When a pair of Kinfolk had gone off in one direction and a Garou off in another, it had been around ten in the morning, perhaps a little later. An hour into the hike the Kinswomen had their lives threatened by a twisted abomination of two humans come together for the rest of their miserable
Fifteen minutes later, perhaps less, with wounds mended and shaken nerves trying to smooth themselves, Lola Hawkes's body reacted in a delayed way to the damage that it had taken, even though it had been healed already. When under fire the body will do anything it can to keep going, right down to ejecting foreign bodies for the sake of saving their own; her water broke.
Thankfully, with the help of the strong legs of an able-bodied Garou perhaps, the way back to the house was not a long one.
Come half-past one, Rina Ghosh had roamed outside of the house to seek her son and summon him in. He should come meet his daughter.
Hector Ghosh
Hushed voices at the terminus of the hallway. Where the great room opens up into a loft and leads into the kitchen.
Hector had instead to stay behind to cleanse the Fomor's body and dispose of the remains while the women went back up to the house but Lola's body had other plans. Of course he helped her back to the house. Of course he got the hell out of there when Rina shooed him. This wasn't any place for a male and he had bodies to cleanse and cremate.
By the time that foul necessary work was done his mother was out on the porch looking for him. He'd hosed off before coming inside the house but now they're lingering out where the sun is drifting in through the windows.
"You don't know how she's going to react," Lola can hear Hector hissing at his mother.
"Neither do you," Rina answers in a harsh whisper.
"I know more than you do."
"Not about this."
"Mom--"
"Hector, you're being ridiculous."
"Why, because I don't want to--!"
"She's your daughter. Get in there."
Stumbling footsteps like someone graceful who's been shoved and Hector walks down the hallway. His feet are bare now and so is his chest. He took off everything that splattered with blood and his hair and face and hands are clean now. Dried because Rina made him dry them.
Hector leans slow to peer in through the doorway to the master bedroom but he does not come in yet.
Lola Hawkes
In the hallway Hector finds nothing in disarray. His mate could be a whirlwind of rage and anger and aggression when worked up, but that hasn't happened in quite a while. Rina was probably a huge help, as was being immobilized by spine-shuddering wracks of pain.
Inside the bedroom Hector finds his woman sitting on their bed, propped up with pillows behind her and her head and shoulders rested on their wall (no headboard, that thing had been removed early in their relationship). Her hair was piled up on top of her head, strings sticking to her neck and face with the sweat that was still-drying on her skin. She was wearing a loose shapeless dress that draped over her body and reached her knees-- that left her arms and shoulders bare and could be shifted aside.
Lola looked up when Hector peered around the corner-- she'd been staring down at the wrapped-up bundle of blanket cradled up to her chest. She blinked at him once, then offered a smile that hiked one corner of her mouth higher than the other. She looked exhausted, of course.
"Hey."
Eloquent to a fault.
Hector Ghosh
Somehow he thought that would take longer. Must have been all those books he'd been reading that he'd long since abandoned because all they did was make him nervous.
He has been to far reaches of the Deep Umbra tethered to his first and only mentor and he has stared down creatures larger than he and his friends combined scaled and miserable and breathing green fire. He knows what the northern lights look like from the other side of the Umbra and he can see and talk to spirits. The world doesn't look the same to him as it does to other people.
Tonight the sky will be dark, the moon's face obscured. They will not know until the little bundle in Lola's arms reaches puberty if she is Kinfolk or Garou but maybe they will suspect as she grows up. Right now he can barely believe she's here.
He steps into the doorway and laughs a stunned quiet laugh.
"Hey," he says. Gathers up his hair and ties it back. He still smells like ash tree smoke and hose water. Across the distance Lola can read the scar tissue on his right upper abdomen and left shoulder. The black hair grown on his chest. He's getting darker with the time spent shirtless in the sun. "Nobody was timing you, you know."
Lola Hawkes
The comment earned Hector a laugh that was rough and raspy. He'd heard the screaming and shrill cursing she'd done through the windows and walls of the house. She'd left her throat raw, but didn't complain for it. There was a sense of stunned calm that followed an ordeal like that.
"Everything's a contest, isn't it?" Eyebrows hopped up on her forehead, poking fun at her own competitive nature. Lola then shifted her gaze back down into her arms, shifted hands to move blankets around-- away from the newborn's face.
"You were right. I'm sure your mother told you." Lola looked back to Hector next. "Come here, meet her proper."
Hector Ghosh
That he hesitates this long is not out of fear of all of this becoming real but because he has to make sure he can handle what hearing the baby fuss and cry and scream when he comes too close is going to do to him. Never mind that the fussing of infants and the unease of children to which he has grown accustomed has been exacerbated by the way their parents react to him.
When he was a cub Hector was out of control. His Rage was hot and he was a hyperactive teenage boy prior to his First Change. A hyperactive brown-skinned teenage boy. Small wonder he scared everyone. He felt like a bomb about to detonate.
So he stands in the doorway until Lola bids him enter and then he steps in with far more hesitation than he did the night she brought him in here and they lay together for the first time.
He pads across the room quiet as he can so as not to startle a newborn who has heard his loud-ass voice muffled only by her mother's belly the last several months. Who has heard him speaking to her nearly every morning. Raksha knows his voice already even if she doesn't know she knows. She's a baby. A blank slate.
Hector sniffs and clears his throat gentle and climbs onto the bed beside Lola. The blankets rustle beneath him and he draws close without touching either of them yet. If Lola gets the idea that he's holding his breath now that wouldn't be an inaccurate observation.
Lola Hawkes
To the relief of both bodies now climbed up on the bed, the baby didn't begin to scream when her werewolf father came close. Lola wasn't holding her breath, but she had squared up her shoulders some, steeled for the scenario were it to unfurl and break her man's heart. They fell back round with relief when all the baby did was blink bleary eyes and scrunch up an already scrunched and wrinkly forehead.
Newborns are weird looking, and this one was no exception. She'd come out with dense black hair and bright pink skin, with ten fingers and toes and no clear deficiencies. She did not struggle to breathe or wail in agony from some ailment that they couldn't diagnose without a doctor.
Lola leaned into Hector when he settled on the mattress, tucked her head near to his. Shifted her arms to better cradle the infant. Her hold on the tiny body was naturally defensive and protective and ginger and gentle. Like she was afraid to bruise or break the thing. They'd learn soon enough not to be so worried, but that would come in time.
Relief rang in Lola's breath when she spoke. "You worried for nothing-- she's okay, look."
Hector Ghosh
As Lola leans into him so does Hector settle himself down on the bed that he can wrap his arms around both her and the baby. That she can rest her weight on him and draw comfort from him that he was not here to give her while she labored. Once she's shifted he smooths her damp hair back from her brow and kisses her temple and looks down at their baby.
Both of them sound relieved. Hector sounds overwhelmed but happy. Hard to think of the last time he sounded properly happy when he wasn't stoned.
"Holy shit," he says. He sniffs again and stifles his laugh so he don't startle the newborn with the loudness of his unmuffled voice. He touches the edges of her blanket before dusting his fingers over her brow. "Hi, love..."
They can both hear Rina as she steps away from the doorway and pads into the kitchen. And Lola can hear nine months of pent up helplessness and fear and worry rush out of him in the rattling breath he lets go and when he kisses her on the mouth now it's salty with sweat and unshed tears but sweet too.
No comments:
Post a Comment