Saiyuki Story: Don't You Dare Close Your Eyes (sequel to A Whole New World)
Author: Sunspot
Title: Don’t You Dare Close Your Eyes
Pairing: 58 preslash
Rating: PG 13
Note: Sequel to A Whole New World (sunspot67.livejournal.com/9822.html#cutid1). Based on Indelicateink’s wonderful twins drawing (see it here: indelicateink.livejournal.com/174672.html).
Warning: Kidfic! Babies! Twins! Cuss words!
Don’t You Dare Close Your Eyes
There was certainly a great deal to be done when babies appeared on the scene. Of course most parents probably had the better part of nine months to gird their loins and rearrange their furniture and study up on the intricacies of diaper changing.
And, oh dear, Shuo (or was this Shiyan-Hakkai had thought he was keeping track, but . . .) was certainly a squirmy one. He seemed to be trying to roll over. Which according to the book, and the birthdate in the note left in the basket, he should not be able to do for at least another month yet.
“Hold the book a little higher, would you?” Hakkai said to Gojyo, mostly patiently, he thought.
“Sorry, sorry,” Gojyo muttered, and raised the volume back into the readable zone.
The tabs on the diapers they’d bought were just different enough from the ones in the semi-helpful, spread-across-two-non-facing-pages, minimally-illustrated guide to diaper changing in their baby book to add an extra layer of challenge to the way their sons (Sons! They had sons!) squirmed and cried and (yes, thank you, Goku) fountained as they were changed.
The fact that it was two in the morning, and Shuo (he was almost certain it was Shuo) was crying as well as wriggling, and had been crying nonstop since just after twelve, as had his brother, no doubt added to the challenge as well.
At last the diaper was secured well enough that Hakkai was reasonably sure it would not fall off (as both diapers had at an earlier point in an afternoon and evening that resembled one long blur in hindsight), and Hakkai wrestled (gently wrestled) Shuo’s legs back into his sleeper and began closing up the tiny snaps, while Gojyo plopped the book down on the bed (their impromptu changing area), and scooped a wailing Shiyan (Hakkai was close to sure it was Shiyan) out of the crib.
Hakkai swaddled Shuo (he was getting reasonably proficient at the skill, finally) and picked him up and joined Gojyo in the endless walking and shushing and bouncing that Hakkai’s previous readings had assured (assured!) would eventually lull their babies back to sleep.
Gojyo looked at Hakkai as they passed in their circuits across the bedroom. He looked haggard, and slightly panicked, but also a little awed, still, and Hakkai felt a rush of affection for him. “Babies,” he’d kept saying all day, low and amazed, “We’ve got babies.”
They had babies. Wailing babies. Wailing babies who did not want bottles, and whose diapers were now fine, and who wailed all the louder if one dared to put them down. Jeep had retreated outside and transformed-he had much less sensitive hearing in vehicle form. Hakkai was slightly ashamed to feel a trickle of envy.
Shuo wailed in Hakkai’s arms. Shiyan wailed in Gojyo’s. They paced, bouncing on the balls of their feet, and made shushing noises meant to mimic the susurrations of a mother’s heartbeat as heard in the womb. That much Hakkai remembered from the unit on babies he’d done with his kindergarten and first grade students so many years ago. Many of them had had baby siblings, and infants were a hot topic among them, ideal for contextualized learning.
And a number of those students, and some of their baby siblings had not lived beyond that year and it was time for Hakkai to think of something else. Like the two babies and one man right here who needed him now.
“Hakkai,” Gojyo said, nearly startling him. He was very close, Shiyan wailing against his shoulder. “This is nuts,” he said, close to Hakkai’s ear. His breath was warm. Hakkai was sure he was too tired and worn and frighteningly close to the end of his rope to notice warm breath.
“I’m gonna put this guy down and get the baby carrier thing,” Gojyo was going on. “I’ll wear him, an’ carry him,” Gojyo nodded at Shuo in Hakkai’s arms, “and you read those damn books and find out what we should do. ‘ Kay?”
Hakkai could hardly argue. He nodded, then thought a moment. “I’ll take both while you get it.”
Gojyo looked dubious. Shuo and Shiyan wailed.
“I’ll sit on the bed,” Hakkai added and Gojyo nodded, so he clambered up, careful of his sobbing bundle (his son, one of his sons) and sat with his back supported by the wall (the bed was wedged into the corner now) and settled Shuo in the crook of one arm and Gojyo settled Shiyan in the other, then stumbled off to find the baby carrier.
