...Okay, this is my favourite one yet. I have so much fun writing ANY kind of dialogue between Mika and Kurda and I got to use a lot of different kinds in this chapter. This is the first all-new chapter that doesn't contain any bits and pieces from the original. This is the level of character exploration I wish I'd done the first time, and am thoroughly enjoying it this time around.
Chapter 4: All In
Mika got marginally better at baby-handling as the week went on. The diapers were the hardest, and he was still working on accepting the fact that his stomach was much more sensitive than he'd been aware of. He still couldn't get through a full change without the looming threat of his lunch making a return, but he was hanging tough.
The second hardest was dressing her. Kurda understood Mika's struggle where diapers were concerned - it was incredible how something so small could create such a big smell. But Kurda's sympathy didn't extend any further than that. There was really no reason changing Gracie from one set of baby clothes to another should've been that difficult. But Mika seemed to be labouring under the delusion that if he stood there and willed it hard enough, the one year old (age estimated roughly) would simply put on her own shirt.
"How am I supposed to stuff that arm into a sleeve? Never mind get her head through the neck hole! Who in the fuck designs these clothes?" Mika grumbled from the other room while Kurda prepared some paperwork for a meeting.
"First of all, stop swearing in front of the baby, or her first word is going to be a big fat f-bomb." Kurda chastised him, only half paying attention. "Second of all, there's buttons at the back of the shirt. Undo the buttons to widen the neck hole, then pop it over her head, and re-button. Simple."
Mika muttered something under his breath, then there was silence for a few moments. Kurda didn't look up from his paperwork. He'd learned Mika really didn't take well to hands-on assistance. Complaining loudly while clumsily figuring it out on his own seemed to work better for him.
"Okay... the shirt is half-on. Now how do the arms get into the sleeves?" He sounded marginally less irritated than before, which was progress.
Kurda didn't exactly like Mika as a person, but he could still acknowledge that Mika was more intelligent than the average vampire. He had that much going for him at the very least. And with that said, it was still unclear to Kurda how Mika could be so high-achieving in all aspects of his life and still come up with such astonishingly stupid questions.
"Think about it." Said Kurda, very slowly and deliberately. "How do you put your shirt on? You have two arms. She has two arms. Apply the same concept. You take her arm and you stick it through the sleeve. If you wait for her to figure it out on her own, you're going to be standing there for a long time."
Mika let out a long, strained groan of defeat. Which honestly sounded more like a whine than anything else.
"Can you come look at it? I think the shirt's on backwards. The sleeve hole is in the wrong place and I don't want to bend her arm too far, or twist it, or-"
"I absolutely guarantee she'll tell you loud and clear if you bend her arm too far." Kurda shot back. He had zero patience for this right now. He had maybe ten minutes before he had to get out of this room, to the other side of the mountain, and start the meeting he'd been planning for six months.
"Can you just come here?!"
Kurda made a point of slamming his pencil down with much more aggression than was normal for him, and pushing his chair back in a way that made a loud, squealing noise on the stone floor. Then he stalked into Gracie's room to see what the problem was.
Gracie was just sitting there on her changing table, wearing her shirt like a little poncho. The shirt was kind of sideways, but it really wasn't as bad as Mika seemed to think.
"So what's the issue?" Kurda pressed impatiently.
"Just put her arms through the sleeves!" Said Mika, sounding just a touch manic.
"Why can't you put her arms through the sleeves? You're halfway there already."
Mika retorted with a sigh of pure aggravation, as though this task was so far beyond his realm of capabilities it rendered him speechless. Kurda took a deep breath and willed himself to remain rational.
"Listen. If you're THIS worried about accidentally hurting her, there's no way you'll accidentally hurt her." Said Kurda with as much patience he could muster. Which wasn't a lot; he was about to be late. "It's good to be cautious, but there's a fine line between being cautious and being counter-productive. Now grab that little sausage-arm and stick it in the sleeve so I can go to my meeting knowing she's at least dressed."
