The Werekitten Chronicles, part deux
"You. What?" Ariadne is staring at them. "You want me to what?"
"Sorry," Arthur says abruptly, and he escapes to her bathroom.
"You're the only person we could ask," he hears Eames explain apologetically outside the bathroom door, through the sound of his puking into the toilet. "Since you know us both, and it being so ... complicated."
"We'll pay you," Arthur gasps out, spitting into the toilet, when he thinks he's done.
"I could make loads of money doing architecture jobs in the same time period!"
"We'll pay you a lot," Eames amends.
Ariadne is still staring. "It's not that I'm not flattered, you guys, and it's not even that I haven't thought about you asking me to do something like this for you at some point, it's just ... all kind of a little sudden, you know? In my imagination there was discussion, and planning, and time to prepare--"
A sickeningly fruity fragrance finds its way into Arthur's nostrils and he's puking again before he can even say a word. "Eames," he rasps between retches.
Eames, because he is wonderful, enters the bathroom and removes the shampoo promptly. Ariadne stares some more.
They wait until Arthur has stopped heaving into the toilet bowl and is just gagging, and then Eames turns to Ariadne.
"It's our only chance," he says quietly. "Please."
"But," Ariadne says, "couldn't you ..."
"It was a shot in a million to begin with," Arthur says in exhaustion, still hunched over the toilet. "It won't happen again. The doctor's going to make sure of that. I'm going to make sure."
"I ... oh," says Ariadne. Then, quieter, "Oh."
"Please, Ariadne," Eames says desperately.
"Okay," she says. "Fine. We'll try it. I'll be your ... mutant kitten-baby surrogate person. I guess."
Eames gives her a tight hug, twirling around with her. Arthur heaves into the toilet again.
+The time it takes for them to go to Paris and talk to Ariadne and give her a week or so to prepare herself costs them. Dr. Forsyth gives them a severely disapproving look when they show up for the surgery.
"We could have gotten this over and done with nice and quick," he complains. "Now I'll have to rip the tissue right out of you."
Eames blanches.
"I'll be fine," Arthur tells him firmly. Dr. Forsyth can hack away at Arthur's insides all he wants, as far as Arthur is concerned. He just wants to not be pregnant anymore. It's only been a few months and he's sick of the cramps, the stupid sudden craving for hot dogs, the constant throwing up. He won't miss these fetuses once they're out of him. And besides, for all that the man has no bedside manner whatsoever, it's still obvious that Dr. Forsyth is a skilled physician who knows what he's doing. Arthur trusts him not to botch this.
Eames, however, for whatever reason -- possibly because of Arthur's scentable change in hormones -- is still a fifteen on the one-to-ten scale of protectiveness. He looks about ready to deck the nurse who comes to fetch Arthur.
"I'll be fine," Arthur says one last time, giving him a quick kiss. Eames watches him and Ariadne go, looking pained.
He's right there when Arthur starts to wake up after the surgery. He feels -- different. Sore, too. Dr. Forsyth removed not only the embryos, but also fixed whatever it was inside Arthur that enabled him to get knocked up. Arthur hadn't really been listening; the only thing that registered was that he wouldn't get pregnant again and no more heat cycles. It was like Christmas.
As soon as he wakes up Eames is on him, squeezing him gingerly.
"You're alright," he breathes. "You made it. You're okay."
"Of course I'm alright," Arthur says, grumpy and drowsy. Eames nuzzles him fiercely, and Arthur twitches. "Are you crying?"
"No," Eames snuffles into his neck. Then, in a manly fashion, he buries his face under Arthur's jaw.
Ariadne recovers in the same room as Arthur, though she takes a little longer to wake. Dr. Forsyth checks on her while she recovers.
"When will we know if it worked?" Eames asks, hovering at his shoulder anxiously.
"How should I know?" Dr. Forsyth says irritably. "That's why we're going to keep checking. It's good that there were multiples. Hopefully at least one of the embryos will attach."
"Wait," Ariadne says groggily. "Multiples?"
