Count to Three

’We changed him just before we left. He actually took his nap this afternoon too. You don’t cause trouble for your uncles buddy.’ The baby bag was draped over Frank’s broad, capable – mostly – shoulder. Frank had still grunted, as though the logistics were as much a physical weight on his chest as the bag had been on his shoulder. Everything these days had to happen while they were juggling, keeping a dozen balls in the air. He would’ve lamented the ease of the old days, where he’d been able to call Freyja on the way back from Whitmore, talking her into meeting him for dinner with a single word, but grinning at his wife as she rebuffed Gianni’s flirtations and squeezed his hands, Theo knew he wouldn’t have swapped this for the world.

A first breath at the side of – a first breath – rushing out into traffic as he’d seen Freyja and her bump (God, she’d looked incredible, felt it too), clinging to her. The first pigeon steps of a second chance he’d never expected to have. He could’ve been too exhausted to make it through dessert tonight, coulda carried the scent of baby puke and poop (a noxious mix that seemed to cling to everything), it wouldn’t have mattered. Logistics or not he was gonna enjoy every minute of what had almost been lost to them.

Dozens of times since they’d walked into the guidance counsellor’s office and discovered the man that had almost cost them this incredible, exhausting, beautiful future Theo had found himself considering how different it could’ve been. You couldn’t live that way anymore than you could constantly shackled to your kid’s side, but the thoughts still snuck in on the edges of everything. They were softened by the touch of his wife’s lips, by the touch of his warrior princess’ hand, chasing all the worries back into the dimness beyond the reach of the candles that sat on each of the tables.

Lost without her – absolutely.

Theo anchored himself to her as he always did, dipping his head, kissing his spot at the nape of Freyja’s neck. Tonight they’d reacquaint themselves with who they’d been, who they were beneath the veneer of parenthood. Little moments in that candlelight, warm and happy and gilded with the promise of what could be beyond those small worries that they weren’t going to let eat up what they had.

He could see the echoes of that life they did had in his friend’s grin – the one unshadowed by all those other things. ”I’ve thrown my back out twice carting him around,” Theo quipped, his grin going wry as he heard the uh huh Gianni shot back at him. The joys of middle age that he’d gladly suffer through. He’d be that grandpa who couldn’t get up without a groan – in a decade or three.

”You bring them both next time,” Gianni ordered.

”Promise,” Theo assured him, settling in. That first time he’d sat right here, bubbling with nerves until she’d walked in, and then it had all settled, love for Freyja curling fingers into his heart the same way she’d done with his clothes outside before she’d …

The laugh rolled out of him as Freyja whispered at him to shut up. ”Eccentric? Nah.” There was something far more confident in his grin now as he eased back in his seat to smirk at her across the table. ”Shy maybe, but you put an end to that. You got your hands on me and the whole world changed.” That first date had been scattered with what might’ve looked like disasters – the rain, him practically shrieking and drawing the attention of everybody inside when Freyja had gotten close outside, her falling asleep on him when they were gonna get closer inside, but everyone had ended up a blessing. Things were starting at a different point tonight, some things didn’t change though.

Lowering his hands, Theo hummed. ”On full volume?” he asked, only a little serious. The restaurant wasn’t exactly grand central and attuned as they were to their phones, the first faint buzz against the table cloth would’ve had them both clawing for their phones. To stop himself, he laced his fingers with his wife’s, letting out a pffft as she blew off the idea of an added taste of their first night here. ”Please,” he crooned. ”You still look as incredible as you did then.” Parenthood had left its little marks on both of them but they were battle scars, medals. Worn proudly in celebration of everything they had together.

You? Theo mouthed as the look she gave him slipped into that murmured appreciation that had him misting up in an instant. All these years together and a single sentence could still choke him up in the best ways. ”It’s our blessing, our miracle,” Theo whispered. He sniffed in a breath, his lips curving. ”I knew it was love that night, had to be for me to come back after I bored you so badly you fell asleep on me.” His attempt to purse his lips in disapproval lasted all of two seconds before it vanished and he was lifting their hands for him to brush his lips against her knuckles.

”Good,” Theo chuckled. ”It’s payment for all the ways you tear me up.” He turned her hand over, kissed her palm before he glanced up to find Gianni already weaving his way back to them from where he’d been talking to one of his waitresses.

He was smirking, one dark brow rising as he tugged his order pad out of the black apron he wore around his waist. ”Two portions of arancini, and wedding soup, huh?” Theo nodded, his gaze ticking up to his friend before it was back on his wife. Gianni scrawled down the order, nodding as though he approved of the decision.

”And two negronis, thanks.”

”Pushing the boat out without the kids here, huh?” Gianni let out a low whistle and slipped off, leaving the menus on the table.

