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Fic - Girl Genius - On the Matter of Heirs (1/1)
Established relationship, fluff, silliness.
"Alright! I've solved it!"
Tarvek lifted his head from the arm of the couch under him and blinked sunspots out of his eyes. The light on the patio off the Plutôt Petite Bibliothèque was strong, the sky a vibrant blue; Agatha, coming from inside the palace, was as visible as if she'd been in a cave.
"--Were you asleep?"
Tarvek lifted the damning book off his chest in an attempt to pretend he'd been reading. "Of course not. What was it?" The warmth in the air seemed to sink into his winter-bred bones to drag him into semi-frequent naps.
"You were asleep. Sorry, one minute of your time and you can go back to your nap." He saw her turn her head in the dim, the gold of her hair catching a trickle of light. "Gil! I've solved it. Come here!"
Gil emerged on the patio from the next French door over, hands and clothes speckled with ink, a quill in hand and one tucked behind his ear. No doubt stealing all of Tarvek's Valois ancestors' notes, the shameless sneak.
Then again, Tarvek had unlocked the library's doors for him.
"What is it?" He stepped out and around Tarvek's couch. Tarvek sat up, reluctant to lounge any longer. "Did you find out why everything comes out of the oven blue? Oh, or maybe--"
"No!" Agatha bounded out of the doors. "See, you two always tell me I don't pay enough attention to the political side, but this way--"
Whoops. Spark rant incoming. Tarvek recognized the bright eyes. He cleared his throat. "Thesis first, counter-counter-arguments second, dearest, please?"
"--Right. Well." She came to a stop in the middle of the terrace, squinting against the sunlight.
Gil took a seat on the arm at the other end of the couch and pointed his quill at her encouragingly.
"It wasn't even very hard!" Agatha blustered, and her cheeks pinked suddenly and she broke eye contact. "I just don't know why none of us thought of it before. Obviously our first child should have both of you as the father. I just figured out the chemical process to recombine--"
Gil almost spluttered himself off his perch. Tarvek might have laughed at him, if he'd had any breath left for it after that very embarrassing squeak he totally hadn't produced.
"Recombine your. Your, well."
Tarvek pressed a hand to his mouth, to contain a crazed giggle or hide a blush or maybe both, he didn't know.
"Our, ah, 'vital fluids'?" Gil suggested in a strangled voice that suggested he was battling hysterical laughter of his own.
"Yes. That." Agatha glared at the both of them, crossed her arms imperiously. "Because of course my heir certainly doesn't need the hassle! Imagine all those people trying to prod him or her into siding with their, their sire just because one of your vital swimmers was a little faster that day!"
"Of course," Tarvek said, and pinched his lips closed. A weird noise still came out of his nose.
"And the next one is where the political really comes in!"
That fanatical light was coming back into her eyes. Dear God.
"I thought twins, at first, one heir for each of you, but then in a generation or two we'd be back where we started, with imbeciles trying to pull our children into restarting that stupid war, so obviously the swimmer-melding device will need to be used once again." She nodded firmly, cheeks warm and eyebrows set to Deadly Serious. "A single child, heir to the both of you! The next children can happen as they will, I suppose. But that way the succession is fixed! The Sturmvorauses' claim to the Empire gets folded right back into Wulfenbach's de facto rule, it's actually pretty elegant -- what?"
She was right, too. Unlike an official alliance, hard to trust from the outside, too easily broken, it was a blindingly simple, perfect solution. You just had to push silly assumptions and fusty traditions out the way first, and there it was.
Lips pursed, Tarvek sneaked Gil a look. Gil sneaked him a look right back, and then started laughing. Tarvek cracked a smile, hid it behind his hand; his smile, annoyingly, only widened until his loose fist couldn't hide all of it.
"What?! It's perfect!"
"Haven't you forgotten a preliminary step," Tarvek managed, though he couldn't stop grinning. "As in... Before the heirs and succession can become a problem?"
"What -- oh!" She blushed even redder.
And then she sighed, and gave him that rueful, tender look -- the one that usually came with 'Tarvek, you pest' as an endearment.
"Will the two of you marry me?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Gil retorted, throwing his hands in the air, and inadvertently launched his quill over the edge of the patio. "I asked first! I asked you first! You could have assumed--"
Tarvek kicked him off the arm of the couch. Annoyingly, Gil just bounced up on his feet and then to Agatha to wrap her in a hug so tight Tarvek might have started worrying for her ribcage.
"That's not how you answer a proposal, you plebe!" Tarvek stood up, thwacked the back of Gil's head, yanked Agatha's hand free and took it in his. His voice softened despite himself -- though it fit the moment, so he allowed it. "I'd be honored to be yours, my lady."
He kissed her hand. Gil rolled his eyes. Agatha grinned.
