a flower bud in concrete

His thumb rubbed over the back of her knuckles, pressing down a little harder as Destiny started to shift restlessly in the seat. Grey glanced over at her, brows rising before he gave that little huff. Nerves jangling in both of them, an anticipation that came with a thrilled little bubble of something under his diaphragm that almost felt like what Destiny had described to him. Not a growing baby testing out the space in his own stomach but something that had been trapped for years trying to finally break free. Hope? Need? Excitement? It sure as hell wasn’t that paranoid punch of fear now – although there’d been some moments since he’d asked to do this. A flicker of light in the rear view mirror, the sound of unexpected heels approaching across the marble floor of the hotel, his phone ringing Destiny’s ring tone – that bright jangle of it – when he hadn’t expected her to call.

A little voice had warned too soon in his head a hundred times over since the confessional in her bed. A bad move to leave himself so vulnerable when Leah was still slinking around town, sniffing around like a mangy dog out in the woods. Cold eyes fixing on whatever she thought she could take down – a mistake he was going to show her with his hands around her throat this time, he wanted to see the moment she realised the tables had always been turned in his favour.

Grey let his gaze tick from the curve of Destiny’s cheek to the burgeoning bulge of her bump, back to the road – careful. He wasn’t about to go down easy, not with so much more than just his own existence on the line now. There was that rising bubble of anticipation again, catching him at the back of his throat as Destiny pulled his hand over. Red light – safe. He swallowed hard, fingers tracing gently over his stomach like he could dowse that tiny flicker out. Grey concentrated for a moment, waiting, straining but in the end he was chuckling, shaking his head. ”Not yet. Don’t think they’re ready to perform me.” Until then, he was gonna have to take every cue from her, watching Destiny to feel, to see what they had created. If time carried on whipping on it wouldn’t be long.

Jesus, almost 20 weeks, the halfway point marked down like a goal post. There was a list, things to mark off when it was all going well and they were. Textbook despite all that was hanging over them. Grey’s brows rose as he shook his head, something a little uncertain in it. It had felt like tempting fate when they’d discussed it before, like stripping away the surprise was going to bring those bars slamming down around everything, walling it up back in that darkness. ”Not if you don’t want to,” he murmured, giving her belly one last brush of his hand before it was back on the wheel and he was pulling away from the lights. ”We can do fun. I’m sure there’s someone in town that could make it.” Turn it into a celebration, even if iron bands closed around that bubble in his chest to squeeze it. They weren’t tempting fate, Tinkerbell was just lighting up with the joy of it.

Fluttering. Bouncing. That jiggle back. Thankfully he hadn’t been the one who’d had to avoid peeing, although there’d been a wince of empathy as he’d gone before they’d left. An asshole move maybe, but this didn’t need the two of them doing the desperate toilet two-step. Grey held out his arm, helping to lever Destiny up out of the car. Seriousness slid back in for a minute, one brow arching as he glanced down to check. ”Maybe they’ve got someone on staff who just deals with that. Hides in a closet with a mop and bucket.” Waiting for that little pop, like the bumps were just water balloons ready to deflate after those over firm curves had been mapped out with what the websites he’d pored over had called an ultrasound wand. Like the doctors were faeries – or wizards – in those Disney movies, ready to bibbidi bobbidi boo the babies.

Maybe he would pee himself. The usual surface calm was cracking as they were shown back into a room that was all clinical, technical. Grey stood beside the bed, teeth latched onto his lower lip, eyes already flickering to the monitors like they’d somehow already be showing the baby. The smile he shot Destiny as she squeezed his hand was more confident than he felt. It was all getting close, serious. He should’ve been feeling that itch to bolt, like this was one step too close to his dad’s downfall, even if Destiny was just like him instead of some furry thing looking to cuckold her husband. ”No family names,” he agreed instantly, his throat going tight. No Malcolm, no Emily. Nothing close to that bitch’s name or he’d choke on it. ”You don’t wanna call her Lady?” Grey clucked his tongue like he was disappointed. Cat probably wouldn’t have argued about naming the baby after her – animal at least. ”What about Nemo for a boy? Or … Peter? Hope to hell he doesn’t end up a lost boy.” That much he’d taken in as his attention had drifted back and forth between the screen and his own personal Tinkerbell.

