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[journalistiq-blog]

for @scriose.

    charlie doesn’t even turn around. she already knows that it’s chris from his footfall and the dead silence he brings with him. “moss isn’t here.” if he’s looking for someone to get high with, she means. he’s gone to pick up the kids from soccer, leaving her to prepare the snacks for them to come home to -- which explains the seven sandwiches she’s carefully slicing into triangles. “you okay?”

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therapise:

charlie’s follow-up yanks him into a memory of less pleasant times, when they were uncertain and untrusting and full of nothing but questions.

but they’re in love now, right? they’re good now, right?

         ‘ — yeah? ’

    she catches the uncertainty in his voice, but puts it down to those same nerves that she’s got about the whole thing. she’s never had a baby before (obviously) and that means that all of it scares the shit out of her. she doesn’t like not knowing. 

      “did you wanna find out what we’re having?”

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therapise:

         ‘ come on, it’s got nothing to do with me. ’ it’s a halfhearted attempt at a lie  —  his tone gives him right away. and as if on cue, he’s holding his breath and sinking further into the couch to save himself the embarrassment of having an unconcealed and very soft tummy under her touch.

         ‘ i like your thinking. ’ he reaches up and tucks some of charlie’s hair behind her ear. ‘ we could start a collection of baby criminals. our own little gang. ’

        “nothing to do with you? yeah, okay.” like he hasn’t grown used to their lifestyle of constant take-out food and absolutely no exercise. charlie gives moss’ stomach a gentle poke to get him to stop holding it in. he doesn’t have to be embarrassed. she’s hardly going to end up on the cover of sports illustrated anytime soon.

      “the baby brigade.” she smiles, eyes closed. “they’ll make us so rich.”

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therapise:

         ‘ you know i don’t like to assume. ’ even if he’s her ride. the pre-baby jitters are getting to him, a little bit; impeding his ability to think rationally. ‘ i mean, i’d hate for you to do it alone — ’

    “go ahead and assume, moss. it’s yours, too." she doesn’t get when people keep this stuff to themselves. she’d much rather go into it with her husband. god knows she’d freak out in a hospital room on her own. “but i do need to ask you something.”

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therapise:

         ‘ can i — ’ oops! he doesn’t want to sound overeager. ( but he is. ) ‘ should i tag along for this appointment? ’

@journalistiq.

     charlie pauses to frown in his direction, utterly confused. does he not realise that he’s got an open invitation to everything? “well, someone’s gotta look at the scan.”

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therapise:

         “You know I’m a fan.” Of ‘chunky’ Charlie, that is. She looks happy, healthy, and she’s never better to cuddle up to. Moss, on the other hand, winds up sucking in and wearing baggy clothes to avoid having to reference couvade syndrome before the end of every goddamn conversation. ( Almost always in vain. He was showing first, last time around. )

         “We need at least one backup kid, you know? Just in case Billie turns out to be  —  like, a serial killer, or something.”

“You just wanna keep me chubby so you’ve got an excuse,” she says, setting a loving hand against the roundest part of his stomach as she tucks herself into his side. He’s right, though -- about a backup kid. Plus it’d be nice for Billie to have some company growing up, because God knows she’s gonna feel lonely in this neighborhood if she’s anything like her parents.

       “I don’t think she’ll be a serial killer.” She’s way too energetic a baby for that. Too happy. “Maybe an arsonist.”

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therapise:

        “Kind of disturbing phrasing, but I’ll roll with it.”

He buttons Billie up the rest of the way, then leans down to pinch her tiny, chubby feet between his fingers and kiss her tiny, chubby toes. The kid’ll be spoiled rotten before she speaks her first word.

        “What’a you say we let the little one nap it off? You and I get washed up  —  five minutes? We can take the baby monitor with us.”

Just like that, alarm bells start ringing -- five minutes? So much could happen in that time. She could roll over and smother herself. She could start crying and have a whole twenty seconds of suffering before they get to her. Worst of all, Charlie has to have five whole minutes without her new best friend.

      “You really think we need to get washed up?” she asks, knowing full well that she smells of vomit. “I showered yesterday.”

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“I’ll get chunky again,” she says, even though she’s made no effort at all to lose the baby weight yet. If she’s being honest, she figured they’d be having this conversation soon enough anyway -- and why lose the weight just to put it back on? And so she smiles at him, all grateful and content and so in love, and sighs her heaviest sigh like it’s a burden. “Fine, I guess. If we really have to.”

         “Let’s have another one,” he says, Billie out cold in his lap. He has to offset the sincerity, the ‘I’m so in love with you’ dripping from each word, so he follows it up with an almost-joke, gentle delivery. “Didn’t realize how heavily I was leaning on that ‘sympathy weight’ excuse.”

