Work Text:
It isn’t something they ever outright agree on – the cohabitation or the bed sharing. It’s something they just fall back into like they’d never stopped, as effortless as breathing.
He comes home with her after work, each night. Cooks her dinner, whatever she’s craving, no matter how damn bizarre it might be or how many midnight trips to the grocery it might necessitate. Lies down to sleep with her and holds her at night when she wants him to, and he’s well aware of how overtly boring a routine it would seem to one looking from the outside in, like an old, long-married couple – though they aren’t married, or even really a couple. But he’ll take all the boring the world wants to throw at him, in the quiet of the aftermath, all the dull and humdrum and routine and familiar. He’s had enough excitement for one lifetime.
Now, he’s content just with this. Just with her.
Even if there’s no just about it. There’s no just her, just Laurel. Fuck just. Just implies settling for something lesser, something he could conceivably have a better version of. Just doesn’t do her justice.
It’s not just Laurel here with him anymore, anyway. He fully comprehends the responsibility that is, the trust she’s placed in him – not only for herself but for her son. Not a day goes by that he forgets.
So, no. There’s no just Laurel in the literal sense anymore, either.
And so they settle into their little routine, in their own little, mostly isolated corner of the world, their corner of the chaos, as they wait out the months, weather the storm, and he should be fine with it, and he is. Rather, he shouldn’t want to do anything to risk fucking it up in any way. Shouldn’t get too familiar. Shouldn’t assume he’s at all necessary. Shouldn’t overstay his welcome in her world, in her child’s world. He’s a guest here, only, on a month to month lease, on very tenuous ground.
He doesn’t know why he starts doing it. Possibly, most probably, it’s just because he’s always been a goddamn idiot.
~
It’s a muggy, unseasonably hot night in June when her air conditioner chooses, very inconveniently, to crap out. That, combined with her increasingly frequent hot flashes, proves to be a recipe for disaster.
Insomnia, too.
She’s restless, more so than normal, soaked in sweat beneath the sheets, and he tries to stay as far away from her on the bed as he can manage, because the last thing she must want right about now is body heat to make her any warmer. It takes her hours before she finally drifts off, and it’s only after she’s stopped giving a fuck about remaining clothed and shucked everything but her tank top and panties, cramming a pillow between her thighs and crumpling the sheets at her ankles.
He rolls over, only after he’s absolutely certain she’s asleep, her breathing slowing into deep, steady pulls. He stares at her for a while, fascinated; tranquil only while asleep, and even then from time to time her brows knit together, fraught with worry. He suspects she’s never completely at peace anymore, not even in slumber, her mind still rushing a mile a minute behind her eyelids. He wishes it wouldn’t, wishes she could be happy. That’s all he wants, all he’s ever wanted: her happiness, even more so than his own.
It’s been ages since he’s seen so much of her bare skin at once, too, and the changes in her body are on stark display, the almost comically huge curve of her stomach, the fullness of her breasts, each evolving inch of skin. All of her. He’s inexplicably fascinated, and not in a sexual way; in a way he can’t describe or even understand, something that runs deep within him. She’s different, changing, growing by what seems like the hour. He can’t comprehend it, the vastness of what’s taking place inside her. It feels like something so much bigger than him, bigger than both of them, entire universes taking shape before his very eyes.
It’s terrifying. For them both. He’s terrified of it all, terrified for her. She’s just flat out fucking terrified.
But he’s also amazed, astounded, transfixed – every synonym of the word, and he doesn’t even really know why, but before he can think twice he’s sliding down the bed, positioning himself at eye level with her belly button, almost as if staring into a peephole, somehow expecting to be revealed all the secrets and wonder contained inside her, like a fortune teller, peering into the future.
It’s probably the exhaustion that loosens his tongue, makes him stupid. Maybe it’s just general stupidity. But one way or another he begins, sotto voce:
“Hey. What’s going on in there, kid? Hope you got some kinda in utero AC. Me and your ma are cookin’ out here.”
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s never talked to her stomach before, never asked to because he’d never thought she would want it; the fact that she’s allowing him to be with her now doesn’t give him carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wants, and he knows that. Doing something like this had seemed – and sort of even still seems – like a level of intimacy unsuitable for him, for him to have with a child which isn’t his, like if he did he’d begin to think of himself as too important, as more than what he is to her. To them both. Which – well, is nothing, really, even though as the weeks pass, as their day of reckoning draws nearer, he suspects that’s no longer completely true.