And finally Mika did it. It took a minute, a bit of muffled swearing (earning another scolding from Kurda) but he got there in the end. Both arms. At least Gracie seemed to think it was funny. She thought almost everything was peak comedy - her positive outlook on life was a small mercy for her would-be caretakers.
Once the shirt was on, Kurda slow-clapped while Mika rolled his eyes.
"Alright. Looks like she's all set. I fed her an hour ago but she might be hungry again before I get back. Should be about three hours. And I changed her diaper too, so you might get off easy there." Kurda addressed Mika. He picked Gracie up off the table, gave her a quick kiss and snuggle. "Have fun, sweetie. And be gentle with Mika, okay? He's trying." Then he gently deposited her into her playpen.
"Want me to just... go to your meeting for you?" Mika offered bluntly. Kurda narrowed his eyes.
"If you wanted to sit in on it, you should've thought about it sooner." He replied coolly.
"No, I mean I can go instead of you." Said Mika, not looking phased in the slightest.
Kurda felt his face redden ominously.
"And why would you go to my meeting instead of me?"
"So you could stay here with her."
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, seriously! It's not a problem. I don't mind at all." Said Mika offhandedly, almost hopefully. The nerve of this man.
"Funny how you phrase that like you'd be doing me a favour, when you know full well I've been preparing for this meeting for six months." Kurda snapped testily.
"Well, can't you just postpone it till tomorrow?" Mika asked. "Then Arrow will be free in case I need help-"
"Are you serious?" Kurda interrupted, his temper finally exploding. "I've already rescheduled three different appointments this week to accommodate your schedule! Remember when you had to rush off to that big emergency yesterday that turned out to be Arrow lost in the document library because he still doesn't know how the filing system works?! I skipped a bylaw conference for that! And you thought it was funny!"
"Watch yourself, Smahlt. Don't talk to me like-"
"No, you watch yourself! I don't care that you outrank me!" Kurda roared. "I don't care that you could have me killed on a whim! You're the one who insisted on tag-teaming this because you felt obligated by guilt! But I'll be damned if my career suffers because you think you can pick and choose when you have to be responsible! I can't work around your schedule if you think you have the gods-given right to change it on a moment's notice, you entitled, arrogant, elitist dick!"
Fact check time.
Expectation: Moody, snarky, authoritative Mika is the one with the quick temper, while the smiling, benevolent Kurda has a fuse that'll go for days.
Reality: Nope. Not even close. It's true that Mika is easier to piss off than Kurda, and that Kurda is naturally imbued with a great deal of patience. But Mika's frequent bouts of irritability are what keep him from snapping and going absolutely nuclear. Kurda, on the other hand, bottles up his frustration and smiles through it. After a certain amount of time, Kurda becomes a shaken Coke bottle. Mika just twisted the cap. And when the pacifist explodes, you'd better duck and cover. Mika's slowly getting that figured out.
Mika sighed heavily as if in pain, and ran his hand through anxiously his hair. He took a step back from Kurda.
"I'm not picking and choosing." He growled. "Since the moment we got back I haven't thought about a single other thing besides how I can make up for what happened to her family! I know I'm bad at being a fake dad, okay? You caught me! You're finally better than me at something! Are you happy now?"
"No! I'm not happy! General Morales travelled all the way from South America to speak with me! And he also doesn't speak any of the five languages I know, so I need a mediator to translate. There's ONE vampire here who can do that, and he's only available until the end of TODAY before he leaves the mountain until the next council. So with all due respect, Sire Ver Leth, if you interrupt my once-in-a-lifetime meeting because you couldn't even make it through one evening alone with her, I am going to beat you to death with a dirty diaper!"
Mika stared back at him for almost a full minute. His face was unreadable and for a second Kurda fully expected it to be on. But when Mika finally spoke, Kurda wished he yelled. Because what he actually said was so much worse.
"I may be a shitty, irresponsible, incompetent fake dad. I may not sing the songs or do the storybook voices." Said Mika quietly, through gritted teeth. "But I'm also not the one who just yelled in front of the baby."
Kurda felt his righteous anger cool and ebb, replaced by guilt.
