A/N
Okay, this is my very first attempt at writing fan fiction. Hopefully I won't suck too badly. Please keep in mind, that English is not my native language so I'm sorry about potential spelling and/or grammar mistakes.
I have a vague idea of what I will be doing with this, but I am very open to suggestions and constructive criticism. Hopefully you will leave a review at the bottom. I am kind of nervous about this.
Chapter 1
Cooper Anderson was six years old when his parents first announced that they were expecting a new baby. They sat him down at the dinner table and told him that inside his mother there was living a new sibling. Cooper was naturally a little confused. Once, when his cousin Todd had babysat ham, he had watched part of a movie, where something lived inside a lady's tummy and that certainly was not a good sign. That thing had been very slimy and scary, and Cooper had had a nightmare about it afterwards.
It did not help his confusion when his parents tried to explain the process of the bird and the bees to him. All of that sounded completely gross, and totally made up, and he was not sure if they were serious, or if they had misunderstood something themselves.
None of that mattered though, when he began following the process of his mother's fast growing tummy and the preparations of making one of the guest rooms into a room for new baby to live in.
His parents did not want to know if the baby was a boy or a girl before it was ready to move out of the tummy, so they painted the walls yellow. That was a color fitting for both boys and girls his mother explained. Even though Cooper did think it was a little more of a girlish color than a boyish. But then again Cooper did know that his mother wanted a little girl more.
She always talked about how great it would be to have a kid of each gender. He once overheard her telling aunt Cleo that having a girl would make their family complete.
When his mother said that, Cooper knew she was really talking about being like one of the families on the old picture postcards he had collected when she herself was a little girl. On the pictures there were pretty ladies with sweet smiles, big colorful dresses and hats with flowers on them and there were men with strange small beards, fancy ties and canes, even though they weren't old.
The children in the pictures were always wearing sailor suits like the ones Donald Duck wore. The girls had bows in their hair and kitties in their arms and the boys had mischievous smiles on their faces and were carrying catapults or clogs with colored stripes for some game his mother had explained was called cricket.
Cooper had seen his mother look at these pictures often. She usually did after having watched that show with the dirty people who lived out in the middle of a lot of fields where there where cows, and always braided their hair and smiled a lot. When his mother watched that show she always smiled.
Cooper had a feeling that his mother would rather live inside the old television series or the picture postcards than in their actual house, even though the children in the series was three girls, and not a girl and a boy, but ever since the new baby had moved into her tummy she had been smiling a lot, even when she wasn't looking at the pictures or the family on the screen. Maybe she thought that if the baby was a girl, she would be able to make Cooper wear a sailor suit, or maybe she just really longed to have someone's hair to braid and put bows into. Cooper didn't know, but he did know that he himself did not care a lot for girls.
The ones he knew was nothing like the ones his mother looked at, they were pretty, sure, but they were all really shrill when they talked and their toys where so boring.
Cooper wanted to have a brother, someone who would jump with him into the mud pools instead of being afraid of the dirt, someone who would the appreciate the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Biker Mice From Mars as much as himself and play along with his dinosaur collection and electric train. No girls Cooper had ever met would want to do that.
Another thing Cooper was confused about was the names his parents had discussed for the baby. If he was the one to name someone, he would call them something really cool like Tarzan or Zorro, but when he suggested that to his parents, his mother had merely laughed an padded his head, and his father had told him to stop being foolish.
If it was a girl they agreed that she would be called Marion after Cooper's grandmother. If it was a boy though, his father wanted him to be named Bruce after some football coach of the Buckeyes, like the one Cooper was named after. He said it would make their names go together, and that it was a name that signalized stench, confidence and patriotism, the last two words which Cooper did not know the meaning of. What he DID know though, was that the name Bruce did not sound half as strong as the name Tarzan which let him to believe that his father was just stubborn about the name because he was jealous that Cooper had come up with the suggestion before him.
His mother wanted the name Blaine for a boy. She had liked that name she said, ever since she had watched some movie called Pretty in Pink. There had been a guy called Blane that she had loved a lot and wanted the baby to grow up to be like. She wanted the name to changed so it was with an "I" though, since she thought it made it more refined, another word Cooper did not understand but he guessed it meant being more like the boys with the sailor suits.