His tongue feels clumsy, tied all into knots. He trips over his words; he’s always been shit with words. But this feels necessary. He feels like he needs to do this.
“You don’t know who I am. Or – hey, maybe you do. Maybe, uh… you and her got telepathy. But I’m Frank. Uncle Frank, I guess.” He pauses, rubbing his lips together. “You don’t got a name yet. I’ll just call you little man. Sound good?”
He waits for an answer, like he somehow might actually receive one. Like somehow that’s possible. He wants to laugh at how stupid he sounds – but he doesn’t feel stupid.
Frank can’t pinpoint what it is, exactly, that he feels. But it isn’t stupid.
“I’m the one who makes you that sauce you like. The special sauce, y’know? And I know you like it. Your ma always says you jump around in there when she eats it. You may not be my kid, but keep goin’ like this and you’ll be an honorary Italian, I promise.” His teeth dig into his lower lip. “And, uh… you’re not. Mine. I’m not your pops. Maybe you’re wonderin’ why I’m the one talking to you then, if I’m not. It’s a long story. Maybe… one day you’ll understand.”
The conversation lulls. Frank isn’t even really sure if what he’s doing can be called a conversation, one-sided as it is; he’s just talking at the baby, and the baby probably doesn’t give a shit, doesn’t want to hear it. Would most likely prefer to be left alone so he can sleep.
He never has been good at knowing when to leave well enough alone, though.
“I… don’t really know what to say. You’re a good listener, though. Bet you look like your mom – you know what she looks like? Prolly not.” He licks his lips, grinning despite himself. “She’s a total stunner. I’m talkin’ drop dead gorgeous. You got lucky. Got one heck of a ma. When you come out and open your eyes and look up at her for the first time, you’re not gonna believe it. You’re gonna see what I mean.”
He glances up at Laurel to ensure he hasn’t woken her, disturbed her fitful slumber, and from what he can tell he hasn’t. Her pale skin almost glows in the moonlight, like she’s been forged from molten silver, and she’s beautiful; every damn bit as gorgeous as he’s made her out to be and then some. He doesn’t have to resort to hyperbole to put her into words.
“You’re gonna love her. Like I love her. We’re not together, me ‘n her… You want a Facebook relationship status? Let’s just say… it’s complicated.” Frank pauses again to think, but he doesn’t choose his words carefully, hesitate. There’s no point; he’s confiding in a damn fetus. Somehow, though, he feels completely understood. “But I love her. And that means I love you too. And that ain’t complicated. Nah.” Another pause. “That’s as simple as it gets.”
He makes his way back up toward the pillows, sensing, in a way, that their conversation has drawn to its natural close, and settles himself down beside Laurel, as softly as he can manage, careful not to jostle her.
He wonders if this qualifies him as officially nuts. If he had to guess, he’d think so.
~
That doesn’t mean he stops.
No, the next night he’s back at it, compelled by some unseen cosmic force, some patently stupid whim. He’s overstepping his bounds, probably, and he knows that, and yet somehow he can’t help himself, fascinated by the curve of her stomach, the life contained within, the child who seems more and more real to him each day. The son who isn’t his, will never be his – but he’s so captivated by him that the fact feels barely relevant at all. It’s an irrational attachment, he knows, loving something you can’t touch or see.
He’s not a doubting Thomas, though. He doesn’t need to see to believe. He can’t see him, can’t touch him. He believes anyway. He loves anyway.
Frank draws up a list of names during the day at work, as slyly as he can manage, and stows it away in the nightstand when he gets home, waiting until Laurel is deep in slumber to pull it open and assuming the position, halfway down the bed, face to face with her mound of a stomach, which almost dwarfs the rest of her.
“All right, little man. Tonight I’m runnin’ names by you,” he whispers, voice low. He holds the list up, squinting in the dark to discern the words written there. “We gotta figure this out. Only got a month ‘til you come out. You hear one you really like, you kick, got it? But not too hard. Your ma’s sleepin.”
Silence. No kick. Not even a nudge.