It took a very long time for Gojyo to figure out the carrier, which was a topologist’s nightmare of straps and buckles. And Gojyo was the kinesthetic learner. They should have done a dry run while the babies slept. In their short-lived innocence, when they thought the babies would sleep, wake, fuss, eat, poop, then sleep again, as they had done most of the day and into the evening.
“Goddamn that thing’s complicated,” Gojyo swore, the contraption finally securely affixed to his chest. “Okay, gimme a baby.”
Gojyo managed to unswaddle Shiyan (baby on the left, yes, Shiyan), who wailed all the louder, and get him buckled into the carrier with reasonable dispatch. Hakkai handed an equally distressed Shuo up to him. Gojyo tried cradling him in his arms across his brother’s body, then tried holding him against his shoulder-also unworkable with one boy in the carrier. At last Gojyo unwrapped Shuo as well and managed to arrange him (squirming and crying-Shuo, not Gojyo) with his body along Gojyo’s forearm, arms and legs hanging down to either side, and his little head cradled in Gojyo’s large, capable palm. So bedecked, Gojyo went back to pacing and shushing.
Hakkai grabbed the book on twins and hauled it and himself closer to the lamplight. They’d exhausted the possibilities of the other book on this topic soon after midnight. His fellow father (Gojyo!) paced and murmured with their crying sons (sons!). Really, Hakkai would have to take the time to marvel at all this properly, once the babies were sleeping (they must sleep again sometime, it was a biological imperative) and once they’d slept as well. He traced a weary finger through the index, wondering if parents simply became inured.
It was a rough twenty minutes, scanning entries while Gojyo paced and the babies cried, before Hakkai found anything they hadn’t tried already: slings. It was the way peasant women carried their babies, but the book stressed that, the stigma of this notwithstanding (and Hakkai would need to send them a stiff letter on classism if he ever got any sleep ever again) it was a good way to carry babies, saved wear and tear on parental arms, allowed the babies to remain swaddled (unlike the carriers), and might help fussy babies get to sleep. The author (authors actually, baby books seemed all to be written by committee) also noted that it was relatively easy to remove the sling with a sleeping baby in it and keep said baby asleep. One could even, the committee went on, while one’s twins were small, put a sling across each shoulder and carry both at once, crisscrossed.
The rub of it was that they didn’t have any lengths of cloth such as the brightly colored ones the women in the illustration were using (none of them to carry twins, he might add). Handy as Hakkai was with a needle and thread, he wasn’t in the habit of keeping bolts of cloth around the house. He looked up at Gojyo, grimly pacing and shushing. Shuo on his arm was at least no longer squirming. Gojyo might know where they could get cloth at this hour-there had to be . . .
Of course. Hakkai put the book aside and staggered upright, feeling slightly manic through the fatigue. His layman’s sash. Or sashes, properly. He had one to wash, one to wear, and a spare (that one a little bloodstained, which was another story). Today’s sash was still wet from being spat up on and rinsed out, and awaiting its turn in the laundry, but the other two . . .
He crossed to the dresser and pulled open the lower of his two drawers. Gojyo bounced and shushed over to watch. “Slings!” Hakkai said, looking up over his shoulder, then rose, brandishing the sashes.
“You’re a fuckin’ genius,” Gojyo said, and leaned in (carefully, covered with babies) and kissed Hakkai. On the mouth.
It was brief, and sweet, and very nearly chaste, but not quite, but there were babies crying, so Hakkai snapped himself out of whatever fugue state they had both staggered into and set to work.
Looking at the illustration (because the book did not, of course, explain how to achieve a sling-presumably one had a peasant woman around for that) (very stiff letter) Gojyo and he managed, after a few tries and only a little snapping at each other, to work out something that looked like it would hold a child (theirs!) securely, and Hakkai swaddled whoever it was that was slung across Gojyo’s arm, and tucked him securely against his chest in the sling, and, one hand keeping his son steady, went back to pacing and soothing.
Gojyo was crisscrossing the room with him soon enough. The sight of him, one hand cradling their son’s head through the white fabric, was weirdly poignant.
It was twenty to three in the morning of their first night of unplanned parenthood. And Hakkai’s son (whichever one he had-Shiyan had a birthmark on his lower back, but they were not undressing babies right now to check) was a warm, if crying, weight between his hand and his chest, and the slings seemed to be helping-Hakkai’s back and arms, if nothing else, and Gojyo had kissed his mouth.
At two fifty seven Hakkai was carefully lowering a sleeping baby (his son) into the crib. At three oh eight, Gojyo did the same. It was Gojyo’s night for the futon, which was still in the cupboard. They collapsed across the narrow bed, side by side, shoving the books out of their way. As Hakkai plummeted into dazed, grateful sleep, Gojyo’s arm was warm across his back.
