A Dream of Daisies

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

C hamomile woke the next day from a predictably restless sleep. His insides roiled all day long, nervousness dampening his appetite. He only drank a cup of tea for breakfast, and took a ham roll to the bookshop with him but didn’t eat it. Lunch brought the offering of an apple from Rheta Lightfoot and her produce stand across the street, but the acid did not mix well with his excited stomach.

By midday, news of his choice had circulated, and he thought he could see its effects. Some alphas seemed to avert their eyes when he crossed paths with them, while others approached to give friendly handshakes and well-wishes. Unspoken, but nonetheless communicated by all was acceptance of his choice.

Quizzel Firefingers gave him a broad smile and a nod as Chamomile passed his forge. Tabitha Lightwind came to the bookshop and, very casually, gave him her mother’s recipe for a tea to settle the stomach. Roa Fishcatcher waved to him cheerily on their way home, the day’s catch braced on their shoulders.

Lark Woodwhistler he did not see, but that was not unusual.

His answering bundle was gone when he returned that evening, bringing them to the penultimate stage of the ritual. Chamomile let himself into his house with shaking hands. He forced himself to eat supper, however light, and brewed a pot of his namesake before bed. He anticipated difficulty sleeping, and didn’t want to stare up at the ceiling all night, waiting for Lark. Though, perhaps that was inevitable.

He did, eventually, sleep, but it was a gentle one. The sound of heavy boots on his floors woke him, though they stepped quietly.

Chamomile had rolled as he slept and put his back to the door. Not wanting to move, he could only fix his eyes on the quilt as he fought to relax his body, as the footsteps stopped in his doorway.

He heard his visitor taking deep, measured breaths. Perhaps Lark Woodwhistler was nervous too.

There was a sound like fabric falling to the floor. Rustling. Despite his attempts to control it, Chamomile’s breaths were coming quicker, louder. He closed his mouth, hoping Lark could not hear him; he did not want to betray his nerves.

The bed dipped as Lark sat on the edge, and a hand laid itself on Chamomile’s blanketed hip. He didn’t flinch, and he was proud of it, for Lark’s touch was gentle, a question. Chamomile, arrested by the breadth of that hand, the warmth of it, uncurled a little.

Lark felt him relax and took it as the permission it was, joining him under the quilt and huddling close. It startled Chamomile how natural Lark felt at his back—how comforting his heavy, bracketing arms and his furnace-warm heat were. Chamomile, who was cold-natured, sighed his pleasure and basked in it as Lark tucked his face into the back of his neck.

For a time Lark simply breathed against him, until Chamomile’s pattering heart gradually calmed and their breaths came in tandem. Lark had removed his coat and boots, but still wore his shirt and trousers. Whether it was his skin or his clothing, he smelled of cedar and sawdust, underlaid by the heady scent of alpha. It made Chamomile’s toes curl beneath the quilt, and before he knew it, he was a gooey, melted puddle of an omega in Lark’s quiet embrace, drifting fast into what promised to be a lovely, deep sleep.

It was then, when he was so relaxed he veritably purred, that Lark finally made his move. He had, after all, come for more than a cuddle and a good night’s sleep.

Lips touched his nape. Lightly at first, firmer when he did not move away. They kissed a slow trail up and into his curls. Chamomile arched his neck and turned his face so they might continue along his cheek. He smiled, and felt a puff of air that might have been a laugh. One of Lark’s broad hands slipped its fingers between the buttons of Chamomile’s nightshirt, rough tips scratching his skin; the other wrapped around Chamomile’s hands, massaging a thumb between the small bones.

He felt Lark’s stand growing at his seat, though Lark tried to politely hold his hips away as he eased them slowly into intimacy. Chamomile, touched by the consideration, nonetheless found himself eager to know the exact shape and span of his lover, and wiggled backwards with intent. Lark’s arms tightened around him with a soft sound of surprise, trapping him close. Chamomile answered with his own pleased hum, still moving his hips.

Shuddering, Lark cupped his chin, and pulled him into a deep and coaxing kiss. Chamomile turned in Lark’s arms to grasp his lapels, eager to open to it, until it grew into the wettest, messiest kiss he’d ever had.

Oh, this is glorious, Chamomile thought, hardly nervous at all anymore, as he met Lark’s tongue with his own and rocked his erection against the thigh Lark had squeezed between his. He fumbled with Lark’s buttons, flitting indecisively between pants and shirt, only knowing that both must come off, and not which order he preferred.

“Off, off, off,” he chanted, pushing Lark’s pants down his legs with his feet as Lark tried to assist him.

