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The house was bathed in silence when Gabriel opened his eyes. It didn't exactly feel empty, but in all its possibilities, it held the kind of quiet that usually comes before chaos. He knew that now. He'd learned it well over the past two weeks.
The room was still dark, the morning light nowhere near reaching the windows. On his side of the bed, an empty space. Nico had gotten up a while ago… or maybe he'd never come to bed at all, it was hard to tell. Lately, their sleep had become a constant negotiation, a game of shifts that worked sort of like his old workshop, improvised, but efficient. They couldn't deny, though, that the sleep deprivation was slowly killing them.
Gabriel sat up slowly, feeling the weight in his shoulders even before his feet touched the floor. Two weeks. They said the first weeks were the worst. He'd read articles, made spreadsheets, followed first-time parent forums, everything perfectly organized, from feeding schedules and diaper changes to sleep windows, even a shared spreadsheet with Nico, which the German had looked at once, grunted something unintelligible, and never opened again.
Then, suddenly, a cry came from the next room. Not a loud cry yet, just the beginning of it, the warning, the sound that made Gabriel's chest tighten in a way he still couldn't name. A lot of things, actually, were becoming hard to name. Anxiety, maybe? Or what the books called an "instinctive response," "instinct." Still, he preferred anxiety, because anxiety he knew. Anxiety he could still, for now, put in a spreadsheet.
He got up and crossed the hall before the cry could escalate. The baby's door was half-open, and the light from the nightlight Nico insisted on leaving on every night cast soft shadows on the doorframe. Gabriel pushed the door open with his fingertips. Little Vida was in her crib, her tiny arms flailing, her face flushed red against the white sheet. Two weeks old and already sporting an expression of outrage that Gabriel swore he'd seen on Nico's face in at least two hundred different situations.
Vida was the name they'd chosen, in Portuguese, because it meant life. It meant vitality in its most primal form, energy. It was the perfect composition of everything that little girl was.
"Hey, hey," he murmured, leaning down to pick her up. "I'm here. It's okay."
Her tiny body squirmed against him as he lifted her, and Gabriel adjusted his hold automatically. Support the head. Keep the spine straight. Make sure the chin isn't tucked into the chest. The mental list was long, and he ran through it every time.
"There, there," he whispered, shifting her weight to his other arm. "You hungry? Is that it? Let's see."
On his way to the armchair in the corner of the room, he was already calculating. The last feeding had been two and a half hours ago. Three, if he considered the exact time. Was that long enough? Maybe it was hunger after all. Or gas. Or just discomfort. Or...
The crying intensified suddenly and Gabriel sat in the armchair, trying to find the right position. He settled Vida on his lap, adjusted the nursing pillow that was always there, ready, and tried to soothe her with gentle movements. The room was small, but they'd taken their time with it. Nico had painted the walls one weekend, a light gray he called "practical" and Gabriel called "neutral." The furniture was simple. Crib, dresser, armchair. Nothing like what Gabriel had imagined when he thought of a nursery, but which now made perfect sense, because it was functional.
Vida kept crying.
"Okay," he murmured, standing up again. He started pacing the room, those short, careful steps as he tried to rock her, but without jostling her too much. It worked for some babies. According to the forums, it worked. "Shhh. Shhh."
It didn't work. He tried changing her position. He put Vida against his shoulder, patted her back ever so lightly. Nothing. He tried laying her on his forearm, her head cradled in his hand, the position a TikTok video swore was "foolproof for calming newborns."
The cry turned into a wail and Gabriel felt his stomach clench, that tightness that started physically and quickly morphed into something else. Oh, crap, the anxiety. The failure. That feeling of doing everything wrong even though he'd read everything, studied everything, prepared everything. He always felt so helpless when this happened.
"Don't cry, don't cry," he said, and his own voice sounded fragile to him. "Let's see, let me see..."
He checked the diaper, but it was dry. The room temperature was fine. Her clothes were light, appropriate. He tried to remember if she'd burped after the last feeding. No, she hadn't. Nico's mother had said it was important, that babies who don't burp get gas, that gas causes colic, that colic...
The clock on the wall read 4:47 AM. Gabriel held Vida against his chest, feeling her heat through his thin pajamas, her tiny body vibrating with cries. He must be doing something wrong. He must have forgotten something. The plan was clear, he had everything written down, but in practice, with her crying like that, the notes were useless.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, not really sure why he was apologizing. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I... let me try again."
He sat in the armchair once more, tried the nursing position again, even though he knew she didn't want to feed, that wasn't it, but the motion, the ritual, might calm her down. Might calm him down.
It calmed neither of them. Vida's cry filled the room now, sharp, insistent, that sound that seemed designed to trigger every alarm in the human body. Gabriel felt his own heart race, his breath shorten. No. Not now. He couldn't lose control now. He needed to fix this. He needed to...
Suddenly, the door opened. Gabriel didn't hear it, but he felt a shift in the air, maybe, or the way Vida's cry changed slightly, as if she too knew someone had entered. Nico was there. Her daddy was there.
