Friday, July 6, 2012

two steaks, two potatoes, two peas, two babies.

Danicka

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Danicka

Every spring quarter at the University of Chicago, Danicka hardly ever comes home to their den. There is exactly one long weekend during the spring quarter, no other breaks, and her life becomes a grindstone from late March through the end of May. She spent the weekend before her reading period and finals in New York, dealing with the consequences of saying yes when Decker offered to kill her older brother.

It's over now, and just in time. Her advisor and the registrar know that she is taking a leave from school for a year and won't be returning until the autumn of 2013. They -- and everyone who sees her -- know why. The swelling of her midsection when she left for Manhattan was easily hidden by loose shirts and weather-appropriate jackets, but even just two weeks later the looks people give her last a little longer, as though they're trying to figure out what's different.

June rolls across Chicago with easy weather and light rain. Danicka spends the first couple of weeks of her summer at the den, doing little more than relaxing. School ended not a moment too soon: she has become forgetful and a little, well... stupid. After making a batch of cookies she left the oven on for two hours before realizing why the kitchen was so warm, for instance. She sleeps ten hours a night, nodding off in front of the television or shuffling away from the computer and into bed at eight o'clock.

The worse of the nausea and her hyper-sensitivity to smells is gone. She has more than once rolled over in bed as Lukas has come in late at night and slid her arms around his waist and murmured, without even opening her eyes, that she wants him to fuck her. Just like that, soft and sleepy and gentle yet demanding: fuck me. Sometimes he comes to bed and finds that she's stolen his pillow to prop her own head up more.

Then there was the time she shrieked out loud in the middle of the day from upstairs, where she was contentedly playing World of Warcraft, yelling his name until he ran up from the basement thinking something awful was happening, and she was just waving her arms and grabbing his hand and putting it on her rounder and rounder belly until the kid rolled over again and punched him in the fingertips.

sup, dadbro?

She was crying and red-cheeked and overwhelmed and elated. Then it was like all the excitement exhausted her, and she curled up for a nap, her arm laid protectively and happily over her own stomach.


By the end of June, Danicka is in maternity clothes. High-end, high-fashion, very carefully tailored maternity clothes, but there is no chance of fitting into normal anything now. She watches her diet carefully, though not restrictively, and even while her face remains mostly lean and her arms and legs haven't altered much, her stomach actually sticks out quite a lot. Strangers in the grocery store or subway are already striking up conversations with her for no damn reason and they always guess she's farther along than she is.

She has had one very long crying jag against Lukas's shoulder about being a) fat, b) ugly, c) unlovable, and d) ugly again. While her hormonal imbalances make her cuddly as well as horny, they also seem to be so out of whack that she asked Dr. Katz about it, as well as the headaches. There was a pregnancy-safe painkiller prescribed for the headaches and some dietary and exercise advice for the rest, but Dr. Katz is a realist: you're pregnant, she says with a shrug, though not an unsympathetic one.

Lukas wasn't there at that visit. Lukas can't be there for a lot of visits. Because he was up all night, because he was fighting, because he's just come home from a moot, because Sinclair was in town from San Diego and Katherine wanted to go tuxedo shopping with him and when Sinclair said that no one at the wedding is really going to be wearing tuxedos, Katherine insisted on going linen pant shopping with him. Really, it was just an excuse to shop for him like the old days. Like she used to do for him, and Edward, and Sam.

Truth be told, Danicka's pregnancy isn't a pleasant one for either of them. The exhaustion keeps them apart because even when he can come home, she's so tired. She gets angry or sad at the drop of a hat, sometimes both at once, sometimes switching from laughing hysterically to sobbing without missing a beat. She forgets to feed Kando and she leaves the door unlocked and Lukas reacts to that the only sane way he can and then she raises her voice and then she's crying again. The morning sickness goes away only to be replaced with heartburn, the headaches get under control only to be replaced with an aching back and sore joints.

They fought again yesterday. She picked it. She went from being understanding that he couldn't come to the second ultrasound with her because of the hunt he was about to undertake with his pack that would take them beyond the state line,

to passive aggressive about it,

to crying about it,

to yelling at him that maybe she should just call his mother to come be there for her,

to crying because she felt bad about being such a jerk, and crying because she's so tired, and she feels so lousy, and, and, and.

It wasn't a great fight, and there wasn't much point to it. There also wasn't much to do at the end but curl up together for a little while until he had to go. Kate and Sinclair and Maddox were calling him, Sarita had found their quarry, he had to go now. Danicka didn't cry then. She kissed his hand and touched his hair and let him go, and he made sure the door was locked and the oven was off because his mate and wife and mother of his cub has a brain made of mush these days and is liable to burn the house down any second.