Tracing his fingers over her palms again, Theo let their hands settle to the table. Lucky was the simplest way to describe just what they’d been. Almost every day since had been a dream and tonight, in one of those few quiet moments they seemed to get tonight, they’d wrap around one another in the bubble of it again. As they’d done in the hayloft, in the pool at the resort for their anniversary. That dream of a future houseful of kids bobbing along on the negronis. ”Are you gonna get me drunk Mrs Damasca? Get me all sappy about how much more I love you every time I look at you. Gets me right here you know, gets me all misty.” And hot, like his skin would sizzle until he got to pour every ounce of what he felt into the touch of his fingers over her skin, or the brush of his lips against hers.

Tagged: FREYJA DAMASCA * Word Count: 1162

Theo’s smirk softened, as it always did with her. Maybe shy hadn’t been exactly the right word either, but everything had changed when they’d run into one another on campus. It was like it had been when they’d first slipped the hearing aids into his ears, suddenly he was aware of so much he hadn’t known about, hadn’t been able to experience before. As he would’ve done if he’d remained deaf, he would’ve survived if they hadn’t met that day, but his life would’ve been so much less for it. Freyja had given him the world – with that smile, the arms that had him in tenderness and joy, that had held him together, the laugh that lit up that world, with the two incredible kids she’d carried.

The tears that welled up in her eyes as the feel of her lips on the back of his hands slowly faded away proved he’d given her just as much in their relationship. All that wild and strong was tempered by the mistiness of those tears – coming with the frequency of rain in Seattle (and without the excuse of hormones now that Bo was six months old). She could scoff about it all she wanted, but he saw it in his wife.

”Never,” Theo promised. He was grinning through, the curve of his lips growing as she protested the compliment. Freyja turned away, looking for all the world like she was bashful when it came to her husband professing his love for her, but those eyes were back on his a moment later, with that look in them that told him he was definitely in trouble. Theo stretched back in his seat, long legs angling beneath the table, as though he was untouchable. ”Hey, maybe that’s just a ploy to stop me talking … if it is, I’d say it usually works pretty well, since you did have my babies and all.” The echo of her words had him chuckling. These days when Freyja zonked out, he just crawled into bed beside her, a different set of dogs watching over their family from their spot in Hazel’s room.

The two of them had changed since then – matured in a way that only kids could make happen. There were definitely nights when sleep came seconds after their heads hit the pillow, but they knew when to suck it up and no matter how hard the negronis hit, that was going to be tonight. They were not spending date night snoring on the couch because they hadn’t even been able to drag themselves up the stairs.

”It’s one of those evenings, huh?” Gianni grumbled under his breath before he winked at Freyja and took a step back. ”She’ll be right over.”

Letting out a low whistle in an echo of the one Gianni had given, Theo shook his head reproachfully. There was a gleam in his eyes as Freyja squeezed his hands though. ”I’d have packed the kids off to Frank’s weeks ago if I knew it was gonna be like this,” he murmured, mouthing a wow in punctuation. If the uncles managed tonight – and the two of them coped with the separation – maybe date night would become a regular thing again. Time together, still pining for their babies occasionally, but getting those few hours to be Theo and Freyja rather than just mom and dad would be worth its weight in gold.

Theo tilted his head from side to side, drawing in a deep breath through his nose that just highlighted the burn at the back of his eyes for a moment before it cooled it. ”Yes ma’am,” he murmured obediently, wriggling the tip of his nose. He squirmed in his seat for a moment longer, smile and eyes all for his wife and then as he stroked his finger over the pulse in Freyja’s wrist in a silent promise of what was coming later, Chiara appeared with the drinks and that warm family welcome.

Those first glasses went down smooth, the seconds arriving with their soup and arancini. The buzz settled in, soothing the sharp edges of worry, stretching out those glances at their phones as time went on. If Frank and Kit managed to get through the first few hours then signs were good that they’d manage to go a whole night without having to call a cab – there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was gonna be in any fit state to be driving over there himself tonight – and rush over there. It was maybe fifty-fifty that his head wouldn’t feel like it was splitting in two when they did manage to drag themselves out of bed to get there. After the lecture he’d given Hazel on hangovers and overdoing it (and just drinking before she was 65 in general), it was going to be a walk of shame that he absolutely wouldn’t admit to. He wasn’t Frank – or Kit – his nights were usually spent at the kitchen table, helping Hazel with her science homework, giving his son a bath before bed. Stinkingly domestic tasks that he loved, even when they were punctuated with spit up and diaper blow-outs.

Were his cheeks numb? Theo opened his mouth, dropping his jaw and wiggling it side to side as though it would reveal if they were or not by the time they escaped the long, loud farewells and stepped out into the cooler night air. Those shots had maybe sent the scales swinging in the direction of definitely drunk, a knowing look aimed their way by Chiara as the rest of the restaurant finished emptying out and they became an island of merriment in the centre of a sea of cleaning up. It was Freyja who’d got them moving in the end, while he’d still been sitting there, wondering if he’d be able to taste the sweetness of the tiramisu on Freyja’s lips when they got out of there.

