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If you had told Rick, maybe, a year ago that he was going to be writhing in the passenger seat of Vyvyan's Ford Anglia because he was about to have his baby, he'd have laughed in your face. Or screamed in horror. Same difference.
“Jesus, Vyvyan, is it even physically possible for you to go any slower,” Rick hissed between contractions.
Vyvyan groaned, though more out of stress than genuine annoyance with the other man. “I'm already going twice the speed limit! We're only a few miles away anyways. Just… relax.”
Rick immediately shoots him a glare that could freeze hell over. “Relax? Relax?! Oh, well, that's great advice Vyvyan! I'll be sure to tell you to relax when you're about to push something the size of a melon out of your—”
But then he hisses, gripping the dashboard as his muscles contract once more. He made little whines as he practically curled into himself in the passenger seat, unable to bite them back. He shifted on the towel Vyvyan had laid down on the passenger seat—whether it was there to protect the car seat of amniotic fluid or Rick from the grime on the seat itself, he really wasn't sure.
“You… are not helping,” he hissed, though whether it was directed at Vyvyan or the little shit inside him causing all this ruckus, he wasn't too sure.
No, he shouldn't call them that. Despite himself, he was fairly excited to meet his baby, unexpected and, initially, unwanted as they were. Just… maybe not right here. And now. At least, not before he could get an epidural.
He'd had quite the strop when he first found out. Understandable, he felt, given he'd had his life seemingly ruined by a little white stick in the grimmest bathroom in practically all of London. And he had no one but his tipsy self to blame for it.
He wasn't sure exactly how roughhousing with Vyvyan, as usual, would turn into rough… something else. An admittedly, horribly pleasant something else. Though they'd never have admitted it before the baby.
There was a lot of awkward dancing around one another for weeks afterward. Their insults lacked their usual bark. Their usual fights stopped much sooner than they ever had; reminded them too much of something else. Still, weeks later, Rick was too concerned about his “stomach flu” to worry too much about what was going on with Vyvyan.
Until that stomach flu was exactly because of Vyvyan.
Vyvyan had said Rick had shut down during those early days, before even he'd known. Rick disagrees. Shut down externally, maybe, but internally everything was on. He couldn't have a baby. He was too young, too pretty, and valued his freedom too much to have a baby. He'd never graduate. The people's poet would be buried under a future of nappies and spit-up from a noisy, ginger baby with stars on its forehead.
He'd considered a termination, yes. He knew there were clinics Mike would probably know about (nothing legal—thanks again, Thatcher!). But, of course, that would cost money. Money he did not have. It wasn't easy to get money off of any of his roommates anymore—not even Neil, after so many harassments, and tales (lies, really) of dead grandparents and family medical mishaps. Besides, what if they asked what it was for? He very briefly considered phoning his parents, but how would that go? “Oh, hi mummy and daddy. Hello, just calling to tell you I'm pregnant because I slept with my lazy, punk roommate and I need some money to get rid of it. Thanks. Love you!”
So, that was it, he thought. He was stuck. And he had no clue how to tell Vyvyan, until the redhead found out for himself.
Well, sort of.
“Rick, what's this random thermometer doing in the bathroom bin? It's broken! All it gives you is lines!”
Now, while that should have been simple enough for Rick to reveal his pregnancy… with Vyvyan, nothing was ever simple. Rick had tried to explain, but they just ended up arguing over what constituted as a thermometer and what didn't. At least, until Rick finally dropped the metaphorical bomb in a fit of rage ( “Oh, I'm pregnant, you Neanderthal! And it's yours!” ) and Vyvyan just… stared. For a long, long time. Then, with an “Oh,” and an “Are you sure?”, he retreated to his room. Rick was left stunned and alone. Very alone.
He'd gone into a huff that night. Assumed Vyvyan's stupid silence meant that, obviously, he wasn't interested in taking care of any baby, especially not one that came out of Rick. That was fine. Rick could do this on his own. Single parentage was totally anarchist, right? Nevermind that babies were pissing expensive and loud and what-not.
