Retam Sullet - Part Ten

They'd had never had a disagreement more serious than what to watch on TV, so it took awhile for the others to realize exactly what they were seeing. Eleven o'clock p.m., November 1st, after three years of cohabitation and six months of marriage, Langly and Thea had their first real fight. Frohike battled a compulsion to mark it on his calendar.

If he'd known the reason they were shooting off sparks like a bad wiring job, he would have been far less amused.

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Langly and Thea sat thigh-by-thigh on the couch staring at nothing, arms folded across their chests, both too stubborn to move.

To his credit, Langly was right. He quoted statistics. Triplets were by definition high risk, particularly when it came to delivery. He signed small between them, listing intrauterine growth retardation, breach delivery, immature lungs, snarled umbilici, placenta abruptia, and myriad other reasons logic dictated she give birth in a hospital.

On her side, Thea had negative experience, paranoia, gut Instinct, and naked terror. She was her father's daughter. Despite the weight of facts, she stuck with what her gut was telling her. And her gut, in this case, was telling her 'no.'

Neither Byers nor Frohike had any idea there was even a question. Langly didn't tell them; he thought he could handle convincing her. He hadn't had any luck getting her to a doctor since they left Maryland, but this would be different. It had to be.

She did not tell him she was beginning to feel odd and restless. She went to bed, though what sleep she got was shallow and unsatisfying.

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It was already snowing when John and Melvin set out for work the next morning. Standing at the window in the front of the house watching them disappear down the road, Thea felt a strange compulsion to pick the clothes up off the bedroom floor. That accomplished, she waddled around the house putting away any books she was able to reach, despite the nagging pain in her back. While she stood rubbing her lower back against the bedroom door jamb, her amniotic sack broke and she doubled over as the contraction hit. It hurt a lot more than she had expecting.

One thing became immediately obvious - she was in labor. There was no denying that.

Before Ringo woke, she pitched the emergency cell phones as far out the window as her arm would send them sailing into the blowing blizzard. As if in conspiracy with her, the New Mexico State Highway Department closed all paved roads within 50 miles of their home. Half an hour later, the phone lines went down. The generator-less fools in that part of the world were soon without electricity, as well.

It was nine a.m. before Langly got out of bed, and by then, they were well and truly stranded.

Thea flatly refused to tell Ringo what she'd done with the truck keys. When he hot-wired the ignition, she flatly refused to get in the truck.

He knew it was pointless to yell, but he couldn't restrain himself. He got scared. He yelled. He begged.

She refused. Flatly refused.

He watched her body tense, intermittent contractions stilling the pacing she had been possessed by, reminding him a tiger he'd once seen at the DC zoo. The tiger kept leaping at the electrified chain link. Her somewhat primitive personality had always been part of her charm, as far as Langly was concerned. In labor, however, and snowed in, it lost some of its exotic appeal. She seemed dangerous, yes, but dangerous and pathetic.

YOU REALIZE YOU COULD DIE? he signed as another intense contraction passed.

IT WOULD BE BETTER TO DIE THAN TO SEE MY KIDS IN A LAB, she signed back at him.

WHAT IF THEY'RE NORMAL? he asked.

WHAT IF THEY AREN'T? she answered as another wave of pain seized her.

He watched her stand through four sets of contractions. By the fifth, he was whipped. He couldn't fight the elements and a girl with a head like a rock. He sat on the couch.

YOU WIN.

WHY DON'T I FEEL MORE GRATEFUL? her hands snapped at him as another pain started.

And so it went. He gathered the supplies he knew he'd need.

The first hour, the pains were about five minutes apart. Then, for most of the next hour, three. Langly put his arms around her when she'd let him. He petted her head until she batted his hand away.

I HATE HURTING, she signed in a calm moment.

Langly nodded. It required most of his self-control not to remind her that she could be out of pain if she would give in on the hospital issue.

I HATE FEELING WEAK, POWERLESS, LOSING CONTROL, she amended. I HATE NOT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT TO DO.

He nodded again, understanding. The trouble was, he knew exactly what to do.

What followed was an hour of...well, a whole lot of nothing. Followed by another. Then another. And another. Nothing happened except more pain and more snow, but Thea had stopped even her fairly mild complaining and it worried him. He could see her belly go rigid every couple of minutes. Her eyes had long since glazed over. If he asked her a direct question, she would answer with either a nod or a shake of the head.

He stood over the sink and washed his hands for a very long time. If she got an infection and died, it would be his fault. If he didn't do something quick, she would die, and it would be his fault. If she lost the babies, it would be his fault. If the cords were tangled, one or more of the babies could be becoming more and more brain damaged by the second, and that too would be his fault. It was all his fault, it seemed.

The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

It had been twenty years, but thanks to his dear old dad and a farm full of cows, he understood the basics of labor and delivery. Well, bovine labor and delivery. And he'd been doing a lot of reading on the subject of human labor and delivery lately, too.

He was well aware that Thea wasn't a cow, but they were out of options.

T, he signed, I KNOW WHAT TO DO. I'M GOING TO HELP YOU, OKAY?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? She had been in pain for so long she was worn down and not entirely coherent.

THEY'RE STUCK. I AM GOING TO REACH IN AND UNTANGLE THEM.

