#I WANT TO BE ON THAT COUCH WITH HIM SO BAD GRRRRRRRRR | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ashestoashesjc · 4 years

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A Necromancer & His Zombie Boyfriend On A Couple's Retreat

Short Story 1/2/(3)/4/5/6/7/8/9/10

"RrRRrrrr... grrr? <Hey, uh, babe... seen my arm anywhere?>" rang Sett's voice throughout their cigar box of a house as he rummaged through closets, opened cabinets, overturned couch cushions.

Shutting and latching the front door behind him, Ulrick began flipping through the stack of envelopes clutched in his right hand. "Huh? Oh…”

“Okay, so… don’t get mad,” Ulrick began, as meekly and guilt-tinged as one can make a shout. “But... there was this huge, I mean HUGE silverfish…”

“GRrrr! Rrrrr. <Dude! Not cool,>” could be heard as Sett stomped his way to the foyer.

“I know! I’m sorry! I’m weak!” moaned Ulrick.

Sett sighed as he entered the cove and laid his single remaining hand on Ulrick’s left shoulder, the other sleeve draped flaccidly at his side. “Grrrr. <Well, yeah.>” he said. Ulrick snickered.

“You know, having your boyfriend kill a bug for you is exceedingly normal,” Ulrick said, separating the bills from the letters that weren’t bills. There were very few that weren’t bills. “Almost conventional.”

“Rrr. <True,>” Sett replied. “Rggrrrr. <Probably while the arm’s still attached, though.>”

“A mere quibble.”

“Rrrrgrrr? <So, where is it now?>” Sett asked.

“Ugh. Still getting cozy with the silverfish, I’d imagine,” Ulrick admitted, guilt creeping back into his voice. He covered his eyes with his free hand and shuddered. “In… the shower.”

Sett sucked air through his teeth in a compassion-filled cringe.

“Yeah,” Ulrick sighed, resigned to his trauma.

“Grrrr. <Don’t worry,>” said Sett. “Rraarr. <I got it.>”

Ulrick slid his hand down his face with a grateful groan. “God, I love you.” Sett pulled him forward by his collar and pecked his forehead.

Continuing to sort through the mail, Ulrick came to a red envelope and, seeing it addressed to Sett, handed it over. “Looks important.”

Confusion clouded Sett’s eyes for the first few, slow moments spent undoing the envelope’s seal flap, until suddenly, a surge of realization like lightning drove him to violently tear the crimson paper away.

As he scanned the contents of the letter contained within, words failing to do his emotional state justice, Sett began to fist pump wildly, God help anyone in the flight path of his singular elbow. Ulrick looked on in entranced bewilderment.

“Was there itching powder in that envelope?” asked Ulrick.

Sett shoved the creased letter in Ulrick’s face, his manic energy not yet dissipated. Ulrick took it and held it out at arm’s length until his eyes brought the words into focus.

“A couple’s retreat?” he wondered aloud, lowering the paper enough to peer over the top at Sett.

“Grrgrrrr. <An all-expenses paid couple’s retreat.> Rrrrrr. <At a swanky resort.> GrrrrRr. <Complete with water skis.>”

“This is from a contest?” he asked, rotating and inspecting the sheet. “When did we enter a contest?”

“Rrggrrrr? <You know those entry slips we’re getting in the post all the time?>”

“The ones I’m always throwing away? I’m familiar.”

“RrrRrrrrr ggrrrr. <Well, your aim could use some work, because some of them wind up in the mailbox,>” said Sett, with a shrug.

The sound that next filled the room, colored with exasperated mirth, was one Sett was used to Ulrick making, though one that never stopped bringing a flush of heat to the place where his heart used to be.

He grabbed Ulrick by the hips and the two began to sway back and forth. “Rrrrrr. <Just imagine it,>” he purred dreamily. “GrrrRRrrrr rrrrRrrr grrr...arrrr? <Massages, rock-climbing, a luau. And… did I mention waterskiing?>”

Swaying still, Ulrick looked up with his head cocked. "I've... never heard you mention waterskiing before."

"GrrRrrrrrr. <I enjoy a lot of things I don't talk about.> Rgrrrrgrrr. <Like country music, or bad chick lit,>" Sett said before twirling and dipping Ulrick in a blur. "Rraarrrr. <I'm a multi-layered zombie.>"

Breaking clumsily away from the songless dance and squeezing the bridge of his nose, Ulrick set down the remainder of the mail on the side table by the entrance and looked his boyfriend over. “It’s totally free?”

“Grrarrr. <It’s totally free,>” confirmed Sett.

Ulrick raised an eyebrow. “No catch?”

“Rrr… <Well…>”

“And streeetch! That’s right! Streeetch!”

At the front of Meadow Grove Resort’s famed yoga studio balanced - one foot planted on the ground, the other hooked deftly behind her neck - Chrysanthemum Smith, a remarkably limber 60-year-old instructor, urging her out-of-shape contest winning students to achieve the same feats of flexibility.

All around Ulrick and Sett, a pretzel factory’s soon-to-be-discarded collection of heinous, gnarly undesirables had been given life in the form of sweaty middle Americans.

That pretzels went through a less agonizing process being baked at 500 degrees was a fact Ulrick was both confident in and envious of. His legs were angled in a way he was sure he’d feel for weeks to come.

Sett, on the other hand, had apparently been a contortionist in a past life, the way he bent himself into poses, well, a pretzel would gawk at, holding each position stoically before moving gracefully on to the next. It also helped that he couldn’t feel what would leave most tendons shredded rags.