So, he was… more than a little surprised to see Vyvyan soften practically overnight. That is, soften from how he usually was, which was a low bar.
Anonymous little glasses of water started showing up in Rick's bedroom after he left the bathroom, from puking his guts up. He still called him names like ‘girlie’ and such, but didn't lay a finger on him for a whole week. He even started harassing Neil on Rick’s behalf as well as his own, particularly about dinner—he even started to scrape half off Neil's plate onto Rick's when the hippie wasn't looking, given Rick was “eating for two” now.
When Rick finally interrogated him, Vyvyan just said, “Well, I'm gonna be a dad, aren't I? I never had one, and look how I turned out! I wanna do something right with this kid, I dunno… Still. Don't get used to it. Once it’s out of you, we're going right back to the way things were.”
So, that was it. They were going to have a baby. Together. Rick was still scared shitless (and, though he never said it aloud, so was Vyv), but now just a little excited. And by spring he was twice his usual size, but properly determined to raise this kid to piss off the older generations and do right by them along the way. And besides… feeling them flutter around inside him, at least when not directed at his bladder or ribs, was rather nice.
He told his parents over the phone, who immediately sent him over money to cover some of the stuff a baby needed to, essentially, survive (mainly a crib, as the one Vyvyan had DIYed looked more like a tiny prison than anything, with a mobile of empty beer bottles to match). They hadn’t visited yet… or called him since. Still, they were probably just busy or testing his responsibility and all that. Rick… Well, he understood. Mostly.
In the present, anyways, Vyvyan had hit a particularly bumpy speed bump which most certainly wasn’t easing any of Rick’s discomfort. Rick hissed, and resisted the urge to smack the redhead–if only to prevent distracting his driver and wind them in an even more catastrophic situation. “You could go a little more carefully, Vyvyan!”
Vyvyan threw his head back in a huff. “For God’s sake! Drive quicker! Drive more carefully! What else do you want from me?! You think I haven’t had enough of this the past nine months! Whining about your feet being swollen and your face being even spottier than–”
Rick gave another high pitched moan, another contraction running its course. Vyv, in all fairness to him, did immediately shut up. After a few minutes of letting Rick (barely) handle the pain until it ceased, after quickly learning earlier that Rick hated being talked through his contractions, Vyvyan spoke up in a slightly more even voice.
“You are handling this… a lot better than I would, though,” he admitted, almost sheepishly. “Sorry for yelling, by the way…”
Rick moaned again.
“Wha– I’m trying to apologise!”
“Not you… poohole,” Rick muttered, though the insult was halfhearted. “Baby just feels… really low.”
Vyvyan frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“Just… a lot of pressure,” Rick complained, wincing. Then with a pale, wide-eyed realisation, “Oh God… I think that means I need to–”
“No!” was Vyvyan’s immediate, near primal response. “Don't you dare!”
“Well, I’m obviously trying not to! This isn’t exactly my ideal birthing space, you know!”
The two settled back into a semi-comfortable silence. Rick watched the speedometer in Vyvyan’s car go up another 5 MPH. At the very least, circumstances aside, breaking the speeding laws was very anarchist. Either way, hopefully he could hold off until he had a doctor, a nice comfy hospital bed and hopefully an epidural. It was fine. They didn’t have far to go.
But then the next contraction came minutes later and Rick remembered exactly why he didn’t believe in God.
Suddenly, Rick was writhing in his seat, against his seatbelt, legs clamped together as if he just desperately had to use the toilet within the next five minutes. Oddly enough, it did feel terribly like he needed a number two-–none of the pregnancy books had told him about that. He tried to focus on anything but his imminent bodily urges—the soft purr of the engine, like the car’s heartbeat; the musky, booze-ridden smell of the car; the intermittent noise of Vyvyan’s unkempt fingernails tapping the steering wheel. Still, when the contraction peaked it all became so overwhelming all he wanted was to get more comfortable and get this kid out of him already.
