Ch. 3: ultrasounds and upchuck and utterly reckless teenage boys

I forgot to post this yesterday, so I slipped in a little extra segment, but who can really blame me when I'm hype as fuck for Texas tonight?

yadayadayada my tumblr is open and all that good stuff and I don't own gmw bc I don't think I've ever actually made a disclaimer

You become a father without actually becoming a father on a Tuesday and the event happens during Maya and Lucas Jr.'s first ultrasound together.

You didn't think that the trip would be good from the start. Maya was nauseous even stepping foot near the building with a new sushi place next door, managed to puke on the entryway with a burning face and the sourest expression you'd ever seen, almost stepped in said vomit while trying to avoid it, and she was bursting with so much fatigue that she didn't say one word without her nose scrunched up with anger.

"I hate it here, Ranger Rick. I hate it here and the baby hates it here!" she declared bitterly with her arms crossed.

"Don't worry about it," the receptionist assured when you finally got her to the front desk, "It happens all the time. Do you have an appointment today?"

"Sadly," you heard grumbled from beside you before you sent your angry little best friend to the fish tank to wait out the doctor while you settled the desk work.

"We should just leave." She was anxious walking in. She tried to talk you out of the appointment yesterday, too, which wasn't happening since she'd been avoiding an ultrasound for what seemed like forever. You checked online, and when you saw that she should've had the first one like two months ago you refused to even discuss it. "I don't need them to show me a picture. I don't wanna see the baby before it's born. It doesn't want me to, I just know it."

She told you the night before that she was terrified they would find something terrible in an ultrasound. "That's where they see it, Eagle Scout! All the stuff that goes wrong! The ultrasound! It's bad luck!" she said. She hadn't been that upset since the Friday before when she started barely showing and called the doctor four times at two in the morning to make sure that it was okay she was showing at thirteen weeks instead of the traditional twenty. She said that it was in her expert medical opinion, but you still listened to her cry about how her baby was going to be the size of an elephant and tear her in half for an hour before she went to sleep.

When you finally made it to the little room they'd do the ultrasound in and she was fully ready to ditch the place, you physically had to hold her down so that they could squirt the gross stuff on the tool and rub it on her belly.

"Don't squish the baby!" she screeched when it touched her skin and her entire body scrunched up. She hated it. She absolutely hated it and you hated watching her sit through it.

The appointment just wasn't going great. You didn't think much would come out of it until the screen lit up beside the both of you with the image of a fluttering heartbeat and micro infant and Maya's hand interlocked with yours because she'd stopped breathing.

"Everything's looking great," the technician said with a grin, his hand pointing up at the monitor. "Right there's the heartbeat, Ms. Hart, of your healthy baby. I'll leave an image up on the screen for you two until you're ready to go, and I'll see you back in about four weeks." A nurse asked quickly if the two of you would like a print out and Maya nodded wordlessly before you were left alone.

"It's... it's really in there." Her face is glowing when her hands interlaces on her small bump. She looks from the screen to her abdomen with her lip between her teeth and you don't think that she'll be afraid of this place anymore.

It takes only a second for you to think that maybe it's not going terribly, and as soon as the thought crosses, Maya completely falls apart and it happens. She's sobbing and wailing and she is freaking out because her baby doesn't have a father and so you do what you do best; you fix her tears. You hold your breath and close your eyes and you blurt out, "I'll be the dad."

The strangest thing is that it's not your worst idea. It's totally plausible. "I mean, we're best friends, Maya. You already live with me and I'll probably fill in with how we are and stuff. Why not roll with it?"

Her tears immediately stop and she looks at you like you grew three extra heads. "Lucas, you don't want to be my baby's father."

"Says who?"

"Says me. You're an eighteen year old boy. You don't need this weighing you down."

You shake your head at her defensive tone. "Says no one. There is no one in this world that I'd rather share a kid with."

You expect more of a reaction out of her after that, but all you get is a quiet, "Okay," before the nurse is back with your ultrasound pictures and just like that, you're going to be a father. You're going to have a baby and you're going to have this baby with Maya. That little tiny human in the picture that you're going to hang on your fridge will be raised by the most beautiful girl that you know and you have the privilege of helping her. What's the worst thing that can possibly happen?

You really shouldn't ask that. Every time you ask that, Maya gives you terrible replies. You just need a pro.

Babies are cute?

Maya will probably cry less because of this topic now?

You have an excuse to watch Nick Jr. and brush up on Spanish with Dora free of judgement?

Hell, at least now you can really fight to put Lucas Jr. on the table? Right?