Ulrick gave up the pursuit of dislocating his pelvis and instead went to poke Sett in the cheek. Through his mask, Sett made a chomping motion at the finger, though remained otherwise totally still. "Okay, but this kind of bites, right?" Ulrick signed.

"A little. And not in the fun way," Sett signed back.

On a pair of blue, rubber mats to their left were two women - one in a biker's jacket and tattered, patched jeans, short red hair tied into a haphazard ponytail; the other a dark woman donning a shaved head, flower-patterned maxi dress, and combat boots - the former of whom suddenly grabbed Ulrick's attention with a nod.

"You're telling me," she signed.

And in an instant, they were no longer alone in the hazy, secluded sphere that made their reality.

So taken aback was he that he blurted aloud, "You sign?"

The yoga instructor shushed him from her place at the head of the wide room, leading him to duck down sheepishly. With the forced inclusion of an overly casual air, he said more than asked, "You sign."

"Oh, yeah," the woman chuckled gruffly. "Mom's Deaf."

Taking a sudden interest in the conversation, Sett's head swiveled to the leather jacket-clad woman. "Shit yeah!" he signed with fervor, eliciting a harsh snort from the woman. The instructor's head whipped around to glare her way, but went ignored.

Sett's hands jumbled for a moment before he continued. "I mean, I'm sure that must have been very difficult for your family and--"

She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "Nah, don't worry about it. She's capital 'D' Deaf. A congenital thing. Whole family's been signing forever."

Her wife - Jen, they later learned - chimed in with, "Di does it at home, too. She's taught me half the lyrics to Boys for Pele."

"Wow!" Ulrick said with teeth-clenching enthusiasm. "That's so great! Isn't that so great, Sett?"

The mask did nothing to conceal Sett's raised, beaming features. "That's so great!" he signed.

"I'm sorry!" bellowed the lithe yogi, shattering all delusions of serenity. "Am I boring you?"

Several overlapping voices came to the general consensus of "Christ, yes."

One of the husbands, portly and somewhat resembling the famously affable capybara, asked, somewhat less affably, why they were being stretched into taffy when they should be outside taking one-on-one lessons with the beach volleyball instructor. He was joined by a few surly “yeah!”s.

They were met with an unimpressed crossing of the arms. Though it should be noted Smith’s foot was still being held comfortably behind her head.

"I would suggest, in the future, that you more closely scrutinize contest entries," Yogi Smith advised in as calm a manner as it seemed she could now manage, though with an unmistakable edge to her voice. "In order to partake in our facility’s more... physically involved activities, you’ll first need to align and cleanse your mental, emotional, and spiritual energies.”

This provoked a studio-wide groan, with the exclusion of Jen, who seemed just eager enough to cancel out the cloud of grim impatience encircling her.

“Unless, of course,” Smith said, shifting poses to something favoring the letter ‘G’, “you’d prefer to construct your own schedules. In which case, a full price admission to Meadow Grove Resort remains available.”

She sleekly extended her right leg, pointing its foot pin-straight toward the sliding studio doors. “Don’t, as the masters of yore were wont to say, let the door hit ya.”

When no one moved and the room went quiet enough to hear an acupuncture needle drop, Smith resumed a standing position and bowed three times to each division of the studio. “Namaste. Namaste. Namaste.”

Chrysanthemum Smith had in no way undersold how ‘aligned and cleansed’ couple’s therapy and its airings of dirty laundry and subsequent ferocious dissolutions of decades of marriage; couple’s pottery, the same thing but with clay vases; and couple’s finger-painting, a bonding exercise in shared humiliation, would make their minds, emotions, and souls through sheer gut-rending hilarity.

Ulrick almost didn’t want to stop watching people who, hours ago, seemed all confidence and bravado, now being brought to tears by an instructor’s criticism of their macaroni art lacking ‘depth.’

But their confinement was over and they were free to roam the grounds as they saw fit and Sett, without even feigning to look for a map of the resort, made a beeline for the largest body of water (and the largest gathering of humans) he could sniff. Ulrick was still surprised at times by how agile Sett could be on his feet when on the hunt for blood - or recreational watersports - and struggled to keep up.

Their long-awaited waterskiing adventure began almost as soon as they arrived at the lakeside, the instructor needing a volunteer at that instant to man the skis while he lectured another guest on the controls of the boat. At nearly a head taller than anyone else present, Sett didn’t need much more than a raised hand to stand out.

Things were going great; Sett mounted on skis as long as he was tall, the boat revving greedily for take off. At Sett’s thumbs up, the runabout hammered off in a thunderous roar. And then, all at once, things were going wrong.

The envisioned majesty of skimming the motionless calm of the crystal river was halted abruptly with a leaden Sett stumbling mid-lake in his skis, trying and failing to correct himself, going feet-over-head, and sinking like an anchor to the agitated silt of the riverbed below.

Ulrick, though he jumped with concern at the first hint of a misstep, expected a brief swim back, perhaps slowed a bit - but not much - by Sett's stoney limbs. He’d been the star diver of his local swimming hole as a teen and still maintained some of the underwater dexterity, though nowadays tended to lurk the floors of bodies of water like a carnivorous bottom-feeder; eating habits included.

