Chapter 4
Chapter Four
S ometimes it struck Chamomile how little his life had changed, despite how much it...well, had changed. Before his charm, before Lark came and before their little seed had taken root, he spent his days running errands, helping with household tasks, and minding shops for friends.
Afterwards, he did the same.
Andee Flowingscript had returned to town with their mother-in-law in tow, and no longer needed Chamomile to open the shop every day. Except, they were also suspiciously quick to assure him he was still welcome to come by anytime he wished. Chamomile took their hint, and came often.
“She’s doing much better, but needs quite a bit of help,” Andee confided to him, in whispers over tea on one such visit. “With Eggy still at sea and Juniper walking,” Andee paused to make a greatly pained expression, “some days keeping the shop open is just one thing too many.”
Juniper was infamously rambunctious, having very much taken after his father. The power of increased mobility could only further his reign of terror.
Chamomile gave their hand a warm pat. “Any time you’d like me to come for a day, just let me know.”
“Any time you feel like coming,” Andee grinned. “Don’t even ask, in fact. Just come.”
This was evidently Juniper’s cue to bring something crashing down around the corner.
“You’re sure you want kids?” Andee said playfully.
“Well,” said Chamomile, “There’s only one Juniper,” to which Andee barked with laughter.
Thus Chamomile frequently found himself in Andee’s bookshop, much as he had before his charm, and sometimes while he was there alone between customers a peculiar mood struck him. He could almost forget that his home no longer sat cold and empty while he was away. That when he returned, someone would be there, waiting for him.
Until, like a soap bubble popping, he would recall that he was married , to Lark Woodwhistler no less (who he might have secretly fantasized about once or twice, handsome, mysterious local celebrity that he was), and that they were having a child together, one that lived inside him at that very moment.
It became a game he played with himself every now and then as he walked home, so he might enjoy the rush all over again as Lark let himself in the kitchen door, fresh from the workshop, covered in sawdust and scratching at it.
Feeling inexplicably guilty, Chamomile confessed it all very late one night, or very early in the morning, as they lay atop the blankets with the window open to let in a cool breeze. Hours had passed as they talked softly about whatever came to mind, the mood a liminal mix of vulnerability and a fearless willingness to share, which required moonlight to thrive.
“I’m the same,” Lark told him. He was growing muzzier, yawning more and more, his eyes narrow with encroaching sleep. Chamomile was similarly off, often groping for words, or pausing mid-sentence just to breathe. “In the shop, when I’m working. The work hasn’t changed, you know, so I only remember when I come out and see the house.”
Chamomile hummed softly, tracing idle circles on the back of Lark’s hand with his fingers.
Lark said, “I worried it was—a bad thing, at first. It’s certainly odd. But then I just…It’s a remarkable feeling. Every time.” He grinned boyishly, and it made such a charming contrast with his slitted eyes and crows feet that Chamomile could only return it.
“Exactly,” he whispered.
Lark was the first to see it.
Chamomile was fresh from the bath and still damp, his nightshirt sticking to his skin at the small of his back and around his shins. Lark, in the midst of describing Wavecrest’s market to Chamomile, who had never left Goldenbough, suddenly went quiet.
It took a moment for the silence to register. Chamomile, turning down the bed, looked over curiously.
“What are you staring at so?” he asked.
Lark blinked, closed his mouth and gave a dazzlingly bright smile. He pointed. “You’re showing.”
It took a moment to penetrate. Belatedly, Chamomile started and looked down his front to see he did indeed sport a little bump. It was particularly evident, given how his nightshirt was plastered over it. He’d always been rather soft in the middle, and that hadn’t changed, but beneath his stomach and in the bow of his pelvis there was a definite bulge.
He prodded it, testing, and found it oddly firm to the touch.
“I’m showing,” he said, awed.
Lark laughed, a sound of elated disbelief that perfectly matched Chamomile’s feelings. He sat on the bed before Chamomile and their four hands knocked into each other as they pulled his nightshirt up together.
“Will you look at that,” Lark said, after a mutual, hushed moment. “There’s a daisy in there.”
Chamomile was startled into giggles. “A daisy, really?”
Lark ducked his head, grinning, but didn’t relent. “A daisy,” he repeated.
Chamomile’s eyes were prickling alarmingly. This really was too much excitement for right before bedtime. He scrubbed his fingers roughly through Lark’s short hair and chuckled. “I suppose if I can be a tea and you can be a bird, there’s nothing to stop a baby from being a flower.”
Lark hummed. He did not kiss so much as simply rest his lips on Chamomile’s middle, his lashes tickling. “Daisy, daisy, daisy,” he sang to himself.
Chamomile didn’t reply. He was unable to speak at all, and could only watch Lark murmur to the little bubble of a baby through his skin.