Cooper had decided that since neither of his parents appreciated his suggestions, he would make up his own secret name for his new brother or sister. It had to be something really great, and it couldn't be either Tarzan or Zorro, those names was not very secret anymore, and they would not do if the baby turned out to be a girl. He faltered between Snake and soccer for a while, thinking that both options was very good, but didn't sound very name-y. Finally he settled for Bonbon, because those were his current favorite candies, and it was fitting for both a boy and a girl. Cooper was sure that the new baby would like this name much more than any of the stupid suggestions their parents had come up with, and this way, him and the baby would have their own secret pact from the very start.
When the day finally arrived where the new baby was going to move out of his mother, and into the yellow former guest room, Cooper and his father sat beside each other in a waiting room at the hospital.
Cooper's father was acting calm, but Cooper could tell that he was anxious. He hadn't touched the coffee he had been handed by a passing nurse, and Cooper was sure that the page he was looking at in the news paper was the very same as it had been an hour ago.
Cooper himself was restless. He had been looking through his comic book more than five times, an activity that had turned out to be quite boring, since his father did not want to read it aloud to him.
Therefore he was currently looking through the pages of a slightly faded magazine for ladies he had found next to the pitcher with lemonade and the pile of Styrofoam cups. He was very unimpressed with the magazine. There were only pictures of different kinds of pants and blouses, and smiling women with shining hair and very red mouths.
Cooper sipped some of the lemonade, which had proven itself to be more like water with an aftertaste of something sour and swung his legs bag and forward, bumping them into the legs of the chair, causing a steady thumping sound in the otherwise quiet room. Every time he made to stand up and walk around a little, or play with the red truck with the big wheels he had brought along, his father let out an annoyed sigh and told him to sit down and be still when he was in public.
After what must have been hours a round-faced nurse finally appeared trough the door frame and uttered the words they had anxiously been awaiting for hours.
"You may see your wife now sir. I'm pleased to tell you that you've been blessed with a healthy and beautiful son of 5.2 pounds and 13 inches. He is a bit small, but entirely well."
Cooper tracked after his father into the hospital room where his mother way laying in bed, hair all messy and face sweaty and tear streaked.
"A boy" she said whispered with a broken voice as soon as she saw her husband. "It was another boy. Oh Phillip, why does nothing ever turn out the way I plan it?" She let out a choked sob, and looked down at the child in her arms with confliction in her gaze.
"Stop being a spoiled brat Catherine" his dad responded while gathering the new baby in his arms. "All we should do is thank God that this kid is alive and well. Besides, now Cooper will have someone to play with. And the kid will have him to talk to about girls and such, meaning we will only have to go through that once. He will be a successful guy, have the best education, and marry a nice woman with whom he will help carry on the family name when the time comes. Believe me, this was for the best"
Cooper looked at his mother from his place at the door entrance. She looked a bit ashamed as she met his eyes, but managed a smile. "Do you want to hold your new brother, Coop?" she asked him. He silently nodded and she waved for him to come closer.
He slowly made his way to stand at his father's side next to the bed, his mother smiled at him, a bit more sincere this time, as she patted the bed beside her. Cooper hesitated a little, but crawled unto it, and leaned his back at the headboard.
"Now be careful" his father said, as he eyed the child in his arms with a proud look. "Fold your arm like.. A hammock, yes, like that.. Now hold a hand behind his neck, he can't hold up his own head yet."
Cooper held his breath as his new brother was placed in his arms. He had a lot of hair, Cooper noticed. Most babies he had seen were completely bold, but then of course his brother would have hair he thought with pride. He looked down at the very small boy, stirring a little in his arms. He hadn't met a lot of little kids, but he was absolutely positive that this one was the single most awesome one in the entire world.
"Hello Bonbon" he whispered down at the boy whose big eyes opened and closed while staring groggily and unfocused around the room. "I think you are the best brother in the world" he added doing all he could to hold him still and support his neck at the same time. "The best one ever! We are will have so much fun together. Don't worry, because you might be small, and a bit ugly since your face is all pudgy and red and stuff, I'm going to protect you from now on"
"I guess since you did not get the girl like you wanted, I'll be able to go with your name suggestion Catherine" Cooper's father announced. Cooper himself was too preoccupied taking in every little detail about his new brother's now seemingly sleeping from, to see the genuine smile at his' mothers' face.
"Blaine it is" she stated.