He grins cheekily. “Smart man. Now – Rock. You like that one? I think it’s pretty killer. Don’t think she’d agree with me. But if it’s 2 v. 1 here and you gimme your stamp of approval, maybe I got a shot.”
Still, nothing.
“Fine, fine. Here’s a classic Italian one: Giuseppe. You feelin’ Giuseppe or what?”
Zilch.
He sighs. “You’re hard to please just like her. Don’t tell her I said that, though.”
Frank lists off names for a while, with a disappointingly low response rate, until a wave of exhaustion passes over him and he just starts blabbering, a bit like a drunk fool at a bar getting fake deep with the bartender, contemplating the complexities of mankind and the vastness of the universe and all manner of other intensely philosophical, existential questions.
“I know you dunno what sports are yet, but I’m willin’ to bet you’ll be into baseball. I’m a Phillies boy myself. Gotta rep the hometown team. Never was much into football. That your thing?” Radio silence. Not that he was expecting anything else. He soldiers on anyway, undeterred. “Maybe you’re into soccer. That’s your ma’s thing: soccer. Though when I start talkin’ sports in general she just kinda disassociates, tunes me out.”
A pause. The only sound to be heard is Laurel’s breathing; comfortingly steady, her chest rising and falling with each inhale, exhale, as calming as the lapping of the tide at the shoreline. She draws him in like gravity, anchors him to earth, centers him, and in his sleep-addled state all he can do is stare. It still stuns him into stillness sometimes, overcomes him, to try to grasp the enormity of everything he feels for her, how deep it runs, as deep as the marrow in his bones, down to the very smallest, most elemental cells and atoms that comprise him.
When he receives neither a definitive yes or no, he continues, lips pressed almost to her stomach, the fabric of her old, worn t-shirt. “What is it? Basketball? Hockey? C’mon. Curling?”
Then, all at once – a decisive thump. He doesn’t feel it directly, only picks up the faint vibrations because of how close he is, and it feels premeditated in a way, like the baby had decided to agree to the first dumb sport Frank listed with the express purpose of fucking with him.
He can’t help but scoff, louder than he intends. “What, curling? For real? You’re killin’ me, smalls.”
He talks for a while longer – about sports, mostly, but throws in a few knock-knock jokes, because they’re stupid as hell but they also feel fitting, given the constant barrier between them. He's starting to feel a bit like a crazy old man babbling to pigeons at the park, to a fetus who has neither the ability nor probably the desire to answer him. But he can’t shake the need to continue, keep going, let him know that he’s remembered, loved, even if he’s not making any sense. Even if it isn’t anything he’ll remember after he’s born.
Ultimately, he supposes, all this is pointless. Yet it doesn’t feel that way. Not at all.
“Maybe you just want me to shut up so you can sleep. I will, soon. Promise. But… I like talkin’ to you. Man to man. I’m not your old man, I know. Doesn’t mean we can’t be buds.” He blinks, eyelids heavy with sleep. “One day you’ll understand that blood ‘n choice are different. You and me, we don’t got blood. But we got a choice. And I choose you. I love you. Don’t think I ever had a choice about that; it just happened, same way it did with your ma. That’s how love is; it just happens. Your dad, the one who made you… he woulda loved you too.” Frank swallows. “I’m sorry I’m not him. Sorry you’re stuck with me.”
“We’ll make it work, though. We’ll be all right.” He pauses, lets the weight of his words settle over him, the truth in them; the doubt, though he tries to bury it deep. But there’s doubt and yet somehow, somehow he has so much hope, too; inexplicable, maybe downright fucking foolish, but hope all the same, growing inside him, stubborn as a weed. “All three of us. I promise.”
He doesn’t get an answer. Still, though, he feels like he’s been understood.
~
He carries on this way for a week – and slowly but surely it becomes a habit, something he does almost without thinking. And yeah, maybe it’s a stupid, pointless ritual. And maybe Laurel would be pissed if she ever heard him doing it, deem it too familiar, one step too far, throw him out on his ass for good. But he can’t seem to help himself, drawn to the swell of her stomach almost magnetically, to the witty, squirming mass of a baby inside her. And he is witty, Frank is convinced; he seems to have a personality all his own. Excellent comedic timing, too.
