Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2020-02-25
Words:
2,121
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
41
Kudos:
294
Bookmarks:
39
Hits:
2,655

Terms of Endearment

Summary:

“Don’t work yourself too hard,” he'd reminded her, wiping away a smudge of ink on her pale cheek.

Annette had reached up distractedly to pat her husband’s hand, and without even looking up, she'd mumbled, “Thanks, muffin.”

Felix’s hand stilled on her cheek. She did not just say that. His wife did not just call him, the right hand of the king and the duke of the mighty Fraldarius territory, the name of a breakfast pastry.

Or; Annette calls Felix disgustingly sappy nicknames and he's at a loss as to how to deal with this. Felix/Annette, post Azure Moon canon, happily married with fluff GALORE.

Notes:

I am only good at writing Established Relationships apparently. Yay!

There's like a tiny bit of steam at the end but otherwise it's all pretty PG, except for the one time where Annette calls Felix a "pussy cat". Besides that we're fiiiine.

Enjoy!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

He had been caught wildly off guard the first time it happened.

Annette was bent over her desk one late night, her tongue caught between her lips in concentration as she mulled her way through the last of her portion of the official reports. Felix had entered the study with a steaming cup of sweet apple blend and an extra candle, setting them on the desk with little ceremony. 

“Don’t work yourself too hard,” he'd reminded her, wiping away a smudge of ink on her pale cheek. 

Annette had reached up distractedly to pat her husband’s hand, lost in the puzzle that was estate management. Without even looking up, she'd mumbled, “Thanks, muffin.”

Felix’s hand stilled on her cheek. She did not just say that. His wife did not just call him, the right hand of the king and the duke of the mighty Fraldarius territory, the name of a breakfast pastry . 

He had opened his mouth, ready to launch a series of protests against this new term of address, but Annette had turned over a page and was busy scribbling away, the scratching of the quill effectively ending the exchange. 

Felix gave her cheek one last caress and promptly marched from the study to the training rooms. He needed a moment to mull over this new and unwelcome (not entirely, whispered the soft underbelly of his heart) development over. 

Maybe it was a one-time thing. Felix had thought to himself as he launched himself at the training dummies. I shouldn’t pay it any mind.

O.O

As it turns out, “muffin” was only the beginning. 

The very next day, as they're shrugging on their formal attire in preparation for a meeting with several members of the local gentry, Annette reaches up to straighten his collar. She has to tiptoe to reach him, and he has to lean down a little to accommodate her. She beams at him, like a ray from the warmest sun, and Felix can’t resist stealing a final kiss before they’re to leave. 

Annette giggles, a dusting of light pink coloring her cheeks. “What was that for?”

“You look nice,” is all Felix can very eloquently say. Wow. He can just hear his father admonishing him at the back of his brain.

But thankfully Annette just basks in the praise, that light dusting of pink spreading to her neck and her ears. “Thanks, honey-cakes.”

Felix nearly chokes. “What did you just—”

“My lord, they are asking for you.” Their guard’s voice sounds at the door, and Annette quickly gives his collar one last twitch. 

“On our way, Darren!” she calls, running to the door (tripping over the hem of her dress like his heart is tripping over itself ) and throwing it open before Felix could collect his composure. 

“You coming?” Annette glances over her shoulder at him, her red hair flung about her shoulders like a veil of fire, and Felix’s chagrin scatters like ash on the wind. 

“Coming,” he replies, following her out of their chambers like she’s got his lead in her hand. 

Perhaps this would stop soon, he despairingly thinks to himself. Perhaps Annette is just feeling particularly affectionate these days and is just expressing that through all these ridiculous nicknames, maybe this is a phase, that’s right, it's nothing but a phase—

Oh, he was very wrong. 

O.O

Much to Felix’s confusion and dismay, Annette has a whole repertoire of nicknames. She could practically fill out an entire cookbook by now, what with all the food-themed endearments she keeps bestowing on him on a now-daily basis. 

Felix can list them all of them in his head by now:  

“Nice form, cherry-pie,” after a rigorous training session, accompanied by a kiss on his cheek as she sails out of the room leaving him to pick up his jaw from the floor. 

