Chapter Text
Even though Vash had always been an early riser, he'd grown a habit in the past few months of lingering in bed for hours after he woke up. Without the pressure of having somewhere to be, there was nothing to force him to get out of bed. And while he normally was eager to be up and active, his pregnancy just made that… difficult.
It'd been five weeks since his first obstetrics appointment, where he got confirmation that his baby was both alive and healthy. He'd since followed through on his plan, dropping contact with his old band and disappearing completely from his former life. He continued hiding out from public view as much as possible, even though he still wasn't visibly pregnant. It was about the principle of it.
A part of him was a little worried that he was fourteen weeks along and still not showing, even with the weight he’d unfortunately been gaining around his hips. Deborah had reassured him that it was perfectly normal to not show yet, given that it was his first pregnancy (so he had firmer abdominal muscles than people on subsequent pregnancies) and that he was so tall (the longer the midriff, the more room for the baby to grow into before it started to be visible). So it made sense. That didn't stop him from anxiously rewatching his ultrasound videos to reassure himself that yes, his baby was still alive, even if he couldn't see it yet.
Regardless, at 14 weeks in, he was now at the start of his second trimester – already a third of the way done with it.
A third of the way towards being a father.
It still didn't really feel real, but Vash was working on that. He’d make sure he was ready by the time the baby was there.
Every resource he'd found on pregnancy talked about how most people found the second trimester to be the easiest. A lot of the roughest pregnancy symptoms would abate, and pregnant people would have a lot more energy on average than they did before. And while yes, Vash’s nausea had slowly started to get easier to handle and he no longer had to pee as frequently, he was still so tired.
When asked, Deborah had theorized that it was likely due to him having to stop taking testosterone for now. His body wasn't used to being without it, not after a decade and a half of taking it, so of course he had less energy than he was used to. But it still sucked. And because of it (and also possibly some depression that he may or may not be acknowledging), he found himself lingering listlessly for hours in bed, day in and day out.
Of course, today was no different. Vash woke up early, just like normal, and ended up on his phone as he often did. He couldn't post anything on social media if he wanted to keep his whole disappearing act up, but that didn't mean he couldn't look. And look he did, often scrolling listlessly for hours at a time.
(Nine months was just a lot of time to kill, okay?)
There was also… an ongoing situation online. He'd expected his disappearance to cause some problems, but he hadn't anticipated just how much attention it would get. The band's social media posts were all buzzing with comments as fans speculated about what was going on. And their subreddit – which, apparently, they had one now – had nearly tripled in members since Vash had first found it a few months back. The internet loved a good mystery after all, and so many people wanted to know what had happened to their beloved Vash the Stampede.
It all started last August, when he first discovered he was pregnant. His last performance with the band – and the last time he'd been seen by fans – had been in the middle of the month: Friday, August 16th. That following week was when he discovered he was pregnant, and so the performance they'd had scheduled for the 24th fell through. Fans were given minimal explanation about what was going on – only that extenuating circumstances forced the band to cancel.
And then they canceled the next performance. And the one after that. And the one after that.
From Vash's perspective, he knew that the band had been trying to put off explaining what was going on to give him the chance to come back and come clean. But after his obstetrics appointment in mid-September, he stopped replying to their messages entirely, and they started losing patience with him.
They gave him an ultimatum. While they'd wanted him in the band due to his connection to Nai, they couldn't wait for him forever. Either he stopped whatever fit he was busy throwing by the start of October, or they'd be forced to open up auditions for a new lead singer and guitarist.
Even though it hurt him to do it, Vash did not break his silence. It was for the sake of his baby, after all. He just hoped that Nai would understand.
And so, from the fans’ perspective: after near radio silence for a month and a half, the band finally released a statement. On October first, auditions for Vash’s position in the band were opened up.
He was gone, but the band still wouldn't explain why.