He was definitely gonna taste her, that vow to honour and obey taking on subtleties (or not-so-subtleties) as they spilled through the door into what would be their very adult playground for the night. ”Mrs Damasca!” he gasped, the mock outrage melting away as, oh yeah, there was the tiramisu. They’d probably have been home in minutes if he had stumbled over to the edge of the curb to flag down a cab, but it was a slow meander instead, the flow of it eddying and swirling as Freyja hooked herself around him. She drew him in until there was nothing between them, her lips parting beneath his for that slow taste of her, the warmth of her a harbour for him as he slotted against her hips in a nudge that promised even more. He didn’t squawk this time, didn’t leap like a fish that’d found itself on the Grill, Theo melted with it instead, inviting until they drew away from one another – avoiding a public indecency charge and a mortifying phone call to Frank to come and spring them.

”Stumble a bit, come here,” he’d chuckled back every time Freyja had insisted on walking a little more. It had been more than a nice night, it’d been all he’d hoped for, fortune smiling on the pair of them. They made it home in one piece, only actually losing their balance as they tipped through the front door. Theo winced, clutching at the umbrella stand by the door in an echo of Hazel’s first drinking experience. Thankfully their daughter wasn’t there to shriek hypocrite at him. It was just the dogs nuzzling at them, tails whipping deliriously as their mistress greeted them exuberantly. ”The best behaved middle kids you could possible ask for. Hi, hihi.” Theo’s fingers scritched behind Pluto’s ears, Freckles damp nose working its way into the pocket of his palm.

Theo settled that palm at the small of his wife’s back as she started working the two of them into the house. ”The absolute best. I always knew you were safe with him. He adored you.” The dog had been devoted to her, especially in those days when he’d been separated from Freyja, unable to reach through that invisible veil to hold onto Freyja, to feel Hazel’s first kicks as she tested the bounds of her mom’s bladder. His stomach fluttered at the memory of the way it had felt when it had been his bladder, his daughter a part of him the way she had been her mom. There was no way he’d ever be able to explain to Hazel just how that had felt. The rest of that time had been a nightmare he didn’t want his daughter to suffer through when there were already too many encroaching on her life.

He hummed, his hand sliding down to Freyja’s hip, the other joining it to draw her up against him. Trying to lift without tumbling them both over. ”I know,” he drawled, pulling his whole Harrison Ford act before he was grinning into that kiss. ”I love you too, even if you’ve got absolutely no faith in my abilities to operate in a slightly inebriated state.” The understatement of the year broke off into a faint growl, something approaching a purr as he dragged his mouth down to nip beneath her jaw. ”Look at us smashing all the adulting. Married, parents, responsible homeowners.” Responsible enough to be eyeing the kitchen counter. It wouldn’t be the first time.

”Hey, hey, careful...” The laugh rolled out of him as she turned to glare at the chair like it had leapt right into her path on purpose. Theo drew her in again, his hands smoothing over her ass, like he was massaging away any bruises, lifting as the hum worked its way back through his nerves like power rushing through an electrical system. He could’ve dropped to his knees right there, encouraged her to hold on tight as he used that power to light her up – hopefully not literally, singed eyebrows were gonna be harder to hide than bruised knees and nail marks on his shoulders.

Freyja was moving them again, angling towards the stairs as he dipped his head in search of the pulse in her neck, wanting to feel it thump against his lips. Theo nipped at jaw again, his nose nuzzling Freyja’s cheek before slept and suddenly they were rocking back – forward, shitshitshit, had he headbutted her on the way down?

Theo landed on his hands and knees on the stairs, his hands scrabbling at her hips, losing his grip as she thumped back. She was cursing, that was a good sign wasn’t it? Panting, already fumbling at her, he tried to make sure that she hadn’t broken a hip or brained herself as she’d hit. She was grinning up at him, snickering in a way that melted away his fear. Theo sagged down against her, his fingers curling beneath her, like he could soften the blow now. ”Ancient,” he agreed. ”What happened to all that gymnast grace huh? You OK? You didn’t bang your head? Maybe Dr Damasca should check it all out. Just to make sure.”

He held onto one of those pecks, deepening the kiss until he was breathing her in. Slowly, Theo slid down the stairs, the bonelessness he planned on basking in when they finally took a moment to recover taking them down easy until he was sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. Hands nudging fabric aside until his hands were cupping those soft, supple curves and pulling his wife in against the one part of him that was definitely the opposite of boneless.

Tagged: FREYJA DAMASCA * Word Count: 1933 (don't look at me!)

