the gold haze with detached interest. “If you cross-pollinate with me, they’ll never find your body,” he said conversationally.
Gabe looked at the bright gold flecks still clinging stubbornly to William’s spread wings and said, “Fuck.”
+ + +
Three days later, there was no denying it. “Kill you,” William repeated, but his heart wasn’t in it. His wings were flapping despondently behind him, drooped so low that the tips trailed on the ground. Gabe had finally coaxed him out into the warm spring sunlight, and the rainbow shimmer of his wings caught the light with a scattered glimmer of gold.
“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Gabe crooned, slipping in behind William to wrap an arm around his waist. “It’ll be over in three weeks, anyway. And everyone does it. You won’t be alone.”
“It’s involuntary and non-consensual reproduction. It’s unfair. It’s a seasonal incapacitation,” William said venomously. “Nature has no right.”
“You can’t argue with biology,” Gabe pointed out reasonably. “Besides, at least this year we won’t have to worry about not having sex until it’s over.” He always hated that. William got so crazy during pollination season that he wouldn’t even let Gabe near him most of the time. Or anyone else, for that matter. This year, at least, they wouldn’t have to be so careful.
“You’re kidding me, right?” William said balefully. “We’re not having sex. I’m going to turn into a balloon because my body has been accosted and is now harboring an unwanted fairy seed pod. You’re not even allowed to look at me for the next three weeks.” His wings flapped a little pathetically at that, slapping harmlessly against Gabe’s sides.
“I think it’ll be hot,” Gabe said, honestly, because when wasn’t William hot? He stroked his thumb over one of William’s sharp hipbones and wondered how long it would take for them to disappear. Probably not long; it would only take a week for the seed pod to grow beyond what William’s body could counterbalance.
“I’ll look like a blowfish,” William said, eyes narrowed as he craned his neck around to glare at Gabe. “That’s not hot.”
Gabe slid his hand over the tiny pudge of William’s stomach, rubbing in a slow circle. “You’ll look like you’re mine,” he corrected, nipping at William’s ear. “And that’s fucking hot.”
It was pretty exciting, actually. They were making a fucking seed pod. Gabe ran carefully light fingertips over William’s wing and watched him shudder back into the touch, eyes falling shut. Gabe’s fingers spread out to touch five different points of gold, pressing just hard enough that William pushed back against him.
“We’re not having sex anyway,” William said. “I’m punishing you for being the cause of this.”
“It takes two to tango,” Gabe murmured, rubbing his cock slowly against the cleft of William’s ass. He was painfully hard, imagining the two of them hanging a cocoon on a tree, seeing William’s wings glitter with flecks of color from his own. It was surprisingly arousing.
“Your fertile devil dust,” William replied, but he sounded distracted, dropping his head to one side when Gabe nuzzled in for access to his throat. One of his hands covered Gabe’s on his stomach, holding them closer together.
“I say we make the best of it,” Gabe said lightly. “Today, anyway. By tomorrow you might be too huge for me to even get a grip on.”
He was ready for it when William twisted in his grip, but his wings still flared out to balance them, blocking some of the sunlight slanting across William’s narrowed eyes. “Against this tree trunk,” he challenged. “You’re holding me up for twenty minutes, just for that remark.”
“Just for that, huh?” Gabe asked lazily, already shifting his grip to brace William as he pushed him back against the rough bark. “What if you’re already too heavy?”
William’s wings spread wide behind him just before his back hit the tree, catching the sunlight and momentarily so bright that Gabe was blinded. “Then I guess you’ll just have to sweat for it,” William said, tipping his head back against the bark and letting his eyes narrow to slits.
Gabe lifted him up so William could hook his legs around Gabe’s waist. Their wings beat against each other briefly, catching the breeze and steadying their position. Gabe felt the tingle in his spine each time William’s wings brushed his and bared his teeth in a grin. “I guess I will.”
+ + +
Gabe took his time scouting around, but he was satisfied enough by sunset to bring William with him out of the gardenia where William was currently hiding.
“They’ll understand,” Gabe promised. “Shit like this happens all the time. It’s not like anyone can blame you for not knowing when the season started.”