And so it blew up. Theories started circulating. Fans kept talking. News of his disappearance spread beyond the fanbase, and suddenly people from all over the world were trying to figure out what the hell happened to Vash the Stampede.
It was almost scary how much attention it brought. Every social media account attached to the band had at least doubled in followers as people pooled in to see what the fuss was about. Old videos were examined closely, oftentimes minute by minute, just to find any possible clue of what could have happened to him. One bright side was that this brought more attention to their music; their monthly listeners on Spotify had more than doubled in the past few weeks alone. Unfortunately, it also meant that every single person was laser-focused on him.
The worst location for it was Reddit. Given its nature as a forum, it platformed conversation after conversation, each more unhinged and invasive than the last. Various theories were discussed, including ones where he’d been kidnapped and/or murdered and ones where he’d been secretly sick and had finally succumbed. People complained loudly about how little the band was saying about what happened to him, some claiming that it had to be a publicity stunt, though others pointed out how it was really none of their business.
(Vash himself was a little surprised that the band hadn't tried to file a missing person report, though he certainly wasn't complaining. He wondered if it had anything to do with how little any of them got along with police; it wouldn't be wise for any of them to go talking to the fuzz, even for something like this. They also might have assumed that his disappearance was purposeful – a fair assumption, especially since it was true. At least Legato sure seemed to think so, given how he continued to text Vash a single 🖕 emoji every few days.)
But regardless, the talk continued.
It'd been about three weeks since his absence from the band had officially been announced, and October was starting to come to a close. Halloween decorations and celebrations were out in full force, which didn't help the macabre turns the fans’ theories were taking.
The leading theory, as of the past few days at least, was that Vash had finally killed himself.
This one was… harder for him to stomach. Reading about how the bags under his eyes were clearly a symptom of some fatal disease had been almost laughable. Seeing people pick apart his every sign and symptom of depression was decidedly not.
It just hit too close to home. That was the thing: none of them were even entirely wrong.
Much of this theory was built upon picking apart his lyrics. They'd made most of their songs together as a band, but Vash had ended up writing almost all of the lyrics. They weren't always based on him and his experiences, but if he was ever in doubt of where to go next… drawing from his own emotions worked phenomenally. All of their most popular songs were songs he'd written from his own heart, so they'd clearly resonated with people. However, it also meant that people had a window into him and his issues.
People discussing the theory pulled from songs about depression and songs about anger. They used his own words that he'd written at some of his lowest points as proof that he must have killed himself. And it just felt so… uncomfortable and invasive. Those songs were personal, yes, but they were often dramatized and played up for the fiction of the craft. So some of the things they were citing weren't even things he actually felt! But it all went into the slew of ‘proof’ together.
Then they started theorizing about how thin he was. It was something they'd found sexy before, but now everyone wanted to talk about how he'd obviously been starving himself. Some people brought up how much he'd always drink after (and sometimes during) shows. Some others – thankfully a minority – talked about how they felt like he'd been recklessly sleeping around, based on anecdotal accounts of him being spotted flirting with people. All of it joined together into a damning – and not even entirely wrong – picture. He was an active suicide risk, and he'd clearly finally gone and done it.
The theory really took off when someone pointed out that the textured skin on the inside of his wrist looked like self-harm scars. Grainy ‘proof’ soon became higher definition pictures that people found from wherever that showed the criss-crossing lines of scars layered upon his wrist. They were… old. From when he was a teenager. After Rem found out (after he'd tried to kill himself), she made him promise to stop, and he had.
But now thousands of people were looking at his scars and yapping about how he'd clearly finally stabbed himself deep enough for it to work. They were all too gleeful to discuss how he must've bled out in his tub, like any tortured artist would.
It made it… harder to ignore those old urges. As he laid curled up in bed, he tried to ignore the voice at the back of his head that cried for blood and destruction. It was a manifestation of his anger crying for an outlet, as well as his soul's wish to take control of his body in whatever way possible, but he'd already promised Rem that he'd stop, and he had. It'd been years since the last time he did anything. He couldn't start again now.