He was so excited, so happy. Every natural doubt and apprehension he’d experienced melted in the face of this quiet moment, and of Lark’s unmistakable bliss. As if he, like Chamomile, now had everything he’d ever wanted.
It wasn’t long after that the moods came, whereupon Chamomile spent several successive weeks perpetually on the verge of tears. Lark endeavored to be an anchor in an endearing, if fruitless, effort—he was just as beside himself in his own way, and only pretending not to be.
Tears gave way to bouts of snappishness, fueled by swelling feet and an aching back as Chamomile grew at an alarming rate. Lark was too far gone to have the courtesy to offer a good fight when he tried his best to start one, leaving Chamomile, who was too decent to rail at a passive partner, with only the garden on which take out his aggression.
The garden, at least, gave as good as it got. Having been left to their own devices for so long, the weeds were thoroughly entrenched and gave no quarter. After throwing himself at the task with nothing more than shears and a nasty temper, he emerged bedraggled and calmer, if not victorious, and already planning his next offense.
Chamomile never stopped bracing himself for morning sickness, however apart from one or two incidents with beets he was never treated to that particular symptom. Pregnancy, on the whole, was altogether less of a trial than he’d expected it to be, from what he’d read and heard.
“You do bear it well,” Golden Longfeather confirmed when he asked during a check-up, unbelieving of his fortune. “It’s different for everyone, every time. Poor Farza was sick until Tawny was born, while others fall into a persistent black mood. Try not to question it too much, dear, or else your next one will knock you on your bum.”
Far and away the most miserable aspect of pregnancy was how great and heavy his belly became as the weeks passed. It seemed no time at all before it was too much for him to stoop over wash tubs or haul groceries for his neighbors. When he kept the book club’s children he was forced to appeal to their sense of fairness, for they were so much quicker on their feet than he was. He went barefoot as much as he could manage, for his shoes had become impossibly tight, and he spent any time he wasn’t soaking in a hot tub wistfully thinking of it.
He tried not to whine, really, for it was so unattractive, but he had no further patience for being as big and heavy as barrel. A barrel with frequent and urgent need for the facilities, that missed sleeping on its stomach. As he neared the end of his final month, he was thoroughly done with the whole affair.
“Certainly it can’t be much longer, can it?” he said, once more in Golden’s examination room, as if she could send him into labor with a wave of her hand, were she only merciful enough.
She pulled his shirt back down his belly. “Surely not,” she agreed. “Perhaps a week more. Of course, there are things one might do to encourage the child, such as walks, or certain spices...There’s a tea made from raspberry leaf—”
“I know it well,” said Chamomile, rueful. He’d drank so much of Maggie Brownbird’s tea that the mere thought of its flavor made him smack his mouth with distaste. Lark, who had been treated to its distinctive aroma each of the many times it was brewed, was of a similar opinion. Having both grown to dislike the stuff, they had rather gleefully poured hot water on his raspberry bush.
Chamomile felt a little guilty for how much he’d enjoyed that. Poor bush.
Golden’s lips twitched. “There’s always intimacy,” she finished.
“Intima—” Chamomile stopped, coloring about the cheeks. “I thought you couldn’t...” He cleared his throat.
“Couldn’t, what?” Golden asked, blandly, as if she could not possibly glean his meaning.
“Where is Corte?” Chamomile grumbled to himself. “He has bedside manner.”
“Putting it to use, making house calls,” Golden said airily, and at last took pity on him. “Yes, it is safe to lay with your husband. Knotting is best to be avoided, and you are of course to immediately halt anything that feels uncomfortable. Otherwise, I encourage it. It can bring on labor.”
Chamomile’s eyes grew wide. “Truly?” he squeaked.
Golden nodded.
“Then, Doctor,” Chamomile said, beginning the arduous process of getting to his feet, “I am going home.”
“Give my regards to Lark,” she said cheerfully. Chamomile pulled his scarf over his nose to hide his blush as he stepped out into the street.
The rain that had threatened all morning finally broke as Chamomile made it out of town. He pulled his scarf over his hair and huddled deeper into his collar. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to be done about his pace, as he was already at peak waddle.
He spied Lark coming down the hill has he began his own ascent. He carried two umbrellas with him, neither of which were extended.
Chamomile laughed at his hopelessness. “Lark,” he called over the rain, caught between fondness and exasperation. “You daft man. Use one of them!”
Lark made a face that may have meant he could not make out the words, or that he’d forgotten the way by which an umbrella might benefit him as well. He opened one as they reached each other, and held it out over Chamomile’s head.
“I came to meet you,” he said unnecessarily. Water ran from his hair and into his eyes, droplets clinging to his lashes.