“Oh, God! Vyvyan, pull over!”
“Rick, we’re maybe ten minutes from—”
“No, Vyv! Hurts… Hurts too much, ple-ease!”
Vyvyan, likely scared shitless by the near unnatural pitch and waver of Rick's voice, immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road. By that time, the contraction had subsided, but the pressure in between Rick's hips refused to leave between them.
In a great, weighted moment of clarity did it finally click that this unbearable, demanding weight is his baby. For the briefest of moments, he forgot that this is happening in Vyvyan's smelly car rather than in the hospital. He may as well have been in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. For the briefest of moments, all that mattered was that he was going to be a dad so, so soon. He was terrified. He was excited. He was worried for their safety (Vyvyan, while a medical student, was also a failing medical student, and there weren't really many other people on this road so late at night). He was worried for his own, leaving his baby one father down from hour one.
He wanted to be good at this. He wanted them to be okay.
They probably should have left for the hospital hours ago—after Rick had been having cramping pains almost all day (he hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital straight away just in case, after an embarrassing incident after he’d shown up to labour and delivery with mistaken indigestion) and his water had broken at around midnight. After spending half an hour just trying to wake up Vyvyan, Vyvyan having to pack his own hospital bag after Rick finally harassed him into realising that, no, just his current clothes won’t do him a couple days’ hospital stay, Rick thoroughly contemplating which collection of his own poetry would do for his baby’s first story, and, of course, Neil bugging them about if they needed any of his hippie bullshit with them for a smoother delivery (Mike was asleep and, if he wasn’t, would likely not care past a pat on the back for both of them), they left only an hour later, with the hospital half an hour away. Still, your first baby was supposed to take days.
Then again, when had anything gone the way he expected, or even wanted, in the last nine months.
Vyvyan flung his own door open and then slammed it shut. He was at Rick's door the moment the brunette had taken his seatbelt off. “As much as I prize myself on this car, we'll have to sort this baby out here, then, if they're gonna be so bloody impatient. Swing your legs round to me.”
Rick cringed at the crude way of putting it but was quick to comply. Vyvyan started to pull down his stretchy-waisted joggers. Rick just lifted his hips to help him. This might have been embarrassing months ago, but after realising that one drunk night was enough to stick them together for life like this, they had done a bit of experimenting through Rick's pregnancy, when Mike and Neil weren't in the house. Rick still wasn't sure if they were a couple or just two men who happened to be having a baby together and ‘did stuff’ on occasion, but it was a good stress reliever none the less. Either way, he was probably in too much discomfort to care what happened to get it to stop.
Vyvyan then lifted one of Rick's legs so that the anarchist's foot was pressing against his shoulder. Rick put his other foot on Vyvyan's other shoulder, scooting a bit so his ass almost hung off the very edge of the seat. The position alone was a relief.
Rick heard Vyvyan swallow audibly. “Blimey!”
Rick panicked, envisioning himself already bleeding to death or delivering a baby with three heads and no limbs. “What? What? What is it? What's—”
“Nah, nah, it's nothing,” Vyvyan said hurriedly, putting up a pacifying hand. “Not like that, just… That is a baby's head… Or, at least, I hope it is.”
Rick huffed, only barely relieved. “Well, of course it is, Vyvyan! What else would I be— Oh!”
Rick bowed his head and grunted, one hand grabbing onto the headrest for purchase, the other one digging half-moons into his thigh. He pushed, feeling that pressure shift down, down, down until it became less pressure and more OH MY GOD, FIRE, HOT, HELP—
A primal shriek came from Rick that not even he’d heard before. Even as the contraction faded, that sting was still there. Great. Brilliant. He was never having another one of these again.
“Can… Can you see them? Are they coming?” he panted, whimpering occasionally as his body tried to get used to the intrusion (the out-trusion?).
