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“Babe?“
It came out in a hushed whisper, your fingernails scratching lightly through the patch of copper fuzz sprouting from Ed’s chest. A month or so had passed since he’d gotten his skin permanently etched with a lion right where you’d card your fingers, and it made you smile thinking how it was a little bit like petting its mane.
“Hmm…” Ed groaned low in his throat with his eyes closed peacefully.
His chest rocked when he grunted through sleep while you were cuddled up on your right side against him and you could feel the vibration of his voice through his skin where your cheek pressed to his chest. He held you to his side with his left arm cradled around your back.
“Are you awake?” You asked, even though he’d grunted. He did it again, this time lower and with his eyes closed he turned his head toward yours to rest his chin atop your hair, in the same instance his hand gripped you firmer.
“Can’t sleep,” you told him, twirling the hair on his chest in the tip of your finger.
Ed yawned and stretched his right arm up before he sniffled and rubbed his nose.
“What’s wrong?“
In the position you were in he couldn’t look directly at you, but the both of you stayed put, your palm flattening against his chest.
"I was just thinking…"
It was quiet when you trailed off and in the dark your eyes adjusted to the outline of his features. His right arm was bent and resting over his belly right where the blankets were draped over his skin.
The hair on his chest was a fuzzy patch and his tiny pink nipple stood erect through the bed of hair.
"Yeah?” He asked, “about what?"
You shrugged, inhaling his scent deep before you sighed. He smelled freshly of soap and since he’d showered before bed, his skin and hair was especially soft.
"About us, I guess."
He perked up a bit and unraveled his arm to slip on his side to face you. His right hand came up and he traced his thumb from your bottom lip to your cheek where he rested it quietly.
“What about us?"
His blue eyes were darkened given the lack of light, but his features were dominant and you studied them intently while he looked back and forth between your eyes, his blonde eyelashes accompanying his stare. You brushed a bit of orange hair from his forehead.
"Remember when we went to see your family?”
Ed nodded gently, moving his hand from your face to run it smoothly against your hip, but he stopped abruptly after a few paces, his palm stilling against your skin.
“Wait,” he started, his voice cracking from the change in volume and tone, “did something happen? Did someone say something to you?”
Quickly you shook your head, putting Ed’s worries to rest. His family was incredibly welcoming, especially since it’d been over a year that you and him had been together. They took you in with open arms, and Ed knew that, but sometimes he’d catch himself worrying over nothing.
“No,” you told him, “I just really loved spending time with everyone, and when you had Oscar, that was just really sweet.”
You smiled when he cracked one.
“He’s an awesome little dude. It’s weird to think that I’m a Godfather though,” he laughed, the cackle making the bed shake.
“We should get you a proper Godfather chair for your studio.”
His eyes widened playfully just before a yawn forced its way out of his mouth.
“That’s amazing,” he spoke through the yawn, ending it with a little giggle.
“It was more amazing when Oscar puked all over your hoodie because you thought it was a good idea to toss him up in the air. After he drank eight ounces of milk.”
He laughed again, a little harder this time, his hardly visible eyebrows shooting up.
“I forgot!”
“Ed you fed it to him!”
The two of you laughed and you shook your head against the pillow, wanting to roll your eyes at him, but you just smiled instead after the room fell quiet again.
“It was pretty epic though the way he just,” Ed carried on, flicking his fingers out from his mouth to demonstrate the sound and motion of what the baby had done.
While he laughed you moved your hand to his right arm and brushed your fingers from his wrist and up until you tugged him a little closer and silenced him with a soft kiss. With his mouth pressed to yours he quieted down and let his eyes close until you pulled away with a sticky smack from your lips separating.
“What was that for?” he smiled.
You shrugged, still playing with his tattoos under your fingers, heading up toward his shoulder where the family tree was covered in splattered paint.
“I felt like it,” you said simply with a smirk.
“Do you ever think about having a family?” you suddenly blurted, and his eyes flicked up to yours.
After a quick pause his face softened as if he were truly thinking of an answer to the question.
“Yeah of course,” he replied, “I think about it a lot, actually.”
You snuggled up a little closer to him and he resumed running his fingers in smooth circles against your hip.
“I can see you having like two kids,” you told him, just to see what’d he say.
He held up two fingers between the two of you, “Two?” he asked in surprise, shaking his head no when you nodded.
“At least four,” he clarified, “three boys. One girl. Or maybe four boys.”
You lightly poked his bare chest, “Hey what’s wrong with girls?”
“For some reason I can’t see myself having a daughter.”
He had a serious tone when he spoke and he shook his head just a bit against the pillow, as if he were trying to imagine himself as a dad.
“Girls are fun,” you said, “and how funny would it be if she wanted to make you dress up like a princess or smother your face in makeup?”
Ed just rested there quietly, his blue eyes fixed on yours and while he stared you felt a sense of security and warmth settle its way deep in your chest, like he’d burrowed beneath your ribs and promised to keep your heart safe.
“But forts, babe,” he blurted, only after throwing away the seriousness.
“Girls can build forts, too, Ed,” you told him, poking beside his fuzzy armpit before he twitched with a laugh and poked you back.