But then a few minutes passed, and nothing. A lifeguard and two of the more experienced swimmers among the guests plunged into the river and searched for fifteen minutes, cracking the surface now and again for a gulp of air, all to no avail. The water was too cloudy with sediment to see past a certain depth, and the orange-purples of dusk were beginning to settle in. They'd need to return in the morning with a diving team.

It'd now been forty-five minutes, and three of the resort’s other guests were consoling Ulrick, one herself on the verge of waterworks. They'd just witnessed a man - someone's significant other - torn tragically from life's teat, and in front of the man he loved, no less.

Ulrick, for his part, was positively miffed.

"When I get my hands on him..." Ulrick started, before one of the grievers tossed him a teary-eyed questioning look. "Er, that is... would that I could only put my hands on him... again..." he corrected.

Just as Ulrick had begun mentally reviewing the basics of the Arts of Throttling, a movement, barely noticeable, shook the surface of the lake. Then bubbles, then the full break of the water as a head rose into view. Then the screams of onlookers as, in the fading light, a ghastly lake monster began its murderous approach. Then screams of a different kind as people began to make the connection proper. Then there was weeping, fainting, more than one declaration of faith renewed. It was a miracle!

Later, after insistences for medical attention were politely but firmly refused and the religious stragglers begging for just a smell of Sett’s waterlogged clothes were shooed away, Ulrick asked why he waited so long to resurface, to which Sett said, "GrrrrRRrr. <Well, at first I was just sort of embarrassed.> RrrrrrrGrrrRrrr? <Then I thought, "How often do these people see miracles?>"

"Oh, sure," groaned Ulrick. "A man comes out of a lake after half an hour and it's a miracle. A man comes out of a grave after a few months and it's "Grab the torches and pitchforks, everyone!""

"Rrrr. <Babe.>"

Ulrick gave a pouty grumble. "I'm just saying. One's a little more miraculous, is all."

Sett pulled Ulrick's head into his chest and stroked his hair. "GrrrRrrrRrrr. <Shh, I know, dude, I know.>" His heavy, soaked clothes and lack of body heat didn't chill Ulrick as much as they should have, and though a fine coating of sand covering him from head to toe gritted against Ulrick's cheek, it only made Ulrick rub his face in rebelliously.

"Okay," Ulrick said, resting his fists on Sett's chest and gazing up into his eyes. "What's the next activity? I think we’re... due-au for a luau?" The moment the words left his lips, his face collapsed into disgusted regret.

“Rgrrr... <Actually…>” Sett said, wrenching off his mask and shaking the excess water from his hair, teasing a blush out of Ulrick. “GgrrrRrrrr? <Doesn’t watching the stars by the lake sound pretty relaxing?>”

Ulrick grinned and took a seat on the shoreline, running his hands through the tufts of ryegrass stretching out in waves around him. He tapped a spot to his right and Sett, half-cocked smile in tow, came lumbering over to take it.

Hours flurried past, changing nothing about the image of the intimately silent pair but the number of stark white pinpricks in the sky they beheld.

They threatened to sit silently basking in each other forever.

And then Sett said, “GRrrrrgrrr, rrgrrr, graargrr. <So, Diane and Jen gave me their number, and they want to plan an outing.>”

Unease shot through Ulrick’s veins, but he held his tongue in search of the correct words. “O-oh?”

“Grrr? Rrgrrrrr. <Isn’t that cool? People want to spend time with us,>” said Sett, ensorcelled with the twinkle of every new star. “Rrrrr. <With me.>”

“That might be…” began Ulrick, before noticing the glimmer in Sett’s eyes and faint lift at the corners of his mouth as he stared up towards a great unknown. He sighed. “It’s going to be great.”

Sett rested his hand on Ulrick’s, their fingers interlocking. He smiled, and the two gazed into an ever-darkening firmament, speckled with a thousand stars and a thousand futures.

#A Necromancer & His Zombie Boyfriend #short stories #supernatural #mlm #wlw #queer #series #A Necromance #original #fiction

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lovemesomerafael · 5 years

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It’s Complicated Expectations

Source: @sherrykinss

Chapters 1-10 It’s Complicated: Surprise Party Read It On AO3

Once Frankie knew the reason for her symptoms, she gave in to her cravings, avoided smells that bothered her, and took naps. Especially once she got over the nauseous stage, she began to thoroughly enjoy being pregnant.

Rafael did not. Although he experienced a host of things he’d expected, he also experienced many things he never saw coming.

He had expected Frankie to have mood swings. So at five months, when he’d found her in their walk-in closet wearing only a pair of panties and crying because she was, as she put it, “already a planet,” he’d been prepared and happy to reassure her that she looked beautiful pregnant, just as she always did. A week later, when she bit his head off for asking what she wanted for dinner, he had apologized, drawn her a bubble bath, and rubbed her back while she soaked. But Rafael had not expected to have his own mood swings. He hadn’t expected to be moved to tears by seeing his baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound for the first time. He hadn’t expected that the smallest hint that Frankie might be unwell would make him want to rush her to ICU. He hadn’t expected that learning he had a son would scare the living shit out of him.

That one he really should have seen coming. He admitted that he hoped for a girl because, by definition, that would mean that he and his child would have a different relationship than he’d had with his father. But finding out his baby was a boy had been a major shock, and sent him reeling.