Lark laughed, louder than before, and broke the spell of near-silence.

“Off, off, off,” he said, teasing, as he rucked Chamomile’s nightshirt up over his thighs, over his belly. He made a throaty noise at the nakedness beneath that went straight to Chamomile’s groin.

Chamomile, whose inner thighs were slick with excitement, whose heart thundered in his chest. With his nightshirt no longer an obstacle, he pulled Lark’s hips close with his knees, bringing their hot flesh together. Lark groaned into his mouth, his hands falling to grasp Chamomile's hipbones and lift him flush.

The burning length of Lark’s cock stuck slightly in the wetness between Chamomile’s thighs, at the same time Lark’s hard stomach presented itself as an excellent surface for rubbing his own erection against. Chamomile whined with want, muscles clenching at the growing emptiness he felt, but for the moment was quite happy to grind inelegantly against all parts of Lark he could reach.

“Where did you get the gloxinia?” Chamomile heard himself ask, distantly.

Lark chuckled breathlessly between sucking kisses. He moved in time with Chamomile, helpfully holding one of his thighs aloft to deepen the angle. “Wavecrest,” he said.

“Is that what took you so long?” Chamomile’s arms wrapped around Lark’s back, holding him so their chests touched, but for the shirts they still wore.

Lark slowed in his motions, unable to stop entirely. He took Chamomile’s face in his hands and met their eyes, brushing a stray curl aside with his thumb. “Would that I had acted sooner,” he said sincerely, as his hips moved roughly.

Chamomile had been referring to the bouquet, left under his mailbox on the last day of the ritual, but knew Lark spoke of something else entirely. He licked his lips, nodding as Lark kissed him, and kissed back as Lark finally reached down to fit the tip of his cock to Chamomile’s entrance.

He pressed inside slowly, so slowly. Chamomile didn’t know what to do with his hands; they grasped at Lark’s short hair, pawed at his shoulders and wrapped around his neck as he groaned at the stretch of Lark sinking into him.

Fully seated, Lark paused to breathe, his eyes closed. Chamomile cooed beneath him, petting and stroking and dotting kisses along his jaw, delighting in the occasional twitch of a thrust he managed to provoke. When Lark opened his eyes, visibly prepared to get down to business, he pressed a hard kiss to Chamomile’s forehead, tucked his face against his neck, and thrust firmly into him.

Chamomile made a noise and clung to him. He drew his nails over Lark’s skin, goosebumps rising in their wake.

Steadily moving, Lark sucked marks on Chamomile’s throat in a line that went down the vee of his nightshirt. He flipped the collar with his nose, tickling the underside of Chamomile’s chin with a point of fabric.

“Take it off?” he asked, and of course Chamomile obliged, though his trembling fingers struggled with the buttons. He shucked himself free as well as he was able without interrupting their lovemaking, and set upon Lark’s mostly undone shirt next. Both were summarily discarded, either lost in the bedclothes or fallen to the floor.

Lark was fascinated by his curls, Chamomile was amused to find. He combed his fingers through them, buried his nose amongst them. Chamomile could only imagine the rat’s nest he would have to untangle in the morning and could not help but laugh, earning himself a harder thrust of hips.

Lark felt so good, his rhythm regular and inescapable, the fat length of his cock striking all the best spots inside him. Chamomile’s peak came over him quickly, and he sank his teeth into the meat of Lark’s shoulder as he spurted between their bellies. It seemed every muscle in his pelvis squeezed in that moment, his body trying to trap a knot and milk it with fluttering contractions that shook Chamomile in waves, except Lark had not yet swollen inside him.

Lark inhaled sharply, swearing against his temple at the sudden grip, surely as tight as a fist around his cock. Chamomile would have laughed, had he the breath to. In the wake of Chamomile’s climax, Lark took a few deep, steadying breaths, and gently resumed, mindful of his sensitivity.

Chamomile felt weak in the aftermath, gone languid in a way that was decadent, but for the occasional zing of pleasure that made him twitch and shiver. Every sporadic squeeze made Lark grunt, which made Chamomile grin.

“Scoundrel,” Lark said with affection, and Chamomile preened, dragging his nails harder down Lark’s back. Lark bent his neck to catch his mouth for a kiss, before getting his knees beneath him and bodily sitting them both upright, pulling Chamomile into his lap. Chamomile draped himself over Lark’s shoulders like a purring blanket, happy to shower every bit of skin he could reach with mindless nips and kisses. Lark arranged his legs to his satisfaction, hooked his hands beneath his bottom, and recommenced.