"Didn't we tell you?" says Eames.
"I hate you both so much," she says.
+ Even after he's no longer pregnant, Arthur still feels pregnant. It's as if the universe is punishing him for cheating his way out of pregnancy. The sickness stops, fortunately, but he still gets cramps; he still has random cravings.
At least it gives Eames something to do, and one of his new favourite pastimes, no less: doting on Arthur. It doesn't matter that Arthur's hormones are all over the map and he moodswings like a grizzly bear. Eames is happy to serve his every need. Fortunately, it isn't too difficult to persuade him to go and dote on Ariadne, instead.
She takes a pregnancy test after the embryo transfer and it turns out positive. They all celebrate, though to Arthur it feels rather like a prison sentence. He's surprised at how rapidly Ariadne warms up to the little bundle (or bundles) of joy inside her.
It's mainly due to the near-constant cramps that Arthur starts working from home and stops taking jobs in the field. This means he hasn't dreamt in several months, and as a result, he starts dreaming naturally again. And that rapidly turns into a recurring nightmare wherein he's holding his and Eames' baby and he drops it. Then Eames shouts at him that it'll never be a werewolf now, and he leaves Arthur there with the baby, and no matter how hard he tries, Arthur can't pick it up off the floor; he just keeps dropping it. Because he's a terrible father and doesn't know the first thing about holding babies.
At night he lies awake and wonders how on earth this became his life.
When he finally confesses his anxieties to Eames, Eames is quick to sign them up for a baby parenting class. Arthur tries to go into it with an open mind. Tries.
"This is stupid," he scowls, trying to put a diaper on a robotic doll baby with soulless staring eyes. "How is this in any way a realistic simulation? A real baby would be moving."
"I think the point is that we learn to do the diaper bit first so we can do it when the baby is squirming around," Eames points out fairly.
"Well, I did it." Arthur thrusts the be-diapered doll at Eames. "Your turn."
"Support its head, Arthur!" Eames reproaches him, when the robot doll starts to scream.
Arthur misses his pre-robot doll baby life.
+Toward the latter months of the ordeal, Arthur is crippled by cramps and virtually confined to his bed. Now he allows Eames to take care of him. He doesn't have much choice. And Eames takes his duties very seriously.
He's forced to divide his time between Arthur and Ariadne, though, and if Arthur's body is hurting at the mere memory of what was growing inside him, he can't imagine the kind of discomfort Ariadne is in.
Dr. Forsyth's daughter Susanne lives in New York, where she works as a part-time physician to werewolves, just like her father and his father before him. Arthur and Eames pay for her flight to Paris to do every one of Ariadne's obstetrician appointments, since they want a specialist, and Ariadne wants a female. Dr. Susanne has her father's prodigious skill and a lot more bedside manner. They ask her to do the ultrasounds, even though she isn't an ultrasound technician -- "In case of ... oddities," Eames explains.
"Three heartbeats," she pronounces on her first visit, and, smiling, pats Ariadne's leg. "Congratulations. You're carrying a litter."
Eames always looks forward to the ultrasounds, firstly because he loves seeing their offspring, alive and moving around on the screen, and secondly because he's waiting to find evidence that they might look like Arthur.
"What if they take after you?" he says in bed at night, while Arthur is trying to read a magazine.
"Then they take after me," Arthur growls, not interested in talking about it.
"Little tails and everything," Eames says, barely listening. "They'll be adorable." He sighs. "I suppose we'd have to put little hats on them or something, though. I don't want people teasing my babies."
"They'll get used to it." Arthur flips a page, his shoulders tense. "I did."
Eames sits up and kisses him.
At their next visit with Dr. Susanne, she peers at the ultrasound and says, "Looks like you've got three boys here."
"Three boys?" Arthur echoes.
"Or -- wait--" She pauses, confused, and moves closer to the screen. Eames joins her. "It almost looks like--"
"Tails?" Eames says.
At once Arthur is there, staring at the screen. He raises a hand to the grainy spot on the screen where Dr. Susanne is pointing, and softly brushes his fingertips over it.
