[Open - Gathering - Baby Shower]

[just_another]

They're actually having a baby shower.

Joel is fairly certain his mother wouldn't have let them get away without something, even if he had insisted it be small and consist only of family, but for some reason he and Spencer have allowed themselves to be talked into a real shower. With invitations and food and little baby themed games to play. It's sort of strange, looking at it from his position, given that Erin is the one who's going to be giving birth and therefore is the one in the glowing pregnant woman position at this entire gathering.

She'd sweetly agreed to attend and had even whispered to Joel that she would take the brunt of the attention if she could manage it. He had whispered back that he knew they had picked her for a good reason.

But here they are. Several weeks have passed, the invitations have gone out and the decorations have been put up all over Joel and Spencer's living room. He had agreed to lift the enchantments on the house for the extent of the party, which means that anyone can open the door to their guests, they don't all have to be invited in by either Joel or Spencer, and it makes him a little nervous, but he understands the usefulness of others being able to answer the door. At least for today.

It's the decorations that keep getting to him. Sweet little ducks and zebras and monkeys, little jungle animals all over the walls. The bottle and rattle shaped cookies are pretty cute, but those aren't going to be left when the baby gets here. The animal theme, though, is fairly close to the nearly finished nursery Joel has been working on upstairs and he can't help but grin at the decorations.

Spencer, on the other hand, can't stop coming back round to the center of the living room to stare at the enormous sign that's been strung up above a table already stacked with gifts when a majority of their guests haven't even arrived yet. He'd been worried this morning that the day would overwhelm him, that knowing so many people would be coming into their home would be daunting when just a year ago, he'd never even once invited company over before meeting Joel; but so far, he feels calm, in spite of having had to watch Joel remove the enchantments that act as their security on the house. If someone wishes to crash a baby shower--which he doesn't imagine will happen anyway--then they'll have to face not only the wrath of a room that will be filled with witches and sirens, but the wrath of his mother- and sister-in-law, as well. That's not a sight Spencer thinks would be very pretty to witness.

Still, he feels light, perhaps a lingering effect of the having the chance to fall in love with Joel a second time during the spell that had taken over the town. Certainly, a great deal of his contentment has to do with the fact that he won't have to worry about losing his husband in a crowd but even beyond that, he's excited.

So much has changed in the course of the past year and weeks from now, they'll be holding their newborn in their arms for the very first time without another care in the world but for who they've been looking forward to meeting since they'd decided to take this journey together. There's something a bit strange about realizing that it's all coming to a head, that the waiting will soon be over and they'll be fathers at last, but when the first knock on the door comes, Spencer can't help but smile.

[Baby shower for Joel and Spencer's wee one. Erin, their surrogate, is present and is currently 31 weeks pregnant. If you're even a little friendly with either of them, Joel's mother sent an invitation, but the enchantments have been taken off the house for the event and so it's not an impossible party to crash. If anyone wants to crash a baby shower...]

Comments

[callmeemily]

"Hey." Raleigh leans against the wall against him, her shoulder against it as she looks up at him. "You look like you need something to do," she said with a smile. They hadn't talked since they were both... normal, again. "Promise I'm not going to shove a bunch of bread into your hands this time." She's a little weird about what happened -- the whole holding people up for money part of it was a big problem, but... but she's not talking about that. With anyone. And hoping that nobody else notices that..... ever.

Ever. "How're you doing?"

[davin]

"Well, I'm not starvin' this time so I think I'll be alright," Davin says with an embarrassed laugh. He looks over at Raleigh and for a split second it's like this superimposed image, both her and the girl who worked at the bakery who gave him bread. He blinks and then it's gone, and finds himself reaching for a glass of punch.

"That was crazy, huh?" He swallows hard and takes a sip of punch, wrinkling his nose at its cloying sweetness. Davin is still so angry that someone did that to him, to all of them, and he doesn't know what to do with it all. "But I s'pose it's good t'be back."

[callmeemily]

Raleigh looks away for just a second when he says that-- she hated that he'd been in that situation, and then there's the whole part she's keeping to herself-- but she doesn't have to fake it to nod emphatically when he asks if it was crazy. "Nuts. Absolutely nuts." She shakes her head. "And it is. It's good to be back, I don't want to forget that we're friends, or anything, pretty much ever. You know?"

[davin]

"Oh, I know. I didn't know anyone 'cept Coop, but he wasn't really Coop," Davin tells her. "I feel worse for James though. He remembered everythin' as it was s'posed t'be, but no one remembered him."

He laughs and looks at her with slightly pink cheeks. "But I got t'spend a week in a palace with a prince, so that was nice."

Part of him wants to tell her about the whole thing with the dragon, and how he was the one to break the spell, but it doesn't quite feel real. It's too big, too much, and Davin is still sort of reeling. It's not the kind of thing one casually throws into conversation. Like oh, by the way, I saved the town.

So Davin just reaches out and slings an arm around Raleigh's shoulders to pull her into a brief hug. "I'm just glad we're back."

