Chapter 2 - Proud Papa, Distracted Daddy!

Well, it was about time!

Kevan was so upset. He had made lots and lots of noise but it hadn’t worked. He’d waved his arms around and kicked until all the blankets were gone, but it hadn’t done anything. Neither the yellow one or the good smelling one had come no matter how loud his noises got. Not even the big goofy one had come. Kevan had cried and cried and cried for a very long time. He had actually yelled and made so much noise for so long that now his tummy kind of hurt. Which, of course, just made Kevan cry even more loudly.

After a long time, Kevan had started to think that he might never see his favorite people things ever again. He had done his infant best to let the silly singing woman know that he was unhappy and wanted to leave the ugly, scary white place and go back to his green and brown room, but she hadn’t listened. All the silly woman did was sing him another song and jiggle him around and basically just annoy Kevan even more.

Now, finally, after Kevan had made noise for so long he almost forgot what it was like to NOT make noise, the silly singing woman had brought him back to a place he remembered. It wasn’t his happy, comfortable green and brown room but it was at least familiar. And, then, OH JOY! Kevan heard the noises made by the yellow person thing.

Kevan redoubled his noise making efforts, trying in the only way a six week old baby knows to express his utter displeasure with everything that had been happening to him recently.

When the yellow one took him out of the silly singing woman’s arms and held him tight, Kevan was so happy. Okay, he was still upset that the yellow one hadn’t come to get him a LOT earlier, but he knew in his little baby brain that everything would soon be better. Unfortunately, he had been making unhappy noises for so long now and had been so incredibly upset for longer than he could remember that now he couldn’t quite think of how to stop making the noises. He really wanted to stop with the noise. At this point even his own noises were making him annoyed. But it seemed impossible to stop.

The nice yellow one was holding him tight and making the low rumbly noises that Kevan usually liked. He was walking around, carrying Kevan and occasionally the yellow one would touch Kevan’s cheek or nose with his lips. It felt comforting. If only Kevan could recall how to stop making the upset noises.

“What the hell is going on out here!”

Yay! It was the good smelling person thing! Kevan wailed even louder, trying with all his infant might to get the big, warm, good smelling one to come to him and make it all better. He knew that this one would manage it. The good smelling one always made him feel better.

And, of course, it worked perfectly. The good smelling person thing wrested Kevan out of the yellow one’s arms, held him loosely in his big, safe hands and bent down to lightly press his soft lips against Kevan’s cheek. Kevan whimpered and sniffled one last time - mostly in gratitude that all the torment was now over - and then settled back as he felt all the tension and fear instantly leave his tiny body.

Very soon thereafter, Kevan found himself tucked up under the sheltering arm of the good smelling one. It was his favorite place in the whole world. Then he felt the warm familiar touch of the good smelling one’s skin next to his face. Kevan turned his head and latched onto the waiting nipple. Almost immediately his mouth was filled with the yummy warm sweetness he loved and his nauseated tummy began to calm and fill with happy warm milk.

All Kevan could think was that it was about time!

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something”, Jennifer apologized as she handed the wailing infant off to Justin. “But Kevan really didn’t seem to enjoy his first sleepover. Except for brief periods when he had completely exhausted himself, the poor thing pretty much cried the entire time. I thought it might help to get him back home.”

“Oh, poor sweetie,” Justin cooed and kissed his son over and over again. “Shh, honey. It’s okay. It’s okay now. You’re home. Shhhhhh.” The concerned Papa held the baby tightly, talking quietly and bouncing him just a bit as he paced back and forth in a way that had always quieted the baby before. Unfortunately, Justin’s technique didn’t seen to be working this time.

“I’m afraid he might be developing a touch of colic, Justin,” the experienced Grandmother announced with authority. “Didn't you tell me he’d been difficult to settle recently and had seemed to be crying a lot more than usual?”

“Yeah. The poor thing. He’s been really difficult for the past week or two,” Justin confirmed wearily. “It’s like he’s hungry all the time but when you try to feed him he really doesn’t drink much. And then he’s crying again in another half hour. The other night he was crying for almost three hours and I couldn’t get him to settle. Thankfully Brian got home just when I was about to start screaming right along with Kevan and the baby finally calmed down after Brian fed him.”

“Yep. Sounds like colic, I’m sorry to say,” Jennifer replied with evident sympathy as an unhappy Kevan continued to cry no matter what Justin tried.

“What the hell is going on out here!” Brian, now dressed in his typical casual yet still designer weekend attire, came stomping out of the bedroom. “What did you do to my son? Give him to me!”

Before either Jennifer or Justin could voice their innocence, Brian had wrested the wailing baby out of Justin’s hands. Instead of hugging the boy tightly the way Justin had been, Brian let the infant lie loosely in his big steady hands and then lightly brushed his lips against the ultra-soft little cheek. There was something so amazingly comforting in just holding his son in his hands and breathing in that indescribable clean ‘baby’ smell. Brian felt a tension he hadn’t even known was there melt away the moment he had his little boy back.