He’d loved him as only a part of Laurel, before; an extension of her, something to be adored because he adores all parts of her. But now it’s different. It feels deeper. He loves him as a separate entity now, as his own tiny person, completely unique from Laurel. It throws him when he realizes it, one night, huddled under the covers rambling to her stomach – but he gives himself over to loving her son the same way he gave himself over to loving Laurel a long time ago, stopped trying to fight it. There was never any point to that anyway.
His love may be tainted. His love may not be worth shit. But it’s all he has to give and he knows that, and so he gives it freely, whatever little good it can do.
It’s a Sunday night. Tonight is a knock-knock joke bonanza, one terrible one after another pulled from a list on his phone, which he has on the lowest brightness setting, nestled down by Laurel’s legs. She’s lying on her side, clad in one of his baggy flannels, one hand tucked beneath her pillow, the other resting on her stomach, pressed flat, right near where he’s positioned his head. She feels present with them, in a way she hasn’t before, though he knows she’s out cold; he always makes sure she is, before he begins.
“Knock knock.” He waits, gives what he feels is an acceptable pause, before feigning disappointment. “That’s the part where you say who’s there. I’m the one knockin’, smalls. I thought we had this down.”
Apparently not – as is evidenced by the baby’s total failure to respond. Frank is sure, by now, that it’s intentional.
“Anyway. Who’s there? Theodore.” Another pause. He lowers his voice to a whisper, as if to play the part of the responding party, and yeah, he may be talking to himself. And yeah, he’s fully aware that makes him more than a bit of a loon. “Theodore who? Theodore wasn’t opened, that’s why I knocked. Get it? The-door?” He, apparently, does not. Frank scoffs, affronted. “That was a good one, you gotta admit.”
“You’ve told that one before. Maybe don’t quit your day job just yet.”
A voice. Not his own. He’s caught off guard to hear a voice other than his own for once; God knows he’s sick of hearing himself talk after all these nights, and at first he’s sure he's hallucinating in his exhaustion, imagining that the baby has somehow miraculously acquired speech capabilities in utero – but no, he realizes quickly that isn’t what has happened.
He looks up, and lo and behold, Laurel is gazing back down at him in the fuzzy grey darkness, a drowsy smile on her lips, hair messy and falling into her face. He startles, sure that this is it, that he’s blown it this time, but there’s nothing about Laurel that indicates she’s angry, unnerved by what he’d been doing. She’s just looking down at him with something that resembles bleary fondness in her eyes, and his chest tightens, contracts until it feels barely big enough to contain his lungs, his heart.
“Hey,” he rasps, clearing his throat, shifting up toward her, half out of fear, an instinct to distance himself. “Hey, I, uh – I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
She hums sleepily, shaking her head. “It’s okay.”
He genuinely doesn’t know what to say; for all the nights he’s had an abundance of words for her son, now he seems to have none for her, and fear pierces him, makes him go all clammed-up and tongue-tied and useless.
“How’d you-” His mouth feels dry, all the words and spit sucked out of it. “How’d you know I told that one before?”
“I’ve been listening, every night,” she tells him, stretching. “You woke me up the first time you did it. You’re terrible at whispering.”
She heard. Every word, everything he’s said, all of it. These nights had been a sort of confessional for him, and she’d been listening all along, and suddenly it strikes Frank that perhaps he’d wanted her to, secretly, deep down. He hadn’t said anything he regrets; quite the contrary. Everything he’d said he’d say again, a million times over. He’d talked about her, about how much he loves her, mumbled declarations, sweet nothings, sweet everythings. She heard him.
It’s not like it’s anything she didn’t already know anyway.
Frank can’t quite seem to make his mouth move, and when he does the words come tumbling out, clumsy, cumbersome things. “You… what? Acted like you were asleep?”
Laurel shrugs. “I wanted to hear what you said.”
He meets her eyes, feeling as small as a child beneath her gaze. “Did you?”
“Mmm hmm,” she affirms, voice breathy, light. “Though I did fall back asleep when you started talking about sports.”
He chuckles. “See, I told him you always tune me out when I talk sports.”
“I do,” Laurel laughs softly, her grin widening. “Sue me.”
He pauses, not sure what to say, what to do with himself, all at once. He’s halfway between her stomach and his pillow, in a bit of an awkward position, and he doesn’t know whether to pull away or stay where he is, what, exactly, it is that she wants him to do.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, all at once, brow furrowed. “I shouldn’t have done this while you were out, I-”
Laurel shakes her head, cutting him off. She seems almost bewildered by his apologies, by the way he shuts down automatically, the way he’s so afraid of her reaction, eternally walking on eggshells, and so she rolls over to face him fully.
