We Should Have Talked About This
Who: Justice & Jason What: The dreaded kids conversation When: 12.18 - Tuesday morning Where: The Richard’s rented cabin Warnings: Language, drama, brief nudity
Justice was aching when she awoke, stretching lazily, tangled up in warm blankets and a warmer fiance. Who, predictably, was sleeping the sleep of a man who’d had a few rounds of sex and most of a bottle of Jack Daniels the night before. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, but loathe to move, Justice cuddled into his side a little more firmly, sliding her hand across his chest as she rested her head on his shoulder, looking out of the window through a crack in the curtains. She felt relaxed, content - partly because the holiday was starting to actually take effect, and partly because of her bite on Jason’s throat.
She’d had no idea how much of a difference it would make to her peace of mind. Of course, that worry gone just meant that other things could grab her attention more firmly. Like the fact that Naya was pregnant. She didn’t resent her friend, of course - quite the opposite. Naya had wanted kids for years, and Justice was over the moon that she’d found a good guy to settle down with, raise a family. But it didn’t make it any easier for her to deal with the fact that she wasn’t pregnant. And while her and Jason had briefly talked about kids, she wasn’t totally sure how he felt. Sighing softly, she closed her eyes, turning her face in against his shoulder, kissing sleep-warmed skin. She wasn’t going to think about it. Not right now.
Speaking of kids, from the thundering upstairs, it sounded like at least Ana and Gracie were awake. Jason grumbled in his sleep, which might have been a half assed order to quiet down. Then his brain registered Justice cuddling into him and he relaxed again. He nuzzled her neck, letting out a low rumble. Yeah, he was definitely not wanting to move. He was comfy and warm and Justice smelled and felt good against him. God only knew how long they'd get to lay there before the horde of kids they'd brought with them needed something. He was going to eke out every moment of sleep and snuggling he could get, dammit.
Justice couldn’t help a soft chuckle at Jason’s sleepy murmurings, that comforting, rumbling purr. She tilted her head, letting him nuzzle her neck, stroking her hand slowly down his side. She knew by now that waking him up when he didn’t have to go anywhere wasn’t a good idea. Helping him wake up, however, that was a whole other thing. She slid her hand back up his side, over his shoulder, running her fingers slowly through his hair, tugging gently. The beads she’d put in his hair last night clacked together softly, braids catching between her fingers, giving her something to tug on.
Jason pulled Justice closer, purring louder as she caressed his skin and letting out a soft growl when she tugged on his hair. He kind of liked the beads and braids if he was being honest. He might keep them. It wasn't like anybody in their right mind would say anything to him about it. And you know, any excuse to have Justice play with his hair. He didn't bother to open his eyes, just reached out with his left hand to twine into her hair and pull his fiancee in for a good morning kiss.
Justice smiled, humming softly as she kissed him softly, sleepily. “Morning,” she murmured, breaking the kiss to rest her forehead against his. Her hand slipped out of his hair, fingertips sliding down his cheek, soft rasp of stubble against her skin. “How’s your head this morning?” She teased, opening her eyes to look at him, pulling back a little, a soft smile on her face. He had drunk most of a bottle of Jack, after all.
"Which one?" he murmured with a chuckle. Yeah, he'd drank almost a full bottle of whiskey, but he'd taken most of the night to do it. He was fine. Were metabolism had its advantages. He pulled Justice closer, wincing as his left shoulder reminded him while he might not have overdone the booze, he definitely had overworked it. Totally worth it though, considering what he'd been doing to stress it the night before. "I hope the kids don't want to go hunting today," he muttered. There was no way he could follow as a lion with his shoulder as sore as it was. And he'd never be able to trail them as a human, his senses weren't keen enough. Getting out of bed was getting less and less appealing.
Justice snorted at his ‘which one’ comment, not complaining as he pulled her closer, pressing tight against him, their legs tangled together. “Eh, they can always play in the back yard, it’s safe enough for them to be shifted there without running into anything.” And that meant that she and Jason didn’t have to keep such a close eye on them. As long as they listened out for screaming that wasn’t the happy kind, the kids would be fine left to their own devices. “Speaking of kids,” she murmured softly. “Did I tell you Naya’s expecting?” She knew damn well she hadn’t, had needed a couple of days to process it herself before talking about it with Jason.