It's night again. The moon outside is waning from full towards gibbous. The hunt went well. Sinclair had a scary close call where she got a good look at her left arm hanging down, barely attached to her shoulder anymore, before Maddox started crushing gourds over her. That thing's chitinous legs were faster than any of them expected, as hulking and glutinous as its body was. If Katherine hadn't blinded it --

well. They all survived. They got home. Sinclair is sleeping in lupus up in her room at the Loft, Sarita is passed out drunk in the rumpus room, Maddox is playing guitar, Katherine is obsessively cleaning underneath her fingernails like there's something stuck there that only she can see or fathom. And after the headed home text Danicka got earlier, letting her know that he's alive, they're all alive, he's still okay and she's not alone

yet,

he comes through the den's door and inhales the scent of cooking meat. Beef. Steak. In the pan with butter.


She's upstairs. Her pants are dark gray and boot-cut and just loose enough that she doesn't end up crying that she feels like a sausage when she wears them. Her feet are bare, yes, ha-ha. The shirt she has on is short-sleeved, with the v-cut neckline gathered a bit between her breasts to accentuate the fact that not all of her weight gain is solely in her stomach. It's long, going past her hips, and a soft yellow color. She's cooking, which is strangely dangerous these days, but it seems like everything is okay.

Looking over her shoulder, she smiles at him when he comes up the stairs. Kando is meowing, twitching her tail, because of the smell of meat. And Danicka has done her hair and is wearing the silver bracelet he gave her.

"Hi," she says, simple as that. "Everything's almost ready."




Lukas

So,

Danicka eases out of the first trimester and into the second, and for a while Lukas thought to himself that now the worst was over, she's so much better now, the headaches are under control and the vomiting has stopped and school is out and her brother is gone. Downhill now, he thought. Smooth cruise to the finish line in December.

And for a while, that's the truth. For a while, they're both amused about how much she sleeps now. They laugh about it. He loves it, loves that for the first time in several years he isn't the one pulling her back into bed in the morning for ten more minutes, baby, you can watch the lecture online later. He loves that his mate nods off at eight pm, that on those rare nights when he's home with her he can carry her up to bed because she's asleep, or almost asleep, and he's strong enough, yes he is.

He loves that on those other nights when he comes home after she's already gone to bed, he showers and brushes his teeth and tiptoes into the dark bedroom to undress by the hamper; crawls into bed only to have his mate turn to him

and wind her arm around his waist

and demand, so softly and gently and sleepily and warmly, that he fucks her. Just like that. Fuck me. He loves the love they make, too, which is really rather a one-sided effort but he doesn't mind; she lies on her side and he moves behind her and sometimes she lifts her leg over his, opening her thighs; sometimes he touches her as he loves her, gives her these slow, molten orgasms that seem to put her right back to sleep.

So that was fun. For a while. But then the exhaustion and the tiredness and the fuzzy-brain starts to skew into burnt cookies, starving cats. It starts to skew into bewildering fights of which Lukas can't even really pinpoint the origin. There's a day when she shrieks and he runs up the stairs three at a time and cracks the study-room door down the middle because he kicked it open

(even though it wasn't even latched closed)

and she was crying and elated and overwhelmed and their little one was kicking against his palm. He looked at her, laughing. There were tears in his eyes too. His head bent to her belly and he kissed her there, kissed both of them there, mother and cub, and she rested her free hand in his thick black hair.

The next day she forgot to feed Kando again. He came home close to midnight to find the feline winding around his ankles and meowing piteously. He had to swallow a bolt of anger that he knew was irrational, his mate couldn't help it. He buys an automatic kibble dispenser the next morning.

And then it's July. And there's that fight over the second ultrasound, which began uneventfully and ended with Lukas trying not to shout who are you? at her, but she must have seen it in his eyes because then she was crying, crying about being such a jerk, and she's so tired, and everything is ruined forever, and, and, and

he snapped in his mind at his packmates because they were calling him, but he couldn't leave right now, couldn't they see that? And it was Sinclair, of course, who stepped up and said: I know you can't. But you have to, and so he did, and so Danicka let him go.

It's night again. The full is past. The hunt is done. They swung by the Loft, and Lukas stayed just long enough to shower, to make sure his pack was sleeping and sound and safe, to pace the walls once just to reassure the illogical, animal side of himself that needed to know the territory is secure. And it is. So he leaves, and he drives west and south, takes the Eisenhower to Harlem and Harlem to 40th. Passes Home Avenue. Pulls into the garage.

It's nine pm. It's past the dinner hour for most of the world. Lukas expects his mate to be asleep, but the door opens and he can smell food. Meat. Steak. It strikes him as a little odd. It's not that Danicka never cooks. She cooks quite a bit, actually. So does he. They do it together. Everything's almost ready, she says, and Lukas, despite his best effort to appreciate this at face value,

is

wary.

