du_vallon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Porthos thinks Aramis might buzz away with anxiety.

Honestly, he thinks he might do it himself if given the chance. Sitting in a room with a doctor shuffling through papers as they wait to hear what their child is going to be...well, Porthos hasn't got the steadiness for it and he'd have thought he could do this. Apparently, that's not the case. He reaches over and squeezes Aramis' hand, giving him an encouraging smile.

"Healthy," he reminds him softly. "That's all. Healthy, we don't care about anything else, right?"

He leans back and stares at the doctor, giving him an encouraging look.

"Well, gentlemen," the doctor begins. "I won't keep you waiting for long at all. I'm happy to tell you that everything looks healthy and by the end of the year, you're going to have a baby girl to welcome into the family, Mr. and Mr. d'Herblay du Vallon." With that, he slides a small picture forward, a black and white thing that Porthos thinks he can make out a thumb on.

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After waiting so long - to find a surrogate, to learn that the baby had taken, the drive to arrive here after the call, the interminable moments spent sitting in this office waiting for the doctor to arrive - it's all happened so fast that Aramis has difficulty keeping up. The man spoke so quickly, he said - he said that it's -

"A girl," Aramis breathes, reaching out for the sonogram. He recognizes it very well from his studies. "It's a picture of her," he says as he turns wondering eyes on Porthos. "In the womb. Here's her head, you see?"

Porthos leans forward with awe, everything else becoming a rush of white noise as he pays attention to only that little picture in Aramis' hands. He still can't exactly believe that all this is happening and that little picture is more proof than anything else that it's actually happening to them. He breathes out, eyes thick with happy tears, and he reaches it to slide his thumb over the head.

"You get to name her Ana after all," he gets out, with a disbelieving laugh.

"Ana," says Aramis, covering Porthos' hand with his own. "Our Ana. I can't believe it." He looks up, remembering suddenly that they're not alone, though it feels as if the whole world has narrowed to the family they've at last begun to build.

"May we keep this?" he asks of the sonogram, beaming when the answer is yes. "We'll frame it."

Ana Lucia, he thinks. He's already thinking of how he'll hold this tiny infant in his arms and kiss her nose and call her his Lucie. He thinks of all the gifts he'll shower upon her. Lifting Aramis' hand to his lips, he brushes kisses to each knuckle, letting out a relieved sob that the baby is healthy, even though his true fears are for later -- he's seen at least a dozen births, but none of them had made it to a healthy baby.

"Thank you, sir," he says dutifully to the doctor, wobbly as he stands and wraps his arm around Aramis' waist. "We'll see you in a few weeks, yes?" The doctor nods his confirmation and Porthos manages to get Aramis out into the hall.

Aramis hardly feels the floor beneath him, holding tightly to Porthos as he is ushered into the hall. "Our Lucie," he laughs, clutching at Porthos' shoulders. They must make quite a spectacle in the hall, holding one another and the both of them weeping, but Aramis hardly cares. "It's really happening."

"It's been happening for a few months now, we just know what to buy her," he says, struck by the way it sounds when he says 'her'. It's not just a baby, now, it's their daughter. For all that Aramis has been convinced it's going to be a girl, it's another thing entirely to now look down the road and know they're right. "I want to take you to dinner," he says suddenly. "Somewhere nice and fancy, to celebrate."

"Like this?" asks Aramis, grinning as he swipes both hands beneath his eyes. They'd both fled the house in whatever they had on in their race to the doctor's - Aramis in just jeans and a loose cotton t-shirt. "I'm hardly fancy."

Porthos has been palming that shirt for the last minute, his big hand sliding up and down the cotton, fisting it up to drag him in close. "We could stop by home and change, or I could buy you something new on the way to dinner," he says. He's not much better in his green henley and his yoga trousers, but he also has no issues spending money on clothing to make himself feel better.

"Perhaps we don't need to go to a restaurant," says Aramis. "We could get some meats and cheeses, a few bottles, take it all to the park. We'll be visiting there often when she's here. Blankets on the grass in the spring and the fall, building snowpeople in the winter." Aramis nearly vibrates with it. "The little playground when she's big enough."

Porthos' face melts into pure, giddy happiness as he thinks about picnics in the park with an infant crawling around. He thinks of curling her up in a blanket and all his fears vanish for a moment because screwing up is for later in her life. "The only trouble with both these plans is that when I want to get my hands on you, people are going to stare."

Aramis laughs. "I believe that would also be true in a restaurant," he says, raising his brows, "Though they do have washrooms. No, we can't risk that anymore, can we?" he asks, sliding his hand into Porthos'. "We are fathers now."