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO, she signed, shaking her head violently.

I HAVE TO.

DON'T DO THIS TO ME, RITCHIE, I CAN'T, I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE PAIN. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE, I'M TIRED, I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I CAN'T HAVE THESE BABIES, I SURRENDER.

THEA, he signed slowly with his very clean hands, IT'S TOO LATE TO CRAP OUT NOW. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WHEN YOU ASKED ME TO FUCK YOU. YOU WANTED TO GET PREGNANT. I'M NOT STUPID. YOU MIGHT PLAY THE POOR DUMB DEAF GIRL WHEN IT SUITS YOU, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE ACCIDENTS. YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED. YOU GOT ME AND YOU GOT PREGNANT. I LOVE YOU, AND NOW WE ARE GOING TO HAVE OUR KIDS. SHUT UP AND LET ME HELP YOU. THE SOONER I DO THIS, THE SOONER IT WILL BE OVER.

It was the harshest thing he'd ever said to her. The worst part was that he knew every word of it was true.

DON'T HURT ME, she begged.

He knelt in between her legs, one hand resting on her abdomen, then he reached inside past her dilated cervix and slowly, carefully began turning and untwisting his offspring. The sounds she made could not fairly be described as crying or screaming, but neither could they be described as truly human. Whether she chose to trust him or was simply unable to struggle he could not decide, but he was grateful she did not fight him.

It seemed like hours, but it took roughly seven minutes before the first bluish, gooey boy was delivered. Before Langly fully realized he had nothing to clear his tiny airways, the boy sneezed forcefully and began to scream. He turned a healthy, robust pink at an alarming rate.

Langly wrapped plastic-coated wire around the cord, cut carefully, laid the baby on Thea's chest. The frightened father reached inside for the next boy. The cords of the remaining two were wrapped tightly together.

Langly turned and turned and turned and turned for something close to 10 minutes. He saw Thea struggling not to struggle, her hands clenched tight. Finally, the next boy was free. This second baby looked worse than the first, but recovered just as rapidly.

By the time the third was delivered, the first showed no signs beyond blood and vernix of having been very recently born. His head was now perfectly round.

The last baby, however, appeared to be dead.

Ringo stared, lost. The baby was black. It was clear his oxygen had been cut off for a while. Not knowing what else to do, Langly held the naked little corpse to his chest, rocked it gently, kissed its head. After a few minutes, the strangest thing happened.

The baby moved. Stretched. Coughed blood and mucus all over his father's shirt, and started to cry.

"Holy shit," Langly whispered rubbing the boy's back.

The boy went from black to blue to perfect-peachy-magazine- ad-baby pink in minutes. After a little nervous hysterical laughter, Langly wrapped the boy, and went back to work on Thea. He kept the last baby beside him.

The new father saw to it that his wife was cleaned and wrapped in warm blankets. Immersed in thought, he tended the fire.

There were so many things going on in his head. He shuddered to think how much pain he put her through, how much pain men in general put women in general through. He wondered why they weren't all lesbians. Why homo sapiens didn't die out. Stupid fucking evolution.

Stupid Fucking Ringo Langly should have spared her all this and remembered the damn condom.

The baby squirmed against his chest. His sons were gorgeous. He loved them. The minute he saw them, he loved them. They were best thing he'd seen in his life. He was amazed he had a part in producing anything so. . .pretty.

He was glad he forgot the condom. He was glad he was male, and at the same time, belatedly sick to his stomach.

Thea sighed, drawing his attention. She seemed alright, not too much blood, placenta in one piece. All that was in her favor. She didn't seem to be in pain anymore.

He would never ever be able to pay her back for this, for this gift. He had the sudden inexplicable desire to see his mother, forgetting for a second she was dead.

Finally, Langly and Thea made long weary eye contact.

YVES WAS RIGHT, she signed, running her finger over the tiny nodule on the back of one son's neck.

Langly had noticed. LOOKS LIKE IT. I MEAN, THE LAST ONE WAS...HE WAS DEAD, he signed.

Thea's eyes widened. DEAD? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, DEAD?

NOT BREATHING. STIFF. COLD. DEAD, he signed, realizing it was only shock and exhaustion that made him communicate such a thought so easily. BUT HE SEEMS OKAY NOW, he added, signing less sharply.

He looked down at his hands. There was dried blood under his fingernails.

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From her spot on the couch, Thea watched her husband. He was holding their son, the one he insisted had been dead, and staring at the child, mesmerized. He hugged the baby to his chest, kissed the little head again and again.

She realized he liked them. Whatever they were, Ritchie liked them.

She pulled back the blanket and exposed the two squirming bundles on her chest. For the first time, she looked at the faces of her children. White, feathery hair was crusted with the evidence of birth, large blue eyes stared up at her, already focused. Their noses were bridgeless, like all infants, but already familiarly pointed at the tip. Their chins deeply cleft.

They were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

She breathed them in. Babies? Was it her babies? Ringo's babies? Of course his babies would smell delicious.

One of them was looking her in the eye and opening and closing his mouth against her arm, like a fish in a tank. She opened and closed her own mouth back at him and stroked the soft skin on the other baby's back. The one she was rubbing was calm, his cheek against her breast, his breath deep and even. He was simply enjoying her presence, her touch. The feeling was mutual.