"Of course, you guys should also marry each other. I mean, if we want your heir to be recognized."
Tarvek and Gil stared sideways at each other, considering.
"Hmm. Tarvek Wulfenbach sounds nice."
"Go wash your head! Having the Sturmvoraus name bestowed on you is the only way to drag you out of your mediocrity -- hah!"
Gil had just tackled him onto the couch. Tarvek tried to haul him off via pulling on his collar from behind, but the lout was heavy and refusing to be strangled.
He was also kissing him. Tarvek bit him a little, and then kissed back, melting into the cushions and making a little noise that might have been construed -- wrongly, of course! -- as enjoyment.
"Hyphenated?" Gil suggested, his hair tumbling into Tarvek's face. Tarvek dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth.
"That poor child."
He dragged himself up until he was sitting against the arm of the couch; a laughing Agatha took their hands, let herself be pulled until she sat between them, and then the two of them tipped into Tarvek with the affection and weight of drunken elephants.
Everyone got a little distracted dealing with wandering hands and mouths at that point.
By god, Tarvek loved Provence. Unreasonably warm and those hundreds of huge glass windows a perfect target to attacks from outside the palace grounds and centuries-out-of-date research materials, and perfect, perfect, perfect.
"But why -- mm -- do you get your own -- hm -- heir first," Gil said some time later, as Agatha mapped his neck methodically with her lips and teeth.
"Because it's my womb," she grumbled, and pulled back to give him a jaundiced look. Tarvek snorted and nudged up with the thigh Gil was currently straddling, and looked innocently smug when Gil swallowed a grunt.
"Or we could skip the middleman and get you to carry my child directly!" Tarvek sang with mocking cheer. "Someone as well-versed in biology as you? Should be a piece of cake."
Gil planted an elbow in his liver to push himself up and glare down at him. Agatha went "Oooooh. That would reduce the strain and amount of downtime, and be a lot fairer beside!"
"--It was a joke!" Tarvek said, spluttering, and tried to sit up. They were still sprawled on top of him, so he didn't go far.
"But it would be fairer," Gil said, and slumped with a groan to press his forehead against Tarvek's ribs. "Curse it."
It was extremely hard to keep from laughing at his tortured whine. Tarvek didn't bother trying. Agatha was patting Gil's back soothingly, but from her expression Tarvek could tell she was still so caught up in the elegance of that solution that she didn't really get why he might have qualms about implementing it.
Tarvek dropped a consoling pat of his own onto Gil's bowed head. "Don't be more stupid than usual, we don't need people calling our heir a twisted creation of science and no better than a construct, do we? They'll have enough trouble swallowing a child with two fathers at court, let's not give them more reasons to snub him or her."
Agatha blinked, nodded. "You can always carry the third one instead!"
Gil lifted his head from Tarvek's chest. Tarvek hoped to resume kissing, but Gil's lip was caught between his own teeth and he was definitely making a thinking face. Worse, a conflicted face.
"Well... Maybe..."
"What have we unleashed," Tarvek said, because he was pretty traditional deep down and that one fit the situation perfectly.
"Well, I'm not suggesting I do it for fun! But it would be fair, and if I already have an heir at this point, that'll be some pressure off me, and as the other genitor people would trust you as an interim regent for a few months, and... Just once? For the experiment?"
Agatha beamed at him and plunged in to kiss his nose. Gil beamed back, getting more excited by the second.
"And if it's got to be one of the two of us, better me than Tarvek, I'm already altered to be stronger and more resilient than baseline, of course that would make my internal organs harder to rearrange but once the changes took the end result would be more solid and--"
"How about we practice making the first child!" Tarvek interrupted, as loudly as he could without it being a yell. Gil and Agatha pouted at him.
"It has to be made in a test tube first, Tarvek, don't be silly," Agatha said, all too seriously.
Tarvek groaned pitifully. Trapped underneath his two extremely attractive, affectionate lovers -- his fiancés -- and they wanted to discuss the ins and outs of male pregnancy.
Couldn't they want to discuss artificial wombs instead? Biological sciences, bah.
"He meent de sex, keeds," said the jäger standing guard out of sight under the patio.
Tarvek shoved them both to the floor and shrieked his frustration into the cushion.
If this was a preview of what married life would be with the two of them, he...
... actually he wouldn't mind too much. It was hardly a surprise, after the courtship they'd had. He squared his shoulders, got up on his feet, and held out his hands to them, imperious and determined. "Very well! To the lab, right now. We'll look over your notes."
Agatha took his hand, smiled up at him, and tripped him onto his posterior.
--
They spent a lot of lab time making out amidst the cackling, and Tarvek still got to advance obstetric medicine by about fifteen years despite their distracting wiles. All in one, interrupted nap or not, it was a pretty good day.
