#ndv45

sitting in by your flight's gate and surrounded by tired, hustling people rushing to and fro, you only had one thing on your mind.

two things, actually. but in the same category. your fiancé and your daughter. 

the joy the two of them brought you was unreal, but that also meant the amount that you missed them while they weren't present was just as unbelievable. you enjoyed your trip away, certainly. as much as you loved them the break was nothing if not much needed, and the time weekend spent away on some white sanded beach with a few of your closest friends could not have been any more enjoyable. but now after flight one of two home you were more than ready to fall into nyck's arms and hold little tess for hours and hours. 

your flight was boarding in just under fifteen minutes. luckily, it was a short one. so, you should be home within four hours. and considering the time now, you didn't expect much communication until you see them face-to-face... that is until your phone lit up with a facetime call from the contact titled “nyckie 💙” 

you wasted no time in connecting your headphones and accepting the call, only to be greeted with a close-up on your 10-month-old's face -- her very awake face. before you could say anything, the camera tilted to the side to show part of nyck's face. 

“shouldn't you guys be asleep?” you asked, attempting to be stern. but you couldn't hide the smile at the sight of them. the camera had since returned back to tess, but with your question nyck set up the camera against something, showing that they were both on your bed, laying down and now facing his phone.

“tess couldn't sleep,” nyck responded, a hand resting lightly on her back. “too excited, i suppose.”

“tess, or you?” you teased.

he grinned, watching you with a look in his eyes you'll never get tired of. “both?”

“uh huh.” you scoffed lightheartedly, switching the phone from one of your hands to another. “you should sleep. both of you.”

“but we want to stay up for you!”

“absolutely not.” you gasped. “you'll ruin her sleep schedule entirely, nyck!”

“but she misses you.” he pouted. “isn't that right, tessie?”

tess only babbled in response, making you deadpan at the whole exchange. this should've come as no shock, really. nyck had been wrapped around your finger since day one and then around little tessie's the moment she was born. this behavior was just about expected. 

you sighed. “let her sleep if she falls asleep, yeah?”

“yes, ma'am.” he responded with a grin, repositioning himself yet again as he sat up, took tess into his arms, and held the camera with one hand. “isn't your flight boarding pretty soon?”

“yeah.” you nodded. “few minutes, actually.”

“you hear that, dropje?” nyck whispered to tess, sounding about an octave higher. he placed a light kiss to the top of her head. “sooooon.”

you giggled, shaking your head. “i miss you guys.”

as soon as nyck began to respond, tess' babbling increased, muffling his response. making both of you guys giggle again. 

“think that's her way of saying she misses you too, hm?” 

“or a please don't ruin my sleep schedule, dad.” you chided softly.

“hey.” he gave you a pointed look, feigning offense at your light jab. 

you only smiled. before you could say anything else to him, a loud voice interrupted -- the airport announcer. your flight was beginning to board. you perked up immediately.

“hey, nyck? i've gotta go. flight's boarding.”

“okay.” he smiled. “stay safe, schat. love you.”

“love you too. and you also, tess.”

the last thing you saw was him picking up her tiny hand to wave at the camera before you hung up. 

by the time you'd landed, picked up your luggage, and took the uber home it was near 4:30AM. you were really hoping they were asleep, mostly for the sake of tessie's sleep pattern and how messing it up would ruin your daytime schedule. but also because you knew how tired nyck got with everything he had to do in a day. you didn't want him to waste sleep hours over waiting on you.

making it upstairs in your home, you made a point to be quiet. just in case. you opened the door to you and nyck's bedroom slowly, wincing when it creaked. a sense of relaxation came over you immediately with the sight you were met with.

nyck, laying on his back on your shared bed. tess laying on top of his chest, his arm slung over her protectively. you couldn't help but snap a photo before anything else.

climbing into bed with extra care to be as silent as you could, you lay your head on his free arm. if it wasn't the door creaking that's what woke him up.

thankfully, he didn't move so much as to wake up your daughter, he only craned his head your way, eyes unfocused still. then they widened, and his mouth opened in surprise. “you're back?” he asked, voice groggy from sleep.

“hello, my love.” you said, smile wide as you snuggled into him. “go back to sleep. greetings in the morning.”

“yeah... okay. okay, goodnight.”

it was hardly nighttime, you believed you both knew that. sunrise was in a mere few hours. but you let yourselves have this. “goodnight.”

Nyck, who had been poking around in the fire with concentration etched into his face, turned at the sound and broke out into a smile wider than you could remember.

