Work Text:
Kiem was leaned exhaustedly back on the couch staring up at the ceiling when he heard the door, and it took him longer than it should have to think about immediately telling Jainan to be quiet.
Probably this was at least in part because Jainan was Jainan; bursting in on anyone and starting to speak immediately was more Kiem’s game. Always had been, really.
He was working on it. It turned out diplomatic work required—and here was a shocker—diplomacy, and yammering endlessly wasn’t always perceived as such. Not that he didn’t mean everything he said in the best possible way, obviously, but apparently silence was a legitimate diplomatic tool, and it was one at which his current skill level lay somewhere between braying donkey and angry toddler.
Speaking of which.
“Have you seen the newslogs?” Jainan hadn’t even come all the way in when he asked, and Kiem blinked at the ceiling stupidly before he answered.
“Shh!”
“What?”
That wasn’t better; he was still in the antechamber and that meant he was still sort of …shouting. Shouting for Jainan, which in a way Kiem loved because Jainan didn't make noise with people he didn't feel comfortable around. Not that Kiem thought he was uncomfortable (any more); but still, it always made him feel like he was doing life right when Jainan took up space.
Kiem considered his options. Speed and silence were at cross-purposes here; he could shut Jainan up quickly or quietly, but definitely not both.
Also, getting up quickly brought a whole different set of issues. Damn it.
He carefully rearranged himself and slid out from under the blankets, the pillow, the enormous fluffy creature (a 'bunbun,' Kennet had said) at the end, and, most importantly, the just-past-one-year-old currently asleep on the couch against him, and stood up.
Astonishingly, the barely-one-year-old didn’t stir.
He thought about whether to rearrange anything in service to keeping her there and not letting her fall off the couch and onto the floor, although honestly, they had really good carpet; she'd mostly just bounce, then grimaced when Jainan called out again. “Kiem? Are you—“
“Here, here, I’m here,” Kiem said, moving into the antechamber where Jainan was unbuttoning his inner overcoat. He’d been out to the school, of course, and it wasn’t summer any more -- and Jainan had pretended he didn't truly mind the cold for the first year of their marriage, but now he was honest and they'd found someone working in comfortable fabrics who could make him several layers without impeding mobility because he found that more stressful than the cold. Kiem pulled the door shut behind him.
Wait. That was a terrible idea. As had been demonstrated at least thirty times today, an unwatched toddler was a toddler trying to die horribly, and diplomats were not supposed to let toddlers die horribly. This was definitely a rule, or at least another of the unstated expectations he'd run up against fifteen dozen times his first week.
He pushed the door open again, leaning casually against the jamb like that made any sense at all, to close it, open it, lean on it, and try to look sexy for his husband, who was now, for completely rational reasons, looking at him like maybe he had a fish balanced on his head. “Um. Anyway, no?”
“No, what?”
“No, I haven’t read any newslogs today. Why? Are we having affairs again?”
Jainan scowled. “Oh, no, it’s way worse than that. What?”
Kiem was making shushing gestures, hands out flat, palms down, like he was going to squish the sound waves coming from Jainan’s throat. Because that was absolutely how ...acoustics, yes acoustics was the science of sound interaction, right? That was absolutely how acoustics worked. “Um. No. Nothing. I mean, just, I’m right here, no need to shout. Not that you were shouting, but anyway, no need. Wait, what’s worse?”
Jainan narrowed his eyes a little, but answered the question more quietly. “This time ‘sources’ say I’ve impregnated half a dozen hired surrogates, apparently in a series of hedonistic orgies or some damned thing, in order to choose the best baby to keep as my heir. Some of the stories say you were there too.”
“Wow, okay, so one, please, have they met me? I don’t really do secret things, as a rule. They could have just asked. Also, please, have they met you? You would never choose a best baby because for one thing that would involve choosing a nonbest baby and you would never do that to a baby that never did anything to you and also please, you don't jump into bed and actually enjoy yourself with people you don't know because you've known way longer than I have about how to do it right, and also wait, which part are you angry about?”
“All of it. I’m a mathematician and an engineer. All I want to do is the math and the engineering, and all these people want to do is invent stories about, about, ugh.”