Langly crossed to the couch and touched her arm. HE'S HUNGRY, he signed, sitting beside her on the floor. HE'S DOING THAT BECAUSE HE WANTS YOU TO FEED HIM.

HOW?

LET ME HELP. Baby on his shoulder, he carefully took her breast in one hand and rubbed her nipple against the hungry baby's cheek. Within seconds, the baby was nursing intently.

YOU DID EXCELLENT, Langly signed. LOOK AT THESE GUYS - YOU ROCK.

THEY AREN'T NORMAL, she signed, really thinking it for the first time.

Langly shrugged as best he could while holding a baby. HOW NORMAL COULD THEY BE WITH US FOR PARENTS?

YOU LIKE THEM? she signed.

He nodded. OF COURSE I LIKE THEM. THEY'RE MY KIDS.

It was too much. Suddenly, it was all too much. She started to cry.

T?

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? she signed. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. I'LL MESS THIS UP.

Langly stroked her sweaty hair. I LOVE YOU. WE CAN FIGURE THIS OUT. DON'T WE ALWAYS?

YES. WE DO, she answered tiredly. WE'RE A COUPLE OF FUCKING GENIUSES, AREN'T WE?

Langly gave a small laugh. YES, he answered solemnly.

I LOVE YOU, RITCHIE.

SORRY I HURT YOU. SO SORRY. SORRY. SORRY. YOU FORGIVE ME? He signed the word 'sorry' tensely, his eyes cast down, his flattened fist moving counterclockwise on the center of his chest. He smeared his shirt with blood.

Thea nodded tiredly.

Soon after the five of them drifted off to sleep in front of the fire under a quilt made by MaryBeth Langly.

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Frohike called as soon as he was able. "Byers and I spent the night at Cindy's," he told Langly. "You two alright up there?

There was a long pause on Langly's side.

"What happened? Is she okay?"

The pause went on.

"Dammit, freak, what's going's on?"

Finally Langly spoke. "Congratulate me."

"Congrat-? Oh." Melvin felt faint for possibly the first time in his life. "Congratulations. Is everybody okay?"

"Yeah. And Yves was right."

"Yeah?" Melvin gulped. "How's the new mother?"

"She's okay, considering."

"Considering what?"

"Considering the babies got stuck and I had to reach up inside her like she was a damn cow." He sounded like his same old piss-and-vinegar self, but Frohike thought he heard a ragged edge threatening to turn into tears.

"You keeping tabs on her temperature? Watching for infection?"

"Yeah, and she ain't exactly being Little Mary Sunshine about it, either."

"When is she?" Frohike chuckled. "So what are they, anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Boys or girls? Pink or blue? Do they have little...?" Frohike snorted

"Boys. All boys "

"I'll pick up Byers at the library and we'll stop by the store on the way home - I'll get diapers, bottles, formula, what else?"

"She's got milk."

"Already? You think it's gonna be enough?"

"It's enough."

"Anything else?"

"You think they got home vasectomy kits at Wal-Mart?"

Melvin Frohike gave the receiver a stunned look. As far as he was concerned it was the most mature thing Langly had said in all the years he'd known him.

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Three minutes later Cindy's phone rang.

It was Ringo.

"Uhhh I forgot something "

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I uhh I need you to get some..."

"Some what?"

It sounded like "mumble-mumble-brake-pads" coming from Langly's end of the phone.

"Brake pads? why do you want brake pads?"

"I said 'sanitary pads,' Numbnuts."

Frohike laughed. The guy might be growing up but he still had a ways to go.

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That evening, roughly 24 hours after the birth, John stood at the doorstep behind Melvin. It felt electric. It felt as if it was one of his childhood Christmases, when Santa Claus was alive and well and midnight mass at the Episcopal Church had lent a solemn air to the holiday and John felt sat perched in his pew, reasonably confident he had been a good boy.

From behind the door he could smell Thea's favorites, coffee and bacon, along with the delicious perfume of pinon wood on the fire. Underneath he caught a disturbing whiff of blood. There had been a birth, he reminded himself. Blood was normal. He wondered how Langly managed, until he was caught off-guard by a sound oddly familiar sound.

Low. Nasal. With a definite twang. Something like Langly singing, but the tune was Gilbert and Sullivan and the words were wrong.

"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium/ And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium/ And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium/ And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium/ Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium/ And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium/ And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium And...and...fuck, I can't remember the rest."

The singing stopped and talking started. "You like that buddy? Soona taught me that when we had chemistry together about a million years ago. Yeah, he's dead, like your Gramma. Too bad they'll never get to see you. They'd have liked you, all of you. My mom used to..."

Langly had been singing his child the periodic table of elements. Byers couldn't help but smile.

The door opened. John and Melvin looked at each other and at their friend standing in the kitchen with a baby in his arms. John felt his heart swell until he though it might split at the seams.

Langly brought the boy closer. The three men formed a huddle around him. Byers held his breath.

A dense crown of feathery white hair stood up from the infant's head. Bright blue eyes focused intelligently on the two new faces. The baby gripped his father's wrist, looking from one man to the other and back again. the vivid pink rosebud mouth seemed to frown in concentration.

