#i lit made this in like half an hour got possesed by the need to draw tired and done swk ig

[vriart]

When will this man get a break

[anoutlandishfanfic]

The One As Certain As The Sun.

This delightful little fluff is in celebration of @the-fear-you-wont-fall ‘s birthday!!! Happiest of birthday wishes to the best beta fish ever. Thank you for putting up with all of my random, all caps texts, especially when they’re in the middle of the night.

BUT ITS ALSO celebrating fact that I’m now done with the show I was in (which was Beauty and the Beast, hence the inspiration) and can finish up all the chapters I’ve got going!

The purpose of Idyllwild is stand alone fluff, but you can find more chapters here. The only context you’ll need is that Claire is about five months pregnant with Quinn and that they’ve recently traded houses with Jamie’s parents and are now living at Lallybroch with their four children. (Fergus, Faith, Bree, and Jake)

Early September, 2016; Lallybroch.

Bree wandered into the kitchen and tugged at my arm, blue eyes pleading as she demanded, “Mummy, come watch Belle with me.”

Faith had started first grade this week and the both of us were feeling rather bereft in her absence this afternoon. Beauty and the Beast would have been more Faith’s choice of a film than Bree’s, but I understood the need to be surrounded by Faith’s essence — princesses and happy endings and swirling ball gowns — completely. My eldest was entirely happy in her new academic setting and, yet, I found myself wishing her to home just the same.

“My baby will like it,” she tried a second attempt when I didn’t move instantaneously, “an’ I’ll hold your hand so’s you dinna get scared.”

I grinned at her as I pulled her into what was left of my lap, burying my nose in her neck and making her giggle. She patted the growing swell of her youngest brother or sister — who was always referred to as hers, quite possesively — and giggled as I murmured, “I would love to.”

Hopping right back off of my lap, she tugged me from the kitchen chair I’d been sitting in and into the den but before I could make it to the couch, an inquiring cry sounded from the hallway.

“Why don’t I get Jake up and you make the sofa cozy for all of us, mmm? Our own little nest?” I offered, squeezing her hand in encouragement.

Bree tolerated her younger brother, but she tended to balk when he interrupted her master plans and now this new little one was beginning to encroach on her space and time as well. I waited to see how she would react, holding my breath as she furrowed her brow and pondered this a moment.

“Okay,” she acquiesced, although I could still see the wheels of her mind churning this new development over, her gaze flicking to the stairs as she made sure, “but you’ll still watch with me?”

“I can’t promise that I’ll be able to watch the whole thing with you, love,” I sighed, wishing I could indeed curl up beside her and not move for an hour and a half.

Bree nodded, accepting this as she flounced off to gather the pillows and blankets used for such occasions. I, in turn, made my way slowly up the stairs and listened to my two year old chatter to himself. Jake had long outgrown the confines of his crib, yet he usually stayed within his room until someone came to get him after nap. The child could sleep through anything and would nap wherever he happened to be when the need struck him, but that also meant that he woke up rather slow.

I eased open the door and slipped inside the dimly lit room, my eyes adjusting almost immediately as I crooned, “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

Jake bounced in his bed and laughed with delight, cheering for himself as much as he was for me. He scrambled to his feet and lifted his arms to me. I picked him up and nestled his head beneath my chin, breathing in familiar scent of him. My weariness melted away as I lowered myself into the glider beside his bed, rocking him gently as he became more and more alert.

“Did you have a good nap?”

He nodded against me, insisting, “In my bed!”

“Yes, you did sleep in your bed this time, didn’t you?” I grinned. “I’m very proud of you.”

“Fay come home?” Jake lifted his head and asked of his sister.

“No, Faith won’t come home from school until after snack.”

My heart clenched as his lower lip protruded, his disappointment echoing my own.

“But Bree is watching Belle and wants to know if you’d like to watch too.”

Jake’s eyes lit up the dark room as he bounced in my lap, “Aye!”

We giggled together as we left the dim nursery and went downstairs to find Bree.

She’d piled the sofa high with pillows of every size, some spilling onto the floor and draped in warm woolen plaids. I wandered over to the bookshelf that housed our growing collection of children’s films and selected the beloved tale, putting it in the player and snagging the remote on my way back to the sofa. Bree patted the open space beside her, which was obviously reserved for me, and my heart melted into a puddle as she handed me Faith’s well-worn stuffed lamb as I sat down. Jake quickly found his own niche of the pillowed sofa, not on my lap, but held fast to a fist full of my shirt as he settled in to watch the classic.

Bree leaned close, her own lavender colored bear tucked securely under her arm as she admonished, “Tally doesna like it when Belle’s da gets lost and you have to tell her is okay an’ tha’ Belle always finds him.”

“I will,” I assured her, kissing the top of her head.

I swallowed hard as I realized that this is what Bree would always tell Faith when they reached that part of the film. That Bree needed to be sure Tally the Lamb would be comforted in her sister’s stead warmed my heart to no end. Bree was both Faith’s champion and courage more often than not, and this was really the first they’d been separated for any real length of time.

For this reason and so many more, I pulled Bree a little bit closer to me as the narrator began his familiar prologue:

Once upon a time in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle...

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Need more? You can find Baby Quinn’s grand entrance into the world here, in the one with a blizzard and a birth, or an adorable Jake moment here, in the one with Faith’s first concert.