“Last year I said that if I cross-pollinated I would stake myself out in a meadow so that my lifeblood could water the weeds and choke the flowers until they withered and died,” William reminded him. His hair was falling into his eyes, but he didn’t reach up to brush it aside. His arms were busy, outstretched to keep him from tipping over and falling on his face, and his wings were working overtime, beating against the air to balance the added weight curving his belly. Gabe reached out and did it for him, automatically tucking his hand under William’s elbow to steady him when he flailed slightly stepping over a tree root.
“This is it,” Gabe said, turning them both around to face his prize. He grinned at the sturdy young mangrove, then turned expectantly to bask in the glory of William’s gratitude.
William frowned. “I’m not living in a fucking tree,” he announced.
That wasn’t exactly the reaction Gabe had been hoping for. “It’s dry,” he said. “It’s out of the way of everyone else. It’s got hidden depths.” Well, it was a tree, but there were lots of roots, so those counted as hidden depths, right?
“Roots are not hidden depths,” William said, before Gabe could persuade him otherwise. “Living in trees is so passé. They have bark. And bugs. And it’s cold.”
“Not in the tree,” Gabe soothed. “Underneath the tree.”
William looked distinctly skeptical, but he allowed Gabe to guide him down into the maze of mangrove roots. He didn’t have much choice, anyway, because he couldn’t balance very well on his own for long.
“Do you see?” Gabe said excitedly once they reached the center of the intricate web. He put his hands out to the side and gripped two roots, rising from the earth to entwine well over their heads.
William frowned and said, “No.”
Gabe gestured to the roots all around them. “You can walk,” he explained. “You can hold onto the roots and you won’t tip over. You won’t have to be an invalid for two weeks.”
William’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” he asked. He put one hand out to steady himself on a root, testing. Gabe stepped aside, arm making a sweeping invitation to investigate the terrain, and watched as William picked his way through the roots. Finally he turned back, still looking stunned. “Gabe, this is…”
“I know,” Gabe said smugly. “I’m the best babydaddy ever. Be glad you’re in this with me, sweet cheeks.”
William’s face made a minor contortion that Gabe interpreted as being sincerely touched but still desperately wanting to say something sarcastic. “I am,” he said when the conflict was over.
Gabe leaned back against one of the sturdy roots and crossed his arms over his chest casually. “So,” he said. “How about we christen this place while we still can?”
William’s lips curved up slowly the way that Gabe loved, and he shifted his weight, definitely bulkier now than he used to be but somehow still hanging onto grace with his fingernails. “Maybe we should,” he murmured, sultry. He took one sauntering step forward, flailed abruptly and fell flat on his face.
“Oh shit,” Gabe managed, and then unfroze and rushed over to where William was windmilling on the ground, wings snapping open and closed chaotically. “Are you okay? Shit.”
“I hate my life,” William informed him, muffled into the dirt. “And I’m crushing our seed pod.”
Gabe paused in providing assistance and sat back on his heels for a minute. William smacked his arm until he remembered to help, and once he was finally upright and sitting back against a root, glared suspiciously at Gabe’s grin.
“What?” he asked warily.
Gabe shrugged, but it didn’t dim the grin. “You called it our seed pod,” he said. “Not ‘the seed pod,’ or ‘the thing I’m incubating,’ or ‘the parasite currently sucking away at the marrow of my soul.’”
William flushed, but one of his hands came up almost involuntarily to curve over his swollen stomach. “Yeah, well,” he said awkwardly. “It is ours, so. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.”
“It’s so cute,” Gabe told him, still grinning like a maniac. “We should give it a name. Something to call it, so it knows us.”
“Don’t be Pete,” William said sternly. “I’m not having a seed pod with Pete.”
“Aw, come on,” Gabe coaxed, trying to steal William’s other hand. It was unfortunately difficult to woo William the way he usually did, now that the baby bump was in the way. Usually Gabe just had to hold onto him and croon and nuzzle a bit. “We could pick something gender-neutral.”
“It’s a seed pod,” William said firmly, but Gabe knew William. He saw the first cracks appearing in the defensive I-hate-reproduction armor. And since he knew damn well this was the only chance he was getting to do the whole cross-pollination thing with William, he was determined to make the most of it.
