vinegar, thyme, gingerbread
title: if what I have is what you need
author: itcomesandgoes
universe: Elemental Sets / The Sunlands
flavors: vinegar 8: contents under pressure; thyme 23: when the time comes; gingerbread 5: sleeping beauty
topping: caramel
wordcount: 1752
rating: PG
contains: Favorable thoughts on children, mythology.
notes: Takes place in ... sometime ... in 2022. As per usual, I kidnapped the women from wingshaped.
They weren't ready.
That's the only thing that kept running through his head: We're not ready for this.
Well - that, and the looming sense that that was a lie, anyway. Because while they maybe weren't ready for it, he was more than ready -
Pete had had children before. For a long time, he'd thought he'd only had a child before, Deucalion, in the long-ago before people bothered keeping track of which year was which. He'd been so proud of that boy, and a stranger for the longest time. It wasn't Deuc's fault. It was, arguably, not Pete's fault either; but chained to a mountainside with an eagle eating his liver or not, he'd only met the boy once in the twenty-seven years he was chained, and that lasted only a few hours.
They'd made good on their lost time as much as they could, in the years afterwards, because that was what they did; their family was dysfunctional, maybe, but with Fire as Pete's father that was pretty well guaranteed from the start, so what did it matter that Deuc had married Pyrrha his cousin, Pete's twin's daughter? It wasn't as if genetic mutation had really kicked in yet; there weren't recessive maladies waiting to be unleashed.
Pete watched Emma, sleeping beside him, and part of him wished that was still true.
In 2010, he'd discovered that he had a daughter, Jocelyn. He remembered his fling with her mother, Alicia, back in 1999; it hadn't lasted long, because she was on vacation away from London, visiting more northern parts of England, and she was intent on returning before long. She'd gotten herself pregnant on purpose, with no intentions of ever telling him; her husband was ill and infertile and certain that he needed to father a child, and so she'd done what she could to give him one. Pete didn't even mind, not really - mostly because Alicia had tracked him down, after her husband had died and her daughter's magic started coming through with prodigious strength.
It was ever thus, with the children of the Elements, and the children of the Titans.
He loved Jossie, though. It didn't matter that he hadn't been there for the first decade of her life; it didn't matter that he wasn't ever the custodial parent, because he could visit her and help her learn and help her find good masters to train her, and he could offer his own advice about magic and life and boys whenever she wanted it. She loved him, too, and she loved Deuc, when her presence managed to persuade him to come back to the world of the living, at least for a little while.
(Prometheus was pretty sure that his own arguments were futile, on that count; Deucalion had been dead-set, pardon the pun, on remaining in his position among the dead. But Pete's younger brother Giacomo, once Casanova and now Jack Newhouse, Rock Star, had been dared by Deuc to come back himself; somehow, his conversation provided the kick that was needed. Pete wondered if Jossie actually loved Sun Downer's music, or if she just thought it was hilarious that she had Giacomo Casanova as an uncle, but when she'd asked, he'd responded, and Deucalion had shown up on the doorstep of the house in Michigan the next morning.)
And now Jocelyn was twenty-two, a graduate of university, very nearly a Master of Earth too, and entirely her own woman - and for the past dozen years, since he'd settled into the idea that he was once again a father, it had been troubling him that he'd never been there from the beginning - not for either of his children.
Oh, obviously Jossie got the better deal; she'd had a father all her life, and swapped in another eventually, and he'd gotten to meet her and spend regular time with her after ten years only. Deucalion had to wait seventeen, and then another ten; he never truly had a father, it seemed to Pete, but only a somewhat paternal and often distant figure who tried.
Emma didn't want kids. She'd never wanted kids; she'd made that abundantly clear even before Pete knew Jossie existed. And her tune had never changed, in the dozen years since.
But now, lying in bed beside him, sleeping almost peacefully, her desires may not have changed but her situation had; defying two forms of birth control, defying her position as a radiologist regularly exposed to x-rays and other forms of radiation, their son had insisted upon finding a home inside her. She was pregnant, and considered it maybe a mistake to tell him about it, but once he knew, she couldn't have an abortion.