It wasn't the same and he was probably going to just have to suck it up and take some painkillers. It would just be a shorter trip than yesterday. "Maybe I can talk them into taking pity on an old injured man and give me a day to rest before we go out again," he joked as he leaned in for another kiss. He was surprised and he wasn't at the news. "Damn, they work fast," he said. "They've only been engaged for a couple weeks." Jason grinned. "Good for them. Naya will make a great mama." He snuggled into Justice, glad to hear some good news for once. "I'll even offer Gabe some tips for dealing with expecting mamas. Although the best advice I can offer is 'she's always right' and 'always bring home ice cream'."
“Pretty sure she got pregnant the night he proposed,” she said, smiling. Naya certainly seemed to think so, and she wasn’t going to ask too many questions about Naya’s sex life, to find out for sure. She took a breath, not sure exactly how to continue the conversation. Whether it was a good idea or not. “You gonna do that when I get pregnant?” She said at last, teasing smile on her face. Yeah, okay, this worked. Joking about it. It was fine. Which was why her stomach was fluttering nervously. She leant her chin on his chest, looking up at him.
"Worked fast," he reiterated jokingly. He wasn't all that interested in Naya and Gabe's sex life either. He was wondering if his shoulder was going to allow him to have a sex life this morning, especially considering how warm and snuggly and nice smelling Justice was right now. "Haha," he mocked. "You're not getting pregnant. These shoulders? Hereditary. You and your little bird bones don't want to go through that." He was sure she was joking, so he might as well go along with it. He leaned down for a kiss, figuring the joking was done.
Justice shrugged. “There’s this amazing invention called a C-section,” she pointed out, still teasing. Mostly. She kissed him softly, then pulled back. “If we’re gonna have kids, though....yeah.” She made a face. “No way I’m giving birth naturally.” She’d done that with Lucas, she felt no pressing need to do it again. She stroked her fingers back and forth along his collarbone, not intentionally to distract him, just for something to do with her hands.
Because surgery was any better? Jason made a face, glad he wasn't a woman and didn't have to deal with all of that. Then she said that. "If we're gonna have kids?" he asked. "Baby, we already have four kids. And Xander and Shy." Gracie was eleven. She had a lot of growing up to do left. He'd just gotten a promotion that would pull him away from the family more. More kids just wasn't a good idea.
Justice looked at him, frowning a little. “But I thought...” Her heart sank, just a little. “Sorry, I thought you wanted to have a baby. With me.” She sat up, sweeping her hair back over her shoulder, turning away from him. She grabbed her sweater off the blanket box at the end of the bed, tugging it on. “I’m gonna make breakfast for the kids,” she murmured. Grabbing her jeans off the chair, she stepped into them, still not looking at Jason. She’d thought they were on the same page, thought that he wanted to have a baby with her. Apparently she’d been wrong.
"What?" Jason was now confused and panicking. His brain was not completely online and trying desperately to keep up with the abrupt change in mood and conversation. "I didn't say that!" He scrambled after her, not giving a damn if he was naked or not. Because she was not leaving the room until this was worked out. "No, you're not," he said as he stepped between her and the door. "I never said anything about babies." Well, not that he could recall off the top of his sleep addled head. "We've never talked about babies before." Well, not about having one. He was pretty sure he would remember that conversation. Probably. Okay, maybe not this morning and tired. But if they had actually talked about it, there would have been more than one conversation. Argument. Whatever.
“Yes, you did,” Justice said, looking up at him. “After the fight about me not selling my house,” she was sure she was remembering that right. “In the bath.” She brushed her hair back off her face, looking away, wetting her lips to buy time, while she tried to remember exactly what he said. “We talked about kids. How I’d never planned to just have one. And you said we had to tell the kids we wanted to get married and got that over with first, before we talked with them about having a baby.” She shook her head. “It’s fine, whatever.” She tried to turn away from him, reaching for the door handle.
Okay, he vaguely remembered that. Because after post-traumatic argument sex was the best time to be talking about anything as big as having kids? "That was not talking about having kids," he said. "Talking about anything after sex and while you're naked and wet is not talking. I don't have enough functioning braincells to carry on a coherent conversation then." She was kidding, right? "Well, we're talking about it now." Jesus. They should have discussed this before she bit him. Raking his hands through his hair, he tried to figure out how to even explain the myriad of reasons not to have more kids. "And I meant I didn't say I didn't want to have a baby with you. If I ever wanted to have a kid again, it would definitely be with you. I just-" he shook his head. "-we have enough kids, don't we?"