Chamomile was free with his moans and gasps, encouraged by Lark’s hands and how they tightened on him with each elated sound, by the powerful drum of Lark’s heart against his chest. Slickness ran freely from him, down his thighs in wet lines. He shivered to think of it making a mess of the sheets and dripping down Lark’s sack.

“I’ve always liked red hair,” he mused, going high on the word red as Lark’s hips snapped into him, Lark groaning helplessly into his hair. “Red hair with curls…and hazel eyes… ah !”

With a growl, Lark tossed him down to the mattress and flipped him onto his belly, moving down the bed as Chamomile lay stunned. Surely Lark wasn’t leaving —but no, that was his mouth between Chamomile’s legs, and his tongue snaking out, and his teeth nipping somewhat less than gently.

Chamomile smothered a shocked cry in his pillow, hips twitching after Lark’s mouth. He felt a gush and a spasm in his core—he’d come again—and heard Lark’s answering moan at his flavor. There was another sound: Lark, working himself by hand, aided by Chamomile’s slickness.

Chamomile whimpered. “Lark,” he called feebly, emerging from the pillow he had a deathgrip on to gasp for air. Good man that he was, Lark climbed up his body and jerked his hips, entering him easily with a stab of a thrust, Chamomile’s body offering him no resistance.

Lark gave a wheezy chuckle as Chamomile wailed into his pillow. His grip on Chamomile’s hips (which were growing sore) was bruisingly strong, so different from the sweet gentleness they’d begun the evening with, but just as welcome. His strokes had slowed, gone short and sharp, and his swelling knot pulled at the rim of Chamomile’s entrance with every pass. Chamomile felt himself spiraling rapidly, and desperately fought back the orgasm that threatened to wash him away.

Not yet, not yet!

He patted around blindly for Lark, suddenly needing to touch him, to ground himself. Lark bent close and took Chamomile’s searching hand in one of his own.

“Lark—“ Chamomile gasped. “Please—“

“Nearly, love,” Lark groaned, panting at his nape. “Nearly there.”

Despite his words, ages seemed to pass before Lark sank into him a final time, his knot huge and hard and better than anything Chamomile had ever felt—save for, perhaps, the moment when he was finally able to let go, sobbing as his core tightened so violently it hurt.

Propped up on his trembling arms, Lark hung above him weakly, breathing wetly against Chamomile’s spin, between his shoulder blades. They lay together in recovery, mutually stunned for several long minutes.

Chamomile poked the inside of Lark’s elbow to break the moment, buckling it. Lark fell half onto his back, pushing the air out of him, but he still giggled.

Lark huffed with amusement. He tugged on his knot, caught in the grip of Chamomile’s body, in retaliation. It set off a series of pleasurable sparks low in his belly. Chamomile yelped with pleasure.

“Do that again,” he said with a wiggle, urging him on.

Lark laboriously pushed himself up. “Going to have to,” he said. “Hold on.”

Chamomile thought he would arrange them on their sides, but instead Lark rolled onto his back, propped up by the pillows, and had Chamomile lie on his chest. “Try that,” Lark said, settling back.

Chamomile blinked at him over his shoulder. “Try what?”

Lark chuckled, still winded; it was a wonderfully breathless sound. “Move your hips,” he said, demonstrably leading Chamomile’s hips in small, circular motions with his hands. Each rotation pulled Lark’s knot in him, pushing it into all those wonderful places inside. “Like this.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah, just like that.” Lark rested his hands on Chamomile’s waist, no further coaching needed.

“Why does this feel—oh! So good?” Chamomile asked, letting his head fall back onto Lark’s shoulder.

“I couldn’t say,” Lark said, muffled. He had turned his face into Chamomile’s curls once more, inhaling the scent of his hair. One of his hands lay, warm and heavy, on Chamomile’s belly over his womb. “It’s good for catching, or so I’m told.”

Chamomile rested his hand over Lark’s and wove their fingers together, still gently grinding on Lark’s knot.

“I might be able to go again in the morning,” Lark told him gruffly, apologetic. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Mm,” Chamomile sighed, liquid and pleased. “Alright. You don’t have to wake me.”

Lark swore against his nape.

Lark took him at his word. Chamomile came awake the next morning slowly, brought around by the steady rock of his hips. More asleep than not, Chamomile got his hands and knees beneath him and pushed back into Lark’s thrusts until he felt the knot catch. It was only just gray-dawn outside, going by the light through the curtains. They came together and returned to sleep, mutually tied.