He didn't say anything, just stopped in the doorway, his eyes still squinting with sleep, his hair messier than Gabriel had seen it in years and grayer. He wore an old shirt and the same sweatpants he'd had on for three days. He looked exhausted. He looked exactly how Gabriel felt inside.
"How long?" Nico asked, his voice rough, direct, no preamble.
"I don't know," Gabriel answered. Twenty minutes? Thirty? "I tried everything. I don't know what..."
Nico crossed the room in long strides. He didn't ask, didn't request, just reached out and took Vida. The movement was so natural that Gabriel only realized he was no longer holding their daughter when he felt his arms empty.
He should have felt relieved, but instead, he felt another pang that seemed to say he had failed again. That he hadn't managed. That Nico had to come and fix things once more because he couldn't handle it. Nico didn't look at him, he was too busy with Vida.
He positioned the baby against his chest in a way Gabriel had never tried. More vertical, her little head resting on his shoulder, her whole body pressed against his broad torso. Then he started to walk, not with Gabriel's short, careful steps, but a slower, heavier rhythm, the sound of his feet on the floor providing a bass line to the crying, and he began to murmur.
Well, they weren't words, at least not any Gabriel recognized. It was a low, continuous sound, a kind of rhythmic humming Nico made without opening his mouth much. The kind of sound he made when he was focused on something in the workshop, when a screw wouldn't go in or a part wouldn't fit. A sound of patience, of someone who had faced much bigger problems and knew that time would solve them, or, simply, the sound a father who had already had another baby knew how to make.
Gabriel sat in the armchair, his arms still half-extended, not knowing what to do with his hands now.
"She doesn't want to feed," he said, just to fill the silence. "The diaper's dry. I think it's colic, but I tried that massage and..."
"Baby."
The nickname cut through the tension. Nico didn't sound angry, he just thought... that was enough. An "I get it, you can stop now." Gabriel fell silent immediately. Nico kept walking, the low hum filling the space between Vida's cries, and slowly, miraculously, the crying began to space out, to lessen, turning into a whimper, then a fuss, then... silence.
Gabriel held his breath, as if any sound could break the spell. Nico didn't, he kept walking, his rhythm unchanged, the hum still there, just a little softer.
"She's asleep?" Gabriel whispered.
Nico looked at him over his shoulder and nodded once, and Gabriel felt the weight of everything. The two weeks, the sleepless nights, the fear of doing something wrong, the spreadsheet he updated every day and which was useless when Vida cried like that, the exhaustion that wasn't just physical, but that other kind, deeper, that came from wanting so badly to get it right and not knowing how.
He looked away and focused on his own hands in his lap. He couldn't cry. Not now. Nico stopped walking. Gabriel felt him approach, the weight of his body near the armchair, and looked up. Nico was there, Vida sleeping against his shoulder, her tiny little head turned to the side, her mouth slightly open.
"Switch with me," Nico said, and before Gabriel could process it, he was already leaning down, carefully transferring Vida, settling her into Gabriel's arms with practiced movements.
Gabriel held his daughter automatically. Her warmth, her small weight, the sound of her now calm breathing.
"She doesn't want my lap," he murmured. "I tried and..."
"She does."
Nico moved back just enough to sit on the sheepskin rug on the floor, his back against the wall. From there, he looked at Gabriel with that expression he knew well, direct, unfiltered, but not harsh.
"She just wants you to stop trying to control everything."
Gabriel frowned.
"I'm not..."
"Yes, you are."
Nico rubbed his face with both hands, a tired gesture he only made when he thought no one was watching.
"You get tense and she feels it."
Gabriel opened his mouth to retort, but closed it again, because Nico wasn't being critical. He was just... stating a fact. In his own way.
"I just want to get it right," Gabriel said, and his voice came out quieter than he intended.
Nico didn't answer right away. He just looked at him, at Vida, at the two of them together in the armchair. The two great loves of his life. Then he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
"You already do."
Gabriel blinked.
"What?"
"Right. You're already getting it right. She's alive, she's healthy, she's sleeping. That's it. There's no other 'right'."
Gabriel felt something warm in his chest that wasn't exactly relief, it was more like a knot he hadn't even known was there had loosened a little.
"Did you do it like this with Noemi?" he asked, quietly.
Nico opened one eye.
"No, I was younger. Thought I knew everything and didn't know a thing."
He closed his eye again.
"But I learned it's no use trying to control things. A baby isn't something you assemble. There's no manual."
Gabriel almost laughed. Almost. Because yes, he had tried to treat this like a problem to be solved with planning and execution, and it hadn't worked, and Nico, who planned nothing, who solved everything with improvisation and practical know-how, had calmed their daughter in minutes.
"You don't have to stay," Gabriel said, not really sure why. "You can go back to bed."
Nico didn't answer, didn't open his eyes, but he also didn't move, and they stayed like that for a while. Gabriel in the armchair, Vida sleeping in his lap, Nico sitting on the floor. Gabriel looked at the German. The tired features, the stubble, the calloused hands resting loosely on his knee. He remembered the first time he saw those hands dirty with grease, holding a tool, impatient; now they were there, still, while their daughter slept in his lap.