He wouldn't have insisted; he wouldn't have sought a legal injunction, although she'd pointed out that he might have. He just told her that he hoped she'd keep their son, and then she'd thrown a pillow at him and said that if he was going to go on using pronouns she couldn't very well get rid of it, could she?
Would you stop calling our son an it? That was his response; she'd burst into tears, and then they'd held onto each other, and in the morning she said she wanted to go to work as patient, talking to obstetricians and specialists to see if her job had killed their son before he'd ever had a chance to live.
They'd joked, the other night, about how she was afraid they'd find their baby had water magic and then he, Pete, would never want to hold him again; that he might not have arms, or a brain, because those were things that did happen to some babies. He felt chills when she calmly said she wouldn't have a problem carrying an anencephalic baby to term, as opposed to all the different ways a child might live after birth; he didn't mention them. He knew in his gut that they would have a healthy son, and guessed - considering his two previous children - that he'd probably have Earth magic.
He wasn't expecting Meg to show up looking awkward, a few days later. She wasn't an obstetrician; she never had been, but she was a geneticist, along with being his former apprentice, now the local Adept, and Fire's wife. She was also the Fire to Emma's Shadow, in the junior set, and had always been close to them - so it hurt, a little, that she looked so uncomfortable. And then he'd forced her to eat until he could tell her blood sugar was closer to where it should have been, and he waited for her to tell him what was wrong with their son, that she should be the one talking to him.
He wasn't expecting to be told that their son had no thyroid.
Admittedly, she hastened to add, at his gestational age he wouldn't have one anyway - but she drew out the chromosomes that were problematic, to explain what was going on, and said that when that arm of this chromosome looked like that, the only resulting condition was a complete lack of thyroid, and that he would need to have medication from the moment of birth through the rest of his life, or he wouldn't develop properly, grow at all, or - really - live.
(She also showed him the genetic components of the immortality inherent in the Titans. That was pretty cool.)
Pete brushed a hand over Emma's hair, in bed with her in the middle of the night, and smiled when she stirred just enough to react and burrow closer to him. The pregnancy wasn't going to kill her, because her back was fixed up enough from the wretched level of scoliosis she'd had as a youth, and while maybe she couldn't give birth vaginally he could promise her, when she woke up, that he'd fix up the scar from the C-section so it would be entirely gone; flesh-crafting wasn't his top specialty, but it was up there, enough to remove scars if not enough to create a gland that didn't exist.
"Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it, right?" he whispered into her hair, smiling wryly despite himself. He'd wanted so much to be around for a child's birth and early childhood, to be present and needed; Emma had made it clear and clearer that she wasn't going to be the main parent, whether or not she intended to breast-feed - he'd probably better ask her about that at some point - and so he knew that he was going to have a close bond with their son, no matter what.
Even if he had water magic, like Emma's family generations back on both sides; even if Pete's magic, and Fire as a grandfather, wasn't enough to cancel that out - even then, he was going to love and raise and cherish his son, and be everything he needed. Somehow.
He'd just have to be twice as ready, to comfort Emma and make sure she didn't ever feel like she wasn't. He'd go to all the parenting classes he could find, and discard all the advice that seemed like absolute crap. He'd find the support groups, for parents of children with disabilities, because their son would, Meg had told him, be classed as "failure to thrive" from the moment of birth; he'd do anything and everything within his power to raise their son as happy and healthy and honorable as possible.
And he was powerful; that had never been in question. He could have been an Adept, if he felt like dealing with the paperwork. He could have had a territory as large as some continents, if he'd been willing to claim one, instead of wanting to be able to wander the worlds and go where he was needed for one brief moment after another. And for a little while, that would be put on hold, because he was going to have a life far more important to him than any other, someone who needed him vitally in every moment; eventually their son would be able to travel with him, and Pete fully intended to take him along as soon as he could.
He would be a good father.
Somehow.
"So listen," he murmured against Emma's neck, curling up around her with one hand resting over her midsection (and their son) and the other cupped around one of her breasts, where his hand always belonged. "I was thinking we should name him Alexander. What do you think?"