Title: Don’t You Dare Close Your Eyes
Pairing: 58 preslash
Rating: PG 13
Note: Sequel to A Whole New World (sunspot67.livejournal.com/9822.html#cutid1). Based on Indelicateink’s wonderful twins drawing (see it here: indelicateink.livejournal.com/174672.html).
Warning: Kidfic! Babies! Twins! Cuss words!
Don’t You Dare Close Your Eyes
There was certainly a great deal to be done when babies appeared on the scene. Of course most parents probably had the better part of nine months to gird their loins and rearrange their furniture and study up on the intricacies of diaper changing.
And, oh dear, Shuo (or was this Shiyan-Hakkai had thought he was keeping track, but . . .) was certainly a squirmy one. He seemed to be trying to roll over. Which according to the book, and the birthdate in the note left in the basket, he should not be able to do for at least another month yet.
“Hold the book a little higher, would you?” Hakkai said to Gojyo, mostly patiently, he thought.
“Sorry, sorry,” Gojyo muttered, and raised the volume back into the readable zone.
The tabs on the diapers they’d bought were just different enough from the ones in the semi-helpful, spread-across-two-non-facing-pages, minimally-illustrated guide to diaper changing in their baby book to add an extra layer of challenge to the way their sons (Sons! They had sons!) squirmed and cried and (yes, thank you, Goku) fountained as they were changed.
The fact that it was two in the morning, and Shuo (he was almost certain it was Shuo) was crying as well as wriggling, and had been crying nonstop since just after twelve, as had his brother, no doubt added to the challenge as well.
At last the diaper was secured well enough that Hakkai was reasonably sure it would not fall off (as both diapers had at an earlier point in an afternoon and evening that resembled one long blur in hindsight), and Hakkai wrestled (gently wrestled) Shuo’s legs back into his sleeper and began closing up the tiny snaps, while Gojyo plopped the book down on the bed (their impromptu changing area), and scooped a wailing Shiyan (Hakkai was close to sure it was Shiyan) out of the crib.
Hakkai swaddled Shuo (he was getting reasonably proficient at the skill, finally) and picked him up and joined Gojyo in the endless walking and shushing and bouncing that Hakkai’s previous readings had assured (assured!) would eventually lull their babies back to sleep.
Gojyo looked at Hakkai as they passed in their circuits across the bedroom. He looked haggard, and slightly panicked, but also a little awed, still, and Hakkai felt a rush of affection for him. “Babies,” he’d kept saying all day, low and amazed, “We’ve got babies.”
They had babies. Wailing babies. Wailing babies who did not want bottles, and whose diapers were now fine, and who wailed all the louder if one dared to put them down. Jeep had retreated outside and transformed-he had much less sensitive hearing in vehicle form. Hakkai was slightly ashamed to feel a trickle of envy.
Shuo wailed in Hakkai’s arms. Shiyan wailed in Gojyo’s. They paced, bouncing on the balls of their feet, and made shushing noises meant to mimic the susurrations of a mother’s heartbeat as heard in the womb. That much Hakkai remembered from the unit on babies he’d done with his kindergarten and first grade students so many years ago. Many of them had had baby siblings, and infants were a hot topic among them, ideal for contextualized learning.
And a number of those students, and some of their baby siblings had not lived beyond that year and it was time for Hakkai to think of something else. Like the two babies and one man right here who needed him now.
“Hakkai,” Gojyo said, nearly startling him. He was very close, Shiyan wailing against his shoulder. “This is nuts,” he said, close to Hakkai’s ear. His breath was warm. Hakkai was sure he was too tired and worn and frighteningly close to the end of his rope to notice warm breath.
“I’m gonna put this guy down and get the baby carrier thing,” Gojyo was going on. “I’ll wear him, an’ carry him,” Gojyo nodded at Shuo in Hakkai’s arms, “and you read those damn books and find out what we should do. ‘ Kay?”
Hakkai could hardly argue. He nodded, then thought a moment. “I’ll take both while you get it.”
Gojyo looked dubious. Shuo and Shiyan wailed.
“I’ll sit on the bed,” Hakkai added and Gojyo nodded, so he clambered up, careful of his sobbing bundle (his son, one of his sons) and sat with his back supported by the wall (the bed was wedged into the corner now) and settled Shuo in the crook of one arm and Gojyo settled Shiyan in the other, then stumbled off to find the baby carrier.
It took a very long time for Gojyo to figure out the carrier, which was a topologist’s nightmare of straps and buckles. And Gojyo was the kinesthetic learner. They should have done a dry run while the babies slept. In their short-lived innocence, when they thought the babies would sleep, wake, fuss, eat, poop, then sleep again, as they had done most of the day and into the evening.