Without conscious intent, Byers took the boy from his father's arms.

"Quit boggarting the kid," Frohike grumbled.

"There's more where he came from, Fro," Langly replied.

Byers felt strange. His skin tingled. The newborn grasped his coat sleeve. Kicking free of his blanket, the boy exposed a freshly severed umbilicus between his tiny diaper and snowy white shirt, and opened and closed his mouth, guppy-like, at the man who held him.

"What's that?" Byers asked. "Why is he doing that?"

Langly said, "That? He's hungry."

"Feed him for god's sake, Ringo," Frohike said.

"I'm going to as soon as there's a feeding station open."

It took John a minute to realize what his friend was saying. There were two more babies upstairs, with Thea.

Lord...Thea, how was she?

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Frohike didn't know when he'd felt so excited. All sober reservations and concerns aside, he wanted to see Thea and he wanted to see the rest of those babies.

Knowing her as well as he did, Frohike should have realized there was a good chance when he opened her bedroom door she was going to be topless. She had a baby at either tit and all the modesty of a stray cat.

SHORTMAN! JOHN! LOOK WHAT WE DID WHILE WE WERE SNOWED IN. YOU CAN'T SAY WE AREN'T PRODUCTIVE, she signed, smiling.

All Melvin could do was stare. The boys were wiggling and sucking as loud and vigorous as puppies. After the embarrassment of seeing the Kid's tits ebbed, he was able to take a good long look at her.

She looked great and awful at the same time. She had that ashy color of an olive-skinned person who'd lost blood. Broken capillaries like red snowflakes fell across cheeks made chubby by pregnancy. Despite all that, or maybe because of it, her eyes gleamed. Like a soldier, she seemed bloodied but victorious.

The funny thing was Mel suddenly realized he'd seen the girl mentally fatigued, physically exhausted, and plain old fashioned sleepy, but never relaxed before that minute.

She wound a hank of hair at the crown of one baby's head into a curl around her finger as she gazed up at Melvin expectantly. After a minute she signed a question mark with her free hand.

Frohike forced a smile. He couldn't think of a single sign to her to tell her how he felt.

CAN I? he gestured at the babies, whose hunger seemed to be slacking off.

LIKE YOU NEED TO ASK, she signed, snorting.

Carefully, he took one boy in his hands. He seemed unnaturally strong for a newborn. There was something else hinky, too. His head. The little guy held it up on his own without even a hint of wobble. And it was round and smooth, not even the littlest bit out of shape. Not at all like he had just been squeezed out.

WE NEED TO NOTIFY YVES. HAVE SOME TESTS RUN, the older man Signed, even as he tucked the boy under his chin for a warm hug. He noted the way Thea tensed. She had to have expected it; she had to have known it was necessary.

OKAY. BUT ONLY THE TESTS RITCHIE AND I APPROVE. THIS IS A ONE-SHOT DEAL. THEY AREN'T... She paused for a word, looking something between angry and afraid.

LAB RATS, Langly supplied for her.

She nodded and rubbed the thigh of his jeans. WE MADE THEM FOR...FOR... FOR... LOVE.

NOT AS A SCIENCE PROJECT, Langly finished. She nodded.

"Get off it, Blondie," Frohike said and did not sign. "You did this because you were too excited about popping The Kid's cherry to take any precautions." He inhaled and added in a conciliatory tone, "But it looks like you did alright in spite of yourself."

Byers had surrendered the baby in his arms to Thea, then scowled at Frohike. Frohike found it unsettling.

WHAT? Thea signed. WHAT DID HE SAY RITCHIE? JOHN?

Neither answered her.

Frohike leaned forward and touched his thumb to her chin. I TOLD HIM I WAS PROUD OF YOU. BOTH OF YOU.

He wasn't sure how it happened but the next thing he knew Langly was hugging him.

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Like that, they were parents.

It proved that evolution tends to be cataclysmic rather than the incremental. In a few gushes of blood, hot sticky fluid, and other unidentifiable nastiness, their lives changed forever.

Although his standard reply to any outside query was, "I had it under control," in the privacy of his own opinion, Langly was a bungling incompetent who'd lucked his way through the whole birth. Thea would never seem indestructible to him again. In her miserable labor, he had seen the long shadow of a girl stripped bare of intellect and strength, a girl afraid and totally unprepared for what was happening to her. Somehow, this epiphany lowered his estimation of himself and raised his estimation of his wife, though he would never have been able to explain why.

Some things seemed to come as a surprise to both of them. Thea and Langly both had labored under the delusion that childrearing, like all the Lone Gunmen's other endeavors, would be a group effort. They were shocked when Frohike and Byers contributed little beyond a brief evening stint in the rocking chair and the occasional martyred diaper change.

Neither of them started with even the most vague notion of how much work three infants would entail. Although there had been seven children in his family, any and all childcare was deemed the sole purview of the female members of the Langly family. Showing too much enthusiasm for babies, not unlike exhibiting excessive interest in art, literature, school, or housework, would immediately cause one's masculinity to come under suspicion.