"Alright! I've solved it!"
Tarvek lifted his head from the arm of the couch under him and blinked sunspots out of his eyes. The light on the patio off the Plutôt Petite Bibliothèque was strong, the sky a vibrant blue; Agatha, coming from inside the palace, was as visible as if she'd been in a cave.
"--Were you asleep?"
Tarvek lifted the damning book off his chest in an attempt to pretend he'd been reading. "Of course not. What was it?" The warmth in the air seemed to sink into his winter-bred bones to drag him into semi-frequent naps.
"You were asleep. Sorry, one minute of your time and you can go back to your nap." He saw her turn her head in the dim, the gold of her hair catching a trickle of light. "Gil! I've solved it. Come here!"
Gil emerged on the patio from the next French door over, hands and clothes speckled with ink, a quill in hand and one tucked behind his ear. No doubt stealing all of Tarvek's Valois ancestors' notes, the shameless sneak.
Then again, Tarvek had unlocked the library's doors for him.
"What is it?" He stepped out and around Tarvek's couch. Tarvek sat up, reluctant to lounge any longer. "Did you find out why everything comes out of the oven blue? Oh, or maybe--"
"No!" Agatha bounded out of the doors. "See, you two always tell me I don't pay enough attention to the political side, but this way--"
Whoops. Spark rant incoming. Tarvek recognized the bright eyes. He cleared his throat. "Thesis first, counter-counter-arguments second, dearest, please?"
"--Right. Well." She came to a stop in the middle of the terrace, squinting against the sunlight.
Gil took a seat on the arm at the other end of the couch and pointed his quill at her encouragingly.
"It wasn't even very hard!" Agatha blustered, and her cheeks pinked suddenly and she broke eye contact. "I just don't know why none of us thought of it before. Obviously our first child should have both of you as the father. I just figured out the chemical process to recombine--"
Gil almost spluttered himself off his perch. Tarvek might have laughed at him, if he'd had any breath left for it after that very embarrassing squeak he totally hadn't produced.
"Recombine your. Your, well."
Tarvek pressed a hand to his mouth, to contain a crazed giggle or hide a blush or maybe both, he didn't know.
"Our, ah, 'vital fluids'?" Gil suggested in a strangled voice that suggested he was battling hysterical laughter of his own.
"Yes. That." Agatha glared at the both of them, crossed her arms imperiously. "Because of course my heir certainly doesn't need the hassle! Imagine all those people trying to prod him or her into siding with their, their sire just because one of your vital swimmers was a little faster that day!"
"Of course," Tarvek said, and pinched his lips closed. A weird noise still came out of his nose.
"And the next one is where the political really comes in!"
That fanatical light was coming back into her eyes. Dear God.
"I thought twins, at first, one heir for each of you, but then in a generation or two we'd be back where we started, with imbeciles trying to pull our children into restarting that stupid war, so obviously the swimmer-melding device will need to be used once again." She nodded firmly, cheeks warm and eyebrows set to Deadly Serious. "A single child, heir to the both of you! The next children can happen as they will, I suppose. But that way the succession is fixed! The Sturmvorauses' claim to the Empire gets folded right back into Wulfenbach's de facto rule, it's actually pretty elegant -- what?"
She was right, too. Unlike an official alliance, hard to trust from the outside, too easily broken, it was a blindingly simple, perfect solution. You just had to push silly assumptions and fusty traditions out the way first, and there it was.
Lips pursed, Tarvek sneaked Gil a look. Gil sneaked him a look right back, and then started laughing. Tarvek cracked a smile, hid it behind his hand; his smile, annoyingly, only widened until his loose fist couldn't hide all of it.
"What?! It's perfect!"
"Haven't you forgotten a preliminary step," Tarvek managed, though he couldn't stop grinning. "As in... Before the heirs and succession can become a problem?"
"What -- oh!" She blushed even redder.
And then she sighed, and gave him that rueful, tender look -- the one that usually came with 'Tarvek, you pest' as an endearment.
"Will the two of you marry me?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Gil retorted, throwing his hands in the air, and inadvertently launched his quill over the edge of the patio. "I asked first! I asked you first! You could have assumed--"
Tarvek kicked him off the arm of the couch. Annoyingly, Gil just bounced up on his feet and then to Agatha to wrap her in a hug so tight Tarvek might have started worrying for her ribcage.
"That's not how you answer a proposal, you plebe!" Tarvek stood up, thwacked the back of Gil's head, yanked Agatha's hand free and took it in his. His voice softened despite himself -- though it fit the moment, so he allowed it. "I'd be honored to be yours, my lady."
He kissed her hand. Gil rolled his eyes. Agatha grinned.