"Hi," he replies, and conjures up a smile. It's warm outside, even past dark. He's not wearing a coat. He is wearing a shirt over his undershirt, though, so he unbuttons the outer and strips it off, leaving it on the sofa. Now he's in a fitted under-tee, his arms bare. He comes into the kitchen and wraps his arms around her shoulders from behind -- it's an adjusted sort of hug they've had to make do with because her middle is beginning to preclude squeezing -- and kisses her cheek. "Aren't you hungry? You shouldn't have waited for me."

Danicka

Maybe she's possessed. She seems energetic, though not bouncing off the walls. She just isn't falling asleep on her feet. And the door was locked when he got to it, so there's that. And Kandovany is meowing because she's selfish, not because she's starving. She gets a portioned amount of food every day in her bowl now and it doesn't matter if Danicka forgets or not. But the Danicka before him does not have her hair up, is not complaining about the heat -- some windows and an overhead fan are open, letting the summer air move through the house -- and is not falling asleep on the couch. And she is making him dinner, which... come to think of it, she's never really done. There's always someone helping her, it's a joint affair, it's not... like this.

She leans against his chest for a moment when he hugs her, smiling. Hugging her from the front is always awkward; she has to turn her torso to the side and so forth.

"I've been snacking," she says, which means what it always means: she's been nibbling on whatever she finds throughout the day, in between meals. Dr. Katz told her a couple of visits ago that her sodium intake was not helping those headaches, and it certainly wasn't going to help with bloating or anything else. Dr. Katz told her that even with the prenatals her iron was a bit low, which was probably contributing to her fatigue, so there's more dark greens in the fridge and with her nausea decreasing, more meat. More beans. Sesame seeds sprinkled on everything.

Her hand slides up his arm to rub, then squeeze, his bicep. She smiles. "Set the table?" she asks.

They don't mention the earlier fight. Honestly, a few weeks ago they realized that most of their fights weren't about anything real. There isn't a whole lot to be done to resolve anything. She's pregnant; he's a werewolf. She doesn't really hate him; he doesn't think she's stupid. They do love each other.


So: he sets the table. The plates they put at the corner, so they sit right next to each other but don't have to twist their heads constantly to talk. Water glasses. Steak knives and forks. The steaks are done, and Lukas carries the cast-iron pan to the trivet on the table, then carries the pan of roasted fingerling potatoes to the other trivet, and Danicka brings in some of that gross green stuff that she eats, and sometimes seems to think he should eat, which is just silly.

"No, no, it's fine. I want to do it," she says, when they both reach for the lid of the pan where the steak is waiting, seared and rested. She's still standing. "Let me do it," she adds, softer, smiling at him.

Yup. Possessed.


Lukas

The table is set the way it always is. For a brief time last Christmas, the table was absolutely overflowing with people -- with his parents and her father, her sister and the children, his sister and his may-as-well-be-brother-in-law. Even then, they sat like this: Danicka at the end of the table, Lukas to her right.

That's how the sets the table now. And he lays down the knives and forks, brings a couple napkins from the kitchen. They lay out the meat, the potatoes, the gross green stuff.

He sits. She's still standing. She wants to 'do it', as though suddenly serving steak when it's just the two of them has become a thing, when sometimes in the past they've tossed steaks in the oven and forgotten about them entirely because they were rolling around on the living room floor. Eaten the steaks later on sitting on the floor half-dressed, leaning on each other, using their fingers -- the meat a little overdone, but that's a small price to pay.

Lukas doesn't know what to make of this. He doesn't want to rock the boat either, though. Not when he just left her earlier, and she was still crying a little and curled on their bed and distinctly not okay. Now she seems perfectly fine. She's made dinner. She's done something to her hair that makes it lovely and she's dressed up like they were going out to dinner and she's wearing that tripartite bracelet he gave her so long ago and

and

Lukas thinks to himself that he doesn't want to rock the boat, he doesn't want to start another fight, but this is more terrifying than that monster tearing Sinclair's arm almost all the way off.

"Sit down, baby," he says softly. And he takes draws his hand back from the lid, unfolding a napkin atop his thigh for lack of anything better to do with his hands.

Danicka

The corners of her mouth turn down. The skin between her eyebrows furrows. She doesn't seem to see the worry in his eyes, and she hasn't ask him how the hunt went, but she doesn't sit down. She just notices that he takes his hand back from the lid, which means she won, and then she smiles again and takes it off.

It doesn't occur to her to remember the last -- the only -- time he's seen her do this. It doesn't occur to her that his only experience with Danicka serving him was when she first served her brother, then him, then her father, then herself. She was the one to cook, to bring the food out, to refill glasses. And it was up to her to do it silently, and gratefully, as though being permitted this much was something she was supposed to appreciate.

All she's thinking is that she wants to do this now. For god knows what reason, but that's all she can think. So: she smiles, even though Lukas is freaked out, and starts putting things on his plate with that weird little smile on her face.