Chamomile took the neglected umbrella from him, intending to open it, but changed his mind. Much better to huddle close, put his arm through Lark’s elbow and lay his head on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile, nudging his nose into Lark’s wet shirt collar.
Lark looked down at him, wearing that face of delighted bewilderment Chamomile caught him with at least once a day—over breakfast sometimes, or as they sat quietly by the fire in the evening. It stirred up butterflies in his belly every time.
They set off for home at a sedate pace. Rain pattered pleasantly on the umbrella, and the wind was down. There was a nip in the air, but only enough to stave off humidity, and Lark was warm enough that Chamomile did not feel the cold. Rivulets of rainwater from his earlier soaking rolled down his neck and tickled his ears, and his pants were wet to the knees from puddles, but Chamomile found he couldn’t be bothered to care. It was a gray, beautiful day.
“What did Longfeather say?” Lark asked. He knew well how impatient Chamomile had grown as his pregnancy drew on.
Chamomile bit his lip against a coy smile.
“Walks,” he said.
“Walks,” Lark repeated thoughtfully. “Was there more?”
“Spicy foods,” Chamomile said, and added darkly, “The tea that shall not be named.”
Lark chuckled.
“And,” Chamomile looked around to assure himself that none of their neighbors were out in the wet, “Sex.”
“Oh, really?” Lark said, and Chamomile squeezed closer at his warm, teasing tone.
“Yes,” he said. “Golden says it may...encourage proceedings.”
“Proceedings,” Lark echoed with a laugh.
Chamomile pinched him, earning another chortle. He glanced around again, saw no one still, and said in a low voice, “No knotting.”
“Understood,” Lark said solemnly, deeply amused.
They left the umbrellas just inside the door on the mat, and their shoes next to them. Lark built a fire in the bedroom while Chamomile rummaged for twine and fashioned a drying line over the stove. He leaned over Lark to do so, bumping him with his belly and wincing as his back complained.
Clothing was hastily thrown over the line. Neither minded when Lark’s trousers slid off the line with a wet plop, for they were already squirreled away beneath the quilt, shaking water out of their ears in between laughing kisses until their dark space was damp and steamy and they were forced to come out for air.
Chamomile was squeezing out his curls when Lark touched his side.
“Here, love. On your back,” he said, and Chamomile obliged, holding Lark’s offered arm tightly as he lay down. Lark fit his hands inside his knees and raised them up and out.
Chamomile, busy arranging a pillow behind himself, did not notice him moving down the bed with intent. “Oh!” he exclaimed at the first billow of breath, moaning at the touch that followed, sensitive and earnest.
Too long, it had been too long. It had taken him no time at all to become accustomed to this closeness. He’d missed it terribly since they’d suspended their play, uncertain of the baby’s welfare as it grew. From the tightness of Lark’s grip on his hips and the eager, artless swipes of his tongue, Chamomile knew he wasn’t the only one to feel that way.
“Bless Golden Longfeather,” he happily sighed, and felt Lark’s snort on his inner thigh.
Lark gave him his first gasping peak in short order, palming his erection with one hand while the other held him open to cool air and delving tongue. Chamomile bit his lip when he came, straining with the force of it. Lark waited as it shook him, his breath hitting Chamomile’s pulsing flesh, his thumb stroking the side of his round belly.
Chamomile’s heart still raced when Lark, once more, ducked his head. This time his touches were lighter, circling his most sensitive flesh. There were sucking kisses on his innermost thighs, the barest brush of nose and fleeting strokes of tongue, until Chamomile whimpered and tilted his hips after every touch, his opening writhing around Lark’s thick fingers.
Lark was infuriatingly stubborn at times. Chamomile wanted to trap him with his knees, to tangle fingers in wet hair and force the pace, but he was too unwieldy, having as much flexibility as a wooden board. To move his hips as instinct demanded exhausted him, heavy as he was, and he grew warm and sweaty quickly, panting from exertion as much as excitement.
Lark did not fail to notice, for he held his hips in a firm but mindful grip. So restrained, Chamomile could only twitch futilely and whine as his second orgasm came on with wonderful, inevitable slowness, coaxed from him with unerring patience. His head fell back and his mouth opened, but he was silent as sensation washed outwards from his groin. His heart thudded intensely, and he sobbed as the wave finally crested.
“Lark!”
Gentling noises came from beyond his great belly. Hands stroked his sides and legs, fingers wet with his fluids and smearing it on his skin in streaks of coolness. His muscles spasmed alarmingly, so much so that Chamomile imagined their child popping out right then.
He laughed, breathless. Not quite what he wanted, that.
“...gorgeous, Cham. Just like that…” Lark was still murmuring comforting nonsense as he rose to his knees and came close. His cock poked Chamomile, blunt and hard and the tip of it beading wet, and Chamomile eased his legs wider, waiting for that wonderful push—but it didn’t come.
