title: a bolt of lightning
summary: "i've lived a long time, ken. i'm ready to grow old." —ken/noshiko, oneshot.
word count: ~1300
cw: vague references to sex and japanese mistreatment during ww2

a/n:
this is my way of coping with the tw writers not giving me solid canon answers on how kitsune age lol

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He awoke with Noshiko nuzzling his neck. Actively nuzzling, which was a pleasant and rare enough sensation that Ken didn't mind the stirring, or even the fact that he cracked his eyes open to be greeted by 07:21 on his alarm clock after a long, long night inhaling coffee and bent over history texts. Noshiko's form quickly obscured their numbers, anyway — her curves rolling pleasantly into view as the quilt fell away from her and she draped an arm across his stomach to tug herself closer.

Noshiko was unfailingly warm in the physical sense (he'd chalk it up to foxfire, radiating from within her at all times), but rarely so willingly affectionate without prompting. Not that he'd call her frigid — no, reserved was the word for it, and if anyone had good reason to be it was Noshiko. Still, he couldn't deny this was welcome. His eyes slipped closed again, a contented hmm escaping as he melted into the contact, and he was so utterly comfortable that he almost missed her murmur against his collarbone, "Let's have a child."

"Okay," he murmured drowsily back, pressing a kiss to her hair. A few minutes passed. Then he woke up. "Wait, what?"

Noshiko propped herself up on her elbows, watching him steadily.

"Let's have a child, Ken. I mean it."

He blinked up at her, owlish, floundering. "Um," he said. Then, "Ah. Um. Can we, uh. Talk about this after coffee?" A pause. "Or. Uh. Discuss marriage first?"

She shot him a sharp look. There was nothing sleepy about her eyes. Ever, really. Noshiko had a habit, even at her most relaxed, of cutting gazes. Of looking at you as if she could peel you back with her scrutiny — as if she could read your secrets and air them. It had unnerved him when they'd first met, but he'd gotten used to it. Mostly. After first getting reassurance that kitsune weren't psychic.

He sighed, sitting up to mirror her and grinding the heel of his palm into his eyes. "Alright, alright." Clearly, she was going to have a serious discussion whether he was awake for it or not. "Where did, uh — this — come from?"

Noshiko hesitated. Her eyes broke away and fell to her fingers, twisting together restlessly on the pillow. Something was weighing on her — he could tell by the uncertain curl of her mouth, and it softened him. He reached out and brushed her jaw with his thumb; her eyelids fluttered as she leaned into his palm. "I want to have a life with you, Ken," she whispered, and he smiled.

"You already do. That's why I gave you a key, remember?"

"That's not what I meant." It was rare to see her grappling with her words this way, so eloquent until the conversation turned to places that left her vulnerable. He held himself patiently until she ironed out what she wanted to say. "I'm kitsune, Ken. I haven't aged in over seven hundred years."

Ah. His smile slipped. There it was: the elephant in the room. Or, if you'd prefer, the fox in the corner.

"But you're human. You're ageing. I already see it."

He had to snort at that. "There are more straightforward ways to tell me I'm looking old." But his humour did nothing to soften her agitation. He hooked an arm around her and pulled her close again. Noshiko, unresistant, hooked her hands into the fabric of his shirt. "I don't care about that, Noshiko. I have you now — that's what matters to me. And I'm here as long as you'll have me. Frankly, I'm pretty amazed you're having me in the first place, but I suppose that's where devastating good looks will get you."

"I care," she insisted, unfazed by his witticisms. "I want a life with you, Ken. A human life. And…" Another pause. It was heavier before, and Ken had the abrupt feeling that he was about to hear a treasured secret. One not meant for human ears. "There's only one way I can have that."

This caught him. Ken frowned, pulling back. "What do you mean?"

"There's a finite number of kitsune in the world," she explained, with the reluctance of one who'd clung onto the words in so long that it was difficult to pry them loose. "A finite amount of power. Our power — it's passed from generation to generation. If I have a child..."

Her implication blasted away any lingering sleepiness he felt.

"You'll start ageing."

Noshiko nodded.

Ken stared. In the handful of years they'd spent together, their future was one thing he'd actively avoided considering — hell, it had been difficult enough to come to terms with the existence of the supernatural, let alone his girlfriend's life span. To take it a step further and think about what that meant for the two of them was migraine-inducing. He'd never stopped to wonder if it were possible for them to have an ordinary life together.

"Your power," he echoed numbly. "You'll lose it."

"Slowly," she clarified. "It's...a gradual thing."

He really, really wished he'd had this conversation after coffee.

"But Noshiko, I —" God, this was too much to process on four hours' sleep. "You — I want a life with you, too. But your power, I — I can't — ask you to lose that for me."

She leaned into him. "You don't have to ask. I'm offering."

"But if you're ageing, then…"

"I'll die. Like a human."

He flinched. Noshiko felt it, pressed closer. There was nothing but total certainty in her voice.

"I've lived a long time, Ken." She didn't have to say I'm tired of watching people die. It hung in the air between them. "I'm ready to grow old. I want this. I — I've never had anything like this. Not even with..."

With Rhys.

His throat closed. Ken fell back against the pillows, dragging Noshiko with him. I'm ready to grow old. He looped the words in his mind for a long, silent moment, fathoming: I'm ready to grow old. I'm ready to grow old. His girlfriend — his sharp, wise, occasionally even playful, supernatural girlfriend, who'd seen the turns of dynasties and slain demons and survived gunfire and political internment — was utterly willing to throw that away. Not for another powerful being, or a hero, or even a handsome medic. For him. For an over-inquisitive history student who'd stuck his nose in all the wrong places.

Heart loud in his chest, Ken tucked a hand under her chin and nudged her up to meet his eye. He searched her face, but it lacked even a hint of apprehension. She'd made her choice a long time ago, he realised.

It hit him with abrupt clarity: so had he.

"The baby. They'll be…?"

Wonderfully, Noshiko smiled. "Kitsune. Probably not celestial, but a kitsune like me. But they won't find their power right away. For the first few years, they'll be the same as any human child."

"Thank God for that. Imagine a screaming toddler with foxfire."

Noshiko's sharp, quiet exhale (laced with relief) was the closest thing he'd get to a laugh. Grinning (and definitely not teary-eyed, thank-you-very-much), Ken shifted so he could kiss her. Languid, molten, messy and soft, and that's how his life was decided: quietly and gently on a Thursday morning. When they broke away, he breathed: "I love you, Yukimura Noshiko. And any child of yours will be as beautiful as you."

Her dark eyes glittered, starry with a light mischief that even Noshiko's past couldn't entirely extinguish. Eyes he could see the night sky in. "Truly you are a lucky man, Mr Yukimura."

He huffed. "Hey, now, let's not go that far. We have to make the baby first." He dropped his hand to the curve of her hip. "No time like the present, right?"

He was still grinning when she bounced the pillow against his head.

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