The relief in his Daddy’s previously tense muscles instantly translated to the angry, scared little tyke, and the baby relaxed as well. Jennifer and Justin stood by and shook their collective heads at the almost miraculous way that Father and Son managed to calm each other with their mere touch. It was even clearer how the two comforted each other when Brian took the baby into the nursery, sat in the big overstuffed armchair and tucked the infant under his left arm in a football hold. You could almost see the waves of comfort and solace radiating off the pair. When Brian pulled up his t-shirt, exposing his pec, the baby instantly latched on and started to suckle, making even the last shreds of uneasiness disappear from both.

Justin nudged his mother and unobtrusively hustled her out the door. He knew that Brian was still MORE than uncomfortable with anyone at all watching him while he breastfed the baby. He could barely stand it when Justin watched him. He was sure to feel awkward if he knew Jennifer was observing him. If it hadn’t been for Kevan acting so over-the-top upset and Brian reacting without thinking, he knew Brian would have been more circumspect even now. Breastfeeding simply did not fit Brian’s self-imposed image no matter how many times Justin tried to tell him it was a beautiful sight.

“He’s really an amazing father,” Jennifer said with a touch of awe as she followed Justin down the hallway and out towards the kitchen. “I know that I didn’t exactly make your relationship with Brian easy in the beginning, Justin, and I’m really sorry about that now. I guess that I just never really saw THIS Brian - the gentle and protective Brian - at least not until after the pregnancy. But you must have seen it from the very start, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I did. From the very first night I met him,” Justin confirmed with a secret smile while he remembered that first magical night he’d spent in Brian’s arms. “And you’re absolutely right - Brian is an amazing father. Which makes me the luckiest man on the planet, since I have the greatest partner and the cutest baby in humanity!”

*Hehehehe* Jennifer couldn’t help but laugh indulgently at her son’s overly enthusiastic statement. “Well, lets just hope you still feel that way in a couple weeks if Kevan really does have colic. I remember those days well. You had colic for about two months and I can truthfully say it was the longest ten years of my life. Anyway, I’m off. Good luck, dear. Call me if you start feeling too desperate!” Jennifer chuckled at the worried look her comments left on Justin’s face.

Justin shook off the mild sense of foreboding his mother’s comments had brought up and turned his attention to making coffee. About ten minutes later, Brian emerged from the back of the house and handed off the receiver unit for the baby monitor to Kevan’s other father. The stately brunet looked refreshed and contented after his brief time with the baby and that, in turn, made Justin happy too.

“Thanks,” Brian said as he accepted a travel mug full of coffee, doctored for him just the way he liked - black with plenty of sugar. “I don’t know how long this GQ photo shoot is going to last, but if I get done early enough I thought it was high time I got back to the gym. I feel like I’m never going to get my abs back the way they should be. Maybe I can set up something with one of the trainers or something.” Brian took a long sip of his perfect coffee, claimed Justin’s perfect lips for a long, wet open-mouthed kiss and then smiled his perfect smile before picking up his keys and heading for the door. “Later,” Justin heard the words echoing off the walls of the back hall and smiled.

“Now, if only Kevan will stay asleep for an hour or two, maybe I can finally get some painting done,” Justin announced to the fates as he grabbed an untoasted bagel and headed up the stairs to his former church choir studio space.

Brian was thoroughly enjoying being pampered.

From the moment he’d showed up at the studio where they were doing the photo shoot for the GQ follow up article on him and his son, people had been bending over backwards to do anything and everything he wanted. As soon as he was seated in the back room where he would change and have his hair and face done, food and fresh coffee had appeared. He managed to eat a bit - just a small bit though since he was still trying to get rid of those persistent last five pounds of baby weight - and drink his latte with one hand while a rather attractive looking young redhead manicured the nails on his other hand. Meanwhile the stylist they’d brought in was raving about his hair and how perfect it was without her doing anything at all. A few minutes later a makeup artist came in and touched up his face with just a bit of concealer - just enough to hide the dark circles that proved he was a parent who got woken in the night more often than he’d like. As soon as all that pampering was completed, Brian was led to a rack full of designer clothing already perfectly tailored to fit him. The photographer had stepped into the room and the two of them briefly discussed what look they both wanted before Brian was left to get himself dressed.

When Brian finally emerged, clad in well-cut black slacks and a sexy black silk shirt with a velvet-like texture to it, he even got a smattering of approving applause. The photographer unbuttoned the shirt down to the middle of his chest, ruffled up Brian’s hair a bit and then pronounced him to be perfect. Brian didn’t even mind the next hour or so while he was posed in various positions with all sorts of different backdrops. He was actually eating up all the attention. Everything seemed relaxed and easy and he could tell that everyone around found him attractive. It was just the ego stroking he needed after enduring the indignities of his crazy, unplanned pregnancy.