When he next woke Lark was gone, but the bed was still warm and there was a sweet pea on the pillow by his head. Thank you for a lovely time . Chamomile chuckled, curled his fingers gently around the stem, and slept for a bit longer.

When he at last rose for the day it was with a bounce. He was tired, despite his rest, but it was a pleasant, well-earned tiredness, and while he ached in some places it was a very nice sort of ache. He made himself a large breakfast and ate cheerfully as he watched bluebirds hop about in the window box outside.

After breakfast, he stripped the bed sheets. There were a number of sizable damp spots in the blankets, and his nightshirt fell to the ground as he shook the sheet out. He blushed a bit, but mostly felt rather smug, and hummed as he bundled the soiled linen up and made the bed with a fresh set.

He was fluffing a pillow when his eyes landed on Lark’s cuff, forgotten on the bedside table.

Ah, yes.

Chamomile chewed his lip as he considered it, picking it up carefully. He sat on the bed with it in his hands, sweeping his thumb over the etched designs. Here a swirl, there a mountain, there a simple etching that evoked a bird. He put it on just to know what it felt like to wear it, and decided he liked the coolness of the lacquer and the slight pressure of the loops as they clung to him.

He left the bedroom for the nursery, curious to know if a change of scenery would help his decision-making, and sat in the old rocker with its wobbly leg. He closed his eyes to picture a baby in the crib, kicking its legs and fussing. In his mind’s eye, he saw Lark come into the room and take the baby into his arms, holding it against his chest.

He had been so good of a lover. Patient and easy in the beginning, able to pick up on Chamomile’s anxiety without having to be told. They were qualities Chamomile would want in the father of his children, in his mate.

Mind still awhirl, Chamomile got up to do his washing. He took the cuff off to scrub his laundry, uncertain of the soap on the varnish, but returned it to his wrist once finished. He tended to the garden as the sheets dried on the line, eyeing them whenever the wind picked up, until it was time for lunch. As he ate, the cuff visible in the corner of his eye, he thought some more.

Lark’s bouquet was centered on the kitchen table in a cracked, much-loved teapot. Chamomile had left it there with the intention of seeing what kind of arrangement he could force upon it, but now he found he liked it as it was, haphazard and natural.

Ah, but that bouquet. Confidence and shelter, strength and courage. Protection. Wishes coming true. Affection, and a will to please. Secret love and I’ll always be true , and beautiful eyes and I love you . Humility and longing. Domesticity. Love at first sight.

It was a proposal so ardent as to be daunting; Lark promised everything an omega could want of their alpha. That anyone could want, of any partner.

Blinded as he was by his desire for a child, Chamomile had given surprisingly little thought to taking a spouse. What would a mate and marriage mean for him? Someone to fold laundry with, bump into in the kitchen, cuddle up to on snowy mornings...

Love at first sight . Chamomile tried to remember when he first met Lark Woodwhistler. He would have been very young, ten or eleven most likely. That could not have been what Lark meant. He would have to ask him.

It was Seventhday, which meant he did not need to attend the bookshop, but a few things remained to be done in town. Lara Everglow and her wife, Gergie, were old, and struggled with some household tasks such as washing. He owed Tomas Riverbook a clutch of sweet onions, and needed to take True Brightwater the case of canning jars he’d promised him.

He used the corner of a damp cloth to clean Lark’s cuff of imaginary soil, polishing it until the lacquer gleamed, and was wearing it when he left.

It was an odd day in town. The cuff was largely obscured by his sleeve, but even still Chamomile felt as if eyes were upon it. His neighbors and friends didn’t greet him any differently; he told himself the interested, side-long looks were only his imagination, though it was certainly true everyone he passed had a good idea of how he’d spent his night. Some of them were probably trying to puzzle out his partner. There were only so many available alphas in the village; they’d suss Lark out before too long.

He was forced to cover a smile at the thought. Lark seemed the type to resent the attention, loner that he was.

Lara Everglow raised her eyebrows at Lark’s cuff when Chamomile removed it, along with his vest, and set them aside to wash her linens. From the corner of his eye he caught her leaning over the arm of her rocker, peering at it thoughtfully.

She didn’t say anything for a long while. He had almost finished rinsing her sheets when she ventured, “Are you pleased?”

“I,” Chamomile pinked and coughed. “I suppose I am.”

She tilted her head towards the cuff. “I suppose you are,” she said, with a smirk to her knitting.