Rafael didn’t hate his father. “Hate” was too strong a word. But he most definitely didn’t like his father. He never had. Mostly because his father had never liked him. Rafael’s father was a selfish son of a bitch who never should have had a child. But he thought that having children was something he needed to do to prove his manhood and, at first, he’d been pleased and proud to have a son. The problems began when he realized that the son he’d expected was not the son he had. He’d imagined a son like himself, a working class, beer and football (real fútbol, not that clumsy American crap) guy who was unapologetically physical and didn’t mind throwing a punch now and then. As it turned out, the only person Rafael Barba ever punched was his father. But that’s another story.

Lucia Barba had always grieved for both of them. Mateo Barba was a good man in most ways, and she loved him deeply. She was sad for him that he felt such disillusionment, especially when Rafael was a boy who would make any father proud. He was smart, clever, and good looking from infancy. From his first day of school, he was at the top of every class, excelled at the extracurricular activities he chose, and never caused trouble. He charmed anyone he cared to (which was not everyone he met, and Lucia liked that about him, too, because he got that selectivity from her). She wished that Mateo could let go of his imaginary son and see Rafael. But Mateo was a selfish man, and he was not a good father. He didn’t shy from expressing disappointment in Rafi, for nothing more than simply not being the child Mateo had fantasized. When he said those things, Lucia could see Rafi accept them. She watched him begin to believe them. And that, she could not allow.

Lucia did several things to ensure that Mateo’s faults would not become Rafael’s wounds and, for the most part, succeeded. The first thing she did was to confront Mateo and tell him, in no uncertain terms, the boundaries of what she would tolerate in Mateo’s interaction with their son, and the consequences for violating them. He tested her. He slept on the couch that night. He tested her again. He slept on the couch for a week. He tested her a third time and lived elsewhere for a month. He didn’t test her again. Mateo Barba may have been a selfish, short-sighted fool, but he loved his wife. It didn’t make for a good relationship between him and his son, but that’s why Lucia began to carefully, gradually, influence Rafi to value the opinions of other family members over those of his father. And in that, she succeeded brilliantly and raised a happy, self-confident son. It wasn’t ideal. Life never is.

When Rafael learned that he and Francisca were having a boy, he talked extensively to his mother about his relationship with his father, and his fears that he would make the same mistakes with his son. Lucia was a very, very smart woman who loved Rafael beyond anything, and he knew it. He loved her just as fiercely. So when she told him that she knew he was incapable of the things Mateo had said and done, he believed her. And she was right.

************

Rafael had expected that Frankie’s cravings would continue, and they did. She quickly learned to handle them in various ways. More than once, Rafael was awakened by the doorbell to find that Frankie was not beside him in bed. He would go out to investigate, and find her happily chatting with a delivery person bringing some food item she’d simply needed to have.

He had not expected that he would be the one to gain a troublesome amount of weight as Frankie’s pregnancy progressed. Frankie loved yoga, which she could continue while pregnant, although Dr. Brightman discouraged the hot yoga she especially liked. Besides, Frankie was supposed to gain weight. Rafael wasn’t. Never very interested in exercise, Rafael avoided weight gain by being choosy about what he ate. But that went out the window as egg rolls, tamales, and carrot cake began arriving after midnight on a regular basis. He ended up having to start jogging to avoid having to invest in alterations to all his suits.

He also hadn’t expected that he would have to become a regular at the all-night grocery a few blocks from their building. One typical night, when she was around seven months pregnant, Frankie woke him up moving around in bed.

“Are you OK?” He felt the familiar jolt of panic that hit every time he thought something might be wrong with her.

“I’m fine. I’m just having trouble sleeping.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Ben & Jerry’s. Chunky Monkey, to be precise.”

“Mi amor, I don’t think we have any left.”

“We don’t. But I’m dying for it.”

“So have it delivered.”

“I can’t. There’s a minimum purchase for delivery. But as long as you’re awake…”

“Can’t you just go back to sleep? I’ll get you a hundred cartons of Chunky Monkey tomorrow. During regular business hours.”

“They have it at Carlson’s. It’s only a couple of blocks.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No. You sent me out for Chunky Monkey a couple nights ago, and you were asleep by the time I got back. Just go to sleep.”

“Really? Because you know, it’s not really me who wants it. It’s Baby Barba.”

“Then it’s a good opportunity to teach him that he can’t always get what he wants. Goodnight, Francisca.”

She cuddled up to him, belly against his back and one arm over him, and for a few moments they tried to go to sleep. Except now he was awake. Part of the reason was that there was a persistent tapping against him, low in his back, and Frankie was giggling.

“Is that…”

“Yes. It’s your son. He’s kicking you because he wants Chunky Monkey.”

“Damn it,” he sighed, throwing the covers back. He leaned over and spoke to Frankie’s now fairly extensive bump. “Next time, have a craving for something we have in the house.”

“I love you,” Frankie sighed happily as he got out of bed.

“Grrrrrrrrr.”

The next day, having lunch with his mother who was in Manhattan for a conference, he was tired and grumpy. When she asked him about it, he made the mistake of complaining to her about Francisca’s late-night cravings.

“What? What are you telling me? You said no? She’s carrying that baby around for nine whole months. She’s the one with the backache, and the stretch marks, and the constantly having to pee. It’s her he’s kicking in the ribs. You, what do you have to do? Nothing. You get up and you get her whatever she wants.”

She smacked him in the back of the head, in full view of everyone in the restaurant, including several of his colleagues. “I did not raise you to say no to your pregnant wife.”

************

Rafael had expected that Frankie would need a great deal of support while she was pregnant. He had not expected that he would need at least as much, or that supporting one another would bring them even closer than they had been before.