Reading all of these theories was obviously very bad for his mental health, but Vash couldn't get himself to stop. It was a morbid fixation, and it wasn't helped by the fact that he really didn't have much to do anyway. So much time on his hands and so little to fill it with. And so he continued to read.
The one consolation was that there were people out there trying to tell others to knock it off. Fellow users that spoke up about how uncomfortable they were with the way everyone was talking about it. There was even one user that Vash had started looking forward to seeing in threads because they'd constantly get in arguments for his sake. Like his personal knight in shining armor.
A part of Vash really wanted to thank these users for speaking up for him, but he refrained. Clearly. He still needed to keep hidden for his baby's sake. But the gratefulness remained, and they were a real breath of fresh air in the miasma of it all.
Vash let out the breath he'd been holding when he refreshed the page and found his knight in shining armor calling the latest thread’s poster an ‘inconsiderate fuckwad’.
Thank you for your service, MeatPopsicle68421. Vash really appreciated it.
*
Vash was undressing for a shower after his weekly trip to the grocery store when he finally noticed something different.
It took him a moment, his brain now prone to bleariness later in the day – especially after a trip outside. He stood there, slowly blinking at himself in the mirror's reflection until he finally realized what it was.
His stomach. He could see his stomach.
Well. More specifically, his stomach's- size? Definition? Curvature?
… A baby bump. It had to be a baby bump.
A little numbly, Vash turned to look at himself sideways in the mirror. Sure enough, there was a curve to his stomach that wasn't there the last time he'd really looked, which was… at least a few days ago. Maybe a week ago? He'd tried to stop obsessing over it after he hit the 15 weeks mark with nothing to show for it, and now he was on week 16, and…
And there it was. A baby bump. Still small, small enough that he could even pretend he'd just had a really big meal if he wanted to. But he hadn't, he knew he hadn't. He'd taken to eating small meals throughout the day – the grazing tactic, as Deborah had called it. It helped him get the nutrients he needed without overwhelming his system.
But there was still a bump, and there was nothing else it could be from.
Slowly, Vash laid a hand over his belly – his right hand, so that he could feel it. It still felt like his normal stomach beneath his fingers. Didn't feel all that different for his stomach, either. But his baby was finally growing big enough that he could see them, and…
Vash's attention drifted a little lower, to the hips he'd inevitably been growing. He eyed the feminine shape of them, reversing what he'd spent over a decade of testosterone perfecting…
He swallowed. Lifted his gaze back up to his belly. Then gently dug his fingers into it, just… grasping it.
“This is your baby,” he mumbled to himself. “It's for your baby.”
It… made it a little easier to stomach. It was just his baby. It was a good thing, because it meant his baby was growing as it should. He was sixteen weeks along, nearly four months pregnant, so it was about time he started seeing sign of them.
… Though now that he was here, he found himself already missing when he couldn't see it. He knew it'd only get worse from here.
Dragging his focus away, Vash turned to step into the shower.
He'd worry about it later.
*
Vash would like to think he'd been getting used to the whole pregnancy thing. At nearly 19 weeks pregnant, he'd grown accustomed to all the aches and pains and weirdness of carrying a little infant thing in his stomach.
His belly still wasn't that big, but the bump was undeniable now. It was… not the best for his gender dysphoria, but he'd taken to trying to think of it as just his baby. It wasn't his belly anymore, it was his baby, so any weird gender feelings were easier to dismiss. Not gone entirely, especially on bad nights, but it helped him enough to keep at it.
He'd also taken to talking to the little thing. He didn't know the baby's sex yet (and still wasn't sure whether he wanted to), so he'd started just calling it his little Baby Bee, after what it’d looked like in that first ultrasound. It was a nickname he used mostly with himself, but he liked it. It made the baby feel more like an individual, rather than just a concept.