@journalistiq.

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therapise:

         “We’ve been busy, huh?”

After he’s grabbed what they need, Moss kneels next to Charlie, places his hand on her back for balance, and leans in to give her a kiss ( disregarding that they’re both disgusting ). Before he moves on to cleaning up, he can’t help holding out an oversized index finger for Billie to grab. He smiles, toothy and enamored ( and a little bit tired! ), and starts to pull on her clean clothes.

         “You must be as nervous as we are, sea monkey.”

“We’ve been gross, for sure.” But even through the stress, Charlie smiles into the kiss. Honestly, she’s never felt more content with her life than she does right now, and she owes pretty much all of it to the guy beside her.

Leaning back and out of the way, Charlie strips off her puke-y shirt and uses the clean part of it to wipe the last of Billie’s lunch off of the side of her neck. “I’d be nervous in her shoes. I mean, she’s spent nine months swimming about by herself, and now she’s gotta deal with us. Poor kid.”

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therapise:

His smile goes soft in a second. That’s a group of words he’ll never tire of hearing  —  or doling out, for that matter. He hasn’t encountered a lot of people worthy of that kind of sentiment.

         “Hey,” he starts, playing like he’s just realized the feeling’s mutual. “I love you, too.”

They’ve been lucky. Luckier than most people in their situation -- than most people in the world. Of all the billions, how many people actually come across a soulmate? It’s insane.

     “Good,” she says, stepping in closer. “Couldn’t really be a power couple if you didn’t, right?”

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for @therapise.

      Despite the fact that she’s never in her life been nervous about anything, Charlie is really fucking scared about being a mother. There’s certain things that just terrify her -- like leaving Billie to sleep alone, or changing her diaper on one of those high-up table things. She wonders if it’ll always be like this, or if week one is the same for everybody.

     She’s kneeling on the carpet with a grizzling Billie in front of her, taking off the kid’s third spit-up covered onesie of the morning, when she hears Moss come in. “Oh, hey,” she says, all casual, like she isn’t about to have a vomit induced breakdown. “Can you grab me another shirt and something for Billie? We, uh... We had a bit of an accident. Again.”

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therapise:

He doesn’t know how to communicate that he can’t talk beyond his initial statement without  —  talking, so Moss waves a shaky hand off to his side, forgetting for the moment that Charlie can’t see it. He corrects himself quickly by finding and squeezing her fingers, then retracting his own and working hard to internalize the whole thing. 

She’s close, she’s warm, she’s anchoring him.

         “I, uh — ” He swallows hard and starts again. “The, uh. the neighbor’s car.” It misfired. It misfired, you asshole, you can finish the fucking sentence. “Fucking car.”

“The neighbour’s car. Okay.” She doesn’t really understand, but she’s trying her best to get it without asking him too many questions. All she really needs to know is that something happened, and he’s panicking about it, and he needs her to help make it better. Those are the basics.

Charlie moves to his side instead so he doesn’t feel all caged in, and takes up his hand again, breathing slow enough for him to know that he needs to slow it down a little, too. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she says. These things need time, after all. “We’ll just sit. Okay?”

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wasforgotten:

          as much as it is a fair question, mateo can feel his anger spike a little as the stranger wraps her arms tightly around abril. ❝ she’s got an ID card in her backpack. abril flores, two years old. if lost, return to mateo cruz. ❞ it had been a stupid idea that a friend suggested after mateo had lost her at the local park, but it’d worked out so far. also, the fact that the girl looked like a miniature version of him definitely helped.

   Jesus fuck, she’s conflicted. On the one hand, Charlie hasn’t read anything that wasn’t written in Braille for a good ten years, so the I.D. card won’t mean shit. On the other... Anyone who’s going to go to the effort of telling her what’s on the I.D. card is probably the real parent, right?

    “I can’t read,” she says. “Well, I can read, I’m not a fucking moron, but I’m blind. So.”

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wasforgotten:

          he’s really gotta stop losing his own daughter, it’s starting to become a problem. thing is, she’s quick and has a taste for adventure and always manages to run off god knows where, throwing mateo in a panic until his eyes land on his daughter, curiously calm in the strangers lap. as his panic ebbs away, he can’t help but look at the pair curiously, unsure of how the woman’s managed to get his toddler to even sit for more than thirty seconds. ❝ yeah, she’s – she’s mine. she, uh, ran off, probably trying to find some candy or somethin’ ❞

    She’s relieved, but this also presents another problem. How’s Charlie meant to know if this kid is really his, or if he’s just a creep seeing an opportunity? Protective, her arm around the kid’s waist tightens. “Right,” she says, trying to think of a delicate way to phrase the issue. “But, um. She could be anybody’s, really. You could be anybody.”