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“ The monkeys….” The sound comes out of nowhere at three in the morning, Gwen’s bedroom dark and silent. She loves her sleep, has said so herself, and so there are blackout curtains lining the big windows that allow her to look out at the ocean and the walls are extra soundproofed towards the outside (he, a relatively light sleeper prone to insomnia, loved it, and he always slept better at her house than his in LA and so thats why they were at hers most of the time, like tonight). Blake half opens one eye from where he’d been dead asleep with his hand on her hip and her legs entwined with his. Furrowing his brow for a moment, he tries to make out whether the sound was actually sound or just a part of his fragmented dreams.
Hearing nothing else, he pats Gwen’s hip tenderly and closes his eyes again, letting the pull of sleep start to take him away. That’s when the sound comes again.
“ The monkeys stole my mother and my socks,” he hears, and he slams both eyes open, sitting up and looking around for the source of the noise. A shake of his head lets him know that it’s not coming from his baby monitor or any of the kids’ rooms’ intercoms, and he glances around the room for a shadow or some sort of proof of someone in the bedroom with them. He hears it again.
“ The monkey! He stole them!” The sound is coming from Gwen. He looks over to her, rubbing a hand over his face.
“ What?!” He says softly but a little irritably. He’d been sleeping so well for once, damnit. Gwen’s eyes are completely closed and her face is relaxed in sleep, her hair pooling in a messy bun above her.
“ We have to go to Nashville to tell the monkey how it works,” Gwen murmurs, turning over and heaving an arm across his now crossed legs on the bed. Blake bites his lip and laughs silently; she’s talking in her sleep.
“ What?” He laughingly whispers.
“ The monkey! “ She murmurs vehemently, “ I didn’t tell him how to darn my mom’s socks and he’s gonna be mad!” He laughs out loud then, putting his hands over his mouth to stop the sound from waking her. She nestles into his thigh then, letting out a deep sigh. With a grin, he grabs his phone and opens the Notes app, typing up what she said to him before he could forget. He plugs his phone back in and eases her away from him for a moment while he lays back down (and the furrow this causes in her brow makes his heart fill a little with warmth; he knows she loves him but its the little demonstrative gestures that really prove it). Still smiling and shaking his head slightly, he tucks her against his body, manhandling her head to rest against his chest. She slumbers on then, and no more words come out of her mouth, and he falls back to sleep within minutes with a smile on his face.
It’s not until ten that Blake thinks to bring it up (there’s getting the boys up and ready and fed and packed for their dad’s and man that’s a lot of work especially with Apollo but he loves it and wouldn’t change their wakeup rituals for the world. He loves watching Gwen with her kids when she thinks no one is looking, but he loves just as much the fact that Apollo is starting to reach for both him and Gwen when they wake up and say “Bwake” in that little baby voice he had). It’s as the kids are eating Honey Nut Cheerios and Blake is frying them up some bacon to have with their breakfast that he remembers the night before. Gwen is leaning against the countertop watching her boys and sipping her tea, still half asleep (he’s never met someone that takes longer to wake up in the morning but its usually after cup number two of her PG Tips that does it, an instantaneous revival that leaves him grinning and kissing her). He puts the bacon on a paper towel on a plate, breaking off a small bite and making sure its not too hot before sticking it in Gwen’s mouth (because he knew Gavin had liked her whipcord thin and she was fanatical about her weight and he respected that but that didn’t mean she shouldn't enjoy she occasional indulgence like bacon and he was determined to show her he loved her even if she gained a little weight). He wraps one arm around her waist and kisses her cheek noisily, grinning at the boys’ EWWWWWs. Gwen laughs and shakes her head, chewing before leaning up to peck him on the nose. It’s all so comfortably domestic that it makes Blake’s heart sing at the thought that he can have this for a long time.
“ Boys, “ He drawls, keeping his arm around her waist even as he sets the bacon in front of them and she rests her head on his shoulder, still drinking her tea. “ Did y’all know your mama talks in her sleep?” Kingston nods.
“ Uh-huh,” He says through a mouthful of Cheerios, and Gwen admonishes him gently for talking with his mouth full. He swallows and continues, “ Daddy used to hate it; he said she never made any sense. Most of the time he’d go sleep downstairs ‘cause he couldn’t sleep.” The sentences make Gwen tense a little from where she’s resting against him. It’s a picture of Gwen’s and Gavin’s marriage right there, the fact that they didn’t sleep in the same bed most of the time. Blake rubs her shoulder from where it’s wrapped around her.