Vyvyan frowned in concentration but nodded slowly. “Yeah… Yeah, I see them. Hold on, hold on…”
He briefly dropped Rick's legs to open the backdoor and rummage around in there. He came back with a flashlight, angling it so he could see better. Props to him, Rick thought, taking being a midwife almost surprisingly seriously.
Vyvyan inspected Rick's progress with this odd mixed expression of anxiety, pride, and grotesque fascination. “Yep. I see their hair.”
Hazily, one question came to Rick's mind. “...They're not ginger, are they?”
Vyvyan glared at Rick in (mostly) mock offence. “Nothin’ wrong with being ginger, you bastard… But no, funnily enough.”
Rick nodded, still slightly relieved despite Vyvyan's argument. The next contraction bowled him over as soon as it hit. Rick almost resisted pushing altogether, knowing it was going to get so much worse before it could get any better. But that leg-shaking, deep, internal pressure yet again demanded no rest.
It was funny, and not in a fun way, how little Rick felt in control of any of this. Sure, he was putting all the hard work into it, but only because of his own body's desperate needs. Everything—the pained noises coming from his throat, the shaking of his limbs, the way his feet pushed against Vyvyan every time he bore down—was so much like something was puppeteering from the inside. And Rick most certainly didn't like being puppeteered by anyone.
Still, after another few pushes and more effort and strain, there was some relief. The pressure was still there, the fullness, the aches and pains. But something had given, and Rick was briefly grateful.
He heard Vyvyan swear and fumble and drop the flashlight to move both hands between Rick’s legs—cradling their baby’s head. “Wow… Okay, Rick. Their head's out. They're… They're quite cute so far, actually, for a little wrinkled, slimy thing.”
Rick gave a little exhausted, yet relieved moan.
“So, uh… Now what?” A previously barely restrained nervous crack revealed itself in Vyvyan's voice. Rick, through half-lidded eyes, finally properly looked at the ginger. He saw the sweat on his own brow, the panic in his still wild eyes.
“Just… need to wait for the next contraction,” Rick panted, barely adjusted to having an entire baby about halfway out of him. “Then… I can push them out.”
“Right, right… You’ve done good, Rick,” Vyvyan added, meaning it. Rick half-expected a rude name or a backhanded comment afterward, but it didn't come. Just “you’ve done good.”
Surprising, but in this moment, not unwelcome.
The next contraction seemingly bid its time longer than the previous few. Maybe Rick's body was finally giving him some grace by granting him enough time to save up energy for the shoulders. Or maybe it just felt longer with the anticipation of this being the last push.
Finally, he curled up on himself just one last time. There was a push, there was a pull, there was that god awful burn again, and then… relief. Shuddering, cold, earth-shaking relief. Like coming up to air after almost drowning. Or collapsing in a heap after a rough night out (which, to Rick, was after half a cider). He lolled his head against the headrest, taking in big, greedy gulps of air, eyes fluttered shut.
When he blinked them back open again, despite his exhaustion, he was met with Vyvyan holding a wet, red-streaked, pink creature, with a tenderness that belied his usual demeanour.
“Well, would you look at that! Hello mate,” he laughed, in a sort of manic joy. His nerves had clearly been shot, but the sheer delight on his face at having this weird, squirmy creature that he’d made in his arms at last. Granted, he had almost the same reaction whenever the weird green thing he’d been keeping in the fridge for weeks finally started moving on its own, but it was sweet nonetheless.
“Pat… Pat them on the back,” Rick instructed, dropping his legs with a slight wince and hurriedly trying to remember little scraps of information he’d gathered from all the books he’d studied. “ Gently. It helps them cry. They need to cry.”
Vyvyan did, and Rick sighed in relief.
“There we go! All’s good, Rick! Pink, crying, all ten fingers and toes,” Vyvyan listed excitedly, as if speaking of a brand new species. “...A girl.”
Rick’s breath caught in his throat, in a sob he hadn't immediately recognised. “Oh… Oh, give her to me. I want to see her!”