"I'm sorry." Kurda groaned at last. "It's been a rough week. I've barely slept, and I know you haven't either. I just need to get through this meeting, then I have three days off in a row. It'll get better."
Mika stalked back to his own room, sit at his desk and aimlessly shuffle some paperwork. Kurda followed reluctantly, and paused to lean against the doorframe.
"Clearly you have a hard time being in a position where you don't have the answers. I understand that. And on top of that, it's becoming increasingly obvious we bring out the worst in each other. So if you don't think you can handle this, tell me now." Said Kurda in a low, steady voice. "I'm giving you an out. One last chance. You can step back. Gracie and I will move out of this room and I'll figure it out myself."
Mika looked up at him. His steely eyes were shrewd and unreadable.
"Is that what you want, Smahlt?" He asked quietly.
"I want her to be safe, healthy, and happy. I'll do that with or without you." Said Kurda bluntly. "Think long and hard about what I said."
And he left.
Mika pretty much felt like the world's biggest loser once Kurda headed out. But at least Gracie was happy and oblivious, camped out in her playpen with a colourful plastic thing that looked like a dog toy. Mika had some paperwork to finish, so he dragged her playpen from her room to his, with her still in it. She acted like that short, slow voyage was a thrill ride of grand proportions. She let loose a cackle of glee so loud Mika thought he was going to lose an eardrum. He parked the playpen in the corner beside his desk, so he could easily keep an eye on her while multitasking.
She stood at the side of the playpen, clapping her hands and hopping up and down while Mika read his documents out loud to her. Because he was pretty sure she didn't know the difference between her picture books and the stack of training progress reports Vanez had submitted to him.
"Gareth Tarl scored a forty-three the bars." Mika snickered to himself as he read. "Forty-three. Bet you could do better than that, huh Gracie?"
She laughed as though she was agreeing with him.
"And he still thinks he's a shoo-in for Vanez's elite training group. See what I have to put up with?" Mika muttered under his breath. He leaned sideways in his hair and dangled his hand into the playpen so he could scratch her back like a dog. "Okay, need your opinion. What do we think of this one? Edward Hesson... only scored sixty-two in hand-to-hand combat, but he's leading the class in swordsmanship and he's tied for second place on the bars. Does he make the cut for the group?"
She made a noise that kind of sounded like "Yeh!" and licked Mika's arm.
"You're right. We'll put him in the group, but make it pending on the condition he takes remedial training and bumps his combat score up by the end of the month." Mika mused, while absent-mindedly petting her hair. "Great idea. You're so smart."
They swapped ideas back and forth for a few more minutes. And then she started crying without a shred of warning.
By this point, Mika had conquered feeding. He'd conquered outfit changes. The diapers were a work in progress.
But he couldn't handle the crying. The uncertainty freaked him out - was she hungry? Scared? Gods forbid, in pain? And if she was, how the hell was he supposed to know for sure? Or go about fixing it?
Mika almost called Arrow for backup - but Arrow's shift in the Hall of Princes had just started, and his schedule was full. Mika knew that, because he makes Arrow's schedules for him. (Arrow is living proof you can still be an exceptional leader even if you have the time management skills of a carrot. But it sure helps when your best friend is a compulsive organizer).
"Please stop crying." Mika begged, reaching back into the playpen and patting Gracie's head. (By this point he'd confirmed with multiple sources that she was past the age where soft spots were a concern). "I'll give you anything. I just need you to calm down until Kurda gets back. Then you can scream at him all you want. He deserves it for leaving us alone here."
She took absolutely no heed of his offer.
"Do you need a diaper change?" Mika asked redundantly. But she passed the sniff test, and he was spared from that task for the time being. "Okay, what else... there has to be something..."
Mika looked frantically around the room, and grabbed a stuffed animal - a tiger - off the shelf. He knelt beside the playpen and offered it to her.
"Can I interest you in... fuck, what did Kurda say his name was? Uh... Harvey? Henry? Oh, Hobbes! Want to play with Hobbes?" He suggested hopefully.
She didn't want Hobbes. She simply stared up at him and screamed louder.
"How about a cookie? Do you want a cookie?"