“No,” she drawls. “It’s sweet. I like that you talk to him.” Laurel goes silent for a moment, sorrow settling over her like a fog; something like guilt, almost, if he looks close enough. “Somebody should. I don’t.”
She doesn’t. They both know it’s true. As far as Frank knows she’s never said a single word to the baby, seems to avoid touching her belly as much as she can, like it’s a foreign growth, some alien attachment. She’s detached to her pregnancy, in a way, acknowledging it solely on a technical level, as if she’s observing a science experiment growing in someone else’s body, not her own.
He wonders how much of that is a defense mechanism. How much of it is intentional, on her part.
“You could,” he murmurs, and she shakes her head, and this time her laugh is biting, stitched with darkness around its edges.
“No, he… he wouldn’t wanna hear anything I have to say.”
Frank narrows his eyes. “’Course he would; you’re his ma. You’re his whole world.”
She wavers. It’s only for a second – and then she hardens again, plates herself with steel.
“I think he knows, somehow. That I’m gonna give him up,” Laurel confesses, curling in on herself, retreating back, further and further, into some place he fears he won’t be able to coax her out of. “That I don’t want him. I think… he can tell.” She laughs. It’s tearful, now. Thick. “Why would he wanna hear me out?”
“’Cause he loves you,” he says, simply, because it’s the same as before; that’s as simple as it gets. He knows she doesn’t believe anything can ever be so simple, though, any motive so pure. “I know he does.”
“You’re better with him.” She deflects, again, brushes the suggestion off. “He’s not even yours and you’re better with him than me.”
“I’m not-”
“You are,” she insists, no bite behind her words; just a sort of hollowness, a dryly stated fact. “You know it’s true.”
“No it’s not,” he shoots back, firm, unyielding. He’s going to compel her to believe it, somehow, and he doesn’t know how; maybe by sheer force of will. She lowers her eyes, looks away from him, and he moves up closer to her, in an effort to get her to listen. “Hey. You’re his main squeeze. I’m just some… crazy old guy with a beard who talks his ear off when he’s tryin’ to go to sleep.”
That gets a shaky laugh out of her, but he’s willing to count it as progress. Laurel thinks, for a moment, gnawing on her lower lip, gnawing on all the words she wants to say, chewing them up and swallowing them down, before finally settling on: “Even if I did, I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“So? We can do it together,” he offers, inching nearer to her, wide open, sincere. He believes. He hasn’t seen and yet he believes and she can too; he knows she can, if only she’ll allow herself. “I didn’t know what to say the first time either.”
“I-” She’s grasping at straws, now, grappling for any excuse she can find and clinging to it fast, like a life preserver. “You’re at a better angle. What if he can’t hear me?”
“He can,” he assures her, steady, patient. He reaches out, resting a hand on her arm tentatively, as though afraid she’ll recoil at his touch, but she doesn’t; instead, she leans into it, melts back against the mattress. He traces a circle, idly, as if to gesture to her body. “I read it in a book. Your body amplifies the sound of your voice. It’s good for him when you talk to him.”
She’s dithering again. For a moment, he’s scared she’ll shut the idea down completely, retreat back into the state of comfortable numbness she’s inhabited all these months, keeping a distance even from the child inside her, growing right beneath her heart, close in physical proximity but somehow miles away too. He couldn’t blame her if she did. He knows he can never fully understand how she feels about any of this – and if she does shut it down, he won’t fight it; it isn’t his choice to make. Never has been. He’s forever on the outskirts, the fringes; no matter how many nights he’s spent talking to her stomach, he isn’t this child’s father, never will be. No matter how much he loves him.
No matter how ultimately trivial flesh and blood feel, now, after everything they’ve been through.
Finally, she meets his eyes. “You’ll do it with me?”
“You know it,” he affirms, flashing a reassuring grin.