“Okay, fine, we’ll have two boys. And two girls,” he said, “That way they can braid each others hair and leave my precious moroccan strands out of it.”
He spoke through laughter while you giggled right along with him and it wasn’t until you caught that’d he’d said ‘we’ll’ that you settled down and smiled.
“We’ll?”
Ed gave a tiny shrug with a smirk on his lips, “Yeah,” he said, his blue eyes flicking from your mouth and back to your eyes, “we’ll.”
He couldn’t suppress his childish side and a second had hardly passed before he teased his fingers at the band of your underwear at your hip.
“If you’ll have me that is,” he said and you smacked his hand away playfully.
“Only if we agree on names. And because you described your own hair as moroccan I’m holding you down while she paints your toenails and puts bows in your hair.”
"Yeah we’ll see about that.”
He settled his palm back down to your hip while yours found a distraction against his tattooed chest again, the pads of your fingers tickling his skin beneath the fuzz.
“Edwina,” he blurted and you recoiled and used the same gesture he had when he mimicked baby Oscar’s spit up.
“First of all,” you started, your hand flat against his chest, “no. And second of all. No.”
Ed was full of giggles but this time he laughed with his mouth closed and bottom lip bitten between his teeth.
“Kidding,” he said.
“You say that, but come delivery day you’d snatch the birth papers and jot it down, wouldn’t you?”
He moved his right hand from your hip to scratch an itch under his jaw, “no I couldn’t do that to my kid,” he said, settling his hand back down, “she’ll be pale and ginger, isn’t that enough of a punishment?”
You lightly slapped his chest, “Hey, pale gingers are cute,” you almost whined, eyebrows knitted together.
“Yeah?” he smiled bright, digging his stubby fingertips into your hip until you squealed and brought your hips forward.
“Kidding,” you smiled jokingly, and before you could say anything more he clutched your arm and pushed you down enough to maneuver himself above you, playfully pinning you while you laughed.
He wildly rubbed his scruffy face over your cheeks and forehead while you squirmed and squealed beneath him, doing your best to turn your face away from the ticklish attack.
“Tell me I’m cute,” he said, only stopping to nibble a bit under your jaw, maybe to persuade you into giving into his request.
“No!” you squealed.
You had to catch your breath after fighting him off, but even red in the face and with your hair matted and tangled over your eyes and cheeks, you purposely egged him on.
Ed hovered higher above you with a gleam in his eye, your wrists still pinned beside you by his strong yet small hands. When he lowered his head and his orange hair fell soft over his eyes you blew the strands of your own hair off your face and made him flinch from the sudden gust of air. His eyes squeezed shut and he scrunched up his nose a bit.
“That was pretty cute,” you told him matter-of-factly.
“Me flinching or you spitting?”
You laughed beneath him, feeling his soft belly and warm hips pressed flush to yours, and when he laughed and wiped his face against his bare shoulder you snuck your feet around his legs and dragged your heel through the fluffy hair covering the back of his thigh.
“Wanna practice?” you asked through a whisper and he looked back to you, his tongue swiping a bit over his lips.
You knew he couldn’t say no and when he dipped his head down further you closed your eyes to wait for his mouth on yours.
A smile broke out over your mouth when you felt him press his mouth to your neck, and before you could respond to the softness of his lips to your skin he inhaled a deep breath and blew a raspberry hard between your neck and shoulder. The rough hair sprouting from his chin and under his nose sent you flinching and you screamed when he surprised you with it.
“Stop!” you shouted through laughter when he did it again on the other side, a laugh breaking up the second blow he attempted teasing you with.
“Say I’m cute!” he chuckled, all high pitched and threatening, as if he could be.
You just laughed under him and wagged your head from side to side to deter him from doing it again, but he did it anyway. You clutched your heels hard around his thighs until he jerked his hips forward and stopped because you came a bit too close to an especially sensitive area. His mouth hung open and he stifled his laughter, catching his breath from the raspberries and the sudden shock of your foot between his legs.
“Jesus,” he chuckled, “truce.”
You smiled all wide and blew another puff of air and probably saliva at his face, and even though he expected it, he still flinched.
“Okay, get off I can’t breathe,” you laughed and he finally plopped down beside you.
“It’s like three in the morning,” he chuckled, “we’re so fucking weird.”
You rolled to your side, clapping your hand down on his belly a few times.
“Yeah, but we’re pretty cute though.”
Ed smiled and turned his head to face you, “And we’re gonna make loads of cute babies, too.”
“Loads, huh?”
“Yep,” he nodded sweetly with a smile, wrapping his arm around to tug you close.
The room fell quiet and before your eyes grew heavy you both yawned, one following the other.
“Goodnight, love,” Ed mumbled, securing you closer to his chest.
“’Night, baby.”
With a final sigh you pressed a kiss to his soft chest and he reciprocated with one against your hair, each of you taking in the other in the dark.
And just like that you were tangled up warm and comfortable in the same position you’d started off in, except now you felt satisfied to not only have had the conversation, but knowing deep down you both wanted the very same things.