[callmeemily]

"I can't even imagine what that must have been like," she says with a frown. "I mean... it's weird, being someone but having no control over anything you're doing, and then you're someone else." It's a little tinged with bitterness; she's been trying to keep it under wraps, just how bothered she was about the whole thing, but she can't really stop it from seeping into her voice.

She smiles, though, when he says he spent a week in a palace. "That's really nice, you're right. Did you go to fancy balls and stuff?" She hugs him back with one arm around his back, before looking up at him, her brows high with curiosity.

[davin]

"Yeah, I'm still just kinda... super angry about it all," Davin replies, frowning slightly, but he brightens a bit when she asks about his time in the palace. "Well, in hindsight it's all kinda hilarious in a sad way. I was convinced James was this fairytale prince an' he was just very confused an' wanted t'go home."

He smiles a bit wistfully and squeezes her arm before looking down at her and letting go. "Just the one ball, there at the end. I got my memories back an' we were havin' a real moment, but -- "

Davin doesn't really want to talk about the dragon, or breaking the curse, or anything like that. Raleigh doesn't even know that he's a witch and it's just too much, too big. "It kinda went sideways, but everything's okay now. I'm just glad it's over an' everyone's in one piece."

[callmeemily]

"Yeah, I... I get it," she says with a awkward smile. She doesn't really - the prince thing, the balls-- Joel was a prince, too, and Spencer was... she didn't even know, they hadn't talked about it, but the brief time she'd seen him, he hadn't talked. She's only really done that once, and it was a long time ago.

"Yeah," she says with a nod, even though she doesn't really know if people are. Maybe they are-- but she knows that people totally got like... she shot people, although she thought it was to incapacitate, not kill, and there was a giant and stuff... it was... complicated, to say the least. "I just-- I hate that sort of thing, you know? That there's no- Like, somebody just taking control of you, and you have no say in it, but I was there and experiencing it, and just--"

She forces a small smile. "You know what? Nevermind. This is supposed to be a party, and like... happy times. Baby things, you know?"

[davin]

"And no consequence to her at all," Davin says darkly. Nerium altered minds against their will, she tried to kill Davin and James in cold blood, but nothing is going to happen to her. It makes him so angry, but it's in an impotent, useless way.

She changes the subject and Davin nods, smiling and lifting up the silvery package under his arm. "So what did ya get the wee one?"

[callmeemily]

"Her?" Raleigh doesn't know anything about why the last few weeks had been so... different; she's in the dark, because she's been trying not to talk about it with anyone, it's sort of put her in the position that she just doesn't talk about it. "And uh- I got them a bunch of baby things that're book related," she says, wrinkling her nose. "I mean, I know it's kind of cliche, they were just really adorable, and I couldn't resist. What about you?"

[davin]

Davin frowns a little and decides to roll with the subject change. He's still a little afraid of Nerium, and he doesn't want to talk about her. He doesn't want to put any of his friends in danger just by knowing about her and what she did.

"Nah, that's cute," Davin assures her as he holds up his own box. "I made them a mobile for the baby's crib in my shop. It's a moon and some stars and clouds that spin around and stuff."

[callmeemily]

"Davin, that sounds adorable," she says with a smile. "And the fact that you made it, that's going to mean a ton. I totally have to be honest, all of mine? Etsy. Totally didn't have the brains to actually put together something." Smiling, Raleigh shrugs. Davin's always pretty thoughtful, and Raleigh's not exactly surprised that he's put it together, but she's definitely impressed.

Someday - very very very far off someday - when she has kids, maybe he'll make her one, if she asks.

"I don't know why, but I always liked mobiles that look like the sky, you know?"

[davin]

Davin blushes slightly and shrugs as he tucks the box back under his arm. The sigil to keep nightmares away is the real gift, but the mobile makes a decent enough vehicle for it, he thinks. "I had fun makin' it. Helped t'take my mind off of things. I just hope they like it."

He looks at her thoughtfully and bites his lip with a shrug. "I don't think I had a mobile. I don't remember it, if I did. But I agree with ya. I've been real into the stars an' stuff lately. I guess Mira's been rubbin' off on me."

[callmeemily]

"I did, I think? I think..." She squints her eyes like somehow that'd help her remember. "Maybe my dad made it? I don't know, my mom pitched everything that had to do with him when he left." It'd been so long ago that she didn't remember it at all.

"But yeah - the star thing is really cool. I haven't been to the planetarium yet, but Mira's pretty much made it a definite thing to do instead of just maybe," she says with a smile. "Maybe we'll all hang out there, sometime. It'd be pretty cool."

[davin]

"Yeah, I've always liked astronomy, but Mira has definitely gotten me into it more," Davin tells her. "She's always been a little more about the left brain stuff, and I'm more about the right brain stuff. Maybe that's why we were so well together. We're like two halves of the same brain."

He feels a surge of affection for his best friend and finds himself smiling. "That sounds like a great idea. I used t'make her sneak us into the star show after hours so we could get high. Ah, t'be young again."

It's not like they're old by any means, but Davin has done a fair amount of growing up in the past year or so. He was slightly off the rails in his late teens, but that was before he had Mira, or Raleigh, or anyone really. He's so grateful for what he has now.