"Don't tell me this means we're going to be respectable and never have sex again," Porthos says, a momentary glimmer of panic in his words given that he doesn't think he could go without, after growing so accustomed to it. "I suppose the solution would be for us to go home and I could cook you the sort of dinner that I want to. The kind of dinner that I'd cook for us when it's a four of us and not a three."

"That is a very good compromise," says Aramis, supposing they will have time to traverse the length of the city and countryside, making plans for Lucie in all of it. He leans in, taking Porthos' earlobe between his teeth despite their public setting. "If you think we're never having sex when she's here, think again."

Porthos mutters profanities under his breath when Aramis starts to work his earlobe. "You," he says, in a low growl, "are going to go find a frame for the picture. I am going to go purchase ingredients and start cooking. When I get back to the flat, I expect you to have the picture framed. I'll have lost most of my clothes," he informs Aramis, "all save the apron and maybe some underwear."

Aramis gapes at him, picturing that, but he gathers himself and gives a smart nod. "No less than half an hour," he promises, barely managing to break himself away from Porthos long enough to walk down the hall. If he touches him again right now they'll surely find themselves in the washroom after all.

He'd prefer more time at the grocer's to sort through the fruits and vegetables for freshness, but he takes what he can get. He makes his purchases as madly and quickly as he can, heading back with the intention of making lamb with a light salad and those whipped potatoes Aramis had loved so much on the boat.

It thrills him to think of doing this with their baby, swaddled up in his arms. He pushes that anticipation to the side as he heads for home, quick to drop all his clothes in the front hall and equip himself just with the apron and tight boxer-briefs as he gets the oven going.

Aramis does his best to hurry. The trouble is, the first frame store he enters has a copying service, and by the time he leaves it's with the framed original, another in a magnetic frame for the refrigerator, and a third in a sticky frame for the bathroom mirror.

Aramis returns to the flat to find Porthos' clothes already on the floor, and he rushes inside, pausing to appreciate Porthos' barely clad frame. "Look what I've bought!" he says excitedly.

Porthos turns away from the oven and from where he's chopping vegetables to inspect what Aramis has, drifting closer as he lets out a fond laugh, hand on the space between Aramis' shoulderblades as he stares fondly at the little picture they're looking at. "We're going to drive Athos to twitching," he says knowingly. "But I wouldn't have it any other way," he vows.

"Perhaps he won't know what it's a picture of," says Aramis, staring down at the sonogram. After all, it's hardly obvious. "We'll tell him we're suddenly into very strange, very monochromatic art."

"He loves us for us," Porthos says firmly, which is a conclusion he's come to recently when he'd told himself to stop worrying so much. If things don't work out, then they won't work out. No use worrying all the time about it. "And that means he'll love us for loving the baby, even now."

He continues to mix the rub for the meat in a bowl, turning so Aramis can get a good view of his arse in the tight briefs. "Put them everywhere," he insists.

Aramis lifts his gaze from Porthos' backside and nods. "Everywhere, then," he says, leaving the first frame on the fridge. He places it right in the middle, then hurries to the bathroom, dropping some of his outer layers once inside. He leaves a second frame on the mirror, just below where they trim their beards, and puts the final frame on the bedside table.

When he returns to the kitchen, Aramis divides his attention between Porthos' sinful body and the sonogram. "I wish we could make out more of her face," he muses.

"I hope she's got your eyes," Porthos says. "And smile, but I just wish I could know if she's going to have dimples," he says, hope radiating on his face as he thinks of what that would look like. "And with luck, your adorable little nose, too," he jokes, setting the rub aside so he can start on the potatoes.

"Will you peel?" he asks, holding one out to him. "If you know they're for those whipped potatoes from the night you proposed, will you peel them for me?"

"Of course," says Aramis, stepping towards the peeler. He'd have done it regardless, but for those whipped potatoes he'll work doubletime. "I think she'll have dimples," he says, head cocked as he pictures it. "I have some beneath this mustache, albeit not as pronounced as yours. And if hers are reluctant, we'll simply have to ensure that she is smiling, all the time."

Porthos reaches over to palm Aramis' face with his large hand. "I love that you've already grown it back, makes me feel right about the world," he teases, with all the fondness he can muster. His heart soars to think of a little baby girl with Aramis' eyes, giggling as he tells her jokes and tickles her. "I hope she doesn't hate us," he murmurs. "I've seen some girls at the shelter and they hate their parents."

"Porthos, please," says Aramis without a hint of fear as he peels, unjacketing one potato after the other. "You are impossible to hate, and I refuse to imagine such an awful fate for myself. Our Lucie will know how deeply she is loved. We may make mistakes now and again, but we will make her happy."