First the steaks. Steaks, plural, because they're filet mignon. They're very fresh. She went to the butcher, not to the packaged meat aisle. He can smell the life still on the meat, even skinned and sliced and seared as it is. It's not terribly odd that she puts one on her plate, then two on his. What is strange is that she then takes the lid off the buttery, rosemary-flecked potatoes and puts a spoonful of them on her plate, and

exactly two small potatoes on his plate. But, okay, she's pregnant and they have a new gadget for the cat solely because her brain doesn't work right anymore. Danicka goes on, and there is some small concession in the fact that she puts food on her plate before his, and that she seems so happy to be doing this. That should be it: a lot of meat, some carbs, but then she puts a spoonful of steamed peas on her own plate and

exactly two peas on his plate. And even though she gives herself a little side plate of caprese salad, she gives Lukas two cherry tomatoes, two leaves of basil, and two small dumplings of mozzarella.

All told, Danicka ends up with more food than him. She sits down, still smiling, and picks up her fork to start eating her salad. After a bite she seems to remember something, looking up at him and asking: "I forgot -- do you want to see the pictures from the ultrasound?"

Lukas

Lukas would have been fine with one steak, really. He can get a second if he's still hungry. He's about to tell her this, but then

he keeps his mouth shut because he doesn't want to rock the boat.

So, okay. Two filet mignons. And they are fresh, and they smell good, and for just a second Lukas thinks this isn't so bad, maybe she just felt like cooking, he's sure this isn't the first time ever that she's cooked dinner for him.

And then two small potatoes. Which is a little odd, but okay. And then two peas, and at this point Lukas's brow furrows because who eats just two peas, but then: two cherry tomatoes, two leaves of basil, two nubbins of mozzarella cheese.

She seats herself, then. She wants to know if he wants to see the pictures from the ultrasound. And he

is opening his mouth to ask what the actual fuck

when something goes off behind his eyes like a flashbomb. He looks at her, astounded. "Dvojcata?"

Danicka

That smile that's been on Danicka's face since he came in -- since before he came in, actually -- breaks into one of those bright, lopsided grins of hers. She beams at him. "That's why I'm so fat!"

Lukas

Lukas's hands sort of fly up to clap onto his head. He makes this sound, sort of somewhere between a laugh and an exhale and a sputter, and he's just sort of

sitting there for a while, gobsmacked.

"Oh, my god," is the first thing that manages to come out of his mouth. Which isn't terribly surprising, because when she blows his mind in other ways that's usually the first thing out of his mouth too. He seems to regain control over his hands, and he rakes them back through his hair as though to comb all his thoughts into place and then

suddenly he's standing up and leaning over and cupping her face and kissing her soundly on that lopsided grin of hers. "Oh, my god," he says again, laughing now, kissing her again, kissing her forehead, slumping back into his seat, overwhelmed. "We definitely have to remodel the downstairs bathroom by the time they're pottytrained. Baby. Oh my god. I thought you'd gone Stepford Wives on me. And then I thought you'd just lost your mind. I mean, who puts two peas on a plate?" And he bursts into laughter.

Danicka

First: oh my god.

Then he kisses her.

Then: we have to fix the den!

Danicka laughs at all of them. She's hungry, so she's actually still eating. Her mouth tastes of basil and tomato when he kisses her, and she shakes her head at what he thought, how freaked out he was. "I wish you'd been there," she tells him, of the ultrasound, but it isn't sad. "Dr. Katz just asked me how I was at taking good news and I was about to tell her that I didn't want to know the sex and what did she mean by 'good news', and I was so confused. Then she turned the monitor around and showed me 'here's one... and here's the other'."

She sets her fork down, and her napkin, rising up. "Stay here, I'm going to go get the pictures so you can see. It's a lot of white dots but it looks like they're fraternal."

Danicka goes to the kitchen and brings back an envelope full of the standard black-and-white printouts. She keeps eating as she points out to him the two figures, though at this point it's easy enough to make our the two separate head-shapes, the oblong bodies. "And that's why everything else has been so extra out of whack, too," she says, seeming bizarrely pleased by this. Maybe because it means she's not insane. Maybe because it means that not every pregnancy has to be quite this hard.

"So," she goes on, "we have to make sure we have more names picked out, and you have to tell your mother because I'm afraid she might start screaming into the phone."

Lukas

Lukas doesn't exactly wait there for her to get the printouts. He gets up. He follows her, tailing her all the way to the kitchen, putting his arm around her when she hands him the pictures. He cocks his head at them. She points out the head-shapes, and what may or may not be interpreted as bodies.

Extra out of whack, she says. A flicker of sympathy crosses his brow. He kisses her temple, firmly. "I love you," he says, because it seems out of place and odd right now to say he's sorry he had to leave today, he's sorry he couldn't be at the appointment, he's sorry he was angry at her for forgetting to feed Kando and leaving the door unlocked and, and, and.

