Author's Note: Silly drabble involving tickling and snarking because I obviously have nothing better to do than agonize about the weight of my unfinished fics and write drabbly type things.
A Bump In the Road
"UGH," Hermione growled.
"Ugh?" Severus asked, one eyebrow arching as he looked up from his book.
"Yes. Ugh." Hermione crossed her arms over her distended belly as she sprawled out on the couch. "It's decidedly hard to be cheery when your son has apparently decided to take up kickboxing in the womb."
"Oh, so he's my son now, is he?" Severus replied, pursing his lips as though trying to hold back a grin. "I seem to remember that getting on one's last nerve was one of your...more innate talents."
"Do you hear that?" Hermione said in a theatrical voice to her bump. "Your father thinks you're talented."
"I did not-" Severus stood up, a sudden glint shining in his eyes, and walked over to where Hermione was sitting.
"What are you-?" Hermione looked up at the looming figure of her husband just in time to see him wiggling his fingers in undulating waves above her as his expression grew playfully sinister.
"Oh, nothing," Severus replied, his grin suggesting the opposite. "I just thought that I might assist in cheering you up after all."
With that, he launched onto his wife, his fingers tickling at her various sensitive spots, many of which had grown more sensitive due to the hormonal shift of pregnancy.
Hermione was practically rolling around on the couch under his fingers, her head thrown back as she screeched with laughter.
"You absolute git!" she gasped, finally, when he was done, even though the words held no malice. "With the way you were carrying on, I could have gone into early labor, you know!"
"Oh, I think our little ninja knows that he's got to stay inside and make his mummy miserable for as long as it takes him to arrive on time," Severus replied, kissing her belly and then rising to kiss her on the lips softly. "Besides, he's your son too. He wouldn't dare show up early without fully preparing for his first day, just like his mum."
Hermione wrinkled her nose as he kissed it, grinning shyly up at him, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.
"You always know just what to say, don't you, Severus?" she said, her voice containing a sense of affection and wonder that made his cheeks go a bit pink.
"Practice makes perfect, my love," he purred back. "I've buggered things up so many times that I'm rather surprised that you still put up with me."
"That's because I love watching you splutter but soldier on despite the awkwardness," Hermione said playfully, poking the tip of his nose and rising up on her tiptoes to kiss it. "It's just one of the many reasons I love you."
"And I you," Severus mumbled into her hair, smiling at the sensation of her belly pressing against his ribcage before a particularly painful jab assaulted him right in the solar plexus. "Ow! He kicked me!"
"That's just his way of saying he loves you," Hermione snickered. "I'm well versed in this particular form of painful Morse Code."
Severus ghosted his fingers over her belly in a ticklish, tapping motion. "I L-O-V-E Y-O-U, Y-O-U L-I-T-T-L-E B-A-S-T-A-R-D."
"SEVERUS!" Hermione pulled away from him and shrieked in mock outrage. "Besides, he can't be a bastard because we're married."
"You'd be surprised," Severus said. "After all, my parents were very much married when I was conceived and yet look at me. My levels of bastardness are legendary."
"Git."
"Wife."
"Why would you even say that?"
"I thought we were calling each other what we are." Severus was grinning outright by this point.
"I'm still in a bad mood." Hermione said, hiding a smile behind her hand.
"Oh, yes, I can tell from all that grinning," Severus replied sardonically.
Hermione shook her head. "No fair."
"I never said that it was," Severus said, his eyebrows arching dangerously again. "But you do have to admit, it's rather effective."