“ Well I slept just fine after I realized, “ Gwen smiles up at him then and relaxes a little, but that tense look is still in her eye. Zuma smiles at them.
“ Why Blake, what’d she say this time?” Zuma asks, and Blake grins before pulling his phone out of the pocket of his pajama pants. He scrolls to the notes app and reads them the words, and both Kingston and Zuma giggle madly, nearly spilling their bowls of cereal all over the floor. Apollo giggles because the other two are giggling, which sets Gwen off and pretty soon they’re all laughing and no one finishes their breakfast before the doorbell rings with the nanny. They rush to get their things and Kingston stuffs two pieces of bacon in his mouth while Zuma hits him because he took the last pieces, and Apollo holds his arms out for Blake to get out of the booster seat, and Blake picks him up and kisses his cheek messily while still grinning. They get the boys off to their dads (even Blake receives hugs from the older two this time, and he’s a little surprised but hugs them back and wonders how he ever got along without this. Gwen smiles in that sweet way she has and ruffles her boys’ hair). It’s as they’re cleaning up breakfast, and Blake is responding to a text message from Luke asking when he’s going to be back in Nashville, that Gwen speaks. She’s by the sink and her hands are wet, and she’s loading the dishwasher.
“ It really doesn’t bother you?” She asks, and he puts his phone away, looking over at her.
“ What?” He asks. She motions with her head over to the countertop where the boys had been eating.
“ The fact that I talk in my sleep, “ She says quietly. She looks vulnerable and innocent, standing there with not a stitch of makeup on, her hair dried from the shower and frizzing around her ears, not a stitch of makeup on with one of his Cardinals sweatshirts on and yoga pants. He walks over to her, cupping her cheek.
“ No, “ He looks her in the eye as he says it, and kisses her forehead. She grins and swallows a few times, obviously trying not to cry. He hugs her to him and inhales her green apple shampoo scent before they finish the dishes and get on with their day.
It happens again the next time he stays over a couple of days later. It’s earlier in the night this time, but they both have to be up early for first-morning flights and both of them were exhausted. The boys aren’t with them this time, so the intercoms around the house are turned off.
“ I don't want to, “ Gwen murmurs this time, and Blake’s shoulders shake from suppressed laughter.
“ What’s that darlin’?” He decides to have a little fun with her and see how she responds.
“ I don’t want to go to Fiji for Halloween,” she murmurs, and Blake teases her more under his breath.
“ But why not? Fiji’s so nice,” He says, biting his lip and waiting for her to respond. Gwen lets out the most long suffering sigh then that he’s ever heard from her, and he draws his fingertips over her shoulder.
“ Finneee,” Gwen drawls out like she’s five, and blake’s whole body is shaking from silent laughter now and tears are pooling in his eyes. “ But don’t make me knit you a pair of cowboy boots, I always get messed up in the third stitch, “ she finishes, and Blake laughs hard enough then to wake her up. He tells her what she said and she giggles right along with him, and nuzzles her head against his chest and nips slightly at his pec. They giggle themselves right to sleep, and he wakes up at ass-o-clock the next morning with a continuing smile on his face and her head on his chest.
He starts keeping notes in his phone of the hilarious things she says, and though some are more hilarious than others (his personal favorite other than the one about cowboy boots was definitely, “ Tell Kingston he can’t be Darth Vader for Christmas,”, but he also particularly enjoyed “We can only learn French if the dog comes to the party,”). He can’t decide how he’s going to tease her with them (but he knows he will, somehow, because that’s what they do), but it comes to him when he has to leave her before she wakes up one morning to get on a flight to Nashville to finish off press for his album.
He’s going to be gone for two and a half weeks, and the night before they’d had passionate and tender sex until the wee hours. They’d slumped together then in Blake’s bed this time, exhausted and sweaty, and he had spooned up against her, drawing his leg down hers and his hand down her waist. Given that she’s in a relatively unfamiliar environment (though Gwen had a way of making even his sterile, unfeeling LA home feel like his ranch in Oklahoma with her laughter and smiles and bras she shed everywhere and shoes she left right in the doorway sometimes for him to trip over when she ran inside because she just had to tell him something right then and it couldn’t wait for her to put her shoes away), he’s not surprised to be gently woken up by her murmurs. Grinning to himself, he pulls his phone from the charger on his left side, opens the notes app, and prepares to take down whatever silliness she spills this time.