Within days of the birth of his own sons, the already keen edge of resentment Ringo held toward his father sharpened radically. Hank Langly was an idiot and every, every, every single thing he'd ever told his son about the world was wrong. When the boys were older and Ringo had the chance, he was going to sit down and write a refutation of every piece of ignorant, stupid, and wrong-headed advice the old man had given him, and then he was going to drive to Nebraska and nail it to the cowshed like Martin Luther and the fucking Wittenberg Door.

Thea, on the other hand, hadn't been misinformed; from what Ringo had seen, she'd been clueless.

Nevertheless, she dealt without complaint. He wasn't sure if it was exhaustion or something else, but she seemed softer all of a sudden. Maybe softer wasn't the right word; more like the wire that held her strung so tight for so long had snapped. Sometimes it surprised him how much she seemed. . .like a mom.

Their years of practice working together served them well. Within three weeks, they were a well-oiled, if harried, walking-kissing-rocking-feeding-diaper-changing machine. Ringo had literally screamed when Byers innocently remarked at what 'easy' babies they were.

While it was true they slept twelve uninterrupted hours every night of their little lives, it was also true the babies spent the other twelve hours in valiant effort to keep their digestive tracks engaged from one end to the other. They nursed for hours at a stretch. Then they shit, had explosive gas, maybe spit up a little, and started all over again. The entire process was made more difficult by the fact that their mother had given birth to three children but had come equipped with only two nipples.

Her insistence on using breast milk only had lasted one nerve-wracking week. Although Ringo would be the first to admit formula definitely made for grosser diapers, he could deal; his measurement of disgust had been recalibrated.

For all the hard work and the grind of it, cuddling on the couch in front of the fire with his wife and kids filled some gaping hole in him he had never thought anything could get to. It was hard to imagine there had been a time when he didn't want this. If his father had been too fucking macho to blow on a baby's belly and make it giggle, screw him.

Ringo, caught up in a weird spontaneous moment of baby tickling, lifted Thea's shirt to blow on her belly, too. She snorted and laughed her drunk seal laugh and all of a sudden he was aware it was his mouth on the smooth skin below her navel and they both held their breath. He looked at the babies shiftily. They watched their parents with interest. Their mother was biting the inside of her mouth. Their father's glasses were smeared and rapidly fogging.

Sex. He had been playing at it before but now he knew what it was, what it really was, the way a man could only when he'd held his wet, bloody baby in his shaking hands, praying to something he didn't believe in that everybody would survive.

He knew now that sex wasn't over when he shot his load; it only started.

His brooding and paralysis were interrupted when a baby pitched himself forward and grabbed a fist full of long blond hair.

"OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!" Langly pulled away, unclenching the small hand carefully.

TONIGHT? Thea signed as he re-braided his hair quickly.

He shook his head.

COME ON, RITCHIE, I AM RECOVERED, she signed seductively.

WHAT ABOUT ME? I'M THE ONE WHO HAD AN OPERATION, REMEMBER? WE SAID WE'D WAIT UNTIL DR. STEINBERG GIVES ME THE ALL CLEAR, he signed frowning, then his expression softened. SIX WEEKS FROM NOVEMBER SECOND, THAT WAS OUR DEAL.

OK, BUT I'M COUNTING THE DAYS. YOU MAKE ME WAIT TOO MUCH LONGER AND I'M GOING TO WIND UP WITH A SERIOUS CASE OF REPETITIVE STRESS INJURY, she grinned as she signed. She smiled more these days, he noticed.

Ringo rolled his eyes. I'LL BUY YOU A WRIST BRACE.

Thea laughed like a seal again and punched him in the arm.

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For whatever reasons, the gods didn't want Frohike to get any sleep that night. He laid under flannel sheets and wool blankets and anticipated each tick of the clock for the better part of an hour after that. Then he found his feet moving downstairs of their own volition, dragging the rest of him along for the ride.

Who should be on the monitor in the dark downstairs but Langly, tense as a wire and focused on one of his stupid games. A stupid game he appeared to be losing.

"What're you doin' down here? Kids'll be up in the morning," Frohike said, pulling back Langly's headset.

"Fuck off, Dwarf." Langly groaned as his character took what appeared to be a painful head-butt from something with spikes studding its cranium.

"What happen? She kick you outta bed? Miss I-can't-get-enough kicked you outta bed?" Frohike asked, sarcasm dripping from his words.

"Butt out, Melvin."

Frohike stopped in his tracks. "'Butt out Melvin?'" he echoed. He'd expected some creative insults at the very least. "That's the best you can do?"

And then, much to Frohike's surprise, Langly ignored him. Which set all his alarm bells ringing. If Langly wasn't rising to the bait, something was wrong. Bad wrong.

Frohike tugged the headphones off again. "Hey," he said, "if I went to your room right now would Xena, hacker princess, be bawlin' her eyes out?"

Langly shrugged, but looked pained. On the screen, his character let out a painful keening cry, and fell to the cyber-ground, died. "Shit," he muttered.

Frohike waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited. Hell, it wasn't like he was going to get any sleep, anyway.

"She thinks I'm unsatisfied. Or out of love. Or somethin'" he whispered.

"Why would she think that?" Frohike asked. "What dumb-ass thing have you done now?"

Langly frowned. "I haven't done anything."