There was no guarantee what they were having yet, wouldn’t be until the – here she came, the door swinging open and a white coat walking in – tech confirmed it for them. The woman beamed, probably trained to be as practically perfect as they could manage. Smiles were meant to be reassuring when they didn’t come with that razor’s edge. ”Afternoon. I’m Meg. I’m gonna be performing your ultrasound today. Are you ready?” That smile didn’t fade as it ticked back and forth between the two of them.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 990

How were there so many traditions with kids here? Swanscombe might’ve been as far away from Mystic Falls as it was New York or Los Angeles, but it was still a million miles away from that little backwater that was still held in the grip of a pack that had probably been running in the fields since the romans had cleared out. These scans, baby showers – with the accompanying shrieks of excited, broody women that’d ripped from his speakers before he’d hammered at the laptop to shut the horror show down – the gender reveals. Even if they’d been available when his mum had been pregnant he’d doubted they’d have gone through with all the little pregnancy rites of passage. The shadow had been there then, already cast by the curse and Malcolm’s inability to keep his trousers on.

Would the scans have shown the dark cloud he worried about for their baby now? Would it have shown the rot in Leah as she’d been crooned to by a man who wasn’t her father?

No matter how hard he had to fight to get them away from it, his kid wasn’t growing up the same way. They were getting cupcakes and sprinkles, the light in their mum’s smile, the one he basked in now. Fairy dust and happiness. The occasional cracks in their dad’s grim shell that had their mum laughing as she hauled herself up and pressed in close. Grey dipped his head down as Destiny pressed her head down into him. ”Is my sense of humour showin’? Oh my.” Quiet, teasing words that got lost in the burst of nerves.

There were no accidents before they got to the office, no excuses for the woman – or man – in the closet to pop out, clucking their tongue at the mess. They got there in one piece before the nerves bit deeper. He hadn’t meant to lose that borrowed light but his brows were already furrowing at the machines before the question of names tightened a fist around his throat. Grey bit back his tone, that rush of something angrier than he wanted to be at Destiny. No, no inheritance of that sort for their kid. ”It’s better than some, you try being the kid at school named after a colour,” he quipped, the corner of his mouth hitching higher for a split second. Greyson had been his mum’s dad’s name, Charles Malcolm’s dad’s. He wouldn’t pass that pressure on, trying to scrub everything in clean for the birth.

The suggestions got worse from there, the subject easier to joke about when it wasn’t him they were picking around. Grey squinted, screwing up his face before he chuckled, a damp palm curling around the frame. ”How about we split the difference and get crabby? Sebastian?” All joking suggestions until Destiny side stepped. He stood, watched her for a moment before he bobbed his head. No Peter’s in his ancestral line, definitely not with a Y. ”Petyr sounds pretty perfect.” His voice was hoarser now, the smile less forced. ”Alice down the rabbit hole.” The words tailed off, log jamming in his throat as the door swung open and the technician strolled in.

Grey’s hand sought out Destiny’s, knotting in the sheets instead as she flipped her shirt up. The jelly, cold most of the time according to what else he’d read online. He trailed his tongue over the inner border of his lower lip, eyes ticking from that bulge of belly to Destiny’s. A purse of lips, a little nod. Meg. Normal but not bad. Lists growing, swimming around in his head and almost disappearing entirely as the tech settled and the wand came out. ”A good surprise,” Grey echoed hoarsely. ”You don’t get too many of them in life, right?” Not when your lives were like theirs but …

He couldn’t have said if those blobby shapes on screen were perfect or not, if this was going as well as they were hoping it would but … they were perfect. Recognisable this time, the curve of the head, a tiny upturned nose – maybe like his mum’s but it had to be too earlier to tell. Grey’s breath exploded out of him, the smile coming without any effort behind it this time. Few things had his eyes burning in a good way but this time the tears swam up as he fumbled for the hand Destiny was reaching out for him. She caught his shirt, his hand curling around her forearm as he laughed. ”Is it too early to say they look just like their mom? They’re perfect … they are good right?” He swallowed hard, eyes darting back to the tech. The tech slid the wand again, keeping the whoosh, whoosh in range as measurements were taken and all that technical stuff happened that was meant to be a reassurance, a guide to make sure that the baby was just as they were meant to be.

The smile on the woman’s face as she punched the button to produce the print outs from the ultrasound was a relief that didn’t need words but they came anyway and nearly had him sinking down on his knees on the tile. ”Right on track and revealing their little secret for me. I’ll get that down for you.” The wand was set aside, the images, clearer than the others, set down on the edge of the bed while she scrawled something on the chart, and on a sheet of paper that was folded up. A gift to pass on to the baker, to be revealed in sprinkles or however else they did those things.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 940