Laurel sighs and rolls over onto her back, readjusting, kicking her legs out, and tugging up the flannel to reveal her stomach. She looks visibly uncomfortable, biting at her lower lip, fidgeting. It’s never seemed to come naturally to her, motherhood, any sort of maternal instinct; it’s never been something she’s wanted, and he knows that. Even her stomach looks decidedly incongruous with the rest of her, like she never gained enough weight for it to settle onto her properly, like her body simply failed to adapt to pregnancy altogether. Laurel looks unsettled, more than anything, and so Frank slides down the bed, reassuming his position from before, lying by her side with his mouth hovering over her bare skin, sensing that he needs to be the one to get them started here, if they’re going to get started at all.
“All right, little guy. Me again. This time we got a special guest star, though,” he announces, with all the flair of a television host, albeit much more subdued. “She’s kinda a big deal. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”
He glances up at Laurel, prompting her, and she bristles, but finally mutters, “Uh… hi. It’s me. Your mom.”
“Don’t think he knows the word ‘mom,’” Frank teases, raising his eyebrows. “I been calling you his ma.”
She props herself up with a few pillows, grinning, relaxing just a tad more. “Your ma then. I, um… Hi.” She drifts off, going silent, at a loss for words already, but she licks her lips after a while, resolves to keep going. “I’m sorry it took me so long to do this. I… I don’t know. I didn’t think I knew how.” Her eyes fall on him. She smiles, though it’s small and sad, withered. “Frank taught me how. Or… Uncle Frank, isn’t that what he calls himself?”
She does what he’s always done; pauses, ostensibly to wait for some kind of reply, and when nothing comes she wilts, a little, like she’s certain she’s already failing at this, that the baby really doesn’t care what she has to say at all, just like she’d thought. But she doesn’t let it defeat her, and she perks up after a moment, sitting up a bit more.
“He never shuts up, does he?” she asks, teasingly, mostly rhetorically.
Neither of them are expecting the sharp kick of agreement the statement receives.
Laurel laughs, and he can’t help but laugh with her, joy bubbling up in his chest, sudden and sharp. “Hey, who’s side are you on here?”
“Mine,” she chuckles, placing a hand to the side of her belly, tracing the curve, something like affection warming her eyes. He might almost call it some species of love. Wonder. “Definitely mine.”
He takes her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “Yeah. I guess that’s fair enough.”
They lapse into silence, before Laurel clears her throat, finds the will to continue.
“I don’t really know what to say. I should’ve talked to you more. You deserve that. I’m trying to… be good at this. I’m doing my best. And I know you won’t remember any of this. Maybe this doesn’t even matter, and maybe you don’t care, but…” She swallows heavily. “One day I won’t be with you, anymore. It’ll be… another family. A mom and a dad. A house. Parents who love you. You’re gonna have it so much better than I ever did. Than your dad ever did.”
“You won’t know who I am. Who your dad was. You won’t remember me, or Frank. Or any of this.” He tightens his hold on her hand. She squeezes back, seeming to need the unspoken reassurance. “We’ll remember you, though. We’ll still love you. We do. Love you.” She falls silent, lowering her eyes, sniffing. “I love you, okay?”
That’s not a word she’s ever used freely: love. Not something she feels freely, either. Whereas he gives himself over to loving someone so easily, he knows Laurel resists it at every possible turn. That’s not a word she says even to him – love – but she doesn’t need to when he already knows, when she’s already told him in too many other ways to count. Verbalization, by now, feels almost like a moot point.
Frank waits to see if she intends to say any more, and when she doesn’t he scoots in closer, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Same goes for me. You got two full-sized humans wrapped around your tiny finger. And that means always. We’re always gonna love you. Remember when I said that’s how love is – it just happens? Well lemme tell you this too; it don’t stop, either.” He feels a lump rise in his throat, stubborn, aching. “Once you love somebody, you love ‘em for good.”
They pause, letting the stillness of the night wrap them up in its grasp. He’s sure Laurel isn’t going to say any more – but then she surprises him by continuing.
“You must get tired with Frank keeping you up every night, huh?” she asks with a sniffle, wiping at her cheeks for tears he can’t see through the darkness.
Frank scoffs, mock-offended. “I’m helping him become quite the witty conversationalist. Plus, he’s got a solid repertoire of knock-knock jokes now.”
“Oh, that’s vital.”