Frohike frowned right back. "You haven't done anything?"

"Exactly," Langly mumbled.

"What the fuck? You musta done some-" And then it occurred to him. "Oh. You mean you haven't 'done' anything. As in, 'you" haven't 'done' any 'thing,' is that it?"

"Fuck off."

"So she's right?" Frohike asked

Langly's head snapped around to face Frohike. "What?"

"The thrill 'is' gone?"

"As if." Langly glowered. "Now fuck off."

Frohike reached to his left and pulled a wheeled desk chair out of the alcove. "Hey, Langly, no shit now. If The Kid's unhappy, there isn't going to be any joy in Muddville for any of us. Now you can be an asshole, or you can let me try and help."

Langly looked at him, then looked away again. Frohike wondered if they were going to go another five rounds of The Waiting Game when every inch of Langly's body became still and he whispered, "I've, umm, been having a, um, a hydraulics issue."

Frohike's puzzled that over for a minute. "Oh," he said at last. "Oh. Oh shit. Have you seen your doctor about it? You see him for every other damn thing."

Langly mumbled something with his face covered by his forearms.

"What?" Frohike enunciated clearly.

"It's not like that. It's, um, a selective problem, a very selective problem." Langly twitched while he said it.

Frohike was utterly exasperated by Langly's suddenly delicate sensibilities. "'Selective' how? Will you just spit it out?"

"I don't think we should be talking about this," Langly said finally.

"I don't think we should either, but here we are."

"She's my wife, man, the mother of my kids. This is supposed to be, ya know, sacred or something, just between the two of us," Langly stuttered.

"Have you discussed this with her?"

"Not exactly," Langly said dejectedly.

"You mean, 'not at all,'" Frohike shook his head. "Man, if anybody ever needed therapy..."

Langly resolutely looked at the monitor.

"So how many times have you tried?"

Langly looked perturbed again. "Let's just say tonight proves definitively that the third time is not the charm."

Frohike sighed heavily. "Okay, look, what's the problem? You've been snipped, so you can't knock her up again. So what are you worried about?

"I don't wanna hurt her," Langly finally whispered.

Frohike couldn't help it. He snorted. "Trust me, Langly. If you hurt her, I'm pretty damn sure she'll let you know."

Langly gave a non-committal shrug.

"Wanna know what I think?" Frohike asked.

Langly shrugged. "You're gonna tell me either way."

Frohike sighed again. "Seems to me if you screwed her once and saw she was none the worse for wear, so to speak, the problem would pretty much be solved."

"Yeah? Well, tell me, oh Swami, how I'm supposed to do her this one magical time if I can't, I can't, you know?"

Frohike rose. "Follow me."

And Langly did.

"You say a word about this to anyone, including The Missus, I'll kick your ass," Frohike said as he led Langly into his small, sparsely furnished room.

"A word about what?"

Melvin opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pill bottle. He placed a small blue diamond-shaped pill in Langly's hand.

Frohike knew he was dealing with Captain Psychosomatic. He knew it might as well be a sugar pill, and he sort of wished it was, those little guys weren't cheap.

"A word about that."

Langly snorted. "Shit. Is this-? It is, isn't it? Shit."

"It takes about half an hour to kick in, then you should be good to go," Frohike explained.

"Okay," Langly said, closing his fist around the tablet. The younger man suddenly seemed taller, Frohike thought. "Okay. And, uhh, thanks." Langly left them room then, and Frohike would have sworn there was a spring in his step.

"You're welcome, dumb-ass," Frohike replied after Langly was too far away to hear. But there was a smile on his lips even as her crawled beneath the covers once more.

He did not notice when, a few moment's later, sleep finally overcame him.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Langly sat for some minutes on the edge of the bed watching his wife sleep. He still didn't feel entirely at ease in his own room. He knew Yves and Jimmy meant well, but a mahogany sleigh bed only slightly smaller than the island of Trinidad wasn't anything close to what either one of them was comfortable with.

He looked around the room. The only way you could tell it was theirs was the debris piled everywhere. It was probably a bad idea for the two of them to be allowed any horizontal surface. All the mirrors were weird too but those came with the room. Six months and he still wondered who'd need to look at themselves that much.

And why.

When, suddenly, the why occurred to him.

It took five minutes to point all the mirrors at her sleeping form. From one vantage point he could see her long legs, her profile, a full view of her face, even her suddenly very-there tits.

He stared at those tits. They looked uncomfortably full even under layers of fabric. Engorged breasts was the trade-off for the boys sleeping through the night. As usual, she got the bad end of every good deal - he got laid, she got pregnant; he got three gorgeous sons, she got excruciating labor.

It was so ironic. He'd always wanted good luck, just never at someone else's expense. Especially not hers.

In the day time, as long as everyone had their clothes on, their relationship made good solid sense to him. She was the best bud a guy could hope for and he never had to worry or feel gay about it. Now she'd given him the best thing in the world, these three sweet little guys he never had to worry about being awkward or uncool with.

So he was pathetically in love with her; well, who the fuck wouldn't be?

It went beyond that, though. With her, he wasn't annoyed or uncomfortable. He didn't feel like he was blindly groping to fulfill some mysterious, unspoken demand like he did when he had tried to talk to other women. The two of them could sit and be still, only touching knee to knee, or they could stay up half the night signing and scribbling to each other in her notebook; either way, it was just easy to be with her.