He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at Lark curiously.
His husband was pondering Chamomile’s midsection like a riddle. “I’m trying to think of how best to do this,” he confessed, and Chamomile realized his point. They had suspended much of their lovemaking before he’d grown quite so large.
“On top?” Lark hazarded.
Chamomile, still breathing heavily, raised a doubtful brow.
“I don’t think I can,” he said with a lopsided smile.
Lark bit his lip, eyes traveling appreciatively over Chamomile, whose chest and belly rose with every breath. “Suppose not,” he said thickly. “Perhaps on your side? Let me help.”
It took a few minutes to find a comfortable arrangement, and all of their pillows were called into battle, but they settled Chamomile with a cushion beneath his head, another beneath his bent knee, and Lark at his back, covering Chamomile’s hitched leg with his own. His long thigh was hot and pleasantly heavy, the hairs of it thick, but soft. Chamomile felt whiskers at his nape as Lark kissed him and giggled, ticklish.
Lark grasped himself and rubbed his head along Chamomile’s seam, dipping in and out, teasing them both before finally sinking inside. Chamomile sighed as he did, and chuckled at the long, shuddering groan that answered him.
Lark pressed his face into Chamomile’s hair and breathed for a moment, holding himself back. His cock throbbed inside.
“Happy?” Chamomile asked, drowsiness seeping into his voice. He felt, bizarrely, both buoyant with joy and pleasure, and yet grounded by contentment and child and love.
“So very much,” said Lark faintly. He pet the taut skin of Chamomile’s stomach, hands cupped against the curve as his hips rolled, and he began to move in slow, measured thrusts.
Chamomile was familiar with that pace; he loved to fall asleep by it as Lark held him so gently. He put his hand over Lark’s and wove their fingers together, closing his eyes with a yawn.
“Incorrigible,” said Lark fondly.
“I enjoy lovemaking and I enjoy sleeping,” said Chamomile smugly. “Why should I not enjoy them together?”
“Your logic is unassailable,” Lark said, his affected loftiness spoiled by a tremulous thread in his voice.
Chamomile squeezed to communicate his pleasure, and grinned when Lark swore.
Of course, no one could say what was coincidence and what was due to enthusiastic effort, but not four days later Lark had their neighbor bring Golden Longfeather, for the time had come.
Corte hung the customary garland over the front door, so passersby would know a birth was taking place. Shortly after, Mavis Silverscales and a few youngsters came: Mavis to post herself by the entryway to welcome well-wishers and receive gifts; Addicus Blackearth and Elise Honeywell to tidy the home, ready the nursery, and prepare meals for the new parents.
Lark knelt behind the birthing stool at Chamomile’s back, supporting his weight and massaging as requested, until another wave of pain came and Chamomile smacked his hands away again. Golden and Corte were a perfect team, barely speaking as they worked. Over Chamomile’s pained grunts, respectfully lowered voices could be heard outside the bedroom, as well as the rattle of pans and activity from the kitchen.
During a lapse, Chamomile leaned back against Lark and said, “Are they still dancing around one another?”
“Yes,” said Lark, sharing a private, amused look with Chamomile. They were both aware of how little he could say on the matter.
Golden stood to stretch her back out. “If the little one delays much longer, one of them might actually work up the nerve to speak,” she said.
“Wouldn’t that be sweet?” said Corte, from where he stood with a basin of steaming water. “New life and new love. Ah, it warms the heart.”
Chamomile made a noise, rallying himself for another contraction. Golden knelt quickly once more. “Sadly, I will not stand for any reasonably avoidable delay,” he grunted. “The lovebirds are very much on their own.”
“Steady on,” said Golden. “And when it feels right, push .”
Chamomile did, straining and flushed, and he gasped when he stopped.
“Please,” he said to Lark, “Talk about something—anything. Distract me.”
Lark squeezed the hand that squeezed his back. “We never did decide what to name the baby.”
Chamomile took up the thread easily. It was a familiar discussion, one that occasionally spiraled into argument. He said, instantly, “Aster.”
“Iris,” said Lark, just as quickly.
“Mind your breathing, Cham,” warned Golden. “Almost there.”
“Flowers, eh? Have you thought about birds?” said Corte. “What about Robin?”
“Robin? Hmm,” said Lark thoughtfully. “Robin Greenthroat. Cham, what do you think?”
“It has potential,” Chamomile sullenly allowed. “But...Ah! I still like Aster.”
“I’ll make you a deal, my love,” said Lark. “If we have two children, you may have an Aster, and I shall have an Iris.”
“Done.” Chamomile grit his teeth. “Since you won’t just let me have what I want, when I suffer for you so.” Lark kissed his temple with a sound smack.
Golden made a noise. “I see the head!”