Maybe it was for the best they’d hadn’t attempted this on their first date. They’d have either ended up at the ER with a story to tell their grandkids one day – mortifying their kids in the process – or more likely the curse that’d left Freyja caught in the rain and falling asleep later wouldn’t have been broken with true love’s kiss and there wouldn’t have been a second date. Even sprawled on the stairs with his forehead aching dully and his hands running over her in a less sexy way, he wouldn’t have changed that first date for the world – it had given him the world.

Theo made a sound low in his throat as he assured himself that his world didn’t need to be rushed into an ambulance or even patched up right this minute. They were alright, their night was ending right here – although it might pause here a minute while he caught his breath and finished their check-up with the delicacy of his fingertips and lips. He clucked his tongue, before he traced it over Freyja’s lips. ”A war wound, huh? I should make sure I thank you for your service, and your sacrifice.” His palm did just that as it slipped up the bag of her leg, settling against that soft skin at the back of her knee, lifting it gently so it was draped over his hip again.

”Let’s keep that for the next time,” he murmured, dropping his head to kiss her collarbone, the centre of her chest. Now that they knew they could get through a whole meal without a panicked phone call there would be other date nights, regular time (as long as Frank and Kit didn’t bug out of the babysitting) just for the two of them and those nebulous plans to fill this house with kids.

Maybe they weren’t so nebulous tonight. Theo shifted again, setting aside thoughts of concussions and bruised asses. They came together, the two of them rushing towards that future together.



Later he’d inspected her for those bruises, soothing all those spots he’d examined before. Reassuring himself and Freyja that neither one of them was going to look like they’d been brawling all night when they dragged themselves to Frank’s in the morning … later that morning. The two of them up that late at night, drunk enough to giggling and spilling onto the bed in a naked sprawl.

He hadn’t stayed that way - well he hadn’t stayed sprawled, at least. He was still naked as a jaybird, big spooning against Freyja’s back. It’d been about as far as he’d managed to move last night, his body too boneless in the end for anything after. Theo let out small sounds in his throat as Freyja grumbled and turned towards him – protest, maybe, pleasure definitely. They broke off into a hum, his hand finding the back of her knee again as that leg curled around his hip, his thumb sweeping over the delicate lines of her bone and muscle.

”Gianni,” he muttered, smacking his lips like he could still the taste of the negronis on them. ”And Chiara … the last round mighta been you.” It wasn’t like either of them had been turning them down, any thought of putting his hand over the glass swept away by the first drink. Some little voice in the back of his head had whispered something about being sober enough to drive to the kids if they had to, but the devil on his other shoulder had reminded him that Frank and Kit would handle that if they had to. They were free for a night, and they’d sure as hell made the most of it.

Theo dipped his head, trailing his mouth over her temple. His gaze tipped up, squinting at the numbers on the alarm clock. Still early. ”Half eight. Bo’s probably woken ‘em all up by now.” That meant that trying to get breakfast into a baby who was interested in everything but the spoon or bottle – and the morning diaper change. Maybe if they stretched it out long enough all the worst parts of parenting a baby would be handled by their uncles.

Satisfied that they weren’t gonna have to rush out of bed and straight over there, he continued his exploration of the back of Freyja’s thigh, dragging his hand up higher. Her hands were moving too, smoothing over his neck, her fingers touching his ears softly a heartbeat before he realised that he could hear everything she said instead of the usual whoosh of white noise that tended to come before he popped his hearing aids in. He rolled his head slightly as Freyja lifted hers, as though there was some doubt that he had. As he always did, Theo could feel them there in his ear canal, that faintly uncomfortable press of plastic against sensitive skin that was definitely worth what the tiny devices gave him.

His grin was slow, brightening as he pressed it against Freyja’s forehead, the tip of her nose, her mouth. ”The only thing I was feeling last night was incredible, they’re fine,” he promised. Now the little discomforts that came on the morning after an amazing night before crept in. The faint itch of sweaty bare skin, the funk and fuzz in his mouth from the alcohol, the good sort of ache in a body that had been well used, and the stronger one between his eyes that was either a hang over or the after effects of his wife headbutting him as they’d tried to regain their youth and grace.

Now he was sliding down the bed the same way he had Freyja and the stairs last night. Theo hit the carpet on his knees, still a little ungainly. His hands slid down her thighs before they gripped, slowly drawing his wife towards him. ”We’ve still got a while before Frank and Kit start begging us to pick up the kids. How about we see if we can get you supple enough to do that thing with your legs you promised last night?” Two birds, one very steamy stone. He rose more carefully than they had last night, lifting Freyja off the bed to carry her into the bathroom with a little more coordination – no tripping over his own feet or the lip of the shower, no slipping on the tile as the water had started to rain down around them and everything got slippery in the best way again.

Tagged: FREYJA DAMASCA * Word Count: 1093