In bed, though, it was different. Since a couple a of weeks after the boys were born, every time she stripped off her clothes, WHOOSH! she turned into the star of every sexual fantasy he ever had. She was all tits and ass, her body all soft and lush. It was like crawling under the sheets with a centerfold every night.

And there was no way he could justify it, especially now, especially after telling her it was all her fault, after telling her to shut up and take it, after reaching up inside her after she shook her head 'no,' mouthed 'nonononononon,' over and over after she begged him to stop, to make it stop.

He felt sick.

In a flash, he realized Thea would probably never get back the coltish body he had made love to that first time. Without particularly wanting, to he now understood what made Byers get so weird. But was it true? Had he really forced the bloom? Or did it just happen?

He looked at her in the mirrors. Drool was slipping out of the corner of her mouth. He reached out and wiped her cheek with the side of his hand. His feelings for Thea were a mess. All he knew was that he needed her and no matter how sorry he felt for hurting her, it wasn't sorry enough.

He ran one finger shyly over her nipple. Her tits were so hard, so full. It had to hurt.

Well, there was something he could do about it. Carefully, he lifted her t-shirt and slipped his mouth over her large brown nipple. He sucked and swallowed. Sucked and swallowed. Sucked and swallowed. Sucked and. . .

She was so delicious. Whatever it was that was more than smart, loyal, and really, really hot...well, to tell the truth those things were more than enough. But this, this was perfect.

When he had been a 12 year old boy in a land-locked state and not completely sure what you'd see if you looked between a girl's legs, his first wet dreams were about mermaids, about kissing them, touching them, sucking on their tits. Just like he was doing to Thea now.

He raised his hand to cup her sleeping cheek only to realize she was watching him.

For an instant, he was afraid she would think it was dirty of him to do this, and not dirty in a good way.

T.H.I.S. O.K.A.Y? he spelled at her one handed.

She nodded, her eyes wide, her smile soft. W.A.N.T. T.O. T.R.Y. T.H.E. O.T.H.E.R. S.I.D.E? She spelled and ran her free hand through his hair.

He looked. Milk was spilling from the other breast in fat drops.

He nodded. He switched sides, making an attempt not grind his - YES! Thank you, Pharmaceutical gods! - hard-on against her. The last thing he wanted was to rush it.

Both her hands rubbed his head now.

Thea Thea Thea, he thought, and even if she could have heard him he wouldn't have said the words. They would have made him cry. Was it supposed to be like this? Why did he have to want her so bad when she already belonged to him?

He looked up at her face and continued to suckle until he felt drunk with milk and there was no blood to carry oxygen to his brain.

He still didn't understand why she would want him, though. He was nothing but a mass of flaws - not much to look at, clumsy, penniless, and twenty years older than she was. Still, she made it clear she wanted him, crooked teeth, thinning hair, asthma, weak stomach, and all. It didn't make any sense.

It was hopeless. Man/woman things had never made any sense to him. There was no way he could sort this out. All he could do was let it ride. Try to do his best for her.

Whatever that was.

He was confused, but it became abundantly clear what she wanted. Like so many times before, she signed, FUCK ME, RINGO.

Blue plaid boxers met white cotton bikini briefs and there was friction. A strand of his hair found its way, tongue-like, into her mouth. He drove himself against her crotch without thinking.

He took hold of her shirt where it was bunched up under her arms and lifted it over her head, his pelvis shoving harder against hers. He kissed her chin, running his hands up and down her long smooth arms.

He tried to slow himself down but found he couldn't. There was too much momentum.

Her kisses were wet wet wet over his cheeks, her body was already doing that writhe underneath him. His thumbs stroked the soft rise of her ribs as she pulled his boxers down to his knees. He pressed his weight down on to her, made a few gentle stabs with his cock against her thigh, tried not to groan too loud. Only her damp panties stood between them.

With quick purpose, she fought to squirm free of her only restraint, nearly throwing Ringo onto the floor. In a misguided attempt to steady himself, Ringo accidentally put his foot though the leg hole. For an odd second, they were both wearing her underwear.

Damn damn damn.

Two seconds later, Thea ran three spit-slickened fingers the length of his dick and he forgot all about the panty thing.

He meant to take it slow. He meant to draw it out until she couldn't take it, until he knew she was ready and wet and as loose as she could get. But it was late and he was so turned-on and she seemed so turned on already and they hadn't fucked, not gotten down had actual sex, since August, and here it was almost Christmas.

He didn't have a choice, there wasn't enough opposing force in the world to slow the power coming to bear on him.

He pulled out of her kiss. He took his cock in his hand. She stared at him, wide-eyed, and nodded.

Langly gulped softly. This was the point where he'd lost it before.

He pressed his other hand against the soft rise of belly that remained below her navel and found himself staring at the angry red stretch marks that ran to her ribs.

He had to remind himself to... breathe, Langly, breathe...

She could have died because of him.

...Open the mouth, draw air into lungs. Not too difficult. At least, not in theory.

Died, because he was so busy thinking with his dick he didn't stop to consider the consequences of his actions.