"They've got tails?" Ariadne says, sitting up on her elbows to see.
"Looks like," says Dr. Susanne, bemused but smiling.
"Smashing," says Eames. Arthur touches the screen again, not quite sure what he's feeling.
+Cramps aside, Arthur is fairly detached from the entire pregnancy process. When Ariadne goes into full-blown labour at thirty-one weeks, almost two months early, reality hits him like a sledgehammer.
Dr. Susanne arrives at the hospital in Paris when Ariadne's contractions are less than thirty seconds apart. She flies in and takes over swiftly and efficiently and Arthur keeps thinking numbly, oh, God, this is actually happening. It somehow never felt real until now, not even when he looks at the ultrasound picture Eames taped to their fridge. He wants to puke.
"Okay, honey," Dr. Susanne coaches Ariadne. Eames is standing at her bedside, holding her hand, letting her squeeze it through every crippling contraction. "The first baby's in a good birthing position, so we're going to start pushing in a minute and see how it goes."
Arthur can't take it. He leaves the room.
"Arthur!"
Eames catches him up down the hall.
"Where are you going?" he asks, confused. "They could be born any minute ..."
"I don't want them," Arthur says.
Eames stops short. "How can you--"
"You heard me!" Arthur snaps. His voice trembles as he continues aggressively, "I don't want them, I never wanted them, and I tried to tell you that, I tried. I can't be a parent. I don't know anything about kids."
Eames' concerned face softens. "Arthur, of course you can be a parent. Nobody knows what they're doing."
"You do!" Arthur shouts. "You know everything, you've known everything from the start, you're the one who wants them so bad--"
"Calm down," Eames says gently, even though the hospital workers who occasionally bustle past them are too hurried to care what they're saying.
"How can you love them so much?" Arthur demands shakily. "They're not even born yet and you love them more than anything."
"I love you more than anything," says Eames. "And they came from you, that's how I already love them. I loved them when they were the size of rice grains, because they're yours."
"Keep them," Arthur spits out. "Don't you do any research, don't you know multiples have a higher rate of stillbirth -- and they're too early, something will go wrong--"
"Arthur, don't let the idea that something might happen to them keep you from loving them," Eames admonishes. "That's why you're so upset, isn't it? You're afraid to love them in case something bad happens."
"Because I can't be a good parent!" Arthur says, desperately willing Eames to understand and give him permission to walk away. "I can't. They'll--"
He chokes, and Eames says, "They'll what?"
"They'll know I don't want them," Arthur forces out, his eyes stinging. "Like my mother didn't want me."
Eames grabs him and pulls him into a tight hug, holding on even when Arthur half-heartedly squirms to get away. He gives in, slumping into Eames, and for a minute they both just stand there in the hall with people hurrying past them.
"Your mother left you," Eames says softly, close to his ear. "You have a choice. You can do what she did and walk away now and I'll let you go, and I'll raise them and I'll miss you every day of my life. Or you can go back to that room with me, and we can do this one step at a time, together, like all parents do."
Put that way, it isn't much of a choice at all.
He takes a deep breath and nods his head jerkily. Eames leads him by the hand back to the room.
He doesn't want to watch. He stands in a corner, out of the way of the proceedings, his stomach churning. He tells himself he doesn't have to decide anything right now. Right now, it's important that he be here, for Ariadne as much as Eames, but later, when it's just them, they can have an actual discussion and work something out. And it's not that Arthur wants to leave Eames, because of course he doesn't, he doesn't want that at all, he loves Eames -- but Eames loves these kids, and Arthur can't be around to raise them, he just can't, he just can't...
Dr. Susanne is positioned to catch the baby, coaching and encouraging Ariadne, while Eames holds her hand anxiously; and the doctor says, "It's coming, almost here, just a little more, Ariadne--"
Then she's straightening up, saying, "I've got him," and everything goes quiet except for Ariadne's ragged breaths. The baby isn't crying.