“You had enough brain cells to ask me to marry you,” she replied, a little waspishly. And then sighed. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. You don’t want to.” She was avoiding looking at him, utterly horrified to find herself getting choked up. They might not have talked about it in depth, but she’d taken his words to heart. Thought that he wanted a baby, just like she did. She could picture it clearly, them lying in the bath, their hands twined over her stomach, talking about a baby. But apparently she was remembering it wrong. That, or she apparently couldn’t talk to him about anything after sex. Nothing that mattered, at least.
"I was going to ask you before," he reminded her. "You derailed my brain with the sexy nurse's getup." Not that he was complaining, but that was a low damned blow. "It isn't that I don't want to," he said. "It's just not a good idea. Chloe and Lucas are almost adults. Gracie and Charlie still need us to be full time parents. I just got a promotion that will take me away from home more." He was thinking about the logistics of a newborn in their household, not how wonderful having a baby with her would be. That one was a given. But it just wasn't really practical. "Why have you never brought this up before? You know, when I was thinking straight?" Really, no man thought coherent when there was a wet, naked woman involved. He figured that was common knowledge. Especially after sex. God.
“I didn’t get a chance to,” Justice pointed out, slipping out from between him and the door, walking across to the window and pulling the curtain back enough to look out. She even considered shifting and flying off, just for a moment, just to end the conversation. “And I thought we had.” Her voice was soft, a little hurt-sounding. “I thought...I thought you just wanted to wait. Let the kids get used to us being engaged, first.” She shook her head, looking down at her fingers, curled over the edge of the windowsill. Blinking back tears, she fell quiet, all those happy little daydreams of being pregnant again, of having a baby - Jason’s baby - going up in flames.
Jason was starting to lose his temper. She was about in tears, looking like he'd just told her he didn't love her or something horrible like that and they had kind of sort of talking about it once. "We didn't get a chance to have a real discussion about it, and you think we have time and energy for a newborn?" he challenged. "Not to mention how much the kids we already have will freak out at the idea." They hadn't even had a chance to discuss it and now she was acting like it was the end of the fucking world.
And now they were mated and if it was such a deal breaker. Fuck... Jason scrubbed his hands down his face, trying to force himself to calm down. That changed the whole game and now he had to be a lot more careful about what he said. "If you think about flying out that window, I will clip your damned flight feathers. You promised not to run away from me." Okay, so being more careful about what he said was a tall order.
“I’m not,” Justice almost hissed, nails turning black, curling into the windowsill. “I’m not going anywhere. I just...” she drew a ragged breath. “It doesn’t matter, okay? Forget about it. I was being stupid.” She wiped her eyes, angrily. She hated that she was getting upset, that this bothered her so much. Hated that he was getting angry at her because of it. It made it even harder, now they were mated. She didn’t want to be arguing with him, wanted to go back to the comforting, sleepy cuddles in bed.
Jason growled. "Stop saying that," he snapped. "You're not being stupid. You just surprised me." He crossed to Justice, wanting to comfort her. "I get why you're upset. I just wish you'd talked to me, really talked to me, before you got your heart set on it." Because he really had no idea she wanted a baby that badly. "Especially before you bit me." This was exactly the kind of thing he was worried about when he'd been hesitant. "I'm sorry. For snapping. But Justice, I just don't think having a baby is a good idea for us."
Part of Justice wanted to hold back, pull away from him. But she couldn’t. She turned towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, cuddling into her. “I know,” she whispered. “I know I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. I just...” She closed her eyes, leaning her cheek against his chest. “This is it for me. Even before I bit you.” She hugged him tightly. “If I had to choose between having another baby, and you, there’s no contest.” She wanted him to know that, didn’t want him thinking that she regretted mating with him, already. “I just thought having a baby was part of that, you know? Our future.” She sniffed softly, blinking away tears. “I didn’t realise how much I wanted a baby until I saw Naya on Friday, but I...” She couldn’t even really express what she was thinking, what she was feeling. Shaking her head, she cuddled closer.
Yeah, now he felt worse for a lot of reasons. Jason wrapped Justice up in his arms, murring low. "I'm sorry," he said. "We should have talked about it. I sort of thought the opposite of you. After everything you went through raising Lucas alone. And the fact he almost made you a grandmother. I figured babies were the last thing you'd want." Jason nuzzled her gently. "I love you," he told her. "I want you. Not to be the mother of my children. It's great, everything you've done for Chloe and Gracie. But I want you to be my wife. For me." He sighed. He felt awful for feeling the way he did. He knew the truth. Deep down, he didn't want a baby. He'd done that three times and he just felt too old, too tired, to do it again. Plus it meant 18 more years of living for his kid. Maybe it was selfish, but Jason had finally started doing things for himself. He didn't want to go back to the way he'd been before.