“I’ll see you later, dumpling!” after leaving on a day-long trip to the Dominic territory, leaving him standing at the gates of the castle with the impress of her lips on his and a very heavy furrow between his brows. 

“G’nite pumpkin,” the following night, before she plunges almost disturbingly quickly into sleep, her face buried in his shoulder as he stares at the canopy of their bed for a good half hour reconsidering his life choices. 

Once, she calls him “cinnamon-bun” right in the middle of a council session with the upper echelons of the Kingdom; Sylvain nearly pops a lung trying to swallow his laughter, and only the ever-sharp eyes of the Archbishop keep Felix in his seat and his hands from the Margrave’s throat. 

At some point, Annette runs out of desserts and switches to animal names; “kitten”, “lovey-dove”, “honey-bear”, “chickadee”...Felix doesn’t think that this is an improvement. He actually chokes when she calls him “pussy-cat” one day and has the sheer audacity to act absolutely oblivious . 

My wife is going to kill me, Felix grieves to himself as Annette pounds his back while she scolds him for drinking his tea too fast. 

One day, he finally snaps. 

They’re back in the study, appropriately where the insanity first began, and they’re passing trade agreements and tax reports (the food of love, really) back and forth. It’s getting late, and they’re both  worn out like pieces of leather beaten one too many times.

Annette yawns and stretches during a breather, and squints at the tiny script on the paper in front of her. “Ugh, I need a break. If I read one more paragraph about monetary gain and loss I'm going scream.”

“I think we covered enough for tonight,” Felix agrees with a groan as he leans back and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

“We still have the border stuff to get to tomorrow.” Annette flounces out of her chair and flops like a boneless creature onto the plush couch in the middle of the room. “AUUUGH.”

“We have time.” Her husband reminds her, sitting down and rearranging her limbs so that he can fold himself next to her. “There’s no need to push yourself.”

Annette stretches like a sleepy cat disturbed from its sunny nap, frowning luxuriously. “I knoooow, schmookey-poo, but we still gotta write up that one trade deal with Sir what’s-his-name, you know who I’m talking about right, the one from the South who always smells like port-”

Felix throws his hands into the air. “THAT’S IT.”

“Is it not port?” Annette wriggles around to look at him curiously. “Maybe it’s wyvern saliva... Seiros knows that they smell the same-”

“You can’t just call your husband schmookey-poo.” Felix interrupts with utter despair. “It’s not dignified .”

“Do you not like it?” Annette says with surprise, her eyes widening until they’re like giant sapphires, and Felix has to actually remind himself to breathe because even though she’s so utterly ridiculous she’s also utterly gorgeous. 

Get it together, he chides himself sternly, shaking his head to refocus his attention on his wife, who is currently sitting up and pulling the saddest puppy-dog eyes known to man which is again not fair or helping how is she so goddamn cute -

Felix scrambles for an answer. “It’s not that I don’t like them,” he finally says, truthfully. “It’s just...why did you have to pick such ridiculous names?”

“Ridiculous?” Annette huffs, drawing herself up to her full height. He looks down at her with mingled amusement and exasperation as she pokes his chest. “I think they’re adorable, thank you very much.” Her expression turns mischievous suddenly, as if she is just now noticing the faintest flush of red across his cheeks. “Just like you.” 

Cue brain shortage. 

“I’m not adorable.” Felix mumbles, clearing his throat. His entire face heats up impossibly hotter at the sight of her absolute shit-eating grin. “Stop it, I am not adorable -”

“Yes, you are.” Annette sing-songs, her hand coming up to pinch at his cheeks. “You’re my kitten—lovey-dove—honey-bun—schmookey-poo—”

Felix grits his teeth with every new saccharine abomination of a nickname she throws at him until he’s had quite enough and seizes her wrists in his hands. 

“Is that how you want to play it?” He asks darkly as she screeches to a stop. Annette blinks at him with all the innocence of a dragon. “I’m sorry?”

“I can call you things too.” Felix informs her, leaning in until he can smell the sugar of her breath. “Nicknames, endearments, whatever.”

