Kintsukuroi
The long and lovely road to piecing together new family.
Pairing: romantic dukeceit, platonic dukeceit & sasha
Word count: 806
Warnings: trans male pregnancy, all fluff
Notes: chapter 2 of adventures in parenting in my Pieces verse!
thank you to @teacupfulofstarshine for beta-reading!
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Janus had been expecting it, in the sense that he knew it was going to happen.
He’d eventually capitulated to his mother’s nagging demands that he have a physician, Dr. Kayden, to monitor him (although he’d made it clear that the pleasant but no-nonsense midwife he’d actually hired, Ms. Lancaster, was in charge between the two of them, much to Kayden’s displeasure) and both of them had informed him that toward the end of the third month was when he could expect movement. No one could seem to give him a thorough explanation of what the movement would actually feel like, only that he would know it when he felt it, which was somewhat annoying.
The good news was that he was coming down from the abominable first trimester experiences of wildly fluctuating moods, a constant need to pee, and a distaste for all things consumable. Lancaster was not happy with the lack of weight gain, but Janus could barely stand the smell of food half the time, though he’d been spared what sounded like the nightmare that was morning sickness.
He was actually beginning to feel rather obnoxiously cheerful, which everyone had definitely noticed and magnanimously not teased him about. Everyone except Remus, of course, who’d taken to calling him various sunshine-themed nicknames.
So it was this humming to himself habit that made him miss it for the first few minutes – he’d been going around cleaning up after breakfast while Remus helped Sasha bathe in the other room, the doors propped open so he could hear them. Sasha told a bombastic tale too full of toddler-babbles to really follow, but just the sound of her voice had Janus grinning and humming a tune of contentment to himself.
He would do everything in his power to make sure the child in question never found out, but he’d actually mistaken it for indigestion. When it first happened, he’drested his hand on his stomach and glanced suspiciously toward the bathroom in anticipation of a fart he’d need to hide from Remus, because he could be a complete twelve-year-old about bodily functions and Janus didn’t want him and Sasha to get into an hour-long loop laughing about it.
Except when he laid his hand there, he felt it again, and this time it telegraphed to the surface of his skin. Just a little flutter of a touch.
He dropped the glass he was holding loudly in the soapy sink.
“Jan?” called Remus. “You good?”
Janus made a wild, inarticulate noise in response, speed walking to the bathroom and throwing himself to the floor beside Remus. Remus was in pajamas – there was no point in getting dressed before giving Sasha her morning bath, you’d only have to change again afterwards – with his sleeves rolled up and kneeling on the tile, looking up at Janus with a startled expression.
“Where’s the fire, babe?”
“Give me your hand!” said Janus hysterically, gesturing wildly for it.
“Uh, oka- yeow, Jan, you’re gonna break my wrist, holy-”
“Jar!” Janus cut him off.
“-yyyyy guacamole.” Remus covered poorly, laughing sheepishly. His hand rested on Janus’s stomach and Janus shushed him.
A stretch of silence, and then the little flutters – Janus starting giggling hysterically, and Remus’s confused expression took a turn for gobsmacked.
“What the what!”
“Sashin, Sashin, do you want to feel the baby?”
“Yer tummy?”
“Yes, the baby’s moving,” said Janus, approaching absolute giddiness.
“Wow!” she said, pulling herself up on the lip of the tub. Janus grabbed her, uncaring of the bathwater and suds, lifted her out to sit on the bath mat beside him, and put her tiny hand in place.
“They got feet!” she said excitedly. “N’ they’re running around!”
“They’re not that small,” laughed Janus. “They’re about the size of a mango right now - that’s what Ms. Lancaster’s booklet said.”
“W’a’s a mango?”
“You’ve never had a mango?” said Janus, briefly distracted. “We’ll get you a mango, sweet, to celebrate the baby moving.”
“Mango baby,” whispered Remus, looking absolutely enamored even though the flutters had stopped for almost a full minute.
“C’n we name’a baby Mango?” said Sasha.
“We can save it for a nickname, how about that, Sashin?” laughed Janus.
“They feel so tiny, a mango, really?” muttered Remus, sounding like he might be talking to himself entirely.
“They feel quite bigger than a mango on this end, I assure you.”
“Hi, Mango!” said Sasha, pressing her face to Janus's stomach and talking right against it. “I’m Sasha, I’m yer sister. Yer so small.”
“I… Sash? Why are you out of the tub?” said Remus, sounding slightly dazed.
Janus and Sasha both dissolved into giggles at Remus’s expense, and kept giggling throughout the whole process of getting her actually rinsed and finished with her bath.
Remus couldn’t seem to stop grinning, so Janus figured he didn’t mind.
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