...Inhale.

...Exhale.

...Inhale.

...Exha-

She bucked her hips. He could feel the heat and moisture without even touching her. She was giving him that look, that same look as the first time.

FUCK ME NOW, RITCHIE.

He fumbled for a moment, but that was normal.

He let out a sigh with the first solid stroke. He was terrified and relieved.

She lifted her hips to draw him back in. He obliged, drained of all individual will. She took his narrow hips in her hands to drive him harder. On his fourth thrust, her insistence turned to something else. Her pelvis rose high off the mattress, her head flew back, she arched her back hard lifting him with her. Her long legs wrapped themselves around his waist. He pulled away and slammed in again, hard.

He groaned. It was the most frustrating thing in the world not to be able to talk to her at that moment and have her hear him. But he spoke anyway, holding the sides of her face with his splayed fingers.

"I love you, T, I missed this so much. You're so hot. I never, I never meant to hurt you," he said loud and clear and inches away from her face.

He stared at her as he moved above her, absorbed by her face. She would never be pretty like a made-up girl. She would always be matte finish as opposed to the high gloss of other chicks. But her face was nice to him, thick rough lips, MulderNose, and all. She was who she was, new tits or not. She was Thea. She belonged to him. And he belonged to her.

When he came, it was like falling down a flight of stairs. One hand away from the railing and he was plummeting,

But when he hit bottom, he was still as hard as when he started.

Damn Frohike.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Thea's heart beat wildly as Ritchie carefully moved off her.

YOU STILL LOVE ME? she signed.

He nodded. EVEN MORE THAN BEFORE, he signed slowly, deliberately.

WAS I OKAY? THIS WON'T BE THE LAST TIME? she signed, cringing, wondering if she was making a mistake, wondering if she should even put words to her fear now that he had fucked her.

He grabbed his glasses off the night stand then signed slowly, YOU'RE KIDDING, RIGHT?

She had no idea what was happening inside his head. She only knew she had a painful desire to know Ritchie still wanted her, not just as a bud, not just on account of the boys, but for her own sake. She wrestled her fear and asked outright. YOU STILL THINK I'M HOT, RIGHT?

"Oh yeah," he whispered, nodding again.

She stared waiting for more.

YOU'RE THE HOTTEST CHICK IN THE WORLD, T.

She signed a question mark.

BECAUSE, he signed. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND YOU'RE MINE.

She looked at him, her blood running hot and cold. YOU LOVE ME AND, she repeated, I'M YOURS.

YUP, he signed.

She felt the chilly sensation of milk filling her breasts again. She pulled him to her by the back of his head and she began to kiss him, her tongue tracing the uneven edge of his front teeth. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and in one smooth gesture, pulled her on top of him. She ground her crotch against his hip until their combined fluids smeared out onto him in a thick slurry. Only a minor adjustment brought his stiff erection back inside of her. But this time, she was above him, milk dripping down onto his chest, hot and sticky and sweet. The smell of him filled her nose, her open mouth, her lungs, like black pepper and musk. A trail of drying semen glazed across their skin. Her entire body was sensitized, alert. His hand reaching up to touch her mouth felt like a stroke to her sex. Every place he made contact with her body was aroused, sexualized. His fingers gripping her shoulders sent her skin to gooseflesh. His right hand moved to clutch her waist and she began to shiver.

Inside, she shook as well. He wanted her. He loved her. He didn't want anyone else.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Before that night, every time she had come to orgasm with him inside her, he had had no choice but to join her. He was too inexperienced and aroused to be able to hold off.

But this night was different. With one ejaculation under his belt already and a little chemical assistance, he felt her warm familiar squeeze and didn't automatically accede defeat.

Instead, he closed his eyes and enjoyed it.

His eyes shot open and he whimpered in shock, however, when he felt sloppy slippery pussy replaced by very mobile mouth.

Sweet Jesus, she was licking it all off him.

He tried to look away, but wound up looking straight at the image of the two of them in a mirror. It surprised him that they didn't look at all geeky or awkward. In fact what he saw was kind of...

She was smiling with his dick in her mouth. All doe-eyed and... and...

And sucking him clean. Oh Jesus.

He couldn't believe it. She sucked harder, pulling in her cheeks. Their eyes met in the mirror.

Oh Jesus.

This was them, together. This is what they looked like, what they were. For the first time in his life, he caught a glimpse of himself that he didn't find utterly repulsive. And Thea - Thea was beautiful.

Holding his eye, she swirled her tongue in a circle around the head of his cock, then slowly drew him down until his soft coppery pubic hair brushed her swollen lips. They were gaze to gaze and he was all the way down her throat. He wanted to reach down and touch her face. He wanted...he didn't know what he wanted. His chest felt tight.

He began to pulse slowly, almost gently, into her mouth. She swallowed, her eyes shining as he wiped a drop of glistening something from her lower lip. In response, she grinned. He smiled back.

He planted a kiss in her sweaty palm.

MY LOVE, she signed. YOU ARE MY LOVE.

Impulsively he pulled her up and kissed her, shocked at himself and the harsh taste of her tongue.

When he got up in the morning to change diapers, he had heavy circles around his eyes, but his bitching was transparently jovial.

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End 10/12