“Goddamn that thing’s complicated,” Gojyo swore, the contraption finally securely affixed to his chest. “Okay, gimme a baby.”
Gojyo managed to unswaddle Shiyan (baby on the left, yes, Shiyan), who wailed all the louder, and get him buckled into the carrier with reasonable dispatch. Hakkai handed an equally distressed Shuo up to him. Gojyo tried cradling him in his arms across his brother’s body, then tried holding him against his shoulder-also unworkable with one boy in the carrier. At last Gojyo unwrapped Shuo as well and managed to arrange him (squirming and crying-Shuo, not Gojyo) with his body along Gojyo’s forearm, arms and legs hanging down to either side, and his little head cradled in Gojyo’s large, capable palm. So bedecked, Gojyo went back to pacing and shushing.
Hakkai grabbed the book on twins and hauled it and himself closer to the lamplight. They’d exhausted the possibilities of the other book on this topic soon after midnight. His fellow father (Gojyo!) paced and murmured with their crying sons (sons!). Really, Hakkai would have to take the time to marvel at all this properly, once the babies were sleeping (they must sleep again sometime, it was a biological imperative) and once they’d slept as well. He traced a weary finger through the index, wondering if parents simply became inured.
It was a rough twenty minutes, scanning entries while Gojyo paced and the babies cried, before Hakkai found anything they hadn’t tried already: slings. It was the way peasant women carried their babies, but the book stressed that, the stigma of this notwithstanding (and Hakkai would need to send them a stiff letter on classism if he ever got any sleep ever again) it was a good way to carry babies, saved wear and tear on parental arms, allowed the babies to remain swaddled (unlike the carriers), and might help fussy babies get to sleep. The author (authors actually, baby books seemed all to be written by committee) also noted that it was relatively easy to remove the sling with a sleeping baby in it and keep said baby asleep. One could even, the committee went on, while one’s twins were small, put a sling across each shoulder and carry both at once, crisscrossed.
The rub of it was that they didn’t have any lengths of cloth such as the brightly colored ones the women in the illustration were using (none of them to carry twins, he might add). Handy as Hakkai was with a needle and thread, he wasn’t in the habit of keeping bolts of cloth around the house. He looked up at Gojyo, grimly pacing and shushing. Shuo on his arm was at least no longer squirming. Gojyo might know where they could get cloth at this hour-there had to be . . .
Of course. Hakkai put the book aside and staggered upright, feeling slightly manic through the fatigue. His layman’s sash. Or sashes, properly. He had one to wash, one to wear, and a spare (that one a little bloodstained, which was another story). Today’s sash was still wet from being spat up on and rinsed out, and awaiting its turn in the laundry, but the other two . . .
He crossed to the dresser and pulled open the lower of his two drawers. Gojyo bounced and shushed over to watch. “Slings!” Hakkai said, looking up over his shoulder, then rose, brandishing the sashes.
“You’re a fuckin’ genius,” Gojyo said, and leaned in (carefully, covered with babies) and kissed Hakkai. On the mouth.
It was brief, and sweet, and very nearly chaste, but not quite, but there were babies crying, so Hakkai snapped himself out of whatever fugue state they had both staggered into and set to work.
Looking at the illustration (because the book did not, of course, explain how to achieve a sling-presumably one had a peasant woman around for that) (very stiff letter) Gojyo and he managed, after a few tries and only a little snapping at each other, to work out something that looked like it would hold a child (theirs!) securely, and Hakkai swaddled whoever it was that was slung across Gojyo’s arm, and tucked him securely against his chest in the sling, and, one hand keeping his son steady, went back to pacing and soothing.
Gojyo was crisscrossing the room with him soon enough. The sight of him, one hand cradling their son’s head through the white fabric, was weirdly poignant.
It was twenty to three in the morning of their first night of unplanned parenthood. And Hakkai’s son (whichever one he had-Shiyan had a birthmark on his lower back, but they were not undressing babies right now to check) was a warm, if crying, weight between his hand and his chest, and the slings seemed to be helping-Hakkai’s back and arms, if nothing else, and Gojyo had kissed his mouth.
At two fifty seven Hakkai was carefully lowering a sleeping baby (his son) into the crib. At three oh eight, Gojyo did the same. It was Gojyo’s night for the futon, which was still in the cupboard. They collapsed across the narrow bed, side by side, shoving the books out of their way. As Hakkai plummeted into dazed, grateful sleep, Gojyo’s arm was warm across his back.