Work Text:
“Ya wanna feel?”
Alastor blinked suddenly, the sound of the question having effectively robbed him a particularly deep and calming stupor. With but a touch of begrudging reluctance, Alastor raised his head, removing himself from betwixt his lover’s bountiful bosom, and soon found himself staring into a pair of beguiling fuchsia-rich irises.
Angel smiled beatifically at him. Angel had many smiles, and over the years, Alastor had grown to become rather intimate with each of them. When he was happy--truly, deeply happy--his smile threatened to rival Alastor’s for brilliance. When he was sad, but didn’t wish to show it, his smile became but a vague curve of the lips. This particular smile, Alastor realized, was objectively happy, but there remained a lingering energy he couldn’t quite place a name to. It was…the only word Alastor could think to call it was ‘demure.’
The smile puzzled him. When, if ever, had Angel ever felt a need to appear as shy in the sanctity of their own bedroom — in their own bed , for that matter?
Then he remembered the question, and at once, a wave of unbridled panic and anxiety crashed over him.
“P-Pardon?” He asked in reply, mentally flogging himself all the while for daring to do something as shameful as stammering, even if it was only in front of his demonic love.
The sound of a scoff, decidedly playful and lighthearted, ghosted over Angel’s lips. Were he younger, and objectively less mature, Angel might have thought to laugh, or at the very least offer a smartass remark about how damnably flustered Alastor appeared. All in good fun, of course; Angel wasn’t nearly as smart as Alastor, granted, but he was smart enough to know not to poke that bear. Perhaps he had finally matured. Or, more likely, perhaps that was merely the whims of maternal instinct.
Whatever the case may be, Angel refrained from poking fun at Alastor’s expense. How could he, when the scarlet-hued demon looked to be on the precipice of a heart attack.
“I said, do ya wanna feel ‘em?” Angel asked yet again, this time with a pointed nod down at his stomach.
His incredibly round, incredibly swollen, and incredibly pregnant stomach.
Alastor followed his gaze down and swallowed audibly at the mere sight of it. His mouth ran dry; his tongue suddenly felt as great and as useless a weight as sunken lead. For a brief, very brief window, Alastor’s gaze swapped sporadically between Angel’s stomach, his face, then his stomach, then his face, the phonograph currently playing smooth jazz in the corner of the room, and back to Angel’s stomach again.
On the surface, it appeared to him as such a simple thing. It wasn’t as if he had never seen Angel’s stomach before. Even before they had decided to become official and consummate their relationship, Alastor had seen more than his share of the ex-porn star’s stomach, especially during those long summer months where Angel had foregone his usual coat and instead opted to wear only a crop top, or, if he was by the pool, a string bikini.
So many times before, he could remember stroking it. During early mornings before Angel would wake. Late at night, as Alastor drifted off into a dreamless sleep. So, so many times, he had touched it.
Now, however…
Again, the scoff. It played along the edge of his hearing. In his peripheral, he vaguely detected Angel shaking his head. “Jesus, babe. Ya look like I just asked ya ta rip yer own balls off an’ eat ‘em,” Angel pointed out, eloquent as anything. “What’s da problem? It ain’t gonna bite, if that’s what yer afraid of,” A pause. Then, as if in afterthought, he asked, “Right?”
Alastor shook his head. Partially as a means of grounding himself in the present, and partially as a means of answering his question. “No, dear, it won’t,” Alastor assured him as soon as he regained a semblance of proper speech and decorum. “Furthermore, I don’t have any qualms whatsoever with laying my hands on your person — ”
“ — Oh, definitely~ ” Angel purred in interject.
“I am just…uncertain as to whether I should touch you…there,” He finished, lamely, while offering a pointed glance down at the stomach of his demonic love; the temporary home to his child. Dear God, his child… even now, the word threatened to consume him whole. He wasn’t afraid, of course. He was the Radio Demon; he feared exactly nothing and no one. Yet, for one reason or another, the very notion of resting his hands against the stomach of his pregnant love, to feel the budding life that he had helped to create… Alastor blinked against the wave of oppressive thoughts and feelings that threatened to invade his mind. “I fear I may…hurt it.” Then, at Angel’s befuddled and slightly shocked expression, he rushed to add, “Unintentionally, you understand.”
