Chapter Text
Nesta always put her clothes on in the same order.
Cassian could picture it perfectly from sheer repetition - underwear first, bra. Then pants followed by shirt, or else tights or leggings followed by a dress. Socks on last, always. Shoes just before walking out the door.
Sometimes she’d break it up, like on date nights when she’d put on her lingerie and do her makeup and hair, then don the rest before finishing touches. She claimed it was to not sweat on her clothes, but she’d crank the A/C low, too, so he couldn’t help but think it was partly a show for him. Either way it left him riled up, and more than once they’d had to pull over en route to the restaurant or theater when he could no longer stand how delicious she looked.
It was a Saturday, one of those weekends where they had a fuckton of chores and errands to do but no motivation for any of them. The sky stretched above so clear and expansive, one of the first real crisp fall days, and all he wanted was to stay in bed and waste the day lost in her.
So when Nesta was still topless as she began pulling on a soft, worn pair of jeans, Cassian felt a leap of triumph from where he lounged against the headboard with his second coffee. No bra meant no errands, for that was another one of the rules: bra required to leave the house.
But jeans meant chores still. Inside for her, at least. Maybe he and his chainsaw could stay out of her hair long enough to find her curled up with a book once he was done, to coax her back into bed for the lush, unhurried afternoon sex she loved. It might even make hacking up the two downed trees in their yard feel worth it.
Cassian yawned and stretched, noting how her eyes lingered on his chest. But there was something distracted about her he couldn't ignore, the low sweep of her stunning eyes sad and hollow.
“What did you think of the party last night?”
She snorted, pulling on one of his old college shirts. “I can’t tell you how many of your mother’s friends asked me when we’ll be having kids.”
Cassian winced. The evening before, they’d been at a remembrance for what would’ve been his adoptive mother’s sixtieth birthday. Rhys was devoted to hosting for these milestone even though Cassian found the ever-dwindling crowd depressing. Depressing and rude this year, apparently.
“That’s out of pocket as fuck.”
“I don’t understand why people think that’s okay to ask.” Nesta pulled her long hair over one shoulder to finish braiding it, checked both her wrists before glancing at the nightstand where her hair tie lay. Cassian took the opportunity to bring it to her, wrapped his arms about her waist from behind so they were both looking at her in the mirror.
“It’s a different generation. They’re fucking ignorant.” He saw her eyes dim, expression sliding into dullness. “I love you , Nes.”
“Yeah, you better,” she sighed, smiling, though he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. "Especially since I'm about to wash out the cat box."
Nesta craned her neck back to kiss his cheek, and Cassian saw his own worry reflected in the mirror when she headed down the stairs to the shop sink in the basement.
He didn’t know how he’d answer his mom's friends either, if he was honest with himself. One, probably was his and Nesta's familiar refrain, kicking the kids question down the road year after year. There’d been school to finish and careers to start, and neither of them could’ve foreseen the darkness lurking, waiting to swallow his wife whole.
I think something bad happened to me, she’d whispered in the car that day, not wanting to go into the house and taint the space with whatever she was about to say.
His heart ripped open every time he thought of it. And lately he'd been wrapped up in his own shit, the infighting in his family. It left him feeling drained and unable to be the husband he wanted to be, the husband she deserved.
After a slow breakfast, Cassian pulled on his own jeans and headed out to the garage, grabbed the extra battery of its charging port and hefted the chainsaw onto one shoulder. The autumn air was crisp, tinged with the smell of woodsmoke and leaf rot, the loamy undercurrent from where it had rained overnight. He sent a blessing somewhere - wet wood was much easier to cut.
The repetition of the task felt good at first, the methodical rev of the blade leaving him with nothing but his thoughts. Too soon those thoughts turned to the night before, when all three of his siblings pulled him aside to offload about the others.
Mor was in shambles - what else was new. She’d just returned from a trip to Bali to ‘find herself’ again, which he gathered meant doing psychedelics and drinking organic smoothies at some health retreat staffed by impoverished locals. Fatherhood had made Rhys more paranoid than usual, and he’d stalked around the party last night like the Secret Service, scooping up stray wine glasses and any other threats to his barely-mobile baby.