He sat on his couch, reading a professional journal, while Frankie slept with her head on his lap. His arm was around her, his hand splayed out on her rounded abdomen. This was very familiar. She needed a lot of naps, although she didn’t want to sleep too long. Every once in a while, Rafael could feel a movement that told him that, although his wife was asleep, his son was not. That always got his complete attention. Feeling the baby move made his existence entirely real to Rafael, who was still trying to grasp that he was a father.

It scared him. He was very glad that Francisca didn’t seem to be frightened at all of parenthood. Her confidence helped allay his fears. He remembered the conversation they’d had a while earlier, before she’d fallen asleep.

“Amado[1], you’re an attorney and I’m a physician. What could possibly happen that we couldn’t handle?”

“Well, I hope he doesn’t need an attorney until he’s at least out of diapers.”

Frankie laughed at that.

“I’m closer to fifty than forty, you know,” he groused.

“I do know that.”

“He’s gonna hate that he has such an old dad.”

“He will adore you as much as I do. Besides which, I think how it works is that he will make you feel younger.”

“All the other parents will think I’m his grandfather.”

“They better not say that around me. I don’t want to be a bad example to our son, but I might have to get medieval on anyone who said that.”

He wasn’t convinced. This one bothered him. “Why’d you marry such an old guy?”

“Because I love you. Anyway, I’ve never had any use for young men. They’re not even interesting until they’re at least forty. Are you trying to say that I chose my son’s father poorly? Because I would vehemently disagree with you.”

“And what a surprise that would be.” He’d smiled and kissed her.

“I chose Baby Barba’s father extremely carefully. I chose a man who speaks Spanish, so he can grow up bilingual, like we did. I chose a brilliant man who can teach him things, and an educated man so he’ll value education. I chose a man with a good job who will take wonderful care of him and teach him about responsibility and the value of work. Let’s see, what other criteria did I have? I chose a kind and caring man, of course, and a good singer for his lullabies, since God knows I can’t sing a note. A good cook, a snappy dresser, someone with a social conscience so he won’t grow up to be an asshat…”

“I get the idea.” Frankie loved to list Rafael’s good qualities, to which he felt duty-bound to object, although he actually didn’t mind. And this time, he really needed it.

“But, of course, I also had some criteria for me. I did have to conceive him, after all. So his father had to be extremely attractive, of course. And wonderful. And romantic. And good in bed, and an outstanding kisser, and…”

“All right, all right, enough.”

“Well, you asked.”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Sure, you did. You asked why I married you. And part of the reason is because you’re an excellent choice to be Baby Barba’s father.”

“We keep calling him Baby Barba. When are we going to give this kid a name?”

“His name is Eliséo.”

“We haven’t agreed on that.”

“We will.”

“You are going to have a difficult time convincing people you’re his mami when you call him Eliséo and his birth certificate says Javier.”

“Then let me name him Rafael.”

“I thought we’d finally put that one to bed. You can make his middle name Rafael if you must. But his first name is Javier.”

“Eliséo. If you want Javier, he can be Eliséo Rafael Javier Barba. Or even Eliséo Javier Rafael Barba, because you’re so handsome I can deny you nothing.”

“Claro[2]. That’s how you got in this situation in the first place. Now go to sleep. Javi needs his rest.”

“Javi won’t sleep. He will kick me and do somersaults and try to keep me awake, because he is your son and therefore delights in tormenting me.”

Rafael directed his next comments to Francisca’s belly. “I understand the impulse, mijo[3], but I’m the only one who gets to torment your mami. You have to behave.”

*************

Rafael had expected that there would be work to do preparing for their baby. And he had honestly not expected to be that involved. Wasn’t that what mamis and abuelitas did? Until it was his child for whom the preparations were being made, when he suddenly found that he wanted – needed – to be involved in every decision. Fortunately, neither Frankie nor Lucia felt particularly territorial about the preparations. Frankie was (mostly) charmed by Rafael’s fanaticism about the most minute details, and Lucia simply found it amusing. Besides, they both knew Rafael well enough not to be particularly surprised.

As they entered into the ninth month, Rafael and Frankie were on the floor of the nursery putting the crib together. Or at least attempting it.

“We have five college degrees between us, three of which are graduate degrees. We should be able to figure this out.” Frankie mused.

She was wearing a pair of pre-pregnancy yoga pants, which didn’t fit over her sizeable bump, so the waistband ran underneath it. The soft, long-sleeved top she was wearing was a maternity top, but it only reached about halfway down her belly these days, so she basically had clothes on everywhere except for her bump. As her belly had grown, she’d mostly adopted this style at home. Rafael found it adorable and oddly sexy.

“It would be helpful if these instructions were in either of the languages we speak.”

“Aren’t they printed in a bunch of languages?”

“Well, maybe the Mandarin or German are intelligible, but listen to this. ‘Take railing to part E, careful to attaching on side.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“It means we should have bought a crib that was already put together.”

As they worked together to try to figure out the crib, their conversation returned to a familiar issue they’d been trying to resolve for weeks.

“There’s got to be another way,” Rafael grumbled around the several screws sticking out of his mouth as he worked on the crib.

“There is. You can chill out about it.”

“Our son is not wearing some other kid’s used diapers!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Barba, that’s a ridiculous way to look at a diaper service. They’re totally clean and fresh and deodorized. Way better than we could do here. And you’ve already issued your absolute decree that we’ll be using cloth, so…”

“Don’t you care about his hygiene?”

