Who: Felix and Njall Strand-Weissman What: Snippets from a Honeymoon Interrupted When: Thursday, August 1 to Monday, August 5, 2019 Where: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; their new home in Snowcap; Ilha Grande (Brazil again) Warnings: Language, mentions of attempted murder, suggested honeymoon-appropriate shenanigans
Getting ready to head over now. Wish me luck. Love you and miss you like crazy. Tomorrow night can't come fast enough
Love you too. You don't need luck. You've got this. But I'll wish you BEST of luck anyway. Text me after. <3
I love you so much I don't even have the words except I might be dying and I need you to know anyway
What?
wtf?
Felix?
Babe?
Eiginmaður?
What does that mean?
Hello?
FELIX
You're scaring me
Your phone is going straight to voicemail
TELL ME YOU'RE OKAY
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
I'm here. I'm okay.
I'm so sorry it took me so long to reply. The tribunal is on break. I didn't realize it had gone through. Or really remember sending that message at all.
[Njall's phone rings]
Njall: Are you okay? Are you really, really okay?
Felix: I'm really okay. Will's a bit knocked around, but—Monterero tried to keep me from testifying. Permanently.
Njall: What the hell? What the fuck happened? Sorry. Sorry. I don't mean to yell. Sorry.
Felix: 'S'alright, love. I'm not telling the story very well. I think it's all still catching up with me. The portkey that was supposed to take me to the courthouse took me to a warehouse. There was stunning and passive drugging involved, and yes, I'll be seeing a healer as soon as we're done here, but I'm fine. Just a bit...unsettled.
Njall: Wait… drugging? With what? Felix, how are you feeling? Any nausea or headache or dizziness? Are they sending you to a healer? Do the attorneys know any of this? Do you know if anyone else is after you? God, I fucking hate not being with you right now.
Felix: Not sure if you've heard of it. Pretty rare even in the illicit drug market. Ifyinmelas is the pure, flower form. The street name is escaping me right now. But no, none of that. I'm pretty sure I quick-time grew the antidote, or I wouldn't be talking to you. [A long breath.] I really did think...well, it doesn't matter now. Except that I will see you tomorrow. Oh, and yes. The whole fucking court knows, since the judge demanded an explanation for our tardiness and disheveled appearances.
Njall: I hope it was enough to nail that fucker to the wall. And you're sure you're okay? I don't care what it costs, I can come sooner if you need me.
Felix: I'm sure. Will took the brunt of the hexing. But...I think I'll come home tomorrow. I know we were going to do one day, at least, before the baby shower, but I think I'd rather be home. In our bed. And then we can start the honeymoon fresh Saturday night. If that's okay with you?
Njall: [A pause, and then a sigh that's heavy with relief.] Of course. Yes. Please. Tomorrow early? Like, pre-dawn early? Like, now tomorrow? Because it's over, right? That bastard's going away?
Felix: The second I can be, promise. It all depends on what—shite. There's the judge. Got to go. I love you. I'm really okay. Also, I love you. That's not me being drugged up. I just wanted to say it twice.
Felix was so tired by the end of the long day of cross-examination that he very nearly had them make his portkey to the wrong place. He'd only lived at the new house for a handful of days, so he figured he could have been excused, but he was glad that he remembered at the last second all the same. It put him that much closer to home and to Njall. After goodbyes and reassurances from Will that Felix would get regular updates, he gratefully accepted the begrudgingly-granted (and vocally fought-for, on Will's part) portkey. He didn't even mind that nauseating tug in his stomach, or the way it jolted his knees on landing; it was a far cry from what he'd experienced that morning.
He blinked in the late-afternoon sun reflecting off the lake, momentarily dazed. He'd forgotten just how strange the time difference could be, given that it had been dark for several hours already in Rio, and it didn't help that the new house itself was nearly as strange. Gorgeous, but foreign.
Felix met Nat on the way inside, and she directed him toward his and Njall's rooms. He had a smile and a thank you for her, but otherwise he hardly even paused in his movement, footsteps picking up pace as he passed through the living room and straight into the sitting room. Njall was only a few steps away, back to him, unpacking a box of books. "Merlin, it's good to see you." Felix dropped his bag just inside the door as he swung it closed with his free hand, already moving toward his husband.
It was entirely accurate to say that Njall had been a mess after getting Felix's text messages and then subsequent phone call. Nat had been an absolute angel and had managed to get him talked down from a full blown panic attack. After that, though, while he knew that trial stuff was still happening, he threw himself into the task of unpacking as many boxes as he could and arranging things. And then rearranging them. And then hating the flow of it, and doing it all over again. This was at least his sixth time in moving this particular stack of books when he heard Felix behind him.
