Frost & Flames | Soulmate AU 2 |

Twenty-Five

Rowan has apparently decided to treat the day of the party as if it's actually my birthday. He wakes me up by bringing me a plate of two fluffy golden waffles, handing the plate over and plopping down next to me with his own in bed. He leans over, pecking me sweetly on the mouth before pulling away to hand me a fork.

"Happy birthday," he singsongs.

"It's not my birthday," I reply, staring back stupidly with the fork clutched awkwardly in my hand.

"It's basically your birthday," he says matter-of-factly, stabbing at a piece of waffle with his fork. "We missed your birthday, and since you're having a birthday party tonight, it's your make-up birthday."

"I...guess that makes sense," I concede, smiling lightly as I turn the fork over in my hand and use it to shovel some of the waffle into my mouth. This breakfast was a complete surprise, mostly because I sleep like the dead.

He jumps up when I'm done eating, stacking our empty plates and commanding that I stay put in bed. I hear him move down the hall, and the clank of him putting the plates and forks in the sink. He pads down the hall once again, this time passing by our bedroom. I hear the sound of the water starting up in the bathroom, and realize what he's doing: running a bath. I have no idea what time of day it, but it's my "birthday," so I'm not going to worry myself about it. It seems that Rowan has everything figured out.

This is all reminiscent of what I did for his birthday last August. I dropped Bella off with Nick early in the morning so Rowan and I would have a few hours to ourselves. I made him breakfast, I took a shower with him, and then I took him to a movie. We picked Bella up from the tower later after and went to dinner at a restaurant that serves Rowan's favorite burger, and then we went back home to have cake, watch some TV, and open his gifts. The team wasn't really involved, aside from presents many of them had handed to me the day before, insisting I make him wait until his actual birthday to open them. I was splitting my time between him, missions with the team, and the work was doing with the chamber Scofield recruited me for, so a birthday where Rowan didn't have to share me with anyone seemed like a good idea. It's a good thing I trusted my instincts, because it luckily turned out to be exactly what he wanted.

I spend most of the bath kissing him senseless, because for some reason I just can't seem to stop. We stay in until the water turns cold and he has to drag me out. It turns out to be fine, though, because he cuddles up to me on the couch in the living room shortly after, wrapping us in our largest fluffy blanket.

"Derek and Alexandra are picking Bella up from school before she they come to the tower," Rowan informs me as he's fumbling around between the couch cushions in search of the remote. "I put Derek on the list temporarily, Bella's teacher already knows."

"Are Cecelia and Tones comes?" I ask. Cecelia and Tony have moved out of the tower completely for all intents and purposes. Tony is staying on the team as a Specialist, mostly for the income that it garners because, well, they're planning on having a baby within the near future, but they've both moved out for the time being. They have a whole house in the suburbs, with a white picket fence and everything, no lie.

"Unfortunately no," he replies, making a pleased noise when he finally manages to wiggle the remote free from the depths of our couch. "She's still recovering from the gunshot and Tony doesn't wanna stress her out. A buncha other people are coming, though."

I hum, pawing at him until he drapes an arm across my shoulders and pulls me in closer. He clicks the TV on, eyes scanning the screen for a moment before he turns his head in my direction.

"Any requests?"

I shrug helplessly. He huffs, pulling up the app dock to survey our options.

"Lemme rephrase that: please tell me something you wanna watch." I snort, because this is a common conversation we have.

"How about that one YouTuber? The one who glued all those rhinestones to her face? I got the notification earlier today, she just got a new dog!" I suggest.

Rowan clicks the YouTube app and we settle in to watch it. He shakes his head incredulously at the suggested videos by her once the video end. I take the remote and switch to Netflix, turning on a series the both of us have already seen before. It has enough seasons that by the time we reach the last one, we've already forgotten a lot of the beginning, so it's perfect kind of show to rewatch over and over.

We spend a majority of the afternoon simply lazing about on the couch. He orders lunch sometime in there, Chinese food from the place that makes the best general tso's chicken and always includes a free eggroll. The Bond hums contentedly at the back of mind, and it's overall a day where it's hard to remember why either of us ever do anything but this. Existing in each other's space is so easy, a coexistence that involves lots of physical contact and soft looks.

"Open," he commands, and I do it without hesitation, taking a bite of the single eggroll we're sharing when he offers it. We always share it.

"This is really nice," I say, slumping against him even though we're still eating. "I wish we could do this every day."

"Well, we kind of are right now," he replies.

"That's only because I'm still suspended," I reply, sighing a little at the fact that I'll likely be making biweekly trips to Washington, D.C. for the chamber meetings Scofield dragged me into. We've been keeping a close eye on anti-League activity, which was a serious problem this time last year, and it's been helping keep the activity to a minimum. "It'll go back to me having to drop everything every two weeks to sit around in a room of uptight assholes talking about a buncha doom and gloom for three hours."

"I think we'll be able to fit plenty of days like these in," he insists, brushing some hair back from my face. My lips quirks as I lean into the touch a little like a dog enjoying some good pats.

"Yeah?" I murmur. He leans forward, wiping the corner of my mouth with his thumb before brushing his lips against mine.

"I promise," he replies.

We finish eating and pile all of the empty containers onto the coffee table, both of us unwilling to get up from the couch to throw it away. I pull the huge blanket over both of our heads, sliding my way onto his lap. We kiss for a while, languid and easy. We wind up laying on our sides facing each other, similar to the way we often do in bed. The couch is luckily wide enough to comfortably accommodate this position. We don't full out fuck, because that's something we're still working up to after everything that happened in The Vault. My birthday just doesn't seem like the day we should add that kind of stress to. We do grind against each other like teenagers, lazy and slow to match the mood of the day, and it's just as good.