“Of course I do, and a diaper service is perfectly hygienic. You’re getting a little weird about this, Barba.”

“How is it weird to want him to have clean diapers?”

“You want him to have sterile diapers untouched by human hands. Or backsides. That’s weird. Besides, we should probably get used to the idea that he’s not going to be pristine. He’s a little boy. He’s gonna eat dirt. Squash bugs and smear their guts on his pants. Wipe his nose on his shirt. Which brings me to the topic of clothes.”

“Here we go.”

“Barba, you’re insanely picky about baby clothes. I get it when it’s you and me – you, mostly – but you do realize what he’s gonna do to his clothes, right? He’s gonna be gushing bodily fluids all over them with alarming regularity.”

“I don’t care. He doesn’t need to wear hand-me-downs.”

“He’s going to wear them for about five minutes before he grows out of them, just like the baby who had them before. It just makes sense.”

“No. Next topic. My mami gave me the name of another possible nanny.”

Frankie bit her tongue. From day one, Rafael had refused to even talk about day care. Which turned out to be no problem because, as a baby shower gift, Frankie’s father had announced that he would be paying all the expenses for them to hire a nanny. It was a tradition he’d begun when his first grandchild was born, and had continued for each of the three he had thus far.

The problem was that Rafael was absolute hell on every applicant. Two had left their apartment in tears.

“Will you promise to be nice to this one? And try to see their good qualifications?”

“I can’t help it the ones we’ve seen so far were all hopeless.”

“They were all qualified. You have impossible standards.”

“It’s not about me. It’s about Javier.”

“Maybe Eliséo doesn’t need a nanny. Nannies are elitist. You hate elitist.”

“Many normal kids have a nanny.”

“He’ll be socially isolated.”

“He’ll be an infant.”

“What if we never find a nanny you can live with?”

“We will. She’s out there. Now we just have to find her.”

“Her. So he can’t have a man nanny?”

“Absolutely not. She has to be an abuelita who has raised at least ten kids of her own.”

“So no young nannies or non-Hispanics.”

“No.”

“Isn’t every one of those requirements flagrantly illegal?”

“Hush. It’s for Javi.”

******

Rafael had expected that their baby, and thus Francisca, would be big toward the end of her pregnancy. What he hadn’t expected was that he would want her as much when she was heavily pregnant as he ever had. And that she would still want him just as much.

One evening after she’d stopped working until the baby was born, Rafael returned home to find Frankie sitting on their couch, crying. As always, he was instantly terrified.

“Mi fresa, what is it? Are you all right? What do you need?”

“I’m stuck! I can’t get up from here. I’ve been trying for ten minutes and I can’t!” Her face streamed with tears and she was practically wailing.

It would have been funny – actually, it was funny – but Rafael was far too intelligent (and, by now, experienced at having a pregnant wife) to laugh. Instead, he went to her and put his arms around her, lifting her up from the couch and then holding her as she cried. It was fairly awkward to hold her these days, with a full-term baby bump between them.

“I want to be done being pregnant now! I walk like an elephant and I’m the size of Yankee Stadium! We can’t even have sex! I don’t like this anymore!”

“Mi amor, you do not walk like an elephant, and you are the same size you’ve always been. It’s Javier who’s getting bigger, which, after all, is as it should be. You’re beautiful. You’re gorgeous. And you know we can still have sex. We’re very adaptable, you and me.”

He led her into their bathroom and washed her face with a cold washcloth, telling her over and over how beautiful he found her and how much he loved her and Javier.

“His name is Eliséo,” she said, but calmly and with a small smile.

“I love him no matter what his name is. And I especially love you.” He began to kiss her, testing to see how she would react. Although he was right that they’d managed to find several ways to have sex even as her bump had grown, making love had become less frequent as it became more challenging. The baby made it impossible for her to rub against him as she normally would, but she reached for him and began to stroke him as they kissed.

“I love you, too. So much.”

“Do you really want to make love? Because there’s nothing I’d rather do than take you to bed.”

“Even though I look like I ate a globe?”

“I’m a big fan of geography. Can’t say I’ve ever been particularly turned on by a globe before, but on you it looks good.”

They chuckled together as they stood, kissing, until he tentatively took a step backward, pulling her with him. Her hands were becoming seriously distracting, and the sounds she’d begun to make seemed to confirm that she was on the same page. She followed him eagerly, beginning to undress him as they went. Once Frankie had Rafael naked, he leaned over and kissed her bump, as usual bare between her shirt and her leggings.

“Don’t look,” he whispered, as he slid her leggings down.

They had discovered that kneeling on the bed, with her grasping the headboard and him behind her, was so much fun they thought they would keep it up even when she wasn’t pregnant.

They dozed for a while afterward, satisfied and spooning under the covers. Frankie yawned happily when Rafael began to kiss her awake again.

“We forgot to eat dinner.”

“Mmmmmm. We did. I’m not very hungry, though.”

“Me, neither. I had a late lunch. What would you say to a hot bath and some Chunky Monkey?”

“Will you be there?”

“If you want me to be.”

“Yes, yes, yessssssssss.”

************

Rafael had expected that he would probably talk to his baby before he was born. He hadn’t expected that the baby would begin to respond to his voice. Rafael was so enchanted to feel his son move and kick when he spoke that, by the time he was born, Rafael had already spent countless hours talking and singing to him. Sometimes he would read to him, just because he would respond, and it made Frankie laugh.