“It was Lucas almost making me a grandmother that made me realise I wasn’t done, yet,” she admitted softly. It had taken her a while to work that out, and she hadn’t told Lucas. But yes, a large part of the reason that she was so angry with him was that he had taken away any chance of her having kids, the moment he’d said his girlfriend was going to have a baby. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but neither was it something she could help. “And I wouldn’t be doing it alone, not this time.” She tilted her head up, looking at him. “We’d be having a baby together. And the kids would come round, I know they would. Hell, Gracie would adore not being the baby of the family any more.” She couldn’t help wanting to change his mind, wanting to convince him.
Jason almost physically winced. Justice wasn't thinking this through. At all. "Baby, listen to me," he said. "I have done this the so called right way a couple of times. Even sneaking away from work to help out, you'll still be doing it mostly by yourself. Especially with this new squad. And if the baby's a lion, well, the girls might just try to take over. Because of their instincts." It was not going to be what Justice was imagining. It wouldn't be 'their' baby. It would be the Pride's and Justice had been a single parent before. And Jen had had a hard enough time bonding with the girls, because the pride instinct. It was one of the reasons the idea of a divorce had been so bad. The pride ties were too strong. It just wasn't as simple as 'Let's have a baby.' "We need to talk this through. The two of us. As rationally as possible. Before we even suggest anything to the kids." He couldn't just tell her no. Not when she wanted it so much and now she was stuck with him. God.
“I know, okay? We had the ‘my work hours are going to be shit for a while’ talk yesterday,” she said, sighing as she leant against him. “I want this,” she whispered softly. “I really want this, Jason.” She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against his chest, not even really aware of him being naked. Not in that way. Her hands stroked his back softly, owl soothed by his closeness, by the fact that she hadn’t pulled back, run away from him. She needed him, more than ever. “I know it’s not going to be easy. We’ve both done it the hard way before, and we made it. And our kids turned out okay.” She lifted her head, looking up at him. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek, thumb stroking his cheekbone gently, just underneath his eye. “Just...don’t dismiss it straight off? Please.”
Yeah, she might as well have stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. It'd hurt less. She really, really wanted this and even though he knew it was a horrible idea that he knew he didn't want, he couldn't just tell her no. Not when she was looking at him like that and pleading. Especially since now, she couldn't just find some guy who actually wanted more kids. "I-" he began, then closed his eyes and shook his head. "Okay. We can talk about it later." Letting go of her after a soft kiss on her forehead, he went looking for his sweats. "I wanna grab a shower before Chloe wakes up and hogs the bathroom for the next hour. And we need to make breakfast for the kids."
That really wasn’t a yes. Hell, Justice knew him well enough by now to know that was him trying to avoid saying no, trying to let her down gently without actually saying it. She sighed, but let him go, closing her eyes for a moment as he kissed her forehead. “Sure,” she murmured softly. “You go first. I need to wash my hair, I can do that while you start food.” She tugged off her jeans, sliding back under the covers to the warm spot where he’d lain. No point in getting cold while he was showering, after all.
Yeah, she'd seen right through him. But she hadn't called him on it either. Jason didn't know what to do. "Okay," he said as he pulled on his sweats and a tee shirt. "I'll make it quick. Ana and Gracie are already up, it'll only be a matter of time before the wake up everybody else." Grabbing a change of clothes, he headed for the door. Justice nodded, stripping off her sweater and tugging the covers up around her ears, even that little bit of air cold against her naked skin. Maybe she was more aware of it, now that she wasn’t all distracted. Whatever the cause, it made her shiver as she burrowed under the blankets, curling up into a ball. It wasn’t quite as comforting as home, the nest of pillows and blankets she tended to create around her when Jason wasn’t there to keep her warm. She couldn’t call Jason on chickening out on saying no, because she really didn’t want him to say no. She didn’t want to push him, one way or the other. “I love you,” she murmured softly, as he reached the door. It was important for him to know that, whether she was happy about where the conversation had ended, or not.
That just made Jason feel worse. Because he knew deep down he didn't want this as much as she wanted it. "Love you, too," he murmured, not able to look back at her. He couldn't watch her curled up there all by herself, knowing he'd hurt her. And the only way to fix it was- yeah. He hoped there was another bottle of Jack around. It was going to be a long day.