By this point, many pregnant people would apparently start to feel their babies move, though Vash didn't think he'd noticed it yet. There were a few times he was sure he'd felt it, only to realize it was just gas. But even still, he'd read that babies could hear internal sounds by this point, including the sound of their carrying parent's voice, so he made sure to talk to the little thing plenty. He'd ramble aloud at varying points of the day, talking to the little grub like they were a person that could understand and respond to him. It'd help them imprint on him more, or so he'd heard, and it also helped him to feel less alone. As it turned out, isolating himself for weeks and weeks at a time could be a little, ha, isolating.
But it was soon time for his next obstetrics appointment: the big mid-pregnancy ultrasound. It was a little early for it, since he still had another week (and two days) before he was at the official halfway point of 20 weeks, but it was what worked out best for scheduling. And according to Deborah, a week or two wouldn't make all that much of a difference for this.
So Vash put on the baggy hoodie he'd started wearing when going outside to hide his baby bump, then headed to his appointment. He was always careful when he went out these days, not wanting to be recognized by any of the band’s overzealous fans (the situation online had calmed down a little in the last month, but it was certainly far from over). Thankfully, wearing gaudy sunglasses and keeping his hair ungelled seemed to be enough to hide his identity when he was out, and today was no different.
The start of the appointment followed the routine they'd established in the handful of appointments they'd had since the first one ten weeks ago. They discussed how he was doing and any changes that had appeared since they last met. Deborah was delighted to hear that he'd finally started showing, congratulating him heartily.
Then it was time for him to be slathered up with The Goop on the table. They didn't do an ultrasound at every appointment, but they did them more than the average pregnancy, since it was technically a high-risk pregnancy (due to the whole drinking while pregnant and recovering alcoholic thing). As such, it had gotten to be a familiar process, though it was interesting to see how the area she slathered got higher and higher up his belly every time he came here. What had started way down in his pelvic area was now nearly the entire area below his bellybutton.
Like always, Vash watched his baby with rapt attention as Deborah took all sorts of measurements. The baby no longer fit entirely on the screen, so Deborah had to shift the probe around on his stomach in order to see its different parts. Love warmed his heart as he saw the baby's head with a cute little button nose, the baby's arms curled up close to its chest, and the baby's feet idly kicking with itty bitty toes. It was looking more and more like an actual baby with every scan, and it made Vash so excited for when he could finally get to know them.
“So,” Deborah broke the silence between them as she looked up from the screen. “Do you want to know your baby's sex yet? I know you said before that you hadn't decided, but I could tell you now if you're interested.”
Ah. Right. The customary Gender Reveal of the mid-pregnancy ultrasound. Vash chewed at his bottom lip in indecision as he watched his baby on the screen. It was a difficult thing for him, given his relationship with gender as a transgender man, but he also wanted to know everything there was to know about his baby… But also, would it lead to him having preconceived notions about his baby, even if he tried to raise them neutrally? He'd hate it if he ever made his baby feel stifled in any way. It was difficult to know the best way forward.
“You don't have to decide yet if you're still not sure,” Deborah added when he still hadn't answered.
Vash let out a sigh, then leaned his head back on the pillow to look up at the ceiling. His hands were folded comfortably on his chest, the fingers linked together. “… It's like… I do wanna know, but I also don't? I wanna know, but I don't wanna push my kid into any boxes. Given the whole… Y'know. Trans thing.”
Deborah hummed in consideration. “That does make some sense. Though I wonder how likely it'd be for you to actually do that. You'll end up knowing their sex eventually either way, so what difference would it make for you to find out now?”
Her voice was curious; it was clearly a genuine question.
Vash pursed his lips in thought. “… I'm not entirely sure. Just… Y'know, I don't have much to go on right now for who they'll be when they're older. What if I end up attached to the idea of them as one gender, and then they end up not being that gender? Then I'd end up stifling them, and then they'll grow to resent me, and…”
“Vash,” Deborah gently interrupted. “Tell me honestly. Do you believe that would actually happen?”