“Absolutely critical,” he quips, and they dissolve into belly laughter, until he sobers up somewhat. “That’s what I love about your ma. She’s funny. That’s one thing we got in common, all right?” He locks eyes with Laurel, abruptly serious, and he sees that her cheeks are gleaming with tears, happy and sad, every emotion in between. “We’re head over heels for the same girl. That ain’t ever gonna change, either.”
She’s reaching down, all at once, running a hand through his hair with a watery laugh, beckoning him. “Come up here.”
He obeys without hesitation, maneuvering himself back up to lay himself at her side, and once they’re settled he reaches over, swiping her tears away with the pad of his thumb.
“Hey,” he chides, gently. “None a’ that. Don’t be sad.”
“You love him,” she remarks, out of nowhere, and it takes him aback, the bluntness, the way she seems to have completely accepted the fact, not resisted the idea at all, tried to stop him from doing so. She sniffs. “You really… really love him.”
All he can make himself do is nod. “Yeah.” And you. Both of you.
“Good,” she mutters, turning her face into his palm, giving herself over to his touch. “Someone needs to.”
It can’t be her. She leaves the words unspoken, but he knows it nonetheless, and the resignation of it all troubles him, the way she’s recognized that she can’t let herself love this baby if she’ll only give him up in the end, can’t let herself form any sort of significant attachment; the way she’s forced herself not to feel all these months, stamped down any tiny forming embers of affection like snuffing out candles. It shouldn’t be this way. Doesn’t have to be this way.
But he does. He does love him, hopelessly, beyond all sense and reason, the same way he loves her. It consumes him. Sets him free. He gives of his love freely because it’s all he has to give, and he knows, right then, that she’ll never be able to do the same, let herself feel without hesitation, without restraint. It’s simply not who she is.
“We could do it,” he says, suddenly, before thinking the words over, remembering to keep his damn mouth shut about things he doesn’t get a say in. She continues carding her fingers through his hair idly as she listens, brow furrowed. “Keep him. You ‘n me. Yeah it’d be hard. But we’d figure it out; we been through worse.” He swallows, desperation bleeding into his voice. “I meant what I said. I love him. You, too. We could do it, Laurel. I know we could.”
She just shakes her head, slowly, simply. Very sadly. “You know we can’t.”
He does. Logically, deep down, on an intellectual level, he knows it isn’t possible. He knows bringing a baby into their lives would perhaps be worse than everything they’ve done, all the blood, the horror. It would be cruel. It’s not any kind of life for a child.
Even so, he wants to. God, he wants to keep him more than he’s ever wanted anything, so much it gnaws his stomach hollow, and it doesn’t make sense why he should be so attached, so in love, so quickly. He can’t help it. He’s never had a choice one way or another. Like he’d told him; love just happens. There’s blood and there’s choice, and he’s chosen him, and yet somehow loving the tiny bit of life inside Laurel never felt like much of a choice at all, like something he could opt out of.
He never had a fighting chance against either one of them. Not that he ever wanted one.
“I know,” he manages, voice strained.
Laurel wrangles a tiny, wobbling smile onto her lips, reaching up, brushing a finger across his beard, almost as if to comfort him – when really the idea is ludicrous, that she should be the one consoling him. He thinks she nearly starts to say something, her lips parting for a split second before falling closed once more, and she looks so stunning right then, moonlight dripping over her and slicing through the blinds, carving her skin from pale marble. She seems to sense that he’s hurting. He thinks she’s hurting in much the same way.
“Thank you,” she settles on, at last, vague but sincere.
He blinks. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” is all Laurel offers, words sleep-slurred. She’s drifting, he can tell, but she wouldn’t be saying any of this if she didn’t mean it. “Everything.”
She doesn’t elaborate. Not that she really needs to; there’s nothing more words can say, tonight, and he’s talked and talked until his mouth has run as dry as a desert, and now, finally, he can let there be silence instead, listen to all the words that silence can say, take in how infinitely profound that silence feels.
Laurel rolls over so that she’s facing away from him, and reaches for his hand when he doesn’t move with her, tucking it underneath her with an impatient little huff – and her touch says far more than could ever be contained in any words, any trite, cliched combination of letters and sounds and syllables that’ve been spoken a million and one times before. He doesn’t need words to know what this means, to know what he feels for her. What she feels for him.
He sleeps, finally, and he doesn’t dream. He doesn’t need that, either. This moment, this, and her…
It’s all more than dream enough.