Rafael had also expected that the birth of their son would be exciting, and maybe a little dramatic. He could never have been prepared for the actual event.

He and Frankie were lying in bed in the dark, Rafael singing lullabies partly for the baby, but mostly for Frankie, who was getting too uncomfortable to sleep very well these days. She’d been a bit restless since they’d gone to bed, but he was used to that lately. He noticed her give a start, but she seemed to relax afterward. This was also something he’d become used to, as the baby’s kicks became stronger.

A short time later, she gave a soft moan, followed by a sharp intake of breath. He stopped singing and lifted his head. “Francisca?”

“I-“ she winced and shuddered. Slowly and a bit thickly, she said, “I think… Will you turn on the light?”

Rafael hurriedly rolled over and flicked on his bedside lamp, turning back to see Frankie holding the blankets up to reveal that she was lying in what looked to him like a lake of blood.

“Barba,” she whispered, her face a mask of fear. “We’re in trouble.”

The next half hour was a blur. Rafael had no idea how he pulled his thoughts together enough to give their address to the 911 operator. The only reason he was able to call their neighbor, Mrs. Rifkin, was that they’d taped her phone number next to the phone for just this possibility. He had no idea what he said to her, but they had a plan, and she knew her role would be to open the front door of the building for the emergency crew if necessary, so she didn’t need much instruction.

Frankie was too sleepy. She’d been resting and trying to sleep when she’d begun to feel sharp pains low in her back and abdomen, but now she was even sleepier. She initially clasped Rafael’s hand so hard his wedding ring cut into his finger, but he said nothing. Now he would have welcomed that pain. Her grasp felt very weak. During the endless wait, he held her and tried to keep his own terror at bay for her, hiding his panic and speaking as calmly and reassuringly to her as he could. She appeared to be in pain, but she wasn’t saying anything.

“Francisca? Mi fresa, stay with me. Help is coming. I’m here. Stay with me. Francisca?”

She only moaned his name softly in response.

When the paramedics finally arrived, Rafael flung rapid-fire information and instructions at them as he led them at a run into the bedroom. One quickly assessed Frankie, while the other blinked at Rafael somewhat blankly. It took him a minute to realize he had been yelling at them in Spanish. In any event, they didn’t need much information their eyes couldn’t instantly provide. Working together, they very quickly started an IV and put an oxygen mask on Frankie, then wasted no time getting her strapped onto a gurney and rushing to the elevator.

There wasn’t much the paramedic sitting next to Rafael in the back of the ambulance could do other than assess Frankie and time her contractions by feel, because she was no longer responding. Rafael could only sit, holding her hand, and pray as the sound of the siren grated on his nerves until he wanted to scream. He had no idea how long the ride to the hospital was. He only knew it couldn’t have been as long as it felt.

The paramedics had been in contact with the hospital as they drove so that, when they arrived at the ambulance entrance, a team of nurses and doctors was already waiting for them. Rafael felt the tears begin when he saw that one of the team was Emma Brightman, Frankie’s OB/Gyn, whom he knew well. The team grasped the rails of the gurney and headed to the elevator at a dead run while the paramedics shouted Frankie’s latest vital signs to them.

On the elevator, Dr. Brightman spoke to Rafael even as she examined Frankie. “We were a little worried about this, if you remember. The placenta is a little closer to the cervix than we like. So we’re going to get this baby born right now. We’ll take good care of them.”

All Rafael could do was nod. He still had Frankie’s hand in his.

When the elevator doors opened, the team sprinted toward a set of shiny metal double doors with a small window in each and a warning sign saying “No Unauthorized Entry. Surgical Personnel Only.” Frankie’s hand was torn from Rafael’s as the team ran through the doors with her. A lovely woman with a lilting Caribbean accent touched Rafael on the arm.

“My name is Kimona. You’re Mr. Barba?”

“I don’t know…”

Kimona smiled kindly. “That’s your wife who just went into surgery?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re Mr. Barba. They’re going to take great care of your wife and your baby. And I’m going to take great care of you. First, let’s get you into some scrubs.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to be meeting your baby in a few minutes.”

Kimona showed Rafael into a small dressing room where he floundered his way into scrubs, shaking with terror and confusion. This wasn’t the plan. None of this was the plan. Frankie wasn’t supposed to be bleeding so severely she lost consciousness. She wasn’t supposed to be having surgery. She was supposed to be sitting in front of him, resting against his chest, while he helped her sit up to push. That was the plan. That was what they’d prepared for in their classes. Not this. Not this fear. Not this nausea and screaming dread. There was never supposed to be any hint that he could lose her or his son. Or, God help him, both of them.

When he stepped back into the hallway, Kimona smiled calmly.

At that moment, a phone on the desk behind Kimona beeped softly. She gently took Rafael’s cell phone from him and turned to lean over the desk and answer the phone. She murmured a few words, then hung up. She smiled her soothing, placid smile at him.

“That was for you. Your son is here, and he is just fine. Shall we go meet him?”

“Francisca.”

“She is still in surgery, but she is stable. Dr. Brightman will take good care of her.”

She helped him put on a yellow, papery-feeling gown and tied it behind him, then led him through the double doors. Rafael noticed a large door with a window in it to his right. It looked like it led to an operating room. But Kimona led him into an examination room across the hall. In the room were two women, both dressed much like Rafael was.