He still had a baby cookie in his pocket from an earlier midday snack. He broke off a bite-sized piece and held it up to her. She gave even less fucks about the cookie.
"Come on. It's so good!" Mika reasoned. To illustrate this, he also took a bite. It really wasn't that good, and he really wasn't that hungry despite the fact he hadn't time to eat yet. It was impossible to think of anything else beyond stopping the cries that seemed to get louder by the second.
"I don't know what you want from me!" He groaned, his voice cracking slightly out of frustration.
But he knew that was wrong. There was some tiny little part of him that knew exactly what he wanted. It had been very hesitant up up til now, a dormant instinct that he never knew he had, much less would ever utilize. The quiet but determined voice that was telling him, "just pick her up and hold her, you fucking moron."
He'd carried her a few times throughout the week when required to transport her from point A to point B. Every single time had been nerve-wracking and he'd gotten it done as quickly as possible. But he'd never truly held her before. It wasn't that he didn't want to. He could barely even admit it to himself, much less ever speak it out loud to Kurda. But deep down, he didn't feel worthy of wrapping his arms around this fragile little thing and attempting to offer comfort. After all, his fuck-up was the reason her family met such a grim end. What right did Mika have to hold her close and tell her everything was okay?
But Kurda was right, as much as Mika hated to admit it. She didn't know where she was, who he was, or why she was here. She only knew she wanted to be cuddled, and he just had to get over it. If he couldn't get out of his own head, it would be easier for everyone if Mika stepped back completely. Kurda was right about that too. And although he didn't know much of anything right now, he did know he didn't want to step back.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, steeled himself like he normally did before a tough fight or an intense negotiation.
This is my life now. I can handle it, he told himself. Maybe if he drilled it into his own brain hard enough, it'd become true.
He thought back to the three words he'd heard Kurda say to Vancha the previous day when asked how things were going, and remembered how easily it had come out of Kurda's mouth: This is us. And the way he shrugged and laughed as he said it. Like it was a simple fact of life. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and we have a baby now.
This is us.
Mika sighed one more time, and he reached down into the playpen. Picking her up from ground-level was even scarier than having Kurda hand her over. Holding his arms out to receive her was one thing, but now he had to pause and think about how exactly to position his hands around her little torso. One of his hands alone was as wide as her entire body. What if he squeezed the wrong place and hurt her? She was already screaming bloody murder so there'd no way to tell. Alternately, what if he didn't squeeze hard enough and dropped her on her head?
His heart hammered almost painfully as he wrapped his hands around her torso and lifted her out of the playpen, holding slightly below the armpits like he'd seen Kurda do.
"Gracie, I have no idea what I'm doing. Just be patient with me, okay?" He told her, hating how unconvincing he sounded. Thank the gods no one else was here to see this.
Mika carefully repositioned so she was snuggled directly against his chest, held in place by his powerful arms, with his hand supporting the back of her head. He didn't always take Kurda's advice to heart, but he'd quickly internalized the head support thing. Because her little neck had no business trying to hold that head up by itself.
And he was so busy trying to stay calm, it took him a second to realize the crying had stopped. She nestled her face into him, thumb in her mouth, body completely still. As if there was nowhere else in the world she'd rather be. Then Mika realized how much he'd un-tensed too. His arms and posture had been stiff and hesitant when he'd first picked her up, but now he was relaxed. At ease, even.
"We did it, Gracie." Mika muttered weakly, caressing her back lightly as an unfamiliar feeling flowed through his body - like adrenaline, but softer. "That's my girl. Good work, team."
For a few minutes, he just stood there. Taking in the sweet, sweet sound of silence that was broken only by muffled thumb-sucking and the odd gurgle. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so relaxed. Nor could he understand why it had taken him so long to get here. Eventually he decided to go sit down and get comfortable. Still cradling her securely, he settled into his leather-adorned desk chair, leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.
Kurda didn't know if he should be relieved or concerned that he couldn't hear any crying or swearing as he approached their shared suite. His conference was finally over, and he had to admit he absolutely nailed it. He could only hope Mika fared half as well for his first completely unsupervised evening on Gracie duty.