“Like what?” Annette tosses back at him, her eyes burning with competition. He can feel the cords in her wrists strain as she pushes back. She hasn’t lost any of her startling strength since the war’s end and manages to wrestle him back to the other side of the couch. 

“Let’s see you try,” she goads him. “Come on!”

Felix ponders a moment, ignoring the soft teasing whisper of muffin, lovey-dove, honey-bun, schmookey-poo under Annette’s breath as he rattles his brains for every name he’s heard his father call his mother, every grossly sappy sweet nothings that the knights would call their ladies in the tales that Glenn used to read to him when they were kids until he’s got a pretty good array of names ready. 

He lets go of Annette’s hands, but just as she’s beginning to pout he takes a lock of her bright-red hair and twirls it casually around his finger. “My father always called my mother ‘sweetheart’.” Felix begins. “I could call you that.”

Annette nods graciously, her eyes softening. “Strong beginner.” She allows. “I like it.”

Felix takes the tendril of thoroughly twirled hair and tucks it behind her ear. “I could call you ‘darling’.” He muses, oh-so-casually, his breath stirring the soft hairs on her forehead. “That’s sappy enough, don’t you think?”

Annette’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Her very late nod is jerky. “Y-yeah. That’s pretty romantic.”

“Hmm.” Felix leans in and traces the curve of her eyebrows with his finger, thoughtfully, idly. “I could always call you ‘my heart’. That’s classic.”

Annette only squeaks helplessly. He smirks and works his finger down to caress her cheek with his thumb. It’s as round as the moon, but at the moment it looks more like a rose in terms of coloration. 

“But to be really honest?” Felix bumps his forehead against hers and kisses her nose. He meets her eyes, his steady and unblinking while hers is looking everywhere but at him. 

When he speaks again, his voice is but a whisper. “I think I’d like to call you ‘my love’. ” 

“OKAY THAT’S ENOUGH!” Annette shrieks, knocking his face away from hers as she tumbles off the sofa in a heap of flustered limbs. Felix tips over onto his side, laughing harder than he had in ages as she covers her face in a heap of skirts on the carpet and moans with mortification.

“You played dirty, Felix.” Her muffled protest arises from the safety of her arms. Felix snorts and slides down the sides of the sofa to sit next to her. “Does this mean I win?”

“I guess,” Annette replies grumpily, peering up to glare at him with a very scarlet countenance.

“Then let’s make a deal.” Felix proposes, sticking out a hand. “No more nicknames.”

“Um actually....” Annette hesitates, her face cooling. “It’s not that I don’t like them,” she says carefully, mimicking his words from before. 

Felix hesitates, his hand frozen in midair. “Excuse me?”

“How about this,” Annette springs back up, her face still red but now wearing a look of mingled fierce and flustered determination. “Let’s pick the nicknames that we’d like to call each other, and agree to only use those! Everything else is off the table.”

Felix ponders this. Annette is gazing at him with those puppy-dog eyes again, except this time it’s less of a puppy-dog and more like a wyvern narrowing its gaze before the kill.

“Fine,” he says resignedly, reaching out to shake her hand cordially. “As long as you promise never to call me schmookey-poo again.”

“Okay.” Annette agrees easily. She reaches up and grabs his face in her hands. “Now shut up and kiss me or I'll call you ‘pussy-cat’ right in front of Sylvain at the next council session.”

Felix is aghast with horror. “You knew this whole time and you—?!”

He cuts himself off with a yelp as the utterly terrible and abominable and absolutely glorious love of his life manhandles him onto the floor with a triumphant grin. 

“Maaaybe,” Annette concedes merrily. "It was worth it to see your face."

She then proceeds to plant a very enthusiastic kiss full on his mouth. 

This woman, Felix thinks in despair to himself even as he reciprocates with fervor, will definitely be the death of me.


.


.


.


fin

Notes:

they called each other "babe" in the next council meeting and Sylvain melted

Be a couple that's not afraid to talk out your issues or call each other "snookums"!

 

Thanks for reading!

(also if you hadn't joined already, come hang out with other felannie fans at the felannie discord server! They were the ones that came up with the blursed name schmookey-poo >_< https://discord.gg/AyqG7NS)