"Maya, Lucas bought you Christmas presents. He does this every year."

You love Riley, you truly do, but she is possibly the most useless person for this situation on this planet. You know that he buys you gifts every year, but every year the gifts aren't nice jewelry and delicious vanilla chai tea mix and baby supplies and a wake up call of a kiss.

...An actual kiss.

From Lucas's mouth.

It isn't even that you've never kissed him before, either! You kissed him in middle school, you kissed him when he won that scholarship to that baseball workshop sophomore year, you kissed him every Christmas leading up to this point with mistletoe in your hands, and, fuck, you even kissed him the night before to say sweet dreams- but the thing about all of those times is that you kissed him, and on Christmas morning this year it was definitely him kissing you.

"No, Riles, it was different this year."

It fucks you up because you had such a great Christmas with him. It was literally perfect. You wore matching pajamas all Christmas Eve. Mama Friar found a way to bake barbecue sauce into cookies for you. Lucas tucked you in beside him with a plate of said cookies and you kissed him after he read your stomach about ten stories. While you pretended to be sleeping ten minutes later, Lucas ran out and set up your entire present stock. Shit, even after his kiss when he woke you up Christmas Day, you spent the entire day in PJs, singing and laughing and eating and just enjoying each other's company. It was literally your best Christmas thus far in existence, but you're still getting a sour taste fidgeting with the tiny diamond hanging from the chain around your neck that he got you.

"How was it any different from last year?"

"It felt like we were..."

You don't want to say it. You don't want to put the idea even out there because you and Lucas have had an amazing friendship for just about half of your lives, therefore that idea could destroy everything.

"You were what?"

You don't even know what you'd do if you lost Lucas. He's practically everything to you. You've never loved anyone as much as you love him, and if he was gone, you feel like the version you'd become of yourself wouldn't even be recognizable.

"Maya, what were you?"

Riley knows what you're going to say, and you're refusing to do it. You're refusing to cross that line. The second that those words leave your lips, everything could change and you don't need that. You're already having a baby for god's sake, how much more change can you really be due for?

"A coup-"

"A-skidoo skada a skio da-mmmmpphhhh"

Riley's hand tastes like chicken nuggets when you bite it to quit muffling you.

"A couple, Maya Penelope Hart. You felt like a couple," Riley teases with a smug look. "A coupley couple with one half that has razor sharp teeth wow." She shakes her hand with scrunched eyebrows and you refuse to even acknowledge her because she's insane.

"We're best friends." That would never change. You and Lucas vowed at ten that you'd be best friends forever, which you will. No matter what you've done, you've always just been best friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

That's how you like it.

(That's how you need it.)

If you're more than best friends then that leaves room for messy change, which you never want because messy change could lead to losing Lucas- and that's never happening. He's promised you that it'd never happen in a million years.

"You just don't get us," you scoff.

Pfft. A couple. You've never heard anything more ridiculous in your life.

"Lucas, are we a couple?"

You're not entirely sure that there's a correct answer to this question. You think that the immediate answer would be yes, right? Considering your current...predicament.

You're lying beside Maya. Naked. And she is lying beside you. Also in the nude. And you just did the thing that two consensual people do, especially when one is hopped up on hormones and really scary when she's all frustrated like that and she bit her lip in that way that gets your mind goin' and all your blood rushing south and all... so that would point towards couple, wouldn't it?

It's not the first time you've slept together, either. Every so often, if you were both single and worked up, you'd do it as friends. Just friends helping each other out. But since your last junior year hookup, you'd kind of agreed to father her child, so maybe you should say a couple.

The look on her face makes you think twice.

"I don't know, Maya. Do you want to be?"

She does, and you know it deep down, just like you know that you want to be one, too. You can also see the fight in her she's when the change processes through her mind.

Messy, she'd call it. A messy unnecessary change.

"I don't think so. I like being your best friend."

It doesn't sting like a rejection should because you know that it's not one. You know Maya. She's scared. Your feisty little Shortstack is terrified of change so she's handling her emotions the best that she can by keeping the label simple and steady. It's what she needs, so it's what you give her.

"Then we're best friends."

"And that's okay?" she asks you anxiously.

"And that's okay."

You can see the wave of relief flush her face before she presses a chaste kiss to your lips and cuddles to your chest. With her worries at ease, the exhaustion of her spent body catches up with her and starts to lull her to sleep.

"I love you, Ranger Rick."

It doesn't matter what you are to each other because at the end of the day, you know that she's yours and she knows that you're hers. Whether she needs a week or a year to label that; it doesn't matter.

