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Contains mentions of yaoi and slight spoilers for Fast Cars. Enjoy!
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Chapter 1; Know Your Enemy
Malik knew the second Altair and Ezio had stepped into Desmond's hospital room, that there had been a major leap forward in the quest to get Altair hitched and moved out of his building.
He knew simply because he knew Altair. Had known him since he was ten years old and seen him through innumerable teenaged catastrophes and a few of those wholly embarrassing moments you try to forget ever happened.
It disturbed him sometimes how much he knew about Altair, other times it disturbed him how little he knew about him. This though…
Altair was always somehow reserved in everything he did. He had his small luxuries; his nasty socks and collection of knives, the occasional pay-per-view porno, his TOYS. But on average he was rather unobtrusive by nature, like a cactus.
Yes, Altair was like a cactus! So long as you didn't sit on him, he was rather painless to be around, didn't require much upkeep and was easy to ignore. When Altair found a niche he stayed in it.
Malik also knew it had been over eight years since Altair had been with a man… He knew this because last time Altair had been in bed for a week afterward with a rather stupid grin on his face, staring dreamily off into the ether—when he wasn't complaining about how fucking sore he was.
Altair was a very fickle creature when it came to his unnatural mating practices. And through his snooping Malik had inevitably gained a little inner voice that sounded a lot like David Attenborough while he was studying all things Altair, scowling around corners with this running commentary in his head as he documented the goings on of his family and those around them…
Altair may claim to be pansexual, but Malik knew better… The only reason Altair would sleep with a woman was if she agreed to do strange, painful things to him. The women Altair had been with made Malik fear for his balls… They had looked innocent enough at first glance, in fact he thought one of them was a kindergarten teacher, but well—There were just some things he didn't need to hear coming out of Altair's bedroom, and hearing a woman dote in an infantile mash of syllables that those were the cutest nipple clamps she'd ever seen, and she hadn't known they made plugs for THAT was just too much for Malik.
He would much rather Altair be with a man than a woman… At least then the neighbors didn't call and ask where he'd gotten that lovely fuschia bustier and matching restraints.
Malik wanted to glue ten foil over the windows…
He didn't know where Altair found those women, and had begun to suspect such proclivities were contagious, especially when Hadiya had come out of their bathroom one evening wearing one of those leather collars with spikes on it and insisted that Malik let her blindfold him.
Contagious… yes, most assuredly contagious… Like the plague. Yes, that's it! It's a plague!
And, like a plague, he found he was utterly defenseless against it.
So, Malik continued his observations, keeping detailed notes in his journals and tried to leave little hints around for Altair to find to somehow help him grasp the point of it all.
Hint number one had been a box of condoms, placed in the symmetrical center of Altair' pillow after Malik had been able to finally get in there and give the place a good cleaning after dinner Thursday evening.
They were even in fun colors. It would be hard to miss.
The second hint was less subtle… He arranged for the kids to go stay with their grandfather for the weekend and made reservations for himself and Hadiya at a Cooking Workshop, down town, afterward dancing and a movie and they probably wouldn't be back until two AM so that gave Altair plenty of time to go through that three-pack and the protein bars Malik left on his stereo. And even if that wasn't enough time he and Hadiya would be busy themselves and wouldn't notice.
A win-win situation if ever there was one.
Control, was a beautiful thing.
Too bad he woke up on Monday morning, at four AM to the sound of Hadiya being violently ill.
Hadiya never got sick… And even if she did she was too tenacious and stubborn to let it stop her. She could keep going even if she was running a high fever and on so many cold pills it wasn't necessarily legal.
Malik struggled out of bed rubbing sleep out of his eyes and squinting around, toes curled into the soles of his feet incase he bumped his foot on the furniture in the room, and made a beeline toward the glow leaking under the bathroom door.
He wasn't partial to vomit, but four children had made it intrinsically impossible not to have an intimate relationship with the disgusting secretions of the human body, so he ground his teeth and tiptoed toward the toilet, dropping to a knee behind her and picking at the sweaty hair sticking to her forehead and neck, pulling it back so he could keep it out of the way.
"Did you eat something different?"
She shook her head but didn't really speak, couldn't really.
"A virus maybe?"
Malik had always been enchanted by her eyes. Such a strange shade of brown they almost appeared red in some light. She turned them on him now, scowling.
"Stomach flu?"
"Stomach something…" She wadded some tissue and blew her nose.
"Appendicitis?" He tittered nervously, his face beginning to feel numb.
"Zafir isn't even potty trained yet!"
"I thought we agreed on a 'stomach something'." He glanced around as if maybe hoping there were a hidden camera and this was all a big joke.
"Well, let's hope for a 'something' instead of a 'SOMETHING'… I've been sick for a week, tired, achy, nauseous—"
"Stomach flu?"
"If I'm pregnant I'm naming it after Altair, just to piss you off."
"You said that last time and we named him after your father."
"You're really not helping."
He was silent for a few moments, and they just looked at one another.
She scrubbed her nose again and pushed back from the toilet long enough to rake her hair back into a ponytail and lean her head into his chest, fisting the fabric of his t-shirt like a lifeline- "Would it be so bad? Another baby?"
"Are you sure you're… We've been very careful since last time." He settled into a sitting position against the bathtub and pulled her close.
"We were careful before and yet we have two sons… Remember my sister saying they must carry little knives to get through the condoms?" She jabbed him gently in the ribs. "It would be nice… You take such good care of me when I'm pregnant."
"You don't have to be pregnant to be taken care of."
She poked her tongue out at him; "It's different…" She sighed; "You're always so anxious though… You lost thirty pounds when I was pregnant with Gadil and you hardly slept."
"It's worth it."
She hummed and rubbed her cheek on his chest. "What if it's another girl? You would be sorely outnumbered then."
"You forget the idiots downstairs."
She rolled her eyes. "We would be evenly numbered then."
"What would we call her? We could name her for your mother… She would like that."
"She would…" Hadiya was quiet for a while, thinking; "What if it's a boy?"
"Gadil was named for my father… Zafir for yours—" he let his breath out in a sigh and rubbed some warmth into her back. "We still have those books around here somewhere."
She nibbled her lips for a few seconds, drawing swirling patterns across her stomach, as if perhaps she could already feel movement, or were writing secret messages to whoever may be growing in there. "What about your brother… I think if it's a boy that I'd like to name him after your brother."
"Hadi…"
"Just think about it… We don't even know for sure that I'm pregnant. I might just have a virus, or the stomach flu." She patted his chest lightly and shifted her head against his ribs. "I'll call Lena and have her make an appointment for me for tomorrow afternoon."
He sighed and kissed the top of her head; "Should I go with you?"
"You don't have to… You got so squeamish last time."
"I can handle it."
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