“Alright, hold your horses,” Vyvyan said, though it was tender. “C'mon, go see your daddy, you funny little thing…”
A warm, wet weight was placed on Rick's chest and for a moment he almost forgot how to breathe. He sobbed, openly and very, very loudly. “Oh… Hello! Gorgeous girl. I know, I know, it's all cold and horrible out here. Nothing like where you came from, is it?”
The baby seemingly squawked louder in response, like she was protesting. She waved her tiny, pudgy fists in the air. Her mouth open in a scream of defiance. Little brown curls stuck to her head with fluids. He curled her closer to his chest, admiring every inch and feature of her little, newly built body.
It was more than a bit surreal. This had been growing inside him all this time. This had been the little gremlin who'd been making him crave kebabs at four in the morning. The creature that had given him the worst back pain for weeks on end. The yet unidentified organism who had been kicking and punching him from the inside—their little boxer. Sure, there had been ultrasounds and illustrations in books, and even little comparisons to fruit and veg as she grew week by week in one of of those weekly pregnancy newsletters he had compulsively read. But that was nothing in comparison to seeing her in his arms for the first time.
“Here we are, little mate,” Vyvyan mumbled, before wrapping her up in his denim jacket. Maybe not the softest or nicest smelling of swaddles, but it'd have to do for now. Rick didn't exactly bet that Vyvyan carried any sort of towel in his car, and even if he did it would probably not be in any better condition.
“Shh. S'okay. Daddy's here now. Daddy's got you,” Rick continued to coo, then he gasped happily when she settled somewhat in response. Burrowing into Rick's chest like it was the most pleasant place in the world. Her wails softening to little mewls. “She recognises me! She knows my voice!”
“She'd have to, the way you go on. Poor kid,” Vyvyan snickered. He leaned in, trying to get a good view of this tiny human person they'd made “Ain't that right? Daddy went on a bit, didn't he?”
He wasn't sure how long he and Vyvyan spent like that. Just staring. Watching. Marvelling.
Eventually, Vyvyan was first to snap himself out of it. He stood up. “Alright, Rick. Let's get your legs round again and we can drive you both to the hospital and make sure you haven't torn yourself a brand new hole or something.”
Rick winced, both at the residual soreness of the movement and at the… rather grotesque imagery generously given by Vyvyan. Still, he smiled down at their baby again once he was properly seated again and Vyvyan had helped them both belt up. He stroked her soft, if a bit slimy, cheek affectionately, sniffling.
He vaguely recognised the sound of the car starting up and realised they were right where they’d started again. In the car, in a hurried dash to the hospital. Except Vyvyan was no longer speeding (too much), Rick was no longer in persistent agony and they had an extra little passenger snuggled up with them.
The exhaustion caught up to Rick all too quickly, but he had to stay awake. Partly because he was anxious about dropping her in his sleep, but more so because… Well, that's always how ladies die after they give birth in the films, isn't it? They say they’re tired, close their eyes and you know from all the grim expressions they won't open them again. Sure, he felt fine, but he wasn't sure if this amount of blood was normal or if he was also going to haemorrhage and die in Vyvyan’s Ford Anglia as well as give birth in it. He didn't exactly want to take that risk.
So, he spoke up, if only to keep his brain occupied.
“She doesn't have a name yet,” he mumbled, half-lidded eyes still stuck on the top of her gunk-covered head. “Suppose Cliff is out of the question now.”
“Didn't know it was ever in the question,” Vyvyan retorted.
Rick tutted but had no response, even his great brain too exhausted to come up with anything witty and biting back. “I'm not sure I know any girl's names… Apart from family names, but what's the point in dredging up something from a past generation when her generation is the future?”
“What about that poetry stuff you like?” Vyvyan prompted, hardly giving a fig himself what the kid was called this very moment but somewhat gathering Rick could do with the distraction. “Gotta be some female poets you read, if you’re such a big feminist, as you keep saying.”