“I…” Vash fiddled with his fingers together. “… I don't know.”
“… Say you learn that your child is not the gender you thought they were. Like if they ended up being a boy when you thought they were a girl. Would that negatively impact how you treat them? Or would you just accept it because you love them and adjust accordingly?”
Vash frowned. “I'd accept them, obviously. I'd never try to tell my kid what gender they are.”
“Then what's the problem? If you'll accept them no matter who they end up being, then they won't feel stifled.”
“Just…” Vash waved a hand vaguely. “They could still feel stifled! If I raise them with one gender and it doesn't end up fitting!”
Deborah hummed noncomittally. “Was that how you felt when you were younger? Before you started to transition?”
Vash paused, then let his hand drop back down to his chest as he mentally chewed on that. “… No. Not really. My- my mom did raise us as girls at first, but… She also never tried to limit how we expressed our gender. So when me and-” He cut himself off, took a solidifying breath, then slowly continued through the heartache, “When me and my brother told her we felt more like boys, she accepted it right away and let us change how we looked and pick out new names. So… No, I never did feel stifled by it.”
“Then there's your answer, don't you think?” There was a smile in Deborah's voice as she turned to click at a few more buttons on the machine, shifting the probe a bit as she went. “If you're truly worried about stifling your child's gender, you could try to raise them gender-neutral. But there's also nothing wrong with raising them as one gender to start out with, then adjusting to what the child later chooses for themselves. It just boils down to what you value most out of those early years.”
Vash chewed on his lip again as he contemplated that. Slowly, he looked back down to watch his baby on the screen once more. “… I guess a part of me kinda does want to start them with a gender, but then I feel guilty for feeling like that. Like, I'm trans, I shouldn't feel so attached to the idea of gendering my baby. But then I think about having a little baby boy or a little baby girl, and…” He threaded his fingers together again as he tried to figure out how to put it. “It just sounds very… endearing, I guess. And I like the idea of knowing that little bit about my baby, even if it eventually ends up being wrong.”
“And there's nothing wrong with that,” Deborah repeated. “You have proof from your own experiences that being raised with the incorrect gender to start out with isn't necessarily stifling, so long as the parent can adjust to what their child decides once they're old enough to. So if you want to have a little baby boy or a little baby girl, you can.”
Vash let out a slow breath, still watching his baby on the screen. It was back to showing the head and arms of the baby as it passively squirmed in place. “… I guess in some ways I'm still kinda attached to the gender binary, too,” he mumbled.
“Many of us are,” Deborah replied, even though he hadn't really meant for her to hear that. “It's what we grew up with, so it's only natural for us to want to replicate it. So long as you don't try to force it onto your child, then there's nothing wrong with it.”
“… Right.” Vash fiddled with his fingers again, hesitating… before finally saying, “Okay. Yeah. You can- you can tell me.”
“If you're sure.” When Vash didn't voice any more doubt, Deborah turned to smile down at him. “Congratulations, Vash. You're going to be having a little baby girl.”
Vash's breath punched out of his chest with an exhale, “Oh.” He looked back at his baby, his Baby Bee. A baby girl. His hand twitched towards his stomach, wanting to hold his baby as he often did, but he held himself back at the threat of The Goop. “I'm… I'm gonna have a daughter?”
“So it appears!” Deborah cheerfully confirmed. “And she's developing nicely – exactly as predicted! So it looks like you're still on track to deliver her around late April.”
A spring birthday for his little Baby Bee. Vash found himself falling even more in love with her by the second. “Late April, huh…?”
“That's correct! Around…” Deborah peered at something on the screen. “April 20th, give or take a week or two.”
Vash blinked, instantly distracted from his wonder. “… April 20th?”