Strangely enough, Brian didn’t even really feel like he missed Kevan all that much. Usually when he was at work or out somewhere without the baby, he felt slightly uncomfortable. It was like something was always missing. But today, in spite of the fact that the whole basis of the article GQ was doing on him was the fact that he was this genetic rarity - the man who could bear children - not one person at the photo shoot had said anything at all about the baby. It had all been about Brian. And for a change, Brian really appreciated that fact. It had been a really long time since his life had been about him alone. It felt familiar. It felt good.

“Hey, Brian,” the red-haired manicurist, who had finally been convinced after spending the better part of three hours with the model to drop the ‘Mr. Kinney’ shit, approached shyly. “Several of us are heading to the cafe next door for a cup of coffee and maybe some lunch. Would you like to join us?”

The young man’s face was suffused with absolute fawning adoration as he shyly gazed up at Brian. Brian was . . . well, flattered was probably the best word to describe what he was feeling. It really had been far too long since Brian had felt this attractive, this desirable, not to mention this thin.

It took Brian all of three seconds to dismiss any random thoughts of his absent baby and partner before he agreed to join the small group.

Back at Britin’s Chapel, things were not so congenial. Brian hadn’t been gone more than half an hour before Justin’s painting was interrupted by the sounds of Kevan waking up from his brief nap. With a frustrated groan, Justin dumped his paint brush into the glass of cleaning solution and trudged down the stairs to rescue his fussy offspring.

Kevan, who hadn’t gotten much rest the night before due to his all night crying jag, was even crankier than usual when he woke this time. When Justin picked the baby up out of his crib, he noted unhappily that the baby’s diaper was even fouler smelling than usual. Justin laid the boy on top of the tall changing table and resignedly started the process of pulling off the smelly diaper full of greenish-yellow pasty baby shit. After six weeks of this, Justin was getting pretty good at the quick change, though. While holding Kevan’s legs with one hand so that his dirty rear didn’t touch anything, he rapidly rolled up the soiled diaper with the other hand, tossed it into the diaper genie contraption near his feet and then efficiently wiped all the remaining mess away with a wet baby wipe. As soon as he was clean, Justin pulled out a fresh diaper, shoved it under the cute and now clean tushy and lowered the baby’s legs. With a final practiced move, Justin quickly pulled the front of the diaper up and used the built in adhesive tabs to secure it. Altogether the process took less than two minutes and made practically no mess at all.

Next, with Kevan cradled firmly in his left arm, Justin hurried to the kitchen and popped a bottle of freshly expressed breast milk into the microwave for a minute. Justin chattered amiably to his son as he moved about. He was trying to follow the advice of all the baby books which said that talking to an infant - not baby talk but regular adult speech - helped stimulate its later verbal and reading abilities. Kevan was almost as used to this process as Justin and really enjoyed hearing his father’s low, calm, tenor voice. He watched what was going on around him as best he could with his inexperienced eyes, listened to everything and generally kept quiet, offering only the intermittent burble in response to Justin’s running commentary.

When the bell on the microwave dinged, Justin took both the baby and the bottle over to the nearby sofa and made them both comfortable with the nearby pillows. Kevan appeared eager at first to get to the bottle. His perfect little bowed lips started in with a sucking motion before Justin was even settled into the couch. As soon as the bottle was close enough, the baby greedily flailed his little hands at it. And there was no delay at all in the baby starting to feed once the bottle touched his lips.

However the boy only sucked at the bottle for two or three minutes before he used his tongue to spit out the nipple and started to make little fussy, pre-crying noises. Justin was at a loss what to do. Up until now the baby had been pretty easy to deal with: he woke up, Justin changed his diaper, fed him, rocked and burped him and then he would almost immediately fall back to sleep. This refusing to take a bottle and being awake for longer periods without falling asleep right away was new. Justin didn’t think he liked it any more than Kevan seemed to.

Justin knew he had to do something before Kevan worked himself up into a full-out wail. He tried walking around and talking to the baby. No deal. He tried holding up brightly colored toys for the baby to look at. Didn’t work. He tried bouncing the little baby on his knee which definitely didn’t work and made the infant’s face start to screw up in that horrible way which presaged another crying bout. Justin halted that action right away. He tried a couple of times to get Kevan to take the bottle again. No luck.

Not knowing what else to try, Justin headed back to the nursery and tried putting the baby back in the crib. Maybe he was just tired? Justin pulled the shades closed to darken the room and then turned on the switch which lit up the Japanese lanterns over the bed. He even wound up the fancy little silver Vera Wang music box that the Armani people had sent as a baby gift when Kevan was born, hoping that the tinny music would help coax the lad off to sleep.

Unfortunately not even a designer music box kept Kevan’s attention for long. Justin wasn’t even all the way down the hall when the baby monitor in his hand emitted the first sounds of Kevan’s continued displeasure. Before the proud but harried Papa could make it back into the nursery, Kevan had already worked himself up to full wail.

Justin murmured a private complaint about crying, fussy, colicky babies under his breath as he turned around and made his way back to the nursery. He could already tell he wasn’t likely to get any of his homework done today. This was NOT going to be a good day.

Brian/Gus gif by: http://liberum-imaginari.tumblr.com/post/97000895732