His shoulders slumped with relief, and he dropped the books without a particular care in this or any world where or how they landed. Tears were already stinging his eyes as he spun around and practically leapt at Felix. The only reason he held himself back in the slightest was because of the exhaustion writ large in every line of his face and body. So instead of snatching him up, Njall pulled him quickly, but gently into his arms and kissed his husband very thoroughly. Air was overrated anyway.
Felix slid his arms around his husband and didn't even wince a little, despite the half-healed bruise on his chest, because pain was entirely inconsequential at the moment. They hadn't even been married a month yet, and even in the weeks before that, there had rarely been a period of a few days where they didn't at least see each other, if not spend time together. These four days had felt like an eternity, even without that morning's near-death experience—and seeing Njall only brought home just how long an eternity really was.
He broke the kiss sooner than he wanted, but only because his chest really had started to ache from the exertion of holding his breath. He rested his forehead against Njall's for a long, quiet moment, arms wrapped solidly around him without any hint of releasing him just yet. When he did move again, it was to nuzzle his nose, to brush his lips over one cheek and then the other, and then to settle with his face buried against Njall's neck, drawing a couple of ragged breaths.
That rattle in Felix's chest concerned Njall greatly, but he, too, didn't care to separate himself from his husband either. He sighed against those soft touches, the ones that spoke volumes without saying a word. Was it too much to ask that he should be allowed to melt into this man? For them to be able to hide away in this house with Zarya and Nat (and Tony, if he stopped being weird about all of this) until kingdom come? It seemed perfectly reasonable to him as he combed his fingers through the back of Felix's hair while his other came around to settle over his heart. It was the reassurance he needed to be able to summon his wand and run a quick diagnostic spell, "Just to make sure…"
While he couldn't legally practice healing, he was still certified in first healing aid, so—dammit—he was gonna use it. The lights that danced around him weren't alarming, but that didn't stop Njall from being concerned. "Oh, ást, I know that has to hurt. Were you seen by a healer? I still have some pain potions on hand." His thumb brushed tenderly over the area, hand splayed so he could feel Felix's heartbeat under his fingertips. "Say the word, and I'll get them, but if you don't I'll be more than happy to stay right here." There was an attempt to let out a wry laugh, but it only came out as a half choked off sob. A few of those tears he'd been successfully holding back most of the day spilled down his cheeks, and he let them run unabated. When he went on, it was in a small voice. "I was so scared I'd never see you again. Terrified."
Felix shook his head as his hand came to rest over Njall's on his chest, a soft smile on his face. "I mean, yes, I saw a healer, but no, I don't want a potion. It's not so bad." And even if it had been, what he wanted more than anything was exactly what he was getting already. He released his arm from around his husband, but only so that his hand was free to swipe at those tears. "I'm so sorry again, about the text. I was rather, hmm, intoxicated when I sent it, and we went pretty much straight from there to the courthouse, and—well, I'm sorry, darling. I really hate that you had to worry."
He was sure that it might hit him eventually, just what had nearly happened that morning, but for now everything was rather numb. Or aching, but that was just his chest. He stroked Njall's cheek with his thumb...and, out of nowhere, a laugh that was one part disbelief and one part wonder bubbled up in his chest, light enough that it wasn't that painful. He held that hand over his heart a little tighter. "I only just realized. I ran. Everything in me was screaming for me to get out of the country tonight, even before my portkey was supposed to be ready. I ran, and I ended up here." Just as unexpectedly, he found his own eyes going watery. "I've never run toward something before. Toward someone."
Njall's breath hitched at that revelation, eyes going wide. A watery smile followed it in the half-second before he was crowding up against Felix and backing him into the door he'd just closed. While the move was commanding, it wasn't wholly devoid of gentleness. If nothing else, he was completely mindful of his husband's injuries, but that didn't stop him from wanting to remind Felix exactly what he would be running toward as he kissed him and slotted their bodies together in a way that always made his heart race. "Always run to me," he said between sweeps of tongue and lips that moved against one another. "I'll always be here when you do."
There was something about the way Njall touched him that brought home just how right all of this was. There was urgency in it, born of absence and relief, but there was also comfort, familiarity, belonging. Felix couldn't remember when their physical relationship had stopped being a distraction and had started being a way that they could show each other how they felt—whatever that nuance of feeling might be at the time—because it had come on so gradually. Now, every time he ran his fingers through Njall's hair, dragged his lips over soft skin, and dug his heel into the back of the man's thigh, it meant something. It was a language that didn't need words.