Emma hummed something at him in her sleep, and he smiled, nestling in behind her. They'd work it out.
author: itcomesandgoes
universe: Elemental Sets / The Sunlands
flavors: vinegar 8: contents under pressure; thyme 23: when the time comes; gingerbread 5: sleeping beauty
topping: caramel
wordcount: 1752
rating: PG
contains: Favorable thoughts on children, mythology.
notes: Takes place in ... sometime ... in 2022. As per usual, I kidnapped the women from wingshaped.
They weren't ready.
That's the only thing that kept running through his head: We're not ready for this.
Well - that, and the looming sense that that was a lie, anyway. Because while they maybe weren't ready for it, he was more than ready -
Pete had had children before. For a long time, he'd thought he'd only had a child before, Deucalion, in the long-ago before people bothered keeping track of which year was which. He'd been so proud of that boy, and a stranger for the longest time. It wasn't Deuc's fault. It was, arguably, not Pete's fault either; but chained to a mountainside with an eagle eating his liver or not, he'd only met the boy once in the twenty-seven years he was chained, and that lasted only a few hours.
They'd made good on their lost time as much as they could, in the years afterwards, because that was what they did; their family was dysfunctional, maybe, but with Fire as Pete's father that was pretty well guaranteed from the start, so what did it matter that Deuc had married Pyrrha his cousin, Pete's twin's daughter? It wasn't as if genetic mutation had really kicked in yet; there weren't recessive maladies waiting to be unleashed.
Pete watched Emma, sleeping beside him, and part of him wished that was still true.
In 2010, he'd discovered that he had a daughter, Jocelyn. He remembered his fling with her mother, Alicia, back in 1999; it hadn't lasted long, because she was on vacation away from London, visiting more northern parts of England, and she was intent on returning before long. She'd gotten herself pregnant on purpose, with no intentions of ever telling him; her husband was ill and infertile and certain that he needed to father a child, and so she'd done what she could to give him one. Pete didn't even mind, not really - mostly because Alicia had tracked him down, after her husband had died and her daughter's magic started coming through with prodigious strength.
It was ever thus, with the children of the Elements, and the children of the Titans.
He loved Jossie, though. It didn't matter that he hadn't been there for the first decade of her life; it didn't matter that he wasn't ever the custodial parent, because he could visit her and help her learn and help her find good masters to train her, and he could offer his own advice about magic and life and boys whenever she wanted it. She loved him, too, and she loved Deuc, when her presence managed to persuade him to come back to the world of the living, at least for a little while.
(Prometheus was pretty sure that his own arguments were futile, on that count; Deucalion had been dead-set, pardon the pun, on remaining in his position among the dead. But Pete's younger brother Giacomo, once Casanova and now Jack Newhouse, Rock Star, had been dared by Deuc to come back himself; somehow, his conversation provided the kick that was needed. Pete wondered if Jossie actually loved Sun Downer's music, or if she just thought it was hilarious that she had Giacomo Casanova as an uncle, but when she'd asked, he'd responded, and Deucalion had shown up on the doorstep of the house in Michigan the next morning.)
And now Jocelyn was twenty-two, a graduate of university, very nearly a Master of Earth too, and entirely her own woman - and for the past dozen years, since he'd settled into the idea that he was once again a father, it had been troubling him that he'd never been there from the beginning - not for either of his children.
Oh, obviously Jossie got the better deal; she'd had a father all her life, and swapped in another eventually, and he'd gotten to meet her and spend regular time with her after ten years only. Deucalion had to wait seventeen, and then another ten; he never truly had a father, it seemed to Pete, but only a somewhat paternal and often distant figure who tried.
Emma didn't want kids. She'd never wanted kids; she'd made that abundantly clear even before Pete knew Jossie existed. And her tune had never changed, in the dozen years since.
But now, lying in bed beside him, sleeping almost peacefully, her desires may not have changed but her situation had; defying two forms of birth control, defying her position as a radiologist regularly exposed to x-rays and other forms of radiation, their son had insisted upon finding a home inside her. She was pregnant, and considered it maybe a mistake to tell him about it, but once he knew, she couldn't have an abortion.