“What about something classical?” he suggested. “Hermes. Aphrodite.”
William eyed him. Gabe tried to sidle a little closer. “You said gender-neutral,” William reminded him.
“Hermaphrodite,” Gabe said promptly. “It’s like both at once. The best of two worlds.”
William opened his mouth, undoubtedly to argue, but instead his shoulders slumped a little and he said, “I’m tired.”
“Sleep,” Gabe said immediately. “We can christen later. I’ll think up names while you nap.”
“I can’t wait,” William muttered, but he was hiding a smile. Gabe wasn’t fooled. He wondered if William would get suspicious if Gabe suggested they name the kid Venus. Probably not; William had never seen himself smile.
Gabe spooned up behind him, helping them both settle in the moss Gabe had laid carefully amongst the roots. “Sleep,” he crooned again. His fingers slipped between William’s, both of them cradling the gentle bump of William’s belly. He was pretty sure William was already dreaming.
+ + +
“Hey,” Gabe said when he got back to the mangrove in the afternoon. “Spencer’s been looking for you. Everyone has, really. Your absence has been noted.”
“I’m in my confinement,” William said solemnly. He was curled up against a thick pillow of moss, on his side with his head propped up by one arm. The other was curled around his stomach, which was now nearly the size of William himself. Gabe hadn’t known skinny people could get that round when they didn’t have any fat anywhere else on their body.
“How are you doing?” Gabe asked, running a critical - although not unappreciative - eye over William. He looked more like hell than usual, with dark circles under his eyes and a paler complexion than he normally had. Even his wings were drooping. “Did you sleep? It’s a lot of work carrying a seed pod around, you should rest.”
“I think it’s cocooning,” William said tiredly, one hand absently massaging his stomach. “It hasn’t stopped moving since yesterday afternoon.”
Gabe made a little noise of sympathy. “I brought you some more of that mint shit you’re so addicted to now,” he offered. “Maybe that will help.”
“Maybe,” William agreed, but he sounded doubtful. “I haven’t been able to keep anything down today.”
“You should eat something,” Gabe said. “Something light. I could find some berries or something, they’re starting to pop up here and there.”
William opened his mouth to reply, and then bit his lip and curled up a little.
Gabe dropped down beside him immediately, abandoning the mint leaves for the moment and placing his hand over William’s. He could feel the seed pod moving restlessly, twisting and rolling. “Hey now,” he crooned, rubbing William’s stomach in between his splayed fingers. “Stop that, you’re making your dad sick.”
“I don’t think it particularly cares,” William admitted, pain-lines creasing his forehead. “Maybe it doesn’t like me.”
“Maybe it’s just hitting the teenage rebellion phase a little early,” Gabe suggested. To William’s stomach, he said, “Is that it? Are you having your revenge while still in the pod? You could care less, as long as someone will bleed?”
He sang the last part, to make William laugh, but when he succeeded he also felt the restless movement beneath his hand cease. William’s laughter cut off abruptly, and both of them held their breaths for a moment before they felt the first twitch again.
“Do that again,” William whispered in a rush. “Sing to it. I think…”
Gabe raised his eyebrows, but bent his head closer to William’s stomach and said, “Hey in there. You like that? When we were young the future was so bright…”
William closed his eyes with a soft sigh. Gabe was honestly shocked by his success, but gamely kept going until he couldn’t feel any movement at all beneath his hand and William’s breaths were falling in the slow, even rhythm of sleep.
+ + +
Gabe ended up singing for most of the day while he cleaned up under the mangrove a little and rummaged around looking for berries, and when William called urgently, “Gabe,” he was right there with cold-brewed mint-water tea and Morrissey.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this parenting thing, actually,” Gabe said with a touch of smugness. “You and I have this down pat.”
William sipped his tea and said, “Don’t get cocky,” but he didn’t object when Gabe made himself at home straddling William’s legs and singing nonsense songs.
“Welcome to the world, it’s awfully bright out here most of the time,” Gabe sang, and stopped when he saw the funny look William was giving him. “What?”
William shrugged, but Gabe didn’t relent, so he finally gave in and admitted, “You like this, don’t you? You’re glad we’re doing it.”