“This is Dad,” Kimona said in her gentle, musical voice. “Mr. Barba, this is Dr. Keller, the neonatologist, and this is Jeannie, your son’s nurse.”

Rafael couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe. He didn’t look at either woman, because his entire focus was on the small, red-faced infant kicking his legs and moving his arms in a clear plastic bassinet between them. He looked as confused as Rafael was, and seemed to be trying to decide whether to cry, much like Rafael himself.

“We’re just finishing, Mr. Barba. What’s your son’s name?” The neonatologist said as she finished doing something to the baby’s feet.

Rafael cleared his throat, but didn’t look away from his son’s face. “He… Ha… Javier. His name is Javier.”

Whatever Javier was thinking about his new circumstances, he suddenly felt better about things. He turned his head toward Rafael and his expression changed from unhappy to surprised.

Jeannie, the nurse, laughed. “Well, somebody knows Daddy’s voice,” she said, taking over with the baby now that Dr. Keller had finished with him. It seemed to take her no time at all to have him diapered and swaddled, and slip a soft, striped hat on his head. All the time, he didn’t take his eyes off of Rafael. Jeannie picked him up and stepped over to Rafael.

“Do you feel ready to hold him? I know this is a lot right now,” she said kindly, holding him so that Rafael could look at him.

“I… Yes. I want to hold him.”

Again, the baby reacted to Rafael’s voice. When Jeannie put him into Rafael’s arms, father and son gazed into each other’s eyes as though there was nothing else in the world. Rafael began softly to talk to his son in Spanish, telling him that he was his papá, and that he loved him, and that he thought his name was Javier but they would have to discuss that with his mami.

Saying that brought Rafael back abruptly, if not completely, from his baby’s spell. He looked up at the doctor and nurse. “My wife…”

“You sit here for a moment,” Dr. Keller said, indicating a rocking chair in the corner. “I’ll go across the hall and check on her.”

Rafael sat in the chair, moving so carefully that Nurse Jeannie had to hide a smile. First-time dads were the cutest, and this one seemed to have fallen particularly in love with his new son. Rafael allowed himself to lose himself in his baby again, knowing that the neonatologist was checking on Francisca. He felt an inexplicable urge to unswaddle him so he could see all of him again, count his fingers and toes, and make sure he was really here, and really all right. He settled for lifting the baby to his face and smelling him, giving him his first kiss while he was at it.

Dr. Keller returned a few moments later. “I checked on Mom. She’s doing well. Dr. Brightman’s still working on her, but she said that when your wife goes to recovery, she’ll come by and see you. She wanted me to tell you that everything’s going well, and Mom should do just fine.”

Dr. Keller and Nurse Jeannie busied themselves with other things to give Rafael some privacy as he burst into tears of relief.

*********

Frankie awoke slowly. She felt exhausted and battered, as though she’d been tumbled in a clothes dryer for a week. Gradually, she noticed several things. The first thing she noticed was that she was lying in a hard, unfamiliar bed in a room she’d never seen before, and it was light outside. Next, she noticed that she felt strangely different, as though her body was… deflated. That popped her eyes wide open, and she was just about to panic when she saw Rafael, sound asleep, slumped in an oversized recliner with a blanket half fallen off of his legs. At his left hand was a rolling cart with a clear bassinet on it, and she could see a baby asleep in it. Her baby. Their baby.

“Barba?” She called weakly. He awoke immediately and sat up so fast the blanket fell the rest of the way onto the floor.

He was instantly at her side, leaning over to take her hand and kiss her forehead, his stubble scratchy on her skin. “Good morning,” he said, his voice a little ragged but his smile radiant. “How do you feel?”

“I want to see him,” she whispered, eagerness showing through her exhaustion.

“Demanding as always,” he chuckled, but turned to lift the baby gently from his bassinet. He laid their son carefully in the crook of her arm, and she lifted up slightly so that she could peer at him. He blinked up at her and yawned before closing his eyes again.

Her face registered a hint of surprise as she smiled down at her son. “Oh. I guess you were right. This is Javier.”

Rafael laughed quietly. He leaned down to press the latch on the bed railing, putting it down so that he could sit next to Frankie on her bed, laying a hand gently on her leg.

“Can we make him naked? I want to see all of him.”

“He’s our son, Francisca. We can do whatever we want.”

She looked up at him, the hint of a smirk on her lips. “You’ve already done it.”

“Twice. He’s irresistible.”

They laughed softly as they unwrapped Javier’s swaddling and examined him. He wasn’t happy about it, so they re-swaddled him after only a few moments.

“He’s perfect,” Frankie said, looking adoringly up at Rafael. “Thank you.”

Rafael tried to be gentle as he leaned down and kissed his wife, long and softly. “I think that’s my line.”

An hour later, Frankie’s nurse had come in and helped her to begin nursing Javier for the first time. Rafael thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. He sat for a long time on the edge of the bed, just gazing at his little family but, after a while, he noticed that Frankie was wearing a thoughtful expression.

“What is it, mi fresa?”

“Maybe Eliséo is his brother,” she said.

“So we’re doing this again?”

“Well, not tomorrow, but yes. We said we didn’t want Javi to be an only child.”

“And even after everything, that’s still the plan?”

“As long as you’ll be there with me,” she said, reaching for Rafael’s hand. “If you’re with me, we can do anything.”

[1] Beloved

[2] Obviously

[3] My son

#law & order svu #law & order: special victims unit #rafael barba #raul esparza

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