How long had it been? It felt like another life. The storm, the broken-down car, the workshop smelling of oil and that rude mechanic who looked at him as if he were the most idiotic problem to have shown up that night, and now this.
Suddenly, Nico opened his eyes and looked at him, and Gabriel didn't look away. Despite a situation as uncomfortable as this one sometimes was, where Vida refused to stop crying and sleep, Gabriel knew about the pride Nico couldn't express in words, about the love that came out in actions in those moments, how much that scene meant to him. How much Gabriel meant. How much the two of them together, with that tiny creature, were everything.
Nico swallowed hard. His Adam's apple rose and fell slowly, and Gabriel felt his shoulders relax. Vida sighed in her sleep, a small sound, and nestled deeper against him. Gabriel instinctively curved his body around her, protecting. When he looked up again, Nico had stood up and taken a step closer, nearer now. Close enough for Gabriel to smell him, a scent that even after all these years still calmed him.
Nico raised his hand, slowly, unhurriedly, as if approaching something fragile, and his fingers found Gabriel's curls near his forehead, pushed a strand aside, and stayed there. His warm palm slid down and rested where his neck met his shoulder. Gabriel closed his eyes for a second. Just one. Long enough to feel the weight of Nico's hand, the warmth, the gentle pressure.
It was crazy to think. Four years? It felt like a long time and like no time at all. Four years since he'd walked into Nico's life, all polite and controlled, and come face to face with a rude mechanic who barely looked at him. Four years since he learned that some things can't be solved methodically. That some people come into your life in the most unlikely way and become everything you have.
They got married in a small registry office, no party. Nico wanted it that way and Gabriel did too, deep down. Afterwards, they moved to a different city, something more rural in some European commune, a house in the countryside, not too big, but nice. It had a backyard where Nico already talked about putting a swing, even before Vida was born. It had a kitchen that Gabriel patiently renovated, choosing every detail. It had an empty room that became an office for him, with a view of the trees.
Nico built a new workshop from scratch. He said it was "the same shit, just tidier," but Gabriel saw the difference, yes, saw the care in the details, the planned space, the light coming in through the large windows. Saw the pride Nico tried to hide and couldn't.
Gabriel set up his own financial consulting practice. He worked online, remotely, most of the time, but he had clients who preferred to come to him, sit in the living room overlooking the yard, have coffee while discussing investments. It was good, stable, and his own.
They were doing well. Financially, emotionally, in a way Gabriel wouldn't have imagined on that stormy night when all he wanted was for the car to work so he could get away as fast as possible; now he didn't want to leave anywhere.
He looked at Vida, her round little head, the few strands of blonde hair, her tiny fist closed near her face. It was so recent, just these few weeks that had turned their lives upside down, and at the same time it felt like she had always been there, that she had been expected long before it happened.
"Come here," Gabriel said. His voice came out low, almost a whisper. "Come be close to us..."
Nico hesitated, looked at the floor, at the armchair, at the tiny space next to Gabriel. Then, without a word — Gabriel, being so slender and thin, carefully shifted over — Nico sat down in the spacious armchair. It was uncomfortable at first, so the German settled in and pulled Gabriel onto his lap, so he could relax too and Vida could smell both of them. Now, the little one was nestled between Gabriel's chest and Nico's.
Gabriel looked at him. At the man who had barreled through his life like a runaway truck. At his husband looking at their daughter as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
"She's perfect," Nico murmured.
"She is," Gabriel agreed, his voice catching slightly.
Nico raised his free hand. He touched Vida's face with his fingertips, light, barely making contact. The soft skin, the warmth, the most delicate gesture Gabriel had seen him make since he watched him hold her at the hospital. Then, Nico's eyes rose and met his again.
Gabriel didn't know what to say, but he didn't need to. Nico's look said it all. It said he loved that child more than he thought it was possible to love anything. It said he loved Gabriel too, the same as always, maybe even more, if that were possible. It said that everything that had happened until then — the workshop, the storm, the years, the house, the marriage — had been worth it because of this moment. It said he was there, for them, and he would never leave.
Nico blinked slowly, then tilted his head and rested his forehead against Gabriel's, his eyes closed, his breathing deep.
"We're gonna be fine," Gabriel whispered.
They had been, for a while, of course, but he meant during these first months with Vida, in this turbulence of new parenthood. They always managed, after all. Nico didn't answer, but wrapped both his loves in his arms, firm so no one would slip, warm and secure in the way it needed to be.
Outside, the wind stopped and the silence was complete for a moment, before Vida hiccupped in her sleep and they both held their breath together. She didn't wake, just stirred, seeking the warmth of Gabriel's chest, and went back to sleep.
Nico lifted his head, looked at Gabriel, at Vida, at the two of them together, and his eyes grew moist. He blinked quickly, hiding it, and Gabriel pretended not to see.
"Maybe I should make coffee," Nico said, his voice rough, but he didn't get up. He stayed right there, close, watching.
"Later," Gabriel replied.
Nico nodded and didn't move again. How would they get out of there without waking Vida? Maybe they never would.