There was a long and pregnant pause. Angel didn’t say anything and Alastor, stricken as he was, found he could not meet his husband’s gaze. How truly pathetic he was, for daring to be afraid and anxious about something so small and insignificant. It was deplorable. It was humiliating. It was…new. New, and scary, and…and…
Alastor visibly tensed at the sensation of Angel’s fingers weaving with his own. When he dared to meet the arachnid’s gaze again, he discovered only love and patience swimming behind his eyes.
“Hey,” He began, his tone featherlight and gentle, as if he were afraid anything more would spook the other away. Angel brought another hand to cup the side of Alastor’s face and stared imploringly into his eyes. “Ya ain’t gonna hurt ‘im, or ‘er, or…whatever. I mean, ya wouldn’t hurt me , wouldja?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then there’s nothin’ fer ya ta worry about. I know you’re still the same Big Bad I met ov’a two years ago. Ya haven’t changed a lick in dat regard, but yer not gonna hurt me, or the kid. I know ya won’ t—I trust ya.” Angel assured him calmly whilst steadily lowering the Radio Demon’s hand to his stomach.
Alastor visibly tensed. “Angel —”
“Just shuddap and trust me,” Angel whispered demurely against the feathered shell of one ear. A jolt of electricity spiked the bridge of Alastor’s spine at the sensation of his bare palm coming into contact with the soft, downy fur of Angel’s stomach. At once, he wanted to yank it away. He couldn’t risk his own power coming into contact with the child. He simply couldn’t. There was no knowing what could happen. Still, Angel’s grip remained firm and resolute. “Just trust me,” He said again before pressing down, allowing the scarlet demon his first form of contact with his unborn child.
Alastor first registered the silken slide of fur. It was the same as it had always been; unbearably soft and smooth to the touch. The layer of skin hidden underneath was even softer. It had grown noticeably taut and firm, having had to accommodate the added occupant within. The pad of his thumb dimly grazed along the rippled edge of a budding stretch mark. One of many, Alastor was certain. His skin felt warm to the touch, the heat of his body verging on molten.
For a time, there was nothing. There wasn’t a tiny, subdued flutter of movement; there wasn’t a subtle kick or twitch. It simply felt as if he were merely touching Angel’s belly for the sheer fun of it. Which, by itself, wasn’t necessarily bad, but he had been expecting something more sub-
Then, he felt it.
It was brief, terribly so, but for a fraction of a second, he had felt it; a vague, barely-there flutter against the cusp of his hand. It was so quick and so damnably faint that Alastor very nearly believed he had preconceived the sensation altogether. Yet, a moment later, as if to spite him, the flutter returned tenfold, having taken the form of a well-aimed kick against the center of his palm, and Alastor felt all of the tension and anxiety bleed away from his body, leaving only a deep and unyielding calm.
“So?” Angel asked after a time had passed. The sound of his voice, soft and timid, played on Alastor’s ears, snapping him out of his reverie for the second time that evening. Angel inclined his head quizzically, even as a knowing and slightly cocky smile played along his lips. Alastor knew that smile well; that smile was reserved for the rare moments when Angel had caught him doing something sweet and sentimental and they both knew there was no way he could weasel out of it. Angel quirked a slender brow and asked, “How does it feel?”
Alastor’s eyes refused to leave the enchanting stretch of skin beneath his palm. Dimly, he could feel the faint flutter from within as his child continued to move around inside, and a sense of everlasting calm enveloped him as he sighed, his tone that of complete and total bliss. “ Extraordinary. ”
Come the next morning, he would find himself spooning Angel, as he always did, with one hand ensnared protectively around his lover, and another along the swell of his stomach.