"Is he okay?" Ariadne asks shakily. Arthur's never been so conscious of his pounding heartbeat. He stares, transfixed, at the tiny wrinkled bundle in the doctor's hands, willing it to move or do something. Anything.
It takes a breath. Then it bursts into a choking cry, its face turning pink.
"He's just fine," Dr. Susanne pronounces, beaming. The baby is handed off to a nurse who quickly cleans and dries it, weighs it and swaddles it in a blanket, and by the time she's done this, the crying has stopped but the baby is still pink, alive, real.
"Here, Papa," the French nurse says kindly, handling the bundle to Arthur before he can object. He opens his mouth to protest but then it's in his arms and he can't just drop it so he holds it, stares at it, unable to produce words.
The baby blinks at him, its eyes two unfocused blue slits. It looks sleepy, as if it's seen the world now and is bored, ready to take a nap. It has a tiny fist curled near its face and even though Arthur knows it's silly, he counts its fingers anyway. They're all there and they're all impossibly tiny.
"Hi," he manages to whisper. The baby fits perfectly in the cradle of his arm. He takes its tiny hand between a thumb and forefinger. "You're pretty small."
"Four pounds, nine and a half ounces," Dr. Susanne says, smiling.
It takes Arthur a moment to realize Eames is at his side, tucking in close. The world contracts suddenly to the three of them, as if they're all alone in the universe. Nothing else matters. The baby is here and he's theirs and the feeling that bubbles up inside Arthur threatens to overwhelm him. As if his whole heart is suddenly resting in the palm of his baby's hand. He never knew it was possible to feel emotion with his whole body until this moment.
The baby smells a little like Ariadne but he has a scent that's all his own, one that reminds Arthur of himself and of Eames. He smells like home.
And he has two tiny, velvety, folded-down ears on top of his head.
"Hello, baby," Eames murmurs over Arthur's shoulder. "You've got two dads and an aunt here who've been dying to meet you."
"And we're going to spoil you," Arthur adds, unsticking his throat.
Eames gives him a quick, proud, affectionate smile. "Yes," he says. "And that." He tickles the baby's blanketed tummy with one finger, and his hand looks huge next to their baby. "You've got a lovely godmummy who was nice enough to carry you around for a few months in her tummy. And you've got a mentally unstable godfather who nearly killed us all, but he's a nice enough bloke."
"Let me see him," Ariadne says.
Reluctantly, Arthur transfers the baby to Eames who carries it to Ariadne. She cuddles it close.
"Hi," she says softly, exhausted. "You just came out of me. How weird is that?"
"Not as weird as the fact that he came out of Arthur first," says Eames.
Ariadne laughs, and Arthur says anxiously, "I want to hold him again."
Eames does the transfer again and Arthur breathes in the baby's scent, relaxing. The baby opens his blue eyes again, peering fuzzily up at Arthur as if to say, Oh. It's you again. Then he closes them. Arthur supposes he passes muster, and that fills him with irrational relief. His baby doesn't hate him. Even though Arthur didn't want him. His baby doesn't mind.
Eames winds his arms around Arthur's waist from behind, and they both just watch the sleeping bundle for a minute.
Ariadne sniffs. Arthur glances up to see her smiling tearfully at them.
"I'm really happy for you guys," she says.
"Ready to start pushing again?" Dr. Susanne asks.
Ariadne's demeanour changes instantly. "Fuck! I have to do this two more times? Isn't one enough for you guys?"
+++
Flying into Paris has never felt so good. Still, the anxiety worrying away at the pit of Arthur's stomach doesn't dissipate until he's actually stepping into his house, taking in the familiar scents of his family. The house is hushed; he can hear Eames' soft voice upstairs, coming from the nursery.
He slings his bag to the floor and heads up the staircase. On the landing he can discern Eames' words.
"... ready to show Daddy what you've learned to do? We'll give him a big kiss and then we'll show him what a clever boy you are, yeah?"