“ Tell Adam I said the cowboy is hot,” Blake feels his grin grow and his heart tingle. He’s confronted with the force of her love every single day, with her laughter and smiles and happiness, but there are times when he can’t believe she actually picked him. She’s a goddess and an angel and a vision dressed in stiletto heels, and he’s a (no longer overweight) country singer who looks like an unmade bed half the time. “ Tell Adam, “ Gwen murmurs again, and Blake stares at her adoringly, “ Tell Adam to tell the cowboy I love him.” Blake's grin grows even more, and he knows he must look like an idiot. His eyes are glued raptly on her face. “ M’gonna change my name when we get married, you know, wanna be a Stefani-Shelton,” she murmurs finally, and embarrassingly (yes he’s embarrassed because even though its the middle of the night and no one’s there to see him he’s still a manly man and manly men don’t cry at things like the idea of her hyphenating his name with hers when they get married), he feels his eyes fill and he’s so overcome with love for her at that moment that all he can do is wrap her up tightly in his arms. He’s almost sure she doesn’t know that he’s had the ring for a month (it had been his grandmother’s and he’d gotten it refurbished to look new and he hadn’t even known his mom had it until she gave it to him on his last visit home; telling him that she thought God finally gave him the one and that he should have it now. Blake had been angry for a millisecond that it had never been mentioned before, but then had hugged his mom and told her that he thought Gwen was the one too, and that he knew she was going to love it. And love it she would, Gwen adored family as much as he did and he knew she’d appreciate the heirloom.), but to hear her express her desire to marry him even in sleep throws his emotions for a loop.
He wants nothing more than to stay with her the next morning as his alarm beeps at five and he has to get up, but instead of waking her (she gets cranky in the way of an upset duckling when she doesn’t get enough sleep, and he wasn’t going to foist a cranky Gwen on her boys or her parents who she was going to see this afternoon even though it was adorable), he simply trails a couple of tender, featherlight kisses across her lips. It’s as he’s sitting on his plane, bags packed and stowed, with one headphone in scrolling through his ITunes, that he decides to Tweet to her. He opens Twitter then, and something in his heart tells him that he should post it and that she will be alright with it.
He tweets out, A blonde sunflower told me that i’m hot in her sleep this morning #missyou. He throws in a sunflower emoji with a winking face and a blushing face. He then tweets out a selfie of his face with his trademark hat on and a silly pouty expression and tags her. Two and a half weeks is a long time.
The messages blow up on Twitter, and it’s an hour later before she returns his tweets (in the meantime, he’s gotten a You’re whipped bro ;) from Adam and a Dude now my wife wants me to say cute things on Twitter from Luke; he laughs and ribs them both over text message).
She tags him this time, and tweets out three heart emojis along with a lip emoji before writing Two and a half weeks is too long #missyoutooyouwonderfulcowboy #heyatleastIcanmakehimlaughinhissleep
He tweets back you make me laugh every day darlin’
He gets back a selfie fifteen minutes later of all four of them along with their two birds and the cat (being angrily held up by Kingston as he grins around a mouthful of fur). He touches the picture with fingertips before he reads the words over Twitter. Wanna join this madhouse for real? #moveinwithus #nosocialmediachill. His mouth drops open and he grins, feeling the urge but being unable to stand up and jump around in Adam’s vein. He laughs to himself (and the flight attendant probably thinks that he’s crazy but that’s ok).
He tweets out emojis of a house and a yard and a tree and a cat and kids, typing only if King gets to be Darth Vader for Christmas and ya knit me a pair’a cowboy boots :P #yes #yourenothinbuthotdarlin. Just before he touches down in Nashville, he gets back one final tweet from her (and oh hell the fans are going nuts; he’s gotten at least two dozen text messages since she sent the message five minutes ago and the words are already shared over five thousand times. His agent’s gonna kill him).
Deal.#casasheltonstefani #gonnagodealwiththedaynow #happygirlhappylife. He smiles wide again to himself and puts his phone away for landing, looking out the window and tracing his lips. Song ideas run through his head then, and he can’t wait to record for his next album, and sing them all for her.