“I’m glad I’m doing it with you,” Gabe corrected. He ducked his head until William was forced to make eye contact. “We don’t have to do it again, fuck that noise. Once is enough.”
William smiled a little, just the first fractional curl, and Gabe coaxed it out with tickling fingers along his sides. “I am glad we’re doing it, though,” he said. “I mean, since we had little choice in the matter.” Before William’s smile could darken into the lines of a pre-lecture on the injustice of fairy biology and issues of consent, Gabe hastily added, “I’m glad it’s me and you.”
William’s eyes softened again, and his hands slid up Gabe’s chest. “I’m glad, too,” he said.
There was too much invitation in that tone for Gabe not to slide his tongue along William’s, even with the awkward seed pod-bulge between them. It had been a while since they’d done this, especially after William’s hormone-crazed weekend had passed, and Gabe wasn’t sure how much William wanted right now, so he kept it slow and easy, one finger circling William’s navel until he shivered and bit down on Gabe’s lip.
“We could,” William said softly. “If you wanted to.”
William’s hands were currently on Gabe’s chest and Gabe’s cock was at full salute, so whether Gabe wanted to was kind of a moot point. “You sure?” he asked, rocking his hips forward just a bit to make sure William knew his interest wasn’t in question.
William flushed a little, moving out of range of Gabe’s questing tongue. “Well,” he said awkwardly. “You’re the one who has to…I mean, if you want to wait until I’m not so…”
“Oh, fuck that,” Gabe said pleasantly, tipping William backwards onto the moss. “Like having sex with you is such a hardship.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work like this,” William said breathlessly a few minutes later, when there had been quite a lot of groping and making out but no actual sex. “The…” he gestured vaguely at his stomach, “…is in the way.”
“You know I like you on your back, baby,” Gabe crooned, just to see William’s eyes darken with intent, but he relented for the sake of sexual expediency, which was always a plus. “No problem. There’s a reason God invented spooning.”
“For fucking while incubating?” William questioned sarcastically, but he shut up fast enough once Gabe got a hand on his cock. Gabe congratulated himself for being amazing at this.
He peppered William’s shoulder with kisses while he got them both ready, abating the urgency of his cock with a quick squeeze before he eased inside. William couldn’t do much to help him from this position, but his head dropped back to lean against Gabe’s shoulder, and the soft pants of his breath along with the way his fingers tensed and relaxed rhythmically on Gabe’s hip were more than enough.
“You’re really sure?” Gabe asked, like a complete girl, but hey, he wasn’t the one incubating here. The bearer of the seed pod got to make the calls, it was an unwritten fairy rule or something.
“Yeah,” William breathed. He twisted around a little, enough to catch Gabe’s lips briefly with his, and whispered, “Go slow. I want it to feel this.”
Gabe paused. “You want our seed pod to feel me fucking you? That’s a little bit kinky, and in kind of a creepy way.”
William turned pink again, but he shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. “I want it to feel the…intent, or whatever,” he said. “That it was conceived in love. Even if it was by accident.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said fervently, and had to do the squeezing thing again to keep their seed pod from finding out what it was like when Gabe completely lost control and just ravaged the shit out of William. It probably already knew what that felt like, anyway. The hormonal sex-craze weekend had been a lot of fun.
“Gabe,” William said suddenly, and Gabe stroked his cock, felt the gentle roll and bump against his wrist where it was pressed against William’s stomach.
“Yeah?” he asked, breath caught from holding back, thrusting slow and sweet and steady while William trembled against him.
William arched his head back, licked his lips and said, “Yeah.”
+ + +
“Bill?” Gabe called when he got back to the mangrove with fresh mint and honeysuckle. “Bill?” he repeated when he saw William stroking a tree root with a blissed-out expression on his face, and then, “Shit,” because he knew what that meant.
“Gabe?” William replied, and then got distracted by a piece of grass. “Come look at this, I think a found a ladybug. Lady-love, lady-bug. A lady-love-bug.”
“Shit,” Gabe said again. “Hey, maybe we should sit down, yeah?”