Deborah smiled back down at him. “Yup! Of course, people rarely give birth on their exact due date, but it's good to have an estimate so we know when we need to start preparing.”
Vash gaped, unsure whether she was fucking with him or not. She seemed sincere, acting the same as normal, so… could it actually be…?
Suddenly struggling to not laugh, Vash asked, “It… It really is on April 20th? You're not making that up?”
Deborah blinked, then cocked her head in confusion. “Yes? I told you this back at your first appointment, too. Were you not paying attention?”
Suddenly, delightfully, Vash was struck with the realization that Deborah really had no idea. His lips pressed together as it got harder and harder to contain his laughter, and he covered them with the fingers of one hand. “I… I must've been pretty out of it. Lots of crying, back then. You're- you're really serious. My baby's due on April 20th?”
Deborah smiled in obvious bemusement. “Yes, she is. Is there… something significant about that day?”
Oh, Vash couldn't take it anymore!
Despite his best efforts, a snort escaped him, and then a snicker, and then he was laughing. “How- how can you not know?! Have you never heard of 420 before?!”
Deborah was looking more bewildered by the second. “I… don't believe so? What is 420?”
Oh, holy shit. Vash threw his head back with laughter, unable to handle someone so strait-laced asking that. “You- it's! That's the- the weed day-!”
“Weed day?” Deborah parrotted, sounding no less confused.
Vash couldn't fucking talk, he was laughing so hard. He gave up trying and just covered his eyes with his hand as they started to bud with tears. It was a full-belly kind of laugh, harder than he'd laughed in- fuck, months for sure. Maybe even years?
It felt good.
Deborah stopped trying to get an answer out of him and just waited for his laughter to run its course. When he finally calmed down enough to open his eyes again, he found her watching him with a look that was still confused, yet also fond.
“Okay,” Vash wheezed. “Okay, you know what weed is, right? Marijuana?”
Deborah lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “Do I know what marijuana is?” she intoned.
“It's important!” Vash rubbed at the tears that had escaped his eyes with his palm, a wide smile still on his face. “Okay, so. It started as a code-word for weed, yeah? But then some stoner guys wanted a weed holiday, I guess, so it became the thing for April 20th, AKA 420, to be the- the weed holiday, basically.”
“Uh-huh.” Deborah smiled crookedly at him. “And you spend time with these stoner guys?”
“What? Nooo,” Vash denied. And it wasn't a lie! Right now, at least. No promises for the past though. “It's just well-known enough that it's become a meme online. Like, ‘smoke weed every day'? You've heard of that at least, right?”
Deborah breathed a laugh, shaking her head in amusement as she turned to fiddle with the machine again. “In passing, I suppose. I'm afraid I don't spend all that much time on social media, though.”
“Well, regardless!” Vash snickered, “I just- I can't believe my baby's gonna be born on the weed day. She'll be a- a- a weed baby!”
“She'll be born around the ‘weed day’,” Deborah pointed out. “Only about 4% of people end up giving birth on their exact due date, after all.”
“But there's still a chance!” Vash cried dramatically. “Just watch! I'll have my baby on her due date! I'll make her a weed baby!”
Deborah chuckled heartily, the sound pleasant and soothing. “If you say so. Now, unless you have more tales of weed to regale me with, I do need to finish this scan.”
“Oh, alright,” Vash sighed with feigned exasperation. He settled back in to watch his baby again, which was wriggling around a whole lot more than before. Huh. He tried to stifle another aftershock of laughter, only to see it jiggle the baby on the screen anyway-
Oh, whoops.
He couldn't help but break into laughter again at the thought of accidentally shaking up the baby in his belly, then started laughing even harder at actually seeing it happen-
With laughter in her voice, Deborah commented, “We're gonna be here for a bit, aren't we?”
*
That evening, as Vash settled down on his couch with a warm drink, he found himself in an unusually good mood.