Azriel was fine, all things told, but he and Mor still weren’t speaking for reasons neither wanted to share. The latest drama was that he was refusing to invite her to his wedding over something she’d said to Elain about his fiancee. Drama that, like always, it fell to Cassian’s lot to fix.
So thinking of the old biddies’ questions made him laugh. He felt like a father of three already.
But he knew Nesta worried she would cheat him somehow, that he’d sacrifice huge dreams and desires because of what she saw as her own failures. For himself, it was just as easy to imagine a lifetime of Saturdays like this.
His thoughts traveled back to his wife up in the house, hoping she was sipping a pumpkin-spice something, content under her blanket. As he started in on the second trunk, Cassian imagined each cut severing one of his worries until his mind was free of them.
—
The cat box refreshed, dishwasher emptied and a load of laundry in left only vacuuming and catching up on bills between Nesta and the reward at the end of it - curling up in her favorite corner of the couch with a book. Add on top of that a fancy fall drink and the candle she’d swiped last night from the fourteen in Feyre’s living room, and this day might not turn out so shit after all.
Glancing at her husband out the back windows, Nesta noted with delight the tight press of his lips, proof that he was humming something as he worked despite not being able to hear himself. A warm bubble settled over her watching him so content, that superpower of his to always find the calm spot in her storm. She still felt guilty for bringing up the comments from last night, but the sharpness was ebbing.
Until she picked up her phone to check the time, that is. Muted messages were stacked below the clock flashing 3:19pm, and her stomach turned oily realizing they were from the fucking family group chat.
The first message was a photo of her nephew, Nyx, pulling up on the seat of one of their oak dining chairs, a wild smile beneath his cap of dark hair.
Feyre Baby Sis: Someone’s learning to stand!
Maybe Niles Archeron: Look Grandpapa, one hand!
Feyre Baby Sis: He’s so confused every time he falls on his ass. Definitely inherited Rhys’ confidence 😂
Lady Elain: Wow he’s so impressive! Good job Nyxie ✨🌌🌙
Maybe Niles Archeron: Future Olympian.
Maybe Niles Archeron: Can’t wait until he’s big enough that I can teach him to play golf.
Feyre Baby Sis: Dad he’s not even one yet
Maybe Niles Archeron: Never too young to start.
Nesta breathed in, counting to four. Held it for four. Out for seven.
Of all the things she had expected since becoming an aunt, the spikes of envy that shot through her watching her father fawn over Nyx had not been among them.
She wasn't jealous of a baby. She really wasn't. But that was what began this whole saga, when she looked back. Her nephew’s birth unlocked something painful that wound its way up inside her, seeking to surface. A deep sense of injustice, an anger at her father for having the ability to love her, to protect her all along and choosing not to. Beneath that lay a deeper darkness, an older fear.
She knew her grandmother had been a severe, brittle woman with no redeeming warmth. Nesta always thought her cruel tongue was the extent of it, never understood why she’d see flashes of her grandmother’s face at odd times, like when she forgot to pack something, when getting reamed out by her boss. Why her mind transported her to that rose-colored parlor, why she couldn't forget the slant of the sun through the windows remained a mystery too uninteresting to delve further into.
Not until earlier that year, when in the midst of a depression nap Nesta had been overcome with a horrible dread and thought to herself: I’m about to have a memory of being abused .
And then the flooding began.
She’d immediately contacted a therapist and been upfront about what was happening, had been lucky enough to find one who believed her and was well-versed in best practices for recovered memories. Nine months they’d slogged through breathing and grounding and reconnecting with her body. At home she was learning to ride the waves of fear when Cassian raised a hand over his head to turn on the ceiling fan or get a glass from a high shelf.
Recovery was not a straight line, as everyone had warned her, but it didn’t truly make sense until she lived it. To feel so optimistic one day only to have a horrid new flashback out of nowhere - it was traumatizing in its own way. She’d lost count of how many times her husband came home to find her wound in a blanket staring at the wall. Or else bursting into hot tears, set off by a word or a touch or a TV show, sometimes by nothing at all.
