#but its benn who convinces them that he's a good kid

[linskywords]

Wolfverse Advent: Day 13

The Stars don’t make the playoffs that year. Tyler is bummed, but after a few days he starts getting kind of excited about a life when he doesn’t have to go on the road every week or so. He wants to win with the Stars, obviously, but this year has been so exhausting, and it’ll be nice to just spend some time with the babies.

They just turned six months old, and it turns out six months is a great time for babies. They’re super alert, aware of everything going on around them, and they’re starting to have actual personalities. They always sort of did, of course, but now Tyler knows he can make Peter laugh for minutes on end with the giraffe toy but Anna will stuff it right in her mouth, and Lyra would rather put blocks on top of each other and Coralie would rather knock them down, and Daniel will cry if he can’t see anyone but will happily look at picture books for hours as long as someone’s doing it with him. They’re starting to play with each other, too: they can’t move well enough to do much, but sometimes two of them will sit next to each other play with the same toy for long enough that Tyler’s convinced they’re communicating in some way he can’t understand.

“We should take them to the beach this summer, maybe,” Tyler says. He wants to see how they like the water.

“Only if we can bring some other adults along,” Jamie says. “No way are we handling all five of them around sand and water.”

“Jordie and Jess will want to come,” Tyler says. “They can’t survive without these guys.” He tickles Anna and she doubles over, giggling.

Jamie laughs. “Uh, we can let them decide that. But I was thinking—we should go to Victoria for a while, right?”

“For sure,” Tyler says. The Benn clan would legit kill them if they didn’t.

“Well, I was wondering—maybe we could have your mom and sisters join us?” Jamie asks.

That’s—not the suggestion Tyler was expecting. Last summer, he wouldn’t even have considered it. But his mom has been so good with the babies. She was here for a week at Christmas and again in February and she didn’t seem to be weirded out at all. It might be good for her to get to know more about wolves.

“Yeah, I’ll ask.” He leans over to kiss Jamie on the mouth. “Thank you,” he adds, smiling against his lips.

Jamie has this really happy smile on his face when Tyler pulls back, and he shifts over to put his arm around Tyler while they watch the kids play. Peter and Coralie are upstairs with Denna, getting changed, and the others are sitting on the carpet, Anna in between Tyler’s knees, and Daniel and Lyra getting very into this stacking toy that they’re definitely not old enough to use as it was intended. Jamie’s chin is on Tyler’s shoulder, and maybe they’re not going to the playoffs, but Tyler’s just really happy right now.

“There’s something else we should think about for summer plans,” Jamie says. “You’re probably going to go into heat soon.”

The panic that hits Tyler is completely unexpected. He hasn’t been thinking about this at all. He hasn’t thought about his heat since last year, really, and he knew abstractly it was something that came every year, but—

“What’s wrong?” Jamie asks, obviously picking up on the thing where Tyler isn’t breathing right anymore.

“Jamie,” he says. He gets a fist full of Jamie’s jeans. “Jamie, I can’t. Not after—we just had them, and I—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Jamie says.

Anna starts to wail. Tyler shouldn’t have let himself sound that upset with her so close. Daniel and Lyra pick up on it, Daniel starting to cry and Lyra making little distressed noises.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Tyler says, gathering Anna into his arms, and Jamie reaches over and scoops up Daniel and Lyra, and together they hold the three of them, Tyler making soothing noises to make up for before.

“I just,” he says when the babies have calmed down a little bit. He doesn’t want to sound unhappy, or ungrateful. He isn’t. He just—“I’m not ready,” he says.

“For a heat?” Jamie says, sounding really confused.

“I don’t want to do this again next year,” Tyler says. “I mean, I want to keep doing this, obviously, I just don’t want—all this again. I don’t want to start over yet.”

Jamie looks completely blank for a moment, and then his face slowly resolves into understanding. “Oh, no. Tyler. We could—we could wear condoms.”

“Hm?”

“You don’t have to get pregnant again. I mean, if you did want to get pregnant, it would be a good time for it, but—it could just be sex. Like normal, only more of it.”

“Oh,” Tyler says. As soon as Jamie puts it that way, it’s stupidly obvious. They’ve had lots of sex since the babies were born and Tyler hasn’t gotten pregnant from any of it. He just—panicked, a little.

Jamie’s grinning at him. “Shut up,” Tyler says, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his own mouth. Jamie leans in and kisses him, careful not to crush the three babies on their laps.

“Sorry I scared you,” Jamie whispers.

“I wasn’t scared,” Tyler says, knowing Jamie will know he’s lying, and Jamie nuzzles the side of his face.

The babies chill out eventually and squirm to go back to playing, and Tyler leans back against Jamie’s chest, cuddling Daniel, who didn’t want to go with the others. “Does it bother you?” Tyler asks.

“What?”

“Not having more kids right away,” Tyler says. “I know you wanted, like, a large family—”

“Tyler.” Jamie sounds incredulous. “We have five kids.”

“I know,” Tyler says. He is very aware. “But—”

“No, it doesn’t bother me, you non,” Jamie says, lipping at Tyler’s ear. He wraps his arms more firmly around Tyler, his hands resting on Daniel’s back. “If we decide we want more someday, sure, but—I don’t need that. To be happy, I mean. This is—this is already perfect.”

“Yeah?” Tyler says, pleased.

“You’re perfect,” Jamie whispers in his ear, and happiness shivers its way from Tyler’s head to the tips of his toes. Jamie’s right: maybe they’ll think about more kids someday. But what they have right now is already perfect.

(master post)

#wolfverse advent 2019 #bennguin #wolfverse #wolf babies #hockey rpf #sorry to the person who asked for first heat after babies #i will probably not write that #but also you never know!