And for a very long time, there were none.
Sunday, August 4, 2019 | late morning | Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Felix watched as the waves rushed over his feet, up to ankle level, and then rushed back out into the ocean, and he couldn't help smiling. The squish of sand under his bare feet was pleasant, as was the warmth of the sun on his face, but best of all was the hand held loosely in his as he and Njall strolled along the edge of the water. They weren't the only ones on this particular beach, and it was tiny, but it was secluded enough that the wizards had carved out a nice little spot to take over, and that meant the guest pool was relatively small anyway. He hardly counted two women sunbathing and a young family with two small children as a crowd—except for the youngest deciding to splash them as they went past, to the apologies of his parents. Felix had thought it was hilarious, but then there wasn't much that was going to dampen his spirits today.
Attempted murder averted, check. Trial testimony, check. Baby shower, check. Now the two of them had a long stretch of days to themselves to truly relax without thinking too much about the outside world that was waiting for them when they returned. Felix, for his part, was thinking about it as little as possible, outside of those conversations about the future that were inevitable.
"See? Told you this place was bloody gorgeous," he said with a grin over at the man beside him. They'd arrived the night before, but could anyone blame them that they'd only just made it out of their rental cottage? Even that spectacular blue-green water wasn't enough to drag him away from his husband before brunch on the first morning of their actual honeymoon.
There really was a world of difference between living near a lake and being by the ocean. It was a thrum, a separate heartbeat that he'd become aware of on some level when he'd been clearing up the house in Iceland, but he hadn't known what it meant or how it could make him feel. Out here, nearly calf deep with each wave, he felt this sense of calm that he never thought possible, and Njall knew—down to his soul—that a very large part of that also had everything to do with the man at his side. He turned his grin from the warmth of the sun to his husband as the breeze played a few strands of hair played across his cheeks, having fallen from where he'd put it back. "If you're not careful, you're gonna burn through your allotment of good faith for the month, and we're barely into it."
"I get a pass because it's my birthday weekend," Felix said with a replying grin, leaning in to steal a kiss. He lingered just long enough to tuck those flying strands behind Njall's ears, knowing full well that the wind would tease them out again—and he'd have an excuse to repeat the gesture. Not that he really needed an excuse, since honeymoons were supposed to be about touching. "You know, a month ago, you couldn't have paid me to come down here, but now, with Monterero almost certainly going away for a long time...well, I can't help thinking what a shame it would have been to not see this again. You ever decide sometime in the future that you want to live by the ocean, I'm game."
He didn't care if that future might be twenty years from now. It was strange that the thought didn't even rattle him. Instead of seeing a cage that he couldn't escape, those years seemed full of possibilities. It was strange, but also wondrous. "How is it that three months feels like so much longer?"
"Well"—Njall immediately cut himself off with a wry chuckle and a shake of his head—"I was about to make a bad joke about being glad that you'd run afoul of a murderous gangster if it brought us here, but that seems in poor taste, all things considered. How about some sentimental nonsense about the tides of fate instead?" He laughed and tucked himself close into Felix's side, prompting them to stop. His feet began sinking almost at once into the sand, but he didn't mind it.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he just listened to the low rumble of the surf, how it seemed to fill him, how he could almost see the currents undulating beneath the surface. More than that, however, was the world ocean that existed in the man at his side, and that absolute certainty that even if he drowned in it he would be okay. Njall smiled and turned to slide his hands around his husband's back, pressing his cheek against sun warmed skin. "A lot's happened. A truly astounding number of things, in fact. It's a little absurd, but, y'know what? I wouldn't change a single second of it since it led me right here, right now, to you."
"That is pretty sappy," Felix teased, turning to stand in front of Njall and sliding his arms around the man's shoulders. It was strictly family friendly out here, given their company, but that wasn't stopping him from pulling him close and running his fingers again through that wind-tostled hair. It could stay in its band...for now. He ran his thumb over Njall's eyelid, smiling at the expression of peace on his husband's face as the waves lapped at their feet. "I think we should just go with the tides of you. I'm pretty sure fate couldn't compare to that kind of pull." He brushed a light kiss over the other's lips.
"I'm pretty sure you officially have the world's most complicated life," Felix agreed with a laugh, dropping another kiss to the side of Njall's head. "I will not apologize again for adding to that, because I know you'll never admit that I am," he continued, voice still playful. "Besides, I'm just selfish enough to not care, really. You do get me shirtless on the beach to compensate. Pretty fair trade."