“About behavior that you would feel like was both physical and depending on what they said about whether we’d talked about anything like this, maybe emotional, infidelity, and abrogation of multiple duties and I mean, I guess they could have said you were prostituting yourself? I guess that might have been worse. Ugh. Who’s running it?”
“It’s in just about every major feed.” Jainan had relaxed some when Kiem hadn’t freaked out, which was something. He didn’t always, and at this point Kiem was well aware that some of his scars were immutable. “Also, just by coincidence I’m sure, Sastan asked just yesterday when we were starting a family.”
“As if it’s any of his business.” Sastan was the newest junior associate of the team Jainan supervised, primarily liaising with the military applications side of their work. Kiem thought he was mildly annoying; Jainan wasn’t convinced he hadn’t been bioengineered to get under his skin. “Wait, when you say you’re sure, do you mean really, you’re sure, or do you mean you think he’s the source. Because if he is…”
“You don’t need to call Bel.” Jainan gave a wry little smile.
"Hey, I could threaten him myself! I don't need Bel for everything!"
"Oh, I know, but she's a lot more convincing, if we were issuing a threat, which again, we don't need to. Also, I think I read somewhere you were a diplomat."
"A brilliant diplomat, thank you very much. I would make the threat sing with diplomation and tactitude. You know I would."
Jainan's smile grew more genuine, more fond, and Kiem was counting that as a total win. “He’s irritating and wants to touch everyone and everything, but I don’t think he’s actually working to undermine our marriage or the treaty,” he said.
“You think the story’s that bad?”
“You go look and tell me. I’ll start dinner.” He hung up his coat and undercoat and brushed past Kiem, dropping a kiss as he went by.
"Ooh, okay." Kiem had been frankly surprised when Jainan decided he wanted to be a really good cook. Not because he was opposed; especially when Jainan started coming up with insanely rich and impossibly delicious desserts out of the foods Kiem loved the most, he was definitely, comprehensively, unopposed. But Jainan was a fundamentally tidy person who didn’t like getting his hands unnecessarily dirty, literally, and cooking was full of grease and grit and various goops and, and entrails? and so Kiem had initially worried this was Jainan trying to serve him in some messed up junior-in-the-relationship way. However, he'd said he'd wanted to years earlier, but hadn't wanted to make a mess or be disruptive in any way (Taam, you absolute bastard), and Kiem had a personal rule about never making Jainan feel shitty in the first place, but especially in never making him feel shitty in any way that was like a way Taam would have so he'd shrugged and bought at least one of everything a cook might need.
He might have gone overboard, but probably eventually everything would get used, even if it was slightly absurd to have quite this much cookery equipment in a two-person apartment.
In any case, Jainan had taken to it immediately. It relaxed him, and that was great, both because anything that helped with some of the anxiety he carried was a plus, and because when he put his very smart brain to learning about flavor combinations, it turned out he was kind of a genius at it. So, yes. Jainan starting dinner meant they were eating in meant... oh. Well, shit. He turned around. "Uh, Jainan?"
"Yes?" Jainan was just past the corner, and, well, double shit, there was no longer a toddler on the couch.
"So, you might have noticed—"
"The very small child intently climbing the desk in an effort to reach the tapestry?"
"Oh. Damn." Kiem came around the edge expecting to barely rescue the child from doing something inadvertently suicidal again, and stopped short. Jainan had the child on his hip. His hair, pulled loose from the usual tie he used to keep it out of his face, was in her mouth, and he was covering her eyes with his free hand. "What are you—?"
"Where's Jainan?" Jainan asked the child. He moved his hand and beamed when she giggled. He did it again. "So, it would appear the newslogs were, in some measure, correct?"
"You're not mad? She's even messier than me and we definitely got paint on the carpet and possibly mud on your towel and she's eating your hair. Giás, we had food. Remember, there was all sorts of incredibly mushy vegetable matter in a jar? Anyway, Jainan's hair is not food. Also, wait, what?"
"You do appear to have acquired a child. I assume not permanently, but in the very loosest definition, at least, well."