It was nice to have the chance to socialize, at least a little bit, and Deborah really was such a pleasant woman. She was so patient with him, even as he continued to struggle against a case of the giggles for the rest of the appointment. If anything, she seemed happy that he was enjoying himself so much. She'd probably guessed that he hadn't been doing all that much laughing lately.
The lingering amusement mixed pleasantly with the good news about his baby. News, plural, between the baby's continued good health and the baby's (possible) gender.
It was exciting. It was nerve-wracking. But with the joy of socialization lifting him up, it all felt easier to handle. At least for that one moment.
Vash cupped the mug in his hands, letting its warmth seep into his palms. He breathed in its scent, a mixture of berries and cinnamon. It was an herbal tea, rooibos-based, which he'd painstakingly searched for in order to have something to settle his cravings for berries without having to eat them 24/7. As it turned out, a lot of berry teas had things like hibiscus and sage as their base, which weren't good to drink while pregnant. Rooibos, on the other hand, was generally thought of as healthy. So Vash happily indulged in his ‘berry cobbler’ tea frequently, often every night. It helped him to fall asleep.
It was a good way to end the day today too, slowly sipping at the warm drink and letting himself relax bit by bit. His back and hips ached, which wasn't ideal, but he was pretty used to it by this point. It helped to lean back and stretch his legs out, tilting his pelvis and carefully working through the tension as much as he could. He really should be doing his exercises more, but it was hard to keep up the motivation for it. Maybe he'd try to work at it again tomorrow, though.
This was enough, for now. Vash was getting sleepy.
When he was halfway through the cup, he shifted his hold to cradle it in his prosthetic hand. With his right hand, he slid it down until it rested over his baby bump, approximately where he felt like his baby would be. There was no chance of him feeling the baby kick this early, especially since he hadn't even felt the flutters of it moving inside, but he still liked holding it like this. It made it feel like he was talking to his baby more directly.
“So, you're gonna be a little girl, huh?” Vash murmured to her. “To start out with, at least. A little baby girl…”
There was no response, of course. He didn't expect one. But with the latest ultrasound fresh in his mind, he imagined his baby in there, listening to him as she sucked on her thumb.
He rubbed his own thumb against his stomach. “… It's kinda cute. Imagining you as a little girl, I mean. You're already my Baby Bee, so it feels fitting, since most bees are technically female.”
His eyelids drooped, and he took another long sip of his tea in thought. “… But,” he quietly continued, “if you wanna be a boy, that's okay too. Or if you wanna be something else entirely. Or even just none of that. Any of it's okay. And I hope you'll know that.” He breathed a little sigh. “… I guess it's up to me to make sure you know that.”
It was a bit intimidating to remember how much of an influence he would have on her life. Everything that she'd need to know to start off her life, he'd have to teach her. Every decision about her health and upbringing would be made by him. It didn't feel right, since he still didn't feel like he was very good at taking care of himself, but he was the one bringing her into existence. He had to take responsibility for it.
After a few more minutes, the cup of tea was nearing empty. He didn't want it to be gone, but he was starting to struggle to keep his eyes open. He'd need to get up soon if he wanted to avoid falling asleep on the couch.
Still, he lingered a little longer, rubbing his thumb into the firm skin of his bump. “… I love you already, you know. Lots and lots and lots.” He smiled, soft and tired, as he pressed his hand against his belly. “I'll make sure you know that, too. Gonna tell it to you every day. My little Baby Bee…”
Soon, his mug was empty, and it was time to get up. He pushed through his reluctance, climbing to his feet with a groan of pain. Ugh, and the aches would only get worse the further along he got. He was not looking forward to it.
As Vash shuffled towards his bedroom, he poked at the bump of his belly and quietly teased, “You'd better appreciate how much work I'm putting in for you, Bitty Bee. You got that? Breakin’ your daddy's back already… I just know you're gonna be a nightmare later on, won't you? Little Saverem that you are…”
It was so, so worth it, though. He didn't regret it for even a moment.