They go back to the table. They separate, and while Danicka keeps eating Lukas, who has not even touched his steak yet, is leaning over the printouts intent as a schoolboy studying for a big test. He looks up as she says they needs to pick out more names. And tell his mother.

"I'm going to tell my dad," he says, quirking a smile, "when I know my mom is out of the house visiting a friend or something." He puts the pictures carefully atop the envelope, then sets then aside where he won't accidentally drip food on them. "I sort of like Benedikt," he says. "Or Marcel."

Danicka

They leave the ultrasound pictures on the table, spread out between them while they eat. Danicka just keeps smiling. She rarely if ever looks 'glowing' with her pregnancy, but right now she is. The cold reality of what the rest of this pregnancy is going to be like has not quite hit her. The exhausting reality of what comes after they've been born -- double the feedings, double the diapers, double the screaming, double the sleep deprivation -- is lingering on the horizon, ignored for now. They are going to have two pups.

Two sleeping nearby. Two looking up at them when they smile. Two learning to roll over, and to crawl, and gnawing on things. Two walking, toddling, talking. Danicka has done math and they'll be seven months old this time next year, when the grass is green outside. She'll take them into the yard and they will all get dirty and grass-stained together.

Danicka wrinkles her nose. "One sounds like eggs," she says. "And the other just sounds funny." She doesn't mince words. "What about other girl's names?"

Lukas

"We're naming one Eliška," Lukas says firmly, "and if we have another we're naming her Eliška Too."

Danicka

She puts down her fork. "We are not. They are different people!"

Lukas

Lukas bursts into laughter again at that. He reaches over and picks up her fork and hands it back to her. "Just kidding." He ponders a minute. "Evelína?"

Danicka

Danicka considers that. "Maybe. I don't want to get too matchy-matchy with names." She takes her fork back, smiling. "I actually liked Klára," she says softly, looking at her plate. Glances at him, after a moment. "Like the little one from the rite."

Lukas

There's a flicker of wistfulness in Lukas's eyes. He looks down at his plate, pushing the two little peas around with his fork. "I didn't like Klára the name as much as I liked what it meant," he says quietly, and then lifts his eyes to Danicka. "So I always called her Klárinka.

"We can name our daughter that if we have two." He thinks a moment. "When we have two," he amends, wry. "If you think we won't... I don't know. Expect her to be someone she's not."

Danicka

She smiles at him. "There are a lot of names," she says softly, and reaches over to hold his hand. "And I think we could name them John and Jennifer and they would be themselves no matter what we expect."

Danicka lifts his hand to her face and cups it around her jaw, closing her eyes and smiling against his palm. Her eyes are closed, and open a few seconds later. "You know... I've been thinking something ever since I found out, though."

Lukas

Their hands link, and Lukas has this thought, quiet and unexpected, that he could imagine linking hands with her just like this over the next ten years, the next twenty, the next forty if he lives so long -- while their children grow up around them, while they expand their little den to make room for the kids, while the oak and the magnolia they planted grow to shade the yard, the house.

He looks at her as she draws his hand to her face. His thumb traces her lips. He's a second from leaning in to kiss her when her eyes open again, and curiosity sparks in his eyes.

"Thinking what?" He's almost whispering.

Danicka

"Of them," she whispers back, her breath against his thumb and her eyes touching his.

She doesn't mean the twins.

Lukas

"The spirit-cubs?"

Danicka

Danicka shakes her head. "Red and Silver," she murmurs.

Lukas

She can see understanding course through his eyes. He doesn't have to ask to be sure. He does kiss her after all -- leaning across the corner of the table, his mouth touching hers.

"It might be them," he says softly. "It might not be. Either way they'll be our children and we'll love them. And either way we'll see Red and Silver again someday, because they promised."

Danicka

The kiss only halfway surprises her. Danicka huffs a laugh against his mouth. He doesn't seem to care either way. She draws back. "I know that," she says, with mild affront. "I just... wonder. I've been thinking about it." She turns back to her plate, one hand on her belly, slowly sliding down until the curve rests in the crook of her arm.

Lukas

There's a scrape of ceramic on wood: Lukas is pushing his plate over closer to Danicka's. Then he's moving his chair over too, grabbing it by the sides of the seat and walking it over. It plunks down. He sits next to her. Across the corner is usually near enough for them -- nearer, perhaps, than most couples would sit -- but tonight he wants to be closer still.

And he slips his arm around her waist. Which means he doesn't have a hand free to cut his meat, but that's okay: he picks it up and chews, barbaric. He gets a few more potatoes, too. And peas.

"I wonder too," he admits, and then smiles sidelong at her, like they've shared some secret.

Danicka

She laughs softly at that. He scoots his plate over, then himself, wiggling until he's a hulking great shadow at her side. "You are ridiculous," she tells him, and she's actually halfway through dinner. How did that happen?