Kurda was an optimist, through to the core. Despite all contradicting evidence, he legitimately believed Mika would rise to the challenge and get things figured out. He didn't believe for one second that Mika would actually take Kurda up on the offer to set him free. Even Kurda had to admit that despite their differences, Mika had a good heart and he cared more than he let on. (He still didn't like him, though).
But Kurda still felt his own heart swell up in relief when he walked into the room. Like we said, he knew Mika would get there. But he was also realistic enough to assume it'd take more than a week.
He should've factored in Mika's predisposition as an aggressive overachiever.
Mika was sitting at his desk, but he wasn't doing paperwork. His feet were propped up on the mahogany surface. And he was dead asleep in his chair, leaned back with both arms folded securely around Gracie. And she was flaked out on his chest, slumbering just as deeply as he was. Kurda couldn't help but smile. He watched them for a moment, before retreating to his own room. He'd have to wake them up for supper eventually. But not yet.
He did paperwork for the better part of two hours, and neither Gracie nor Mika stirred in that time. When it became clear neither of them were going to wake up of their own accord, he took matters into his own hands. Ideally, he'd wake Mika up without waking Gracie up.
"Mika." He whispered. "Hey, Mika. Wake up."
Nothing. He was out like a light. And no wonder, one of the many things Kurda learned since moving into the suite was that Mika's sleep pattern was absolutely horrendous. At least once this week he'd stayed up for 36 hours in a row. So whenever he crashed, he crashed hard.
Kurda gently poked Mika's upper arm. Mika snapped awake in an instant, before Kurda could even register it. Mika's right hand shot out and grabbed Kurda's wrist - not hard enough to hurt, but absolutely hard enough to stop him in his tracks. But Mika immediately relaxed and let go when he saw it was just Kurda. And he did all that so smoothly Gracie didn't even wake up.
"Sorry." Said Mika quietly. "I don't know who I thought you were."
"Quite alright." Said Kurda with a thin smile. "Pretty impressive protective reflexes for a fake dad. If I was trying to snatch her, I wouldn't have stood a chance."
Mika gave him a strained little half-smile, then he sighed in a way that almost sounded content. He looked down at Gracie once more. Kurda didn't know what the hell happened while he was in his meeting, but he'd never met this version of Mika.
"I may be useless at almost all of this, but that part makes sense to me." Said Mika softly.
"An argument could be made for that being the only part that really matters." Said Kurda. "And you have to remember that she doesn't know you don't know what you're doing."
Mika kept his eyes on Gracie for a few more minutes, then looked back up at Kurda. All the anger, frustration, and impatience from earlier had long disappeared from his face. Kurda didn't quite know what to make of Mika's current expression - it wasn't one he'd seen before. He didn't exactly look happy, but there was a subdued sort of determination about him.
"I'm not stepping back." Said Mika at last. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm all in. Whatever it takes."
"Whatever it takes includes me." Said Kurda reluctantly. "We can't ignore the power imbalance that exists here. It's been a week and it's already causing issues. It's not fair to her."
"So we'll take power out of the equation." Mika cut him off swiftly.
"What?"
"No ranks in parenting. Where she's concerned, we'll be on equal ground." Mika explained. "She's not a vampire. So I don't have any authority here anyway."
"She may not be a vampire, but I am." Said Kurda, with no small amount of skepticism. He arched an eyebrow and stared Mika down. "You say that now, but what's stopping you from flipping the switch and overruling me every time you feel inconvenienced?"
Mika exhaled heavily. Kurda could tell he was fighting the ever-present instinct to roll his eyes. But he held Kurda's azure gaze.
"Because I'm going to try, Kurda. That's all either of us can do."
First name basis again. Interesting.
Kurda said nothing for a moment. But he carefully moved Mika's stack of paperwork to the side of his desk and sat on it, so he could get a clear view of both Mika and Gracie. As he got comfortable, Mika shot him a stink-eye of pure death.
"Yes, definitely sit on my desk." He grunted. "That's what it's there for."