Arthur pauses in the doorway, regarding Eames with a tired but fond smile. He's got Thomas, who is busily clutching at and gumming a plastic key ring, in his lap. Eames grins at him, and Arthur crosses the room, leaning down to kiss him fervently. Eames grips his tie and doesn't let him up right away.
"We missed you."
"I was gone four days. They probably don't even remember me."
It's only half a joke. Eames promptly lets him go, though, and when Arthur straightens up he sees Thomas reaching for him and smiling with bright, wide eyes. The baby's whole body wriggles with glee.
Arthur is suddenly crippled by that usual overwhelming feeling that washes over him when he's around his babies. He swallows it and scoops Thomas into his arms, grunting to mask the surge of emotion.
"He feels heavier."
"Probably. He's growing all the time." Eames reaches up and tugs Thomas' small, silky slip of a tail. "He'll be a big dog, like his dad."
Thomas is sucking on a tiny clenched fist, watching Arthur wide-eyed. When Arthur looks down and meets his eyes, Thomas starts to smile again, almost secretively.
"What are you so happy about?" Arthur asks, in a mock grumble. "You didn't miss me, did you?"
Thomas' whole face splits into the grin Arthur loves, dimpling his cheeks and crinkling the corners of his eyes. He kicks his feet and swipes his slobbery hand over Arthur's cheek. Normally Arthur would pretend to grimace, but he's grinning, too.
"Oh! Look what he can do," Eames says, suddenly remembering. Arthur hands the baby over and sits down to watch as Eames sits him on the floor on his bottom. Thomas reaches for Arthur again, clenching his hands hungrily. "No, show Daddy what you can do, Tommy, remember? Then he'll give you a big cuddle."
Carefully, Eames takes his hands away and leaves Thomas sitting there. For a second he's actually sitting up unsupported, and Arthur opens his mouth to say something, but then he flops backwards into Eames' waiting hands.
"He did it earlier," Eames says sheepishly. "Although I did sort of ... prop him up, like ..."
He tries again, balancing Thomas just so. This time Thomas slides slowly forward, landing on his belly, where he jams his fist back into his mouth, entirely unconcerned at this predicament.
"Well, he can do it," Eames says defensively. "He's just being a lazy sod now."
Arthur strokes a hand over Thomas' silky head, rubbing the tiny ears. Secretly, he's glad Thomas is being lazy. He's growing faster than either of his siblings; he can already roll over. The next stage will be mobility, and then he'll be a toddler before they know it, and Arthur likes him just like this: small and wriggly and soft, like a little caterpillar. Thomas smiles secretively at him again around the hand in his mouth.
There's a distinctly concerned warble from the crib in the corner.
"That'll be Will," Eames says as Arthur automatically gets up. "I just fed and put Leah down an hour ago."
By the time Arthur reaches the crib, the warbling has turned into a full-blown wail. The crying used to scare him; now he reaches in easily and scoops William out. The baby curves toward him, snuffling at his neck, and keeps up a series of wails while Arthur carries him downstairs to fetch a bottle of formula from the fridge, murmuring gently to him all the while. He warms it up, tests it, and offers it. At first William squirms, pushing it away, but Arthur keeps coaxing and once he's had a taste he latches on greedily.
"That's my boy," Arthur murmurs, carrying him back upstairs. Will is still light, too light; they were all born tiny, but Will's the smallest of his siblings. At birth he'd been no longer than the span from the tip of Eames' middle finger to the base of his palm. His brother and sister grew quickly but the first month of Will's life was a constant struggle to put weight on him, riddling Arthur with anxiety.
He's about nine pounds now, enough that they don't worry about him so much, and he keeps almost everything down, so Arthur didn't feel too terrible about leaving them for a quick four-day trip in the last stages of a point job he'd worked mostly from home.
Of course, he didn't anticipate how it would feel to be separated from his family. Every day he'd been away, he felt as if he'd been ripped in half.
"Did they drive you crazy?" he asks Eames, settling in an armchair in a corner of the nursery.