He wouldn't have insisted; he wouldn't have sought a legal injunction, although she'd pointed out that he might have. He just told her that he hoped she'd keep their son, and then she'd thrown a pillow at him and said that if he was going to go on using pronouns she couldn't very well get rid of it, could she?
Would you stop calling our son an it? That was his response; she'd burst into tears, and then they'd held onto each other, and in the morning she said she wanted to go to work as patient, talking to obstetricians and specialists to see if her job had killed their son before he'd ever had a chance to live.
They'd joked, the other night, about how she was afraid they'd find their baby had water magic and then he, Pete, would never want to hold him again; that he might not have arms, or a brain, because those were things that did happen to some babies. He felt chills when she calmly said she wouldn't have a problem carrying an anencephalic baby to term, as opposed to all the different ways a child might live after birth; he didn't mention them. He knew in his gut that they would have a healthy son, and guessed - considering his two previous children - that he'd probably have Earth magic.
He wasn't expecting Meg to show up looking awkward, a few days later. She wasn't an obstetrician; she never had been, but she was a geneticist, along with being his former apprentice, now the local Adept, and Fire's wife. She was also the Fire to Emma's Shadow, in the junior set, and had always been close to them - so it hurt, a little, that she looked so uncomfortable. And then he'd forced her to eat until he could tell her blood sugar was closer to where it should have been, and he waited for her to tell him what was wrong with their son, that she should be the one talking to him.
He wasn't expecting to be told that their son had no thyroid.
Admittedly, she hastened to add, at his gestational age he wouldn't have one anyway - but she drew out the chromosomes that were problematic, to explain what was going on, and said that when that arm of this chromosome looked like that, the only resulting condition was a complete lack of thyroid, and that he would need to have medication from the moment of birth through the rest of his life, or he wouldn't develop properly, grow at all, or - really - live.
(She also showed him the genetic components of the immortality inherent in the Titans. That was pretty cool.)
Pete brushed a hand over Emma's hair, in bed with her in the middle of the night, and smiled when she stirred just enough to react and burrow closer to him. The pregnancy wasn't going to kill her, because her back was fixed up enough from the wretched level of scoliosis she'd had as a youth, and while maybe she couldn't give birth vaginally he could promise her, when she woke up, that he'd fix up the scar from the C-section so it would be entirely gone; flesh-crafting wasn't his top specialty, but it was up there, enough to remove scars if not enough to create a gland that didn't exist.
"Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it, right?" he whispered into her hair, smiling wryly despite himself. He'd wanted so much to be around for a child's birth and early childhood, to be present and needed; Emma had made it clear and clearer that she wasn't going to be the main parent, whether or not she intended to breast-feed - he'd probably better ask her about that at some point - and so he knew that he was going to have a close bond with their son, no matter what.
Even if he had water magic, like Emma's family generations back on both sides; even if Pete's magic, and Fire as a grandfather, wasn't enough to cancel that out - even then, he was going to love and raise and cherish his son, and be everything he needed. Somehow.
He'd just have to be twice as ready, to comfort Emma and make sure she didn't ever feel like she wasn't. He'd go to all the parenting classes he could find, and discard all the advice that seemed like absolute crap. He'd find the support groups, for parents of children with disabilities, because their son would, Meg had told him, be classed as "failure to thrive" from the moment of birth; he'd do anything and everything within his power to raise their son as happy and healthy and honorable as possible.
And he was powerful; that had never been in question. He could have been an Adept, if he felt like dealing with the paperwork. He could have had a territory as large as some continents, if he'd been willing to claim one, instead of wanting to be able to wander the worlds and go where he was needed for one brief moment after another. And for a little while, that would be put on hold, because he was going to have a life far more important to him than any other, someone who needed him vitally in every moment; eventually their son would be able to travel with him, and Pete fully intended to take him along as soon as he could.
He would be a good father.
Somehow.
"So listen," he murmured against Emma's neck, curling up around her with one hand resting over her midsection (and their son) and the other cupped around one of her breasts, where his hand always belonged. "I was thinking we should name him Alexander. What do you think?"
Emma hummed something at him in her sleep, and he smiled, nestling in behind her. They'd work it out.