"If you had more than one chair, I'd sit in it." Kurda shrugged.
"This is my private suite, not a meeting room. I don't need more than one chair." Mika retorted. "Walk into the next room and get your own. I don't want your ass on my desk."
"But I'm already up here. The damage has been done. My ass can't un-sit on your desk at this point."
"Gods, you're a fucking nightmare." Mika growled under his breath. Gracie was still sound asleep, after all. "Of all the vampires I could've had a kid with, it had to be you."
"We didn't have a kid. We found a kid." Kurda corrected him lightly. "And watch your language."
"I'm literally going to have you arrested."
"No ranks in parenting, remember?" Kurda shot back, grinning wryly.
"I've changed my mind."
"Too late."
A silence hung between them for a money or two. It was by no means comfortable, but for the first time the tension between them didn't seem quite so suffocating.
"I told you you could do it." Kurda offered eventually. He reached out and lightly stroked Gracie's back as she continued to doze peacefully in Mika's arms. "Looks like you've known each other forever."
"She was crying. So I picked her up." Mika mumbled. "I hate when she cries. I feel like she's-"
"She's not angry at you." Kurda cut him off, his voice low and serious. "Or me, or even the vampaneze. She doesn't know. All she knows is that right now, she feels safe in your arms."
Mika exhaled, and appeared to hug her just a little tighter. He closed his eyes for a moment.
"I'm not going to lie and tell you this is going to be easy." Kurda added. "It's going to be very difficult. But you... are impossible."
Mika allowed himself to smile. It was chilly - but not as cold as generally came standard for him.
"Thanks."
"It's the truth."
Another silence, broken only by the soft little snores coming from Gracie."
"Hey, we should have a safe word." Kurda suggested out of nowhere. Unsurprisingly, this earned a murderously reproachful glare from Mika.
"Smahlt, I would rather eat glass than do anything with you that requires a safe word."
"Hear me out. I mean for splitting our schedules." Kurda continued determinedly. Now his mental gears were really turning. "I guess it'd be more of a code word. For if either of us have an emergency that requires a schedule change on the fly. Like a quick, easy way to say 'I need you to drop everything you're doing and take this baby from me, no questions asked'."
"Why not just say that?" Mika grunted.
"I thought you were all about efficiency. I've seen you kick people out of meetings for saying 'um' too much." Kurda pointed out.
"I stand by that." Said Mika with a little shrug. "But I get what you're saying. Alright, what's the safe word?"
"What's something you'd never normally say?" Kurda asked seriously.
"Let's hang out voluntarily."
"That's four words."
"Then I don't know."
"How about... pineapple?" Kurda suggested after a moment of thought.
"Why pineapple?"
"Why not pineapple? In what other situation would you use the word pineapple?"
"I'd say it if I wanted a pineapple."
"How often during the course of a week do you eat pineapple? Have you ever eaten pineapple?"
Mika shrugged.
"I had a pina colada once."
Kurda sighed in exasperation and rubbed his temples.
"You have five seconds to come up with a better idea, otherwise we're going with pineapple." He informed Mika through gritted teeth.
Mika's face went blank. So pineapple it was.
"Alright." Said Kurda, as a smile made its way across his face. "We've got that settled. As long as neither of us abuse the safe word, I think it's going to be very helpful."
Mika nodded mutely. His full attention had returned to Gracie, who was slowly waking up.
"Hi, Princess." Said Mika softly, giving her a little kiss on the forehead. She gave a squeaky sigh in return, and reached up to grab at his nose.
"That's mine. You have your own." Mika told her, and gently booped her nose. Kurda had been the one to initiate the nose boops originally, and Gracie thought it was quality entertainment. She laughed uproariously every single time.
"You have to say 'boop' when you do it." Said Kurda seriously. "To get the full effect."
Mika fixed him with a withering stare, so Kurda added:
"Never mind. I suppose you've strayed from your comfort zone enough for one day."
"Don't push it, Smahlt."
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter half as much as I did, that's good enough for me. You don't have to leave a comment but it's cooler if you do :)
- Roxy