"I hope it is," she says softly, secretively. "I know it doesn't matter and I know we'll never really know, but I hope it is."

Lukas

"I am not ridiculous," he counters, ridiculously, and then leans over and lays a smacking kiss on her cheek. Then he has to wipe her cheek off with his napkin because, well, he's been gnawing on meat.

"If it is them," Lukas ponders, "Red struck me as more of a Klára than an Eliška. So I suppose Silver will have to be born female this time, so he can be Eliška."

Danicka

"It is possible to have male and female twins," Danicka reminds him, shaking her head. He seems content. He's not a human male, stuck in Shocked and Terrified mode upon hearing that his wife of about eighteen months is going to have not just one baby but two. He is gnawing on his meat with animalistic delight and peace. "They are fraternal, after all."

There's a beat of a pause. "Exactly what do you mean by 'have to be born female'?" she shoots at him, frowning. "What do want, fat stupid boys or they're not good enough to be your precious friend? Like it's a step down to be a girl instead?"

Danicka slams her napkin on top of her plate. "You've been a girl before, I hope you reincarnate as one the next dozen lives until you learn not to be such a jackass."

Lukas

Exactly what do you mean, she says, and Lukas is drawing a breath to answer but she

just

goes off. "I meant -- " he says, but she's going on about fat stupid boys, and he's saying, "No, that's not at all-- " and now she's talking about not good enough, step down,

her napkin slams onto the plate. "Baby," Lukas says, exasperated, frustrated, taking his arm from around her and laying it over the back of her chair, "that is not what I meant and you know it. All I meant was that he was a male in his last life, but if he wants to be Eliška he'll have to be female. Because as much as I like that name, I'm not naming a son Eliška.

"And I do not," there's a certain ferocity in this, "value boys over girls. You know I don't. I want a daughter. I want sons too, but I would be very, very happy if our firstborn was a daughter."

Danicka

"Don't yell at me!" she pushes back, though he isn't yelling. She hasn't risen from her seat yet but she was about to, and his arm over the back of her chair makes her shoulders tighten up a little. There's color high in her cheeks, bright pink and frustrated. "Don't tell me what I know about what you mean and snap at me because you said something dumb."

She is looking straight ahead at her plate, and not at him, her mouth tense and turned downward, her eyes filling already with tears. "Don't yell at me," she says again, quieter.

Lukas

Which, of course, just about crushes Lukas. The wind goes out of his sails immediately. He exhales -- it's sort of a sigh -- and then he leans into her, bumps his brow against the crest of her shoulder. If she lets him, he folds his arm around her: carefully, as though she's fragile physically as well as emotionally.

"Baby," he murmurs.

Danicka

That sound of his -- the wind going out, the exhale that is a sigh -- is one she's getting just about as used to as he's getting used to these random outbursts of fury, of sorrow, of Iloveyoudon'ttouchme. At least so far, she doesn't fault him for that. She feels a bit bad; as soon as her eyes get wet he tends to deflate, and hug her, even when she's getting upset over nothing.

All the same, when he leans closer to her and wraps his arm around her, she curls up against his side. She actually is more fragile now. Sometimes she complains that her skin itches everywhere, and she always holds the railing when she goes up the stairs as though she's afraid she's going to get dizzy and fall out of nowhere. Now that they're in the middle of her second trimester she's a little less frightened that she's going to miscarry any second, but the truth is: this is her first pregnancy that has gone on more than a few weeks. This is twins. She was at Dr. Katz's office for longer than expected today just so they could start talking about all the differences that makes.

Danicka nearly crawls in Lukas's lap when he hugs her. "I'm sorry," she says, which is by now as familiar as the rages, the pettiness, the tears, and his own sighs. "I stayed up late," which isn't an excuse but now seems to just be a simple truth. Her arms are folded over her stomach, which they both know now is just going to get larger, and rounder. "I'm sorry, baby."

She reaches up and wipes a tear from under her eye, suddenly laughing. "I just called you baby!"

Lukas

Danicka nearly crawls into Lukas's lap -- and this is completely okay. In fact, he sort of scoots her over when she wraps her arms around him, and then they're shifting and he's lifting and she's settling and now,

now she's in his lap, and his arm is supporting her behind her back. His free hand comes to rest on her stomach, which is already making strangers in supermarkets ask her how far along she is and when she's due. She apologizes. He nuzzles her, his brow resting against her temple.

"I am too," he says quietly. "That wasn't very well worded. But that wasn't how I meant it."

And then she's laughing. He looks mildly amused, and mildly perplexed. "I am your baby," he says, smiling lopsidedly. "You're my baby. We're having babies together, but we're still each other's baby. I am not giving that term of endearment up just because we have pups on the way."

Danicka

"It's so confusing," she sighs, rubbing her stomach in a circle with her palm. "Baby baby baby babies," she says, like the words dizzy her. She shakes her head and curls up tighter, which is hard since her thighs don't have far to go before they connect with her abdomen now. She lays her head on his shoulder. Her dinner plate is nearly empty; he's barely had a chance to eat.