“All right, all right…” Rick mumbled, trying to think up all the equally great female poets he’d ever at least read the covers of. It was a bit of a fuss at first because so many of them were so damn miserable (though, he supposed that was the curse of being so uniquely minded, much like himself). “Well, there’s… Virginia. After Virginia Woolf—”
Vyvyan gave a barking laugh. “I am not calling my daughter a name with the word ‘virgin’ in it.”
“It's a very refined name, Vyvyan,” Rick snorted, though he hesitated. “Though I can see how that might give her a bit of trouble on the playground… What about Sylvia? I know Sylvia Plath herself was a rather… dark-minded woman, but she was very intelligent. And, well, the name is pretty…”
Vyvyan almost sneered, but then tutted in thought. “Sylvia… Sylvia. Sylvia Basterd-Pratt… Yeah, alright. I can see myself yelling that at her for drinking half a bottle of vodka with her mates at thirteen.”
Rick looked aghast. “She will most certainly not be!”
“You're right… It'll be a whole bottle, if I'm raising her,” Vyvyan smirked. “Either way… it is a nice name. We'll go with it. But her middle name's gonna be Sid! I'm not raising a girl. ”
Rick stared at him, blinking. “...She is a girl.”
“Female is a sex, girl is a mindset,” Vyvyan said, cryptically. “I'm not having her grow up to be you, is the idea.”
Rick rolled his eyes, but didn’t have the time to argue as, with relief, he realised Vyvyan was at last pulling up to the hospital entrance. Vyvyan hurried to park them, jostling the car a little bit. Sylvia got a bit jostled too, but she didn't seem to mind, past a small squawk of annoyance.
“Right, I'll run in and tell reception. You just, uh… sit there and don’t die, both of you,” Vyvyan said, in his very most caring tone. Rick nodded, mumbled something like “we’ll be okay” even though it was likely unintelligible. Vyvyan opened the door and shifted to get out, but then… stopped.
Rick was about to snap at him to get him in a bloody hospital room already so he could sleep for the next week, when Vyvyan did something Rick couldn’t have expected. He leaned over and kissed him. On the cheek.
It was brief, and he left without a word before Rick could say anything. Almost like a primary school boy on the playground, worried he’d be teased for it (“Vyvyan fancies Rick! Haha!”—that sort of thing). Rick sat in silence for a good few moments, his only movement being him still gently rubbing Sylvia's back.
Yes, they had a baby now. Yes, that baby had both their surnames (giving her just the one led to arguments, so it was more of a compromise than anything). Yes, Rick had always thought Vyvyan oddly handsome, and oddly intelligent too, if about all the wrong things. And, yes, they’d fucked. Multiple times. But, this…
Rick hadn't thought having a baby made them a family, let alone made he and Vyvyan a couple. He’d almost been aghast when their doctor at their first check-up assumed they were together. He just envisioned them as a… dysfunctional, argumentative family-shaped clump now. People who lived together and had a kid for practicality’s sake. They made one bad decision. Love had nothing to do with it.
But maybe, just maybe… Maybe he’d like to wake up to Vyvyan, in their own home, sometime in the near future. He’d like to make them both coffee while Vyvyan gets Sylvia up for school, whatever kind of girl she ends up being; bold and artistic or… or like Vyvyan. He’d like to have family dinners together, and ask Vyvyan about his day at work. Have Vyvyan ask him about his, because he’s definitely not going to be a househusband in any universe. He’d like to sleep in one silly, domestic bed next to this weird psychopath who, apparently, may love him. And Rick might just love him too.
Was all this just because Rick was hormonal and exhausted, or has it been this way since Vyvyan brought him cups of water to wash away the bile?
Was it… always there, perhaps? Drunk actions are sober thoughts, after all. God this was such a big realisation to have after just giving birth. He’d have to process this all… sometime later. Probably.
It was almost two o’clock in the morning. Vyvyan had broken the swinging hospital doors at the entrance and was yelling at the poor secretary I'VE GOT A BLOODY BABY IN MY CAR! Sylvia was half asleep now, making little squeaky noises against Rick's chest. And Rick, for the first time in maybe months, felt that things could be okay.