The volatility made the kids question all the more complicated. The thought of getting triggered by her own child was too much to bear, too overwhelming an obstacle. But Nesta knew why people asked, even if it was rude as hell, what with her being married and in her early thirties.
Unfortunately, the path ahead only illuminated itself one step at a time. She had no idea how long this journey would be for her. Feared there was so much to figure out, that by the time she was in a good place it might be too late for children. It didn’t matter, Cassian told her over and over, but the lack of control fueled her already strong inner-critic, whose sole purpose since childhood was to shame her relentlessly.
So the familiar mantras invaded her thoughts as she rolled out the vacuum, of her worthlessness, her brokenness. That she was weak and a lost cause, that she was a burden and a poison to those around her.
When her phone lit up again, she tossed it onto the highest shelf of the linen closet, so deep she’d have to get Cassian to help her when she wanted it back. Focused instead on leaving even lines in the carpet, making order out of chaos.
Once the bills were paid, Nesta nearly collapsed into the corner of their sofa, too exhausted to fish the pilfered candle from her purse in the entryway. It made her feel pathetic, how tired she was from doing almost nothing. She read so slowly her e-reader kept going to sleep, prompting her to turn back several pages and try to remember what the hell was happening.
She was about to give up and crawl back in bed, but Cassian had the audacity to stroll in then, sweaty and sexy and smiling. Several buttons were open at his collar, revealing his tattooed chest, flannel sleeves pushed up over thick forearms. He looked like a goddamn Hallmark lumberjack.
“I’m gonna shower, do you want to join me?” he said as he cracked the door to set his muddy boots outside. One curl flopped free over his forehead and Nesta wanted to twist it around her finger, to curl up against that strong body. Lord, he was handsome. And he knew it.
But he was also her home, her eternal source of peace and hope. She hoped he knew that, too. How quickly he could turn over her mood just by walking into the room.
Nesta gave a stern look at the suggestive waggle of his eyebrows, though a smile threatened to bloom. “No, but I’ll come hang out with you.”
“Grab that candle you stole,” he called back, undeterred, already shucking his shirt as he disappeared up the stairs. “I could use a little white-girl ambiance.”
—-
Cassian left the ensuite door open so he could just hear her voice above the water. Stretched out on the unmade bed, Nesta told him the plot of her latest read, and from what he gathered between shampooing and conditioning, it was one of the particularly bonkers ones.
“So they just half-fucked in an alley and now I’m waiting for when all three moons eclipse one another and there’ll be some sexy public mating ritual,” she finished as he dried his hair with a soft t-shirt. “I’m still having a hard time picturing how all the anatomy works, but I’ll figure it out.”
Her brown braid glowed golden in the afternoon light where it trailed behind her, limbs loose and relaxed once more as she glanced up at him from her e-reader. She’d lost the jeans while he showered, a sign she was done being productive for the day that had the bonus effect of making his cock stir in anticipation. But there was still something tremulous in her eyes from the morning, and he sensed emotion simmering under the surface.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Cassian eased down beside her and ran his hand up the thigh she hooked over his hip, settling in. “You look like you’re thinking too hard.”
Nesta sighed. “I don’t know. I feel like work’s been so crazy, I haven’t had a moment to sit with myself until now. And then everyone last night, my father, Feyre and Rhys with Nyx. It reminds me too much of what I never had. It’s just loud today.”
She gestured around her head like a swarm of bees plagued her. He nuzzled into her neck and planted several kisses there before pulling back.
“Do you want to get it out or let it go?”
Her face fell in both pain and gratitude, as it did most times he offered her a choice of support. It broke his fucking heart to imagine all she’d muscled through alone, only made his conviction stronger to help her find relief. Made him want to punch her dad in the fucking teeth, too, but that was a thought for another time.
“Let it go, I think," she said at last, resolute. "It’s not worth wasting my time saying like the same five things to myself over and over.”
“What five things?”
“That I’m worthless and weak and a lost cause and poisonous and a burden.”