"Damn, you look beautiful in my clothes."

He said quietly, as if you weren't meant to hear it, to himself, before heaving himself up and taking a few quick steps in your direction.

"Guess I'll go see if you left me any warm water then, patatje." literally: little french fry

He joked before smacking a wet kiss on your forehead and taking off towards the bathroom. You tried to get cosy on the couch that faced the fireplace, but something was missing.

You were dressed most comfortably. The blood in your arteries, which had surely frozen from the time spent outside, was slowly thawing. You missed Nyck on the couch, but you were aware that he'd join you soon enough, so the actual reason for not being able to settle down escaped you.

Until it hit you in the face like a brick, your hands weren't warming up quite fast enough, and Nyck wasn't around to supply you with hot drinks just yet.

So brave as you were, you left the sanctity of the living room and made your way into the kitchen. You grabbed a small pot, two mugs that seemed to call out to you, and everything else you needed for a very indulgent hot chocolate.

You had mixed the milk and cacao powder together by the time Nyck came back into the open space of the connected kitchen and living/dining room.

"Check on the fire and wait in the living room, would you, knuffelbeer?" teddy bear

You nodded towards the fireplace and continued stirring away at the hot chocolate; in lieu of an answer, Nyck kissed your temple and hugged you to himself before taking off to fulfil your request.

When the temperature of the drink was just right, you carefully poured it into the mugs, filling the now-empty pot with water and setting it aside to be taken care of later.

Mugs in hand, you made your way over to Nyck, who seemed like he had become one with the couch after checking on the fire. He reached out for one of the mugs you had been carrying before you had even sat down, greedy for the internal warmth it would surely fill him with.

You lifted them out of his reach, being careful about the hot chocolate not burning your fingers, and set them down on the coffee table before sitting down next to him. In snuggling distance.

Nyck greeted the kids he knew in his native language before almost getting dragged into the trenches of the snowball fight—it had taken on bigger dimensions than just a fight; maybe saying snowball war would have been a more apt description. He managed to escape being recruited by pointing at you and rambling too fast for a non-native speaker to understand.

So, with Nyck safe from being pelted by the snowy missiles of teens and preteens alike, you wandered on through empty streets, almost ghost town-like, were it not for the warm lights in most windows.

And soon you had reached the outskirts of the city, where the concrete jungle morphed into thick forests and open fields. You were headed to one of the latter, a place you both knew like the backs of your hands, having spent countless evenings there. No matter the weather or season.

The canopy of tree crowns was shielding you from the snow that had started falling once again. You pulled your own hat a little further down, making sure your ears were covered to the best of your ability. It would be a while until you arrived where you had planned on going.

The snow, untouched by any other humans, crunched beneath your feet, and a few birds sang their songs in the undisturbed nature. It was music to your ears.

And, gloved hand in gloved hand, your arms swinging carelessly, you finally made it to your and Nyck's special place.

In itself, the field was nothing spectacular. It was a bigger area just outside the forest, with sprawling grassland in the spring and summer months and leaf mounds in the autumn. In the winter months, when it snowed, the field looked unreal. Not many people in the city came out far enough to experience the solitude, much less did so when it had just snowed.

So without much thought, you hung the tote onto a nearby branch and fell to your knees in the snow before twisting around and collapsing onto your back.

Nyck stared at you with such fondness, you were sure he would soon start leaking it. He joined you without much effort, leaving you enough space to make your own snow angels. He was the first to get back up, complaining that his back was getting too cold to continue laying down. 

Being the most doting and loving boyfriend, though, he helped you up and away from your snow angel without disrupting the perfect picture. He snapped a few shots of it, some with your gloved hand photobombing his efforts.

As compensation for doing so and promising to add the best of the photos to his Instagram Christmas dump, Nyck demanded to just enjoy the quiet and cold for a while. With warm drinks in hand, you enjoyed each other's company for a while.

Not soon after, Nyck started complaining again. About being cold, his toes becoming blocks of ice, and no longer having any feeling in his nose or ears. With some reluctance and a lot of teasing, you gave in and went to grab the tote that was still dangling from a brach.

The moment you reached out to grab it, you felt something cold slide down your back. Surely it had been from the tree you had disturbed; Nyck wouldn't shove snow down your back.

Turning around a little stiffly, you fixed your boyfriend—whose gloves were speckled with loose snow, as you quickly noted—with a glare.

"This means war, de Vries."