"And shirtless in my bed," Njall added with a playful, but mindfully subtle hip wiggle. "Pretty sure I'm coming out on top here. Possibly in more ways than one." With another laugh, he pulled back sharply and snagged at Felix's arms, trying to tug him further into the water. It was intoxicating, being so close to it. "They need healers in Brazil," he mused aloud, "and I could learn Portuguese. And Nat could find a research center here. I'm sure there are all sorts of things she could study in the rainforest! And you too. And Tony could come and coach a team, and you could coax JJ to come for visits. It would be perfect. We could make it perfect."
Felix laughed in response and followed the other man into the water, which was so clear and blue that he didn't even have to consider whether he should be afraid of things like sharks or the far more terrifying magical varieties of sea creatures. He waded until he was waist deep in the water, with the waves coming up to chest level—the advantage of which was not worrying about anyone being offended as his hands roamed a little more than was strictly appropriate for the beach. "You know I'd follow in a heartbeat if you wanted it," he said, dipping his head for a brush of lips that turned into something a bit more heated despite his best intentions. "Does it really feel different, like Taki said it would? You look different. Relaxed. Though that's probably just from last night." He grinned and kissed Njall again.
Any noise he may have made at being so kissed and so handled was swallowed up by the waves that lapped at their skin. "Mmdoes, yes." Njall gave a slow nod and an even more languid stretch of his arms overhead. With Felix's arms around his waist, he dipped back further until his hair was worked loose and floated around his head as he let the water rush across his face and head. He came up slowly again, the ocean falling in rivulets down his back and chest, and grinned at Felix again. His eyes were that liquid black that he'd been so scared of, and the world looked so different, but that fear didn't come this time. "I wish I could show you what this is like. What you look like to me right now. God, Felix, you're breathtaking."
Felix's eyes roamed Njall's slim torso, watching the water sliding down the skin as the man stretched and moved in the waves. He wasted no time in pulling the other in closer again, hands carding through the wet hair and then stroking his temple as Felix gazed into those dark eyes. A shiver went down his back that had nothing to do with temperature or with fear; it was that feeling that he'd attempted to describe before, of knowing there was someone powerful in front of you, of being in awe of them...and, in this case, loving them so fiercely that the feeling itself might have been scary if he hadn't given himself up to it so wholly. "Right back at you," he said softly, fingers still tracing the lines of his husband's face. "Can you describe it to me?"
Letting the water pull him, Njall edged them deeper until they were chest deep. The waves were stronger here, but the insistent crush was notably absent around them. They barely tapped against his back, despite their size. He fit their bodies together close, lips at Felix's ear and a hand in his hair while the other roved beneath the surface. "Deep blue, almost midnight, like I could never find the ends to your depths, like you're hiding an entire universe in the dark, and all I have to do is shine a light to see a world just bursting with color and beauty and life, except I don't even have to shine anything, because you show it to me willingly. You let me in to your wonder, and I never want to leave it." He kissed the salt from his husband's cheek and then lips. "Thank you for sitting down in that bar that night. Thanks for going on this insane deep dive with me."
Felix let out a long, slow breath, once again shivering at that low voice in his ear. It reminded him of how it felt to have Njall speaking to him in Icelandic, because the meaning of those words hit him somewhere that was deeper than his logical thought, in a place where he didn't think so much as he knew. He could hardly fathom that Njall was describing him, but a part of him never wanted to stop hearing it. It filled him with an odd sort of pride that he never would have expected. "I'm good at jumping into the deep end," he said, returning those soft brushes of lips with a few of his own. "It's coming to the surface again that usually eludes me. That is all you. Insane with you is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
With a slow press of grinning lips and gently insistent hips, Njall left no space between them. "We'll make our own tide and flood the world," he whispered, just barely heard over the surf. "Þú ert hafið mitt. Ég streymi með þér." He flicked his tongue across a stray droplet of saltwater that clung to Felix's cheek, and revelled in that moment. It made him want to gambol underneath the surface, twisting and turning with the undercurrents, darting through schools of fish for no other reason than just to see them scatter and then regroup, a being made of pure joy. Is this what he had felt?
The errant thought made him go still. It kind of twisted in his gut, because the last thing he wanted to do was find any kind of commonality to the man who'd abandoned his family. Njall tucked his head against his husband's throat and squeezed his eyes shut. "Let's go back. There are things I very much want to do to you that not even the ocean can hide."