Cassian laughed aloud before he could stop himself. “Sorry, it’s just- I’m so used to you being right all the time. It’s weird hearing you be so wrong.”
“Ha ha. ” She rolled her eyes, but he could see the lightening behind them, feel the way she leaned further into him.
“You know in like teen movies when the girl walks down the stairs all slow-mo and angels sing and shit?" Cassian drew his thumb across her lips before replacing it with his own. "Mm. That’s how I feel when I look at you. All floaty.”
“Stop flattering me.”
“Never.”
The corner of her mouth tilted upward, and he could tell she was trying to suppress a smile. Nesta hated when he disagreed with her self-criticisms even as part of her wanted to believe him. She took a shuddering breath and fisted a hand in the towel at his hip, addressing his collarbone.
“I know I’m fine if we don’t have kids. I know that. But I hate the questions, Cass. I hate knowing why the answers are so complicated. I hate that you’re caught waiting on me to figure this out.”
“Nes, when I say I don’t care, I mean it. You’re all I need, sweetheart.”
“You’ll still love me even if I don’t.. If I can’t..” She’d just started learning to ask for reassurance, and he could tell it felt clunky in her mouth. “You’re going through shit, too. I’m afraid I’ll suck you dry.”
“Impossible. You have endless reserves in here,” he said, and meant it as he tapped a finger over his heart. Loving her never took anything away from him - if anything, it made him more full. “And you do more for me than you’ll ever know.”
Calming his heart, his mind. Reminding him what mattered and what fucking didn't.
“What, like giving you summaries of the smut I’m reading?”
“Exactly.” He kissed the end of her nose, causing her face to scrunch up before it softened. Nesta toyed with the wet hair at the nape of his neck, blue-gray eyes avoiding his still.
“You're so good to me. I don’t think I could do this without you,” she said, her sharp voice quiet. Vulnerable, as if it cost her something to admit it. And he wouldn’t have that.
Cassian tucked her head to his chest and took a deep breath into her hair until the pleasant scent of Feyre's fancy-ass candle was lost to the soothing smell of Nesta. One hand rubbing across her back, he peppered her head with small kisses until he felt her relax. “Oh, I have no doubt you could do this all by yourself. But I’m glad you don’t have to.”
She was so warm and soft he couldn’t help stroking her elsewhere, across her stomach down her thighs. Felt her arch into him, seeking more even as she grew pliant and sleepy in his arms. It wasn’t clear yet whether they were headed for an orgasm or a nap, though he was happy either way.
They shared the silence as his caresses eventually traveled upward once more, hand sliding under her - his - shirt. A brush of his thumb against a nipple had her whining low in her throat, pressing forward into him as the washer buzzed. Cassian tilted Nesta's chin up and captured her sweet lips, smirking at the moan that poured forth when he pinched down with a thumb and forefinger.
“Now back to what you were saying about sucking me dry..”
“I have to turn the laundry over,” she murmured as she rocked her hips against him, and he kissed her more deeply still to prevent just that. Languidly he draped his body over hers, nestling into the cradle of her thighs and slowly grinding the length of him over her center.
“Might as well wait so we can throw these sheets in with the next load.”
Despite her hooded eyes, Nesta flinched the slightest bit beneath him. With gentle hands he coaxed her on top, skimmed his fingers down her arms until she settled once more, the telltale release of her shoulders that said she was back in the present. Waited for her to give him the signal she wanted to go on, ready to stop and tuck her in if it she indicated the other way.
It killed him, how she still feared her body being used against her, how touch felt dangerous. But he was patient, and she was working hard as fuck, and so he never doubted one day she’d be able to look at herself and see what he did.
A strong, intelligent, intensely kind woman.
A queen who ruled his heart with unending benevolence.
A constant inspiration to be a better man.
Nesta smiled and said their safeword for go. Cassian was grateful the order for taking clothes off was more flexible as he helped her drag her shirt over her head. The washer buzzed again, insistent, but neither of them cared as she ripped open the towel still covering him, hands and mouths exploring until the horizon became dusky and purple, until there was no one in the world but them.