This part of the incubation process he was quite familiar with. This was the part where the seed pod shed its shell so the cocoon could emerge, ready to enter the world, and in the process dissolved the shell and flooded its host body with all sorts of feel-good muscle-relaxant hallucinogens to make the whole thing easier. This was the part that had led to Frank climbing a tree last year claiming he could fly to the moon, and to Ryland spending most of the day talking to mushrooms he claimed were talking back.
It was not the part that Gabe had been most looking forward to.
William’s arms wrapped easily around him when Gabe turned him away from the invisible ladybug, and they swayed together for a minute before William hummed something giddy-fast and said, “All the pretty colors.”
“Oh yeah, you’re on the good stuff,” Gabe agreed, trying to maneuver them both towards the ground, where it was safe and there was nowhere William would try to fly or leap off of.
“I feel like a cloud,” William told him seriously, hand splayed haphazardly across Gabe’s face. He looked incredibly curious about what Gabe’s nose was doing on there.
“I know you do,” Gabe told him. “But how about we stay down here on the nice soft ground for a bit, yeah? It’s going to be seed pod time soon.”
“Yeah? That’s going to be awesome,” William said, and started nibbling on one of the forgotten mint leaves.
“It’s going to be fucking hell,” Gabe disagreed politely, but since William wasn’t trying to climb anything - shit, why had he thought mangrove roots would be a good idea? - he counted his blessings and settled them both into their nest of moss.
“Tell me about the cats,” William murmured, drowsy-soft. He smelled like fresh mint and Spanish moss. Gabe told his hormones to cool it, because now was really not the time.
“The cats?” he asked belatedly. He wondered how long this would take, and if William would kill him before it was over or wait for after.
“The marmalade cats,” William said, “with caramel whiskers,” and then he moaned softly and his hand twitched towards his stomach.
“Right, those cats,” Gabe replied. He would have said more, made some shit up or something, but William’s eyes went abruptly wide and his grip on Gabe’s hand got about one thousand times tighter all at once. His wings snapped out, tangling with Gabe’s for a second before they pulled free again.
“Oh fuck,” William moaned. “I hate you so fucking much right now.”
“I figured as much,” Gabe said regretfully. “Maybe you’ll love me again tomorrow when this is all over.”
“I doubt it,” William told him seriously, and then, “Oh hey, the colors are still here. That’s pretty.”
“Maybe we should concentrate on those,” Gabe said, but William’s grip tightened again and he choked out something that sounded like one or two on the long list of the many ways he was going to kill Gabe, so Gabe figured using pretty colors as a distraction technique was destined to fail.
William’s grip relaxed slightly and he blinked, looking dazed. Gabe squeezed his hand and William dropped his head back, eyes closed. “You’re staying, right?” he asked.
Gabe smoothed the hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead. “Right here,” he promised. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
+ + +
Gabe wanted to stay with William, but the cocoon really needed to be hung out to dry and harden, and he couldn’t resist the urge to show off what they’d made. He was absurdly proud, considering that he’d done barely anything for the past three weeks besides sing and make tea. He thought William would be proud, too, but right now he was too wrung out to do anything but sleep, passed out in a clean bed of new moss.
He hung the cocoon at least a dozen times, looking for the right branch to show it off in the light; somewhere that it wouldn’t fall into the shade, someplace safe from predators, and hopefully where it would stay nice and dry.
Finally the need to go back and check on William overrode his desire to stay with their seed pod, and he left it sparkling and new on a branch next to what was probably Patrick’s. It looked like a good place, and Pete was notoriously choosy about his branches.
William stirred when he slipped in, his wings fluttering weakly. “Hey,” Gabe said. “Go back to sleep, it’s just me.”
“Where’s…?” William asked, blinking open eyes that looked too heavy to stay that way for long.
“I hung it on a branch in the sunshine,” Gabe told him, crawling into the moss to spoon up behind him. William was light and pliant in his arms, nearly a feather now that the seed pod was gone. “It’ll be safe, you can go look at it in the morning.”
William murmured something that sounded like he thought he was actually going to take care of it tonight, so Gabe wrapped his arms around William’s waist more firmly and repeated, “Sleep.”
“So tired,” William murmured, already halfway there.
Gabe cradled him and kissed his forehead, his wings falling open and closed slowly in time with William’s breaths. “Hey baby,” he murmured, smiling into William’s hair. “Wait until you see what we made.”