Tomas Riverbook didn’t notice it, but his husband did. Chamomile saw his double-take and pretended not to as his cheeks grew warm. Peter winked as he gave Chamomile a basket of cheese and homemade beer bread in return for the onions.

Lark came again that night. Chamomile, feeling bold, had gone to bed with a high fire in the grate and without his nightshirt. He shivered as he waited, burrowed beneath his quilt, but it was worth it for the sound Lark made when he pulled back the blanket to join him.

Lark’s hands were cold, chilled by the night air during his walk. Chamomile wanted to catch them and warm them in the hot, dark places of his body. Lark was amiable to this; he slipped the fingers of one hand beneath Chamomile’s arm, and those of the other between his legs, where they were met with evidence of Chamomoile’s anticipation.

Lark exhaled gustily by his ear at that, and Chamomile grinned.

“Forsythia,” he said, and squeaked as cold fingers delved into his body.

They made love with Chamomile propped up, a pillow beneath his back and his shoulders on the mattress. For a time, fingers were all that Lark would give him; the older man seemed to take amusement from his growing impatience, and only smiled infuriatingly as Chamomile grew to whine and tug at him with grasping hands.

“Enough, please!”

“Please, what?” Lark murmured back, but he was moving, finally , into position, and from there Chamomile could only groan.

After, they lay close together. Lark had advised him to keep his hips up, even after his knot went down. It was an odd position to have a conversation in, with his legs sprawled wide, but curiously comfortable.

Chamomile, dozing and enjoying the warmth of his lover’s body, jolted as he remembered something.

“Gloxinia,” he said suddenly. He turned his head towards Lark, who was looking back at him. His eyes were indeed hazel. Brown and green, ringed in deep blue. “When?”

Lark’s gaze drifted. He became fascinated with a freckle on Chamomile’s shoulder.

“I believe you were sixteen,” he said finally. “Your mother had died the summer before. It was flooding season.”

Chamomile’s eyes were fixed on him but unseeing, narrowed with concentration as he thought back. Much of his memory from the time after his mother’s death was blurry, confused with grief, but Lark Woodwhistler was an infrequent enough player in his life that, by presence alone, he stood out in memory. With the added filter of flooding season...

“The Honeywills’ house,” he realized. Lark nodded.

The Honeywills were the only family unfortunate enough that year to take damage from the floodwaters, and they took enough for multiple homes. The river broke its banks the day after the lake flooded, and water crept on them from multiple fronts. It shattered windows and left a spider-web network of cracks along the walls. When the water receded, the townspeople came out in droves to repair the damage.

Chamomile remembered those few days with a strange fondness. The Honeywills were devastated by their losses and the damage to their home, but heartened by how many came in the aftermath. Chamomile had helped Julep Honeywill collect all of their things and move them to the lawn to dry in the sun, and her daughter Elise to search for some precious belongings along the edges of the lake.

He knew Lark had been there; he directed helpers doing structural repairs and did much of the work himself. By and large their paths had not crossed, but Chamomile remembered one particular moment with crystalline clarity, whereupon feeling an itch at his back he turned and locked eyes with Lark.

Lark had been on the roof, previously hammering away at shingles, but at that moment he had been looking down at Chamomile with, he remembered thinking, an oddly intense expression.

Lark was, had always been, a handsome man. He’d been especially beautiful that day, in his prime and lit from behind by the sun. That, Chamomile remembered.

Chamomile blinked. “I—that day? Really?”

Lark simply shrugged.

“I was—I was filthy! And exhausted, and arguing with Jevin Irontip, and—” Lark touched his face, derailing his thoughts.

“Chamomile,” Lark laughed, eyes shining, and Chamomile shuddered, surprised. It wasn’t, but it felt like the first time he’d heard Lark say his name. “You’d been there since before dawn, helping. You were putting that ass Irontip in his place while Julep’s youngest slept on your back and still you were smiling. You were gorgeous.” Lark’s brightness dimmed a notch, and he cut his eyes away. “And you were very young.”

Chamomile abandoned his pillow to huddle against his chest and kiss him until the slight tension that had come to his shoulders went away again.

“I suppose that’s why you waited,” he said gently. “But...so long? Almost twenty years.”

Lark touched their foreheads with a soft tap, closing his eyes. “It came to be a habit, I suppose. And then I did not want to pursue you, when it might have kept you from a lover your own age.”

Chamomile snorted to share his thoughts on that notion. “Well, hopefully you didn’t wait too long,” he said, with a pointed wiggle on his pillows.

In response to that Lark rolled them over, muffling a coarse laugh in Chamomile’s hair as he did.