"Of course, you guys should also marry each other. I mean, if we want your heir to be recognized."
Tarvek and Gil stared sideways at each other, considering.
"Hmm. Tarvek Wulfenbach sounds nice."
"Go wash your head! Having the Sturmvoraus name bestowed on you is the only way to drag you out of your mediocrity -- hah!"
Gil had just tackled him onto the couch. Tarvek tried to haul him off via pulling on his collar from behind, but the lout was heavy and refusing to be strangled.
He was also kissing him. Tarvek bit him a little, and then kissed back, melting into the cushions and making a little noise that might have been construed -- wrongly, of course! -- as enjoyment.
"Hyphenated?" Gil suggested, his hair tumbling into Tarvek's face. Tarvek dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth.
"That poor child."
He dragged himself up until he was sitting against the arm of the couch; a laughing Agatha took their hands, let herself be pulled until she sat between them, and then the two of them tipped into Tarvek with the affection and weight of drunken elephants.
Everyone got a little distracted dealing with wandering hands and mouths at that point.
By god, Tarvek loved Provence. Unreasonably warm and those hundreds of huge glass windows a perfect target to attacks from outside the palace grounds and centuries-out-of-date research materials, and perfect, perfect, perfect.
"But why -- mm -- do you get your own -- hm -- heir first," Gil said some time later, as Agatha mapped his neck methodically with her lips and teeth.
"Because it's my womb," she grumbled, and pulled back to give him a jaundiced look. Tarvek snorted and nudged up with the thigh Gil was currently straddling, and looked innocently smug when Gil swallowed a grunt.
"Or we could skip the middleman and get you to carry my child directly!" Tarvek sang with mocking cheer. "Someone as well-versed in biology as you? Should be a piece of cake."
Gil planted an elbow in his liver to push himself up and glare down at him. Agatha went "Oooooh. That would reduce the strain and amount of downtime, and be a lot fairer beside!"
"--It was a joke!" Tarvek said, spluttering, and tried to sit up. They were still sprawled on top of him, so he didn't go far.
"But it would be fairer," Gil said, and slumped with a groan to press his forehead against Tarvek's ribs. "Curse it."
It was extremely hard to keep from laughing at his tortured whine. Tarvek didn't bother trying. Agatha was patting Gil's back soothingly, but from her expression Tarvek could tell she was still so caught up in the elegance of that solution that she didn't really get why he might have qualms about implementing it.
Tarvek dropped a consoling pat of his own onto Gil's bowed head. "Don't be more stupid than usual, we don't need people calling our heir a twisted creation of science and no better than a construct, do we? They'll have enough trouble swallowing a child with two fathers at court, let's not give them more reasons to snub him or her."
Agatha blinked, nodded. "You can always carry the third one instead!"
Gil lifted his head from Tarvek's chest. Tarvek hoped to resume kissing, but Gil's lip was caught between his own teeth and he was definitely making a thinking face. Worse, a conflicted face.
"Well... Maybe..."
"What have we unleashed," Tarvek said, because he was pretty traditional deep down and that one fit the situation perfectly.
"Well, I'm not suggesting I do it for fun! But it would be fair, and if I already have an heir at this point, that'll be some pressure off me, and as the other genitor people would trust you as an interim regent for a few months, and... Just once? For the experiment?"
Agatha beamed at him and plunged in to kiss his nose. Gil beamed back, getting more excited by the second.
"And if it's got to be one of the two of us, better me than Tarvek, I'm already altered to be stronger and more resilient than baseline, of course that would make my internal organs harder to rearrange but once the changes took the end result would be more solid and--"
"How about we practice making the first child!" Tarvek interrupted, as loudly as he could without it being a yell. Gil and Agatha pouted at him.
"It has to be made in a test tube first, Tarvek, don't be silly," Agatha said, all too seriously.
Tarvek groaned pitifully. Trapped underneath his two extremely attractive, affectionate lovers -- his fiancés -- and they wanted to discuss the ins and outs of male pregnancy.
Couldn't they want to discuss artificial wombs instead? Biological sciences, bah.
"He meent de sex, keeds," said the jäger standing guard out of sight under the patio.
Tarvek shoved them both to the floor and shrieked his frustration into the cushion.
If this was a preview of what married life would be with the two of them, he...
... actually he wouldn't mind too much. It was hardly a surprise, after the courtship they'd had. He squared his shoulders, got up on his feet, and held out his hands to them, imperious and determined. "Very well! To the lab, right now. We'll look over your notes."
Agatha took his hand, smiled up at him, and tripped him onto his posterior.
--
They spent a lot of lab time making out amidst the cackling, and Tarvek still got to advance obstetric medicine by about fifteen years despite their distracting wiles. All in one, interrupted nap or not, it was a pretty good day.