Felix made a pleased sound at that press of bodies and those ever-so enticing words, but it was the moment that Njall got quiet that really got to him. There was a slight tension there that hadn't been present moments before, but that he had seen other times that his husband had explored his Selkie side and reached a wall of some sort. It made Felix want to do anything he could to reassure him, but in this case he was all too happy to comply with the alternate request.
Monday, August 5, 2019 | around 1 am MDT | Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
By the time Njall was conscious enough to realize that his phone was dinging and he'd actually roused himself to look at it, it became obvious that this is what had woken him and that he'd already received several messages before achieving full wakefulness. The sudden brightness made it hard for him to read the words, but, when comprehension finally came, he bolted upright like a shot. "What?" The exclamation preceded the actual typed response by a fraction of a second. "Oh, fuck. Oh, no. Fuck!"
Felix had been dimly aware of the sound of Njall's phone, but his sleepy brain had filed it away as a minor annoyance that drove him to snuggle in closer to his husband and tried to drift off again. Njall's sudden movement, though, woke him in an instant, adrenaline sending his eyes wide and his heart pounding. "What? What's wrong?" He sat up, too, pressing himself in at the other man's back with a comforting arm around his torso as he tried to see what might be so urgent, but with eyes that didn't want to adjust just yet.
A tightness gripped at his chest, and Njall shoved his fingers through his hair roughly. As amazing as it felt to have Felix at his back, it wasn't nearly the palliative that it should have been. "Nat's trapped in Medical. She thinks she's in labor. God, Felix," he moaned, "I need to be there. I can't miss this. I can't be my father."
"Ooooh, fuck," Felix agreed, though it took him a few more seconds to shake the last vestiges of sleep and for it to really sink in. He started to ask the obvious ("Is she sure?") and the entirely unhelpful ("Isn't it too early?"), but all of those things miraculously got stopped somewhere in the vicinity of his throat in favor of, "I'll go find someone to get us a portkey out of here." He squeezed Njall briefly and pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder. "Breathe, darling. You aren't your father. Think about the fact that you may be seeing your daughter soon." He extracted himself from the covers and started to pull on clothes, grabbing the pieces that were strewn in the path to the bed rather than bothering to try to dig out something clean.
Njall made himself shut his eyes for just a second, and tried to do what Felix had told him to do. Breathe. Just breathe. It would be okay. It had to be okay. The alternative was unimaginable. Or it was horribly imaginable, but Njall only let his thoughts glance off that horrific timeline before focusing on what was real and present. He missed the warmth at his back, but loved Felix so much in this and all moments for already being on the move. A few more messages pinged his phone, and he stared at them before typing up a series of furiously paced replies.
"I love you!" he all but shouted as Felix left, and then got up himself to get dressed. It was remarkable that he was even functioning at a level enough to get that done, but he managed it somehow. He started pacing the room since he was up, and kept on with that barrage of texts, relaying a calm to the two people on the other ends of the conversation that didn't actually exist in his universe.
It took Felix far longer than he liked to find a government official that was willing and able to authorize and create a portkey for them. It turned out that most employed people were asleep at this time on a Sunday night, and they were distinctly grumpy when you tried to convince them to get out of bed, no matter what the argument. Strangely, his saving grace had been the prosecuting attorney for the Monterero case, who'd answered his phone on the first ring and had sounded both awake and still grateful for Felix's testimony. At this point, he was willing to cash in whatever favors were necessary if it kept Njall from a lifetime of guilt over missing his daughter's birth.
"Njall?" he called as he reentered their rented room, more to make sure he didn't startle the man than anything. "Do you want pack ever—oh, you already have." He smiled tentatively at Njall, trying to get a read on what he'd missed. There weren't tears or any more agitation than before, so he was hopeful that at least nothing bad had happened. He held up a dented can that looked like it had once held beans, except that the label was mostly rubbed off. "Ready to go when you are."
It was the tremble in his hands that betrayed his anxiety. He'd paced, and then sat, and then packed, and then paced some more, and when the door opened, he immediately shrunk down their bags and pocketed them. Njall strode right up to his husband and flung his arms around his neck, holding him close and kissing him to try to get rid of the screaming that had been going on in his head since Felix had left. "'M ready, ást," he mumbled against Felix's lips, and began to shake in earnest. "I think I'm ready. I...I'm gonna be a dad."
Felix cupped his husband's cheeks in both hands, running his thumbs over the cheekbones. "You're ready," he said firmly. Whether Felix was ready was a whole other story, but it didn't matter right now. He'd always been one to roll with what came, and he figured this wouldn't be any different. "Now let's go see if she's ready to meet you."