"I love you, too, Penelope."

You'll be right here when she's ready.

When you were twelve, you got your period for the first time during the Friar family camping trip to Lake Michigan. You spent half an hour bawling into Lucas's lap while his fingers combed through your hair before you told his mom because you thought that you were dying.

"I was just goin' to pee, Huckleberry, and I'm bleeding out! I'm hemorrhaging! My stomach feels like it's being torn from the inside out! There's probably parasites in my intestines!"

He knew that it was your period. As soon as you told him a single sentence of what you saw or felt, he knew exactly what had happened, but he still held you while you cried and made a fool of yourself. "I learned 'bout that stuff back on the farm with all the different animals. It was how to tell when we'd be able to get babies from 'em," he explained to you that night after his mom gave you an extensive tutorial on feminine hygiene. "I ended up askin' Mama about girls and she gave me a quick version."

"So why didn't you tell me that instead of sitting there while I cried, you butthead?!" Your tiny arm swung as his bicep, swatting a few times with a grumpy expression on your face.

"'Cause, you weren't ready yet." He shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing. "I knew that you're comfortable enough with my mama to go to her with questions, and it's a lady subject. I didn't think it was my spot to force a lady subject on you while you were cryin'. I just wanted you to get to everything on your own terms. I know how important that is to you..." He looked guilty when he trailed the last of his words and you can remember your narrowed eyes easing up when he apologized. "I'm sorry. Mama just taught me that that's a private lady manner that young women turn to an older woman for. I don't think I'd make a very good older woman to ya."

"I dunno, I think some mascara could do you some good." Your fingertips brushed his eyelashes and his cheeks glowed brightly after he realized that everything is going to be okay.

"You'll be okay, Maya Papaya. Even when you're mad or sad or anything in between," he told you, "everything is going to be okay." You only laughed at him before the two of you dashed madly and joyfully for his fishing rods to make it to the lake before sundown.

You think about that memory a lot because it was the day that you realized that Lucas knows you better than you know yourself, and you still reflect on that fact even now because you're at five years from that trip going strong thanks to his extensive degree in everything you. Sure, that isn't the only thing about your friendship that bonds you, but it's definitely a key element to how well you work together.

You think that him having a key to your mind could even flourish your best friendship into more on nights like tonight when you can't sleep, so you force him awake.

You're straddling him innocently, eating pork rinds as he talks to your growing belly about its impending life with yawns fighting at his words.

He spends a good forty minutes explaining all he could about your child's aunts, uncles, and godparents (Riley and Farkle, no question), and when he reaches the topic of you and him, he gets this sweetness in his voice that makes your heart swell.

"Your mommy and daddy are going to love you very, very much."

"I like that," you blurt out at him. He stares at you in confusion, waiting for you to continue. "I like you saying 'mommy and daddy'. I like us being the mommy and daddy."

When you admit it, he grins at you with the same hue of pink on his face that he showed you when you were twelve. "You said us."

"I did," you assure. His statement almost seems like he's asking you if you mean it, and you do. You really do. You find yourself thinking about the promise the two of you made in elementary school together; the one about forever. It didn't particularly state that you couldn't be best friends and some forever, so maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing in this world.

"I like that," he confesses before his eyes fall back to your small bump and he's bringing up how excited his is for the ultrasound next week that will tell you the sex of your little bun in your oven.

"Even if I already know that you're going to be a little boy," you add in, earning an eye roll from your very mature best friend.

"You don't know."

"I do."

"It's impossible."

"Mother's intuition."

"A myth."

"I figured a little boy would make you happy. You've been addressing my baby by your name as if you have some legacy to carry on since the start."

"Does that mean Lucas Jr. is back on the table?"

"Lucas, no."

"Lucas, yes."

"We're not doing this. I am going to bed."

"Okay. Goodnight, Maya Papaya. I love you."

"Goodnight, Huckleberry. I love you, too. Let me sleep."

"...Goodni-"

"Lucas."

"Sorry."

"Bed. Now."

"...Goodnigh-"

"Lucas. Do you really think whispering makes a difference when you're wrapped around me and your mouth is by my fucking ear?"

"Right, sorry."

"Bed."

"...and-goodnight-lucas-jr.!"

"I cannot stand you."

"God, Maya, let me sleep."

Or maybe it would be the worst thing in this world.

You don't know if it'd work and you don't know if you are even compatible as such a couple and you don't know if you have the patience to be dating one Soarin' Eagle Friar, but you do know that the little noise of disbelief that leaves his lips as he holds you tighter sort of makes you really want to find out.