"Me? Never," says Eames. He's still trying to convince Thomas to sit up, and Thomas is just as determined to keep toppling over. Eames pauses, and grins up at Arthur. "Alright, Ariadne stayed over for a few days. But only because I've only got so many hands."
"I'll try to find jobs I won't have to leave home for."
"That would be a good idea for when they get mobile," Eames says, catching Thomas on a backwards flop and tickling his tummy, making him squeal. "I imagine we'll need all hands on deck."
Arthur tries not to think about it. He just relaxes into the chair with a sigh, closing his eyes, and listens to the soft suckling sound of William at the bottle. Absently, he thumbs one of Will's ears. It's nearly impossible to tell whether his features are more lupine or feline at this stage -- his tail is a skinny little slip and his small, triangular ears could go either way at this point. But it's obvious he takes after Arthur. His fur is grey, almost silver, and his tail is a bit longer than his siblings' and striped. Even his hair is dark like Arthur's. Leah, too, has dark hair, but her and Thomas' tails are tawny-coloured.
You came from me, Arthur thinks, not the first time he's thought it, with a strange twist of emotion in his chest. And I thought I didn't want you.
He's practically drifting off, jet-lagged and lulled by the sound of Will's steady suckling, but he opens his eyes then and yelps in surprise.
"What?" Eames demands, already sweeping Thomas up and jumping to his feet. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing -- it's just -- Christ," Arthur says, with a disbelieving laugh. Will gazes steadily up at him, still suckling from the bottle, his muzzle damp and milk-stained from what doesn't end up in his mouth.
"He transformed!" Eames cheers. "Look, Tommy! Your brother's like you!"
Arthur catches his breath, slowly stroking Will's baby fur. It's soft and dark grey. He looks -- like a wolf cub, like Thomas and Leah do when they change, but like a throwback of some kind, sleeker and with a longer tail.
Eames swaps babies with Arthur, careful to let Will go on nursing, and deftly removes his onesie so that he can squirm about as he pleases. His paws clutch at nothing, kneading the air.
"Look," Eames says, taking the bottle away for a moment so that he can show Arthur the pup's back. Just above his tail, barely standing out against the dark charcoal fur, is a row of faded black tabby stripes, spangled with spots toward the edges.
"Guess he's a werewolf after all," Arthur says softly. He's taken longer to change than both his siblings, and they'd been starting to wonder, with his slightly-feline features.
Eames squeezes onto the chair at his side and lets the pup continue to nurse, while Arthur wonderingly strokes his fingertips down the tabby stripes. Will shuts his eyes and pushes insistently at Eames' shirt with both forepaws, then settles and quietly starts to purr.
"The world's first purring werewolf," Eames whispers.
They watch him, long after Thomas has dozed off, until Will licks his lips several times, yawns squeakily, and goes to sleep as well, his belly full of warm milk.
"What will we do when they sync up to the lunar cycle?" Arthur asks in a hushed voice.
"They should mostly sleep though it at first," Eames answers, equally quiet. "They'll just creep around and chew on one another a bit even if they are awake. When they're big enough, I'll take them with me."
"You'll eat them!" Arthur hisses.
"I'd never hurt my own babies!" Eames shoots back indignantly.
"How do you know?" Arthur demands.
"I just do." Eames passes a hand down William's back again, gazing at him affectionately. "I'll teach them everything they need to know. And if anything tries to hurt them, I'll rip it to shreds."
Arthur has to admit, that's pretty reassuring.
They sit together for awhile. Leah wakes up with a little coo, and Arthur hands Thomas over to Eames so that he can go and give her a cuddle, too, and they sprawl there on the chair, all five of them.
"Thanks for looking after them," Arthur says, drowsily, while Leah sucks on a pacifier in his arms. Eames yawns.
"Where would you be without me?"
"Well, I'd be single," Arthur says. "And I wouldn't have any mutant werekitten babies."
"And that would be awful," says Eames sleepily.
"Yeah," Arthur agrees. He tightens his hold on Leah minutely before he falls asleep. "It would."
moar werekittens