"I'm sleepy," she declares, her head already heavy on his arm, her eyes closed. She yawns, and starts to slide off his lap, unfolding her legs again so she can stand. "I think I'm --"

going to go to bed,

she almost says, but she doesn't. She sits down in her own chair and looks at him. "Was your hunt okay?"

Lukas

"I'll take you to bed," he says, but that's not where she's going. She returns to her chair. She asks about his hunt. Lukas gets this look on his face, gentle and amused. He tries not to smile too obviously at her.

"It was fine," he says quietly. "The quarry was stronger than we thought, but we held together and everyone did what they had to. It was good." He looks at his plate; picks up his meat, gnaws on it a moment. "It's nice," he muses, "that we're all past that point in our lives where everything's dramatic and all about ourselves. It hasn't been like that for a long time, but ... it's still nice, sometimes, to look back and see how we're a true pack now."

A small pause. Then he looks at Danicka again.

"I wish I could have been there for Dr. Katz's appointment, though. I'm sorry I couldn't go."

Danicka

It hasn't escaped Danicka's notice that Lukas enjoys carrying her to their bedroom. He seems utterly pleased with himself when he scoops her up and takes her up the stairs and deposits her on their bed. It's not as though this is new, either; it's just that now he's carrying three people instead of one. Even if two of those three aren't externally viable yet and are in fact quite small.

stronger than we thought gives her a shudder up her spine. She contains it, though it turns her stomach. She doesn't ask for more details. Sinclair's arm nearly got torn off. Katherine was thrown into a wall and nearly frenzied. Maddox was shaking at the end, his will and his spirit stripped down to skeletal remains. It's what they are. It's what they do.

It's part of loving them. Not everything is ultrasounds and wedding plans. Danicka brushes her hair off of her cheek.

"I know, baby," she says gently. "We knew when we decided to do this --"

not just the pregnancy, not just marriage, not just moving out here or becoming mates but when they decided that this was it, that he was hers and she was his,

"-- that you wouldn't always be able to be there." She squeezes his hand. "I'm thinking of asking Sarka to come stay with us for a bit when they arrive. I'm... going to need help. And there's a lot you won't be able to do."

Lukas

There's a part of Lukas that twists to hear it, even though they know. They knew, going into this, that this was their life. He wouldn't always be able to be there. Even when he could be there, sometimes the little ones wouldn't be able to withstand him. There's a lot he won't be able to do. There's a lot he won't be there for.

Still. It hurts a little to think of it. To think that his firstborn -- his two firstborns -- were reaching their gestational milestones without him. To think that when they're born, when they arrive, it'll be their aunt that helps their mother with so much of what needs to be done because he. just. can't.

The squeeze on his hand helps. It brings him back a little. He looks at her, sad, but then he smiles.

"I'd like that," he says quietly, and it's not a lie. "She knows more about kids than the rest of us combined, I bet. And it's nice to have family around. Maybe she can bring her kids too. And maybe Irena can stay on a little longer, if she doesn't have school. Help her get used to being away from her mom."

Danicka

Danicka gives a soft exhale of not-quite-laughter at that. She smiles tightly, achingly. "I'm not sure I'll be able to handle a lot of people around then." She shrugs. "I want everyone to come visit, but as tired as I am now I don't even want to think of how I'll feel then."

She gives a little shake of her head, huffing another laugh. "I just wanted to throw it out there. In the meantime we have to get the other upstairs bedroom ready, and -- oh, I saw this basinet on Pinterest that has a fold-down side sort of thing, and you just set it alongside your bed so it's not really cosleeping but they're right there, so in the middle of the night I don't have to get out of bed and I can comfort them or feed them, which I think will be extra nice since they'll be winter babies."

Danicka stirs some potatoes with her fork, eyes bleary. "It's going to be so hard," she murmurs, going from excited over this neat thing she saw on the internet to sad again, soft again. Then, breathing in deep, determined: "I want you to sleep next to me anyway. They'll never get used to being around rage if we don't let them get used to being around rage and feeling safe anyway. I don't want them to grow up feeling scared all the time."

Lukas

"It'll be hard," Lukas murmurs, "but it won't be impossible. And it'll be good, too. It'll be worth any amount of hardship, once we see their little faces. I believe that."

He wipes his fingertips on the napkin. And then he stands, holding his hand out to her. His smile is a little crooked, a little wry, but gentle. Warm. "Of course I'll sleep next to you. And I'll hold them and change them and love them whenever I can, whenever they can handle it. We'll teach them that even though I feel like the monster in the closet, I'm their daddy, and I love them.

"Let me take you to bed," he says. "I'll finish dinner in bed. And when you're asleep I'll come down and put the food away and turn out the lights and lock the doors and ... all that."