Kiem blinked. "Well. Yes, I suppose. But no, not permanently. This one belongs to Kennet, who had some sort of, I don't know, she seemed very upset about a child care catastrophe while she was supposed to be seeing to something for the Stotn Accord thing? And I thought how hard could it be, right? Millions of people take care of babies every day, and I wasn't doing anything in particular because my part was mostly last week and then on Friday at the ceremony, and Kennet said she was well-behaved, which, all right, maybe, but the rules for well-behaved small children seem to be quite different than the rules for well-behaved adults."
"Probably that's because they haven't yet had an opportunity to learn the adult rules." Jainan handed Giás to Kiem and disentangled his hair from her fingers. "Which is through no fault of their own."
"I suppose." Kiem closed one eye when Giás patted his face. "Also, did you know children are exhausting? I think you must because apparently you immediately know how to play with them. And inexplicably don't mind if they eat your hair." He wasn't sure why he felt grumpy about that. About any of it, actually, except that he'd expected Jainan to find children chaotic and unsettling.
Of course, Jainan did seem to like Kiem okay, and so maybe that wasn't a fair expectation. Or it was a fair expectation, and Kiem was evidence that Jainan didn't hate all chaos and unsettlement. Just because he found order soothing didn't mean he couldn't also like messy things. Obviously.
"My cousins were still quite young when I left home," Jainan said. "They must be nine and eleven now." He shrugged. "They wouldn't remember me."
"But you remember them." Kiem caught the patting hand and let Giás hang onto his thumb while he wrapped his palm around her whole hand.
"They had minimal social expectation of me, and thought I was someone to smile at."
"I think Giás thinks so too," Kiem said. She was leaning away from him, and he shrugged. "Kennet was supposed to be back for her an hour ago, and anyway I think she's worked out that I have absolutely no idea what to do with her. You want to hold her?"
Jainan pursed his lips. "It will probably delay dinner somewhat."
Kiem chuckled. "You could tell me what to cook." The last time they'd tried that he'd nearly burned down the entire palace, but probably that wouldn't happen again. Plus they no longer lived actually in the palace, and the fire suppression in the palace-adjacent home they'd selected was top-notch.
"Thank you, no." Jainan tied his hair up more comprehensively, then reached for Giás and took her back onto his hip. They danced away from Kiem, a silly rhythmic bounce that should have looked ridiculous but instead looked like, well, fun.
Kiem seized the opportunity to fold and sort out the blanket, the pillows, and the bunbun, and said, "But I do wonder, though, if it's coincidence that this all keeps coming up. My mother asked me if we had plans to start a family soon several weeks ago—I told her it was none of her business and by the way you're welcome; I said those words to my mother in order that she think before pestering you—but that means in a period of perhaps twenty-five days we have my mother, your student, the newslogs, and surprise babysitting."
"And Ressid, who asked the same thing last Tuesday, and by the way you're welcome; I told her the same thing. Also, Kennet is with diplomatic, but it's not as though the military and therefore your mother and my sister don't have fingers in the Stotn pie."
Kiem groaned. "So the surprise babysitting is a set-up to make us think we need kids so they can have congratulatory parties and announcements?"
"That seems like an unusually terrible plan." Jainan's lips had quirked into a half-grin as he danced Giás around the sitting room and she played with his buttons. "Since mostly what you learned today is that babies are exhausting."
"True." Kiem rummaged in the box at the far end of the couch, pulling out the banging toy he'd hidden earlier. "Also, loud." He set the toy on the floor and gestured, and Jainan set Giás down near it and sat himself down beside her. She immediately picked up the little mallet and started indiscriminately whacking the metal bars and cackling at the 'tune' that emerged.
Fortunately, the door chime sounded, and since Jainan was on the floor with Giás, Kiem got up to get it. "Had enough?" Bel looked past him to the cacophony inside.
"What?"
"Kennet will be here in ten minutes, and the newslogs are printing retractions as we speak."
Kiem stared at her.
"What. You were never going to talk about it, and were going to make assumptions about each other's opinions because you are both champion assumptioners and even though you're learning you're still real dumb about important topics that way, so I just made it impossible not to talk about it, although I did not tell that shit-for-brains Kallo to run newslog stories about your baby competition. Honestly, have they met either of you. Also, for what it's worth, you'll be amazing parents, both of you for different reasons because there are a lot of good ways to love children, if and when you want to be. But I agree with you: it's none of your mother's business and if you don't want to, that's the end."
