#((i cry))

─ summary: Gwayne comes back from war and is so enamoured of his son. ─ pairing: Gwayne Hightower x wife!reader ─ content: literally nothing but tooth-rotting fluff ─ a/n: i just wanted some softness in my life. Thank you as always for reading🖤

The room lay wrapped in a silence reserved for the hours long past midnight, when the keep had surrendered its last stirrings, and even the wind lay still against the stone. In the hearth, the fire had banked and covered, leaving only moonlight to light the room. Darkness pooled in the corners. A watchman's distant call rose and fell, muffled by walls of stone and panes of glass, then faded into nothing.

Gwayne stood beside the cradle. He wore a loose shirt, its laces undone at the throat so the fabric fell open, revealing the hard planes of his chest. His strawberry-blonde hair, darker in the moonlight than by day, hung loose around his shoulders. One broad hand rested on the carved rim of the cradle, his fingers curling gently over its edge. With the thumb of his other hand, he traced the delicate curve of his son's cheek so lightly the skin barely dimpled. The boy was scarcely a moon old. He lay curled on his back, hands curled into tiny fists, his lips making small, unconscious suckling motions in sleep. He was so new, so impossibly small, that Gwayne could scarcely reconcile him with reality. This perfect, fragile life had grown and entered the world while he was away at war, and Gwayne felt unworthy of any claim upon it.

In the bed across the room, the furs shifted. You had awakened to the cold emptiness beside you. Eyes opened to the dim chamber, your hand reaching across the linen and finding nothing. You sat up slowly, the sheets sliding to your waist, and saw him standing by the cradle, backlit by the moonlight.

He felt your gaze.

"Did I wake you, my love?" he whispered, voice barely more than breath.

You shook your head,  "I reached for you, and you were not there."

A flicker crossed his face, a softening of his mouth, a faint chastening of his brows. He looked back at the baby, then at you. You pushed the sheets away and swung your legs over the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?" 

"I want him to see the moment he wakes," he murmured, eyes already drawn to their son. 

You rose without a sound, your bare feet finding the stone floor, and crossed to his side. "He will, but come rest while he sleeps."

Gwayne shifted at once, opening his arm to draw you close. You fit yourself against him, your shoulder pressed to his ribs, your head turning to follow his gaze into the cradle. Together you watched the babe: the perfect smallness of him, the peaceful rise and fall of his breath, so new to the world, yet so sure of his place in it. "I do not want to miss another moment," Gwayne said, his voice low but carrying the weight of months spent in war; the nights in cold camps, the endless longing for home, for you, to meet the children he left growing in your belly. 

You turned in his arms, hand finding his cheek, and kissed him. His hand was warm against your back as you began to guide him back toward the bed.

Then the baby stirred.

A thin fuss, a hitch in his breath, and he woke. His face scrunched, arms jerking in startled distress.

Before you could move, Gwayne was bending over the cradle, lifting the child. One hand cradled the back of the babe's soft skull, the other supported his tiny body. The rough strength of a warrior gave way to complete gentleness. The infant blinked, ready to wail, but then he met his father's eyes; blue to blue. He stilled, fists unfurling, gaze fixed almost in recognition.

"There now," Gwayne murmured, swaying from foot to foot, his voice low and warm, rough at the edges. Awe lit his features at the miracle in his arms. "I have you."

Also

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