Danicka

Let me take care of you.

Even though he feels like a monster in the closet, under the bed. Even though she hates that she forgets things like locking the door or starting the dishwasher or turning the oven off. Even though she hates needing so much care because her very brain won't cooperate and her body is getting away from her. She smiles softly at him. "You're damn right you're going to change them," she says pointedly, and gets to her feet. There's no difficulty there; Danicka is in remarkable shape from a few years now of yoga and kung fu and running. She's athletic and toned and if one looks at her family history, the Musil bloodline seems made for this: babies and lots of them. A few at a time if you can manage it. It will be a while before the shifting of her joints and the weight in her midsection makes her waddle or grab the table's edge to lever herself up.

"I'm going to be asleep before you finish eating," Danicka informs him, which is probably true. The two pups they already love so dearly quite literally sucking all the energy from her for their Great Work of forming their own fingers and toes and brains and nervous systems and organs. They have much to do and very little time, if one considers the gravity of the task, in which to do it. They surely don't mean to exhaust her or make her hormonal. They take what they need. She supplies it without question or even consciousness. Later on they will stick their tongues out at her and laugh and she will lose her mind with adoration, forgetting for the final time how tired she was, how sick she felt, how hard they kicked and tumbled inside of her.

She pushes her chair in, a habit she intends to teach their kids, and picks up her water glass to take it with her. "Come on, Kando," she says lightly, when the cat winds around her ankle. "Come on upstairs, we'll all take a nice long nap."

Bending her knees, she crooks her arm and her cat jumps up onto her, curling between belly and breast and arm. Danicka smiles and cuddles her orange cat on their way through the dining room and living room to the stairs, walking ahead of Lukas. "Don't worry," she purrs to the animal, "we'll teach the ladies not to pull your tail or your ears. It will all be fine." She nuzzles Kando, smiling.

Lukas

That's one little courtesy they share. Lukas, too, pushes his chair in -- moves it around the corner, in fact, and replaces it where it was. He puts the lids back over the steaks, the potatos, the peas, the salad. With one hand he carries his plate and his silverware. With the other he touches Danicka, sliding his hand up her back, molding it comfortably and familiarly over her shoulder as they, the three of them, the five of them, climb the stairs up to their small second story.

The house is small. They might have to renovate the basement at some point. Lukas has toyed with the idea of expanding the upstairs, but Danicka thinks their kids can learn to share. They have a sizeable backyard, anyway, and even though Danicka lives sometimes in a sprawling glassy tower in the city, and even though Lukas still enjoys his rack of lamb and his scallops and his lobster and his fine clothing, neither of them want children who are too privileged to know their own privilege. Neither of them want brats. So they love their little house, which he found and she made warm. They love their little home with its spirits that live in the glass and the water and the wires and the furnace. They love the way it settles around them at night; the creaks and groans, the redone cabinetry, the new brick on the outside. The trees. The garden. The lawn. The new birdbath, their water gaffling's summer home. All of it.

Kando jumps down upstairs. While Danicka washes up for bed, Lukas spends a little while scritching their pet, feeding her bits of his steak, stroking her until she rewards him with her purrs. He doesn't get that from her very often, though Danicka does. He's delighted. Then Danicka is coming out of the bedroom, changed into pajamas, her hair loose and brushed. No one really glows through their pregnancy. It's a messy, hormonal affair and it's hard work, but

right now, right here, Lukas thinks she looks radiant. He smiles at her like he thinks she looks radiant. She comes to bed and he leans back against the headboard beside her, atop the covers, eating the dinner she cooked because it was a special occasion. They were having twins.

She was right. She's asleep before he's done eating. He tries to be quiet as he gets out of bed, takes the dishes downstairs. He puts the food into the fridge, and he washes their plates and their silverware by hand because it wasn't worth running the dishwasher for just a few items. He takes out the trash, and the locks the doors when he comes in.

He turns out the light. He brushes his teeth and he takes a quick shower. He comes to bed, and by then Danicka has been asleep for nearly an hour, as deep and heavy as he's ever seen her sleep. When he gets into bed, he turns on his side and faces her. Curls close to her. He puts his hand on her abdomen for a while, gentle, protective. One of the pups kicks him. He laughs to himself, quietly, and tells them in his mind to be quiet. Be still. Be shhh. Sleep.

In the morning, they'll have another pointless little meltdown. And another before the week is out. And countless other little crises, issues, crying jags, moments where Lukas wants to pound his head against a wall. And all that's before the pups even arrive. But it's all right. It's what they signed on for, when they decided yes, this is it, it's them, they're mates. It's what they signed on for, when they decided they would have cubs. It's hard, but not impossible, and

listening to his mate breathe as she sleeps, feeling his pups stir,

it's already worth it.

 
Copyright Lukáš Wyrmbreaker 2010.
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