"I. All right, so you did I don't know what, but Bel, I was under the impression you didn't work for us any more."
"Oh, this wasn't work. This was fun." She grinned and gave a little wave. "Anyway, you might as well get her packaged up and ready to go. Or whatever it is one does to prepare small children for a journey." And then she was gone so fast he wondered if he was actually so tired from chasing a toddler all day that he'd nodded off and/or was hallucinating.
"So that was Bel," he said, wandering back in to find that Giás had her arms wrapped around the bunbun and was trying to bring it to Jainan. Unfortunately it was bigger than she was and so this involved two steps and a tumble, repeating. "Um. Isn't she going to get hurt?"
"Learning how to fall is the first step in learning how to do almost everything else," Jainan said. "Plus, she's landing on a pillow the size of a flybug; I don't see how she's going damage anything besides her pride, and that seems okay so far." He took the eventually-brought bunbun and set it in his lap. "I didn't think there were rabbits on Iskat."
"That's supposed to be a rabbit?"
"Is this another bear problem?" Jainan let Giás crawl into the other side of his lap and looked up. "Yes. It's a rabbit." He held up his fingers beside his head like long ears and put his front teeth over his lower lip, as though that was supposed to provide clarification, although it did make him look somewhat like the bunbun.
"I see." Kiem made a note to just download a text on comparative Iskat/Thean zoology, and sat back down on the couch. "Bel says we'll both be great parents, if we want to be."
"Good to know," Jainan said. He took a breath like he was going to say something more, then shook his head. "And good of her, then, to force the conversation?"
"You are much too smart to be married to me," Kiem said. "She didn't mean for the newslogs to be so insulting."
"It's not your brain I love, though," Jainan said, ignoring the newslog part although Kiem thought he relaxed just that much more. "Which isn't any kind of stipulation to your statement. I'm just pointing out the irrelevance of your perfectly excellent intellect to whether you are the partner I want and need."
"See and then you go and say things..." Kiem got up again at the door chime and took Giás to the door. Jainan followed with her bag of toddler essentials.
"Sorry I'm late." Kennet was flushed, her uniform wrinkled and a bit damp. "There was a slight environmental concern. It's handled. And Lukat is back from, well, anyway. Thanks for watching her. Was she good?"
"We had a ball," Jainan said seriously, handing over the bag. "Her peek-a-you game is quite good." Kennet smiled nervously and took Giás and her things, and quickly walked back to her transport.
"I think you made her nervous," Kiem said.
"It's only fair. She made you nervous by dumping her child on you all day."
Kiem scowled. "That didn't make me nervous. Only, she was really small, and probably fragile, and what do I know about mashing turnips into paste or checking for any kind of solid masses in the noodles? But, fine, so I had to check the databanks every five minutes and also for a little while I thought she was having a seizure because she kept flapping her hands, but no, she was just laughing, it was fine. It all turned out fine. Also, you liked her and I like you, so."
Jainan chuckled. "Want to come help me dice chicken for stew?'
"Ooh, are you making the kind with the chewy dumplings?"
"I might be."
"Probably I should have mentioned earlier we, by which I mean I because babies are useless at this sort of thing and also I was definitely not about to call help and admit defeat by a person as tall as my knee, didn't have a chance to clean up the kitchen after the vegetable paste."
"Or we could order from the long list of entities who would love an opportunity to feed their prince, and I could comfort you after your very trying day."
"...can I still get chewy dumplings tomorrow?"
"Odds are good. Kiem?" Jainan had his hands up under Kiem's shirt, because it seemed he meant to commence the comforting part before contacting anyone about dinner.
"What?" Kiem thought it was only right that given the hand situation he should be undoing Jainan's buttons.
"We have decades, you know. But I do, in fact, like children. If there comes a time you want to talk about whether we want to raise any, best ones or otherwise."
Kiem nodded. "Right. Well. First comfort and dumplings. Also, children are terrifying. Also, I definitely want to watch you play with ones that are ours, so, you know, we should talk about that. But also, decades."
Jainan smiled and got on with the comforting.