#and dust in your pocket from leaflings!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

andawaywego · 3 years

Note

Prompt: Jamie working at the Leafling with her and Dani’s baby in one of those slings

i loved this prompt, and i got to put Jack (who appears in a different prompt of mine that can be read here) in it as well, baby-style. i hope you like it!

Every day, it’s more and more uncanny how much she looks like Jamie. It’s in the brown tuft of hair that gets curlier every day, the longer it gets—so unlike Dani’s own baby pictures, wherein what little hair she did have was blonde and thin. It’s in the way she smiles, so lopsided and adorable, and the way her eyes shine in the sunlight—like she’s up to something, but Dani doesn’t know what.

Three months in, and it’s getting to the point where Dani has no idea what she’s going to do with their daughter.

Take now, for instance: sitting in the padded rocking chair Jamie dragged into the back room of their shop the week before Dani’s due date, Jack rested over her shoulder as Dani pats her back through her green striped onesie. She’s always so restless after she eats and trying to burp her is sometimes a bit of a struggle. Just like her other mother, Jack has a bit of an issue sitting still for too long.

Dani is just getting to her feet, wiping Jack’s chin clean, when the door opens and Jamie steps in.

“Hey,” she says, unable to keep the look of wonder that’s been near-constant on her face since that stick first said pregnant last winter. “Sorry. Ran out of tape for this rush order.”

“That’s okay,” Dani tells her normally and then immediately slips into her high-pitched Mommy voice to say, “We’re all good now, aren’t we, baby?”

As she says it, she turns Jack in her arms so she can see Jamie standing there and smiles at the look of excited recognition on their daughter’s face. Little grabby hands reach out, flexing and stretching clumsily until Jamie finally comes over, grinning already.

“There’s my girl,” Jamie says, letting her fingers be grabbed in Jack’s tiny fists. Her eyes flit up to meet Dani’s, still smiling. “My other girl.” She leans in for a kiss and Dani meets her, sighing against her lips, feeling floating and solid in that way she always has whenever Jamie kisses her.

Dani hums a bit and pulls away after a moment. “Careful,” she says, “you’re going to scar our daughter.”

Jamie scoffs out a laugh. “Hardly.” She pulls one of her hands away from Jack’s grasp and brushes her fingers through her curls affectionately. “She’s calmed down a lot. You’d hardly even guess she was such a troublemaker last night.”

“Guess my boobs are good for something.”

Jamie quirks an eyebrow. “Some-things. Plural.”

Dani rolls her eyes and lets Jamie take Jack from her arms, feeling the loss of her almost at once. It’s funny how that goes—how present that feeling is whenever Jack is out of reach. The first time she’d felt it had been at the hospital, just hours after giving birth, when Owen had been holding their swaddled, pink newborn in his arms and cooing at her.

And it was Owen, of all people. One of the greatest friends she’s ever had, but it still felt like cutting off a limb to be so far away after nine months spent as close as she could get. It happened with her mother, too, when she’d eventually made it to the hospital and spent twenty minutes looking Jack over and telling Jamie stories from Dani’s birth that had Jamie laughing until she was as pink as their daughter, curled around Dani on the hospital bed.

It wasn’t until Jack was back in Jamie’s arms as they lay on the bed together, counting her fingers and toes, filled with wonder and amazement at this little human that belonged to them, that Dani felt everything slide back into place. Jamie is the only person Dani can handle giving Jack away to. Because it isn’t giving her away at all. It’s simply...her wife holding their child.

And it’s one of the most incredible things Dani’s ever seen, each and every time. Each time it happens, she can’t help but remember the first time it happened, after Jack and Dani had each been cleaned up, after they’d been placed in a quiet hospital room with a barrage of nurses only a button-push away. Jack was nestled in a pink blanket, a little pink beanie on her head, and looking up at Dani with big, blue eyes, similar to the way Jamie was looking at her from beside the bed.

Jamie, Dani had said through tears she hadn’t quite realized were falling, come say hi to your daughter.

And Jamie had, moving slowly, carefully—the weight of all those heavy childhood memories bearing down on her as she took their baby into her arms for the first time. And it ached to let go, yes, but not in the same way. In a different way. A better way. A look at the two people I love most in the world way.

It feels the same now, too.

“Do you want to rest for a little while?” Jamie asks, smiling as Jack bumps her tiny forehead to her chin. “I can take her.”

“Are you sure?” Dani asks, wanting to protest because there’s work to be done before they close, but also wanting to lie down on the couch beside her legs more than anything else.

Jamie nods. “’Course I am. You’re the one she had up all night.”

As if Jamie hadn’t been up, too. Falling asleep with her back pressed to the headboard—head lolling like Jack’s always does in the bath, as they rinse the suds off her little body—as Dani tried and tried to get Jack to follow her lead and go to sleep.

Dani’s gaze softened as she watched Jack grin and grip onto the pocket of Jamie’s overshirt. Three months doesn’t seem right. Her and Jamie had spent so many nights of her pregnancy curled up together in bed and imagining the child they were about to bring into the world. But for all that discussion—all the sonograms and preparation that went into making their second bedroom a nursery—she’d never been able to conjure a clear idea of what their baby would actually look like. Now, the sight of their daughter—the way her cheeks puff up when she smiles, the way her little eyebrows move, the sounds she makes when she’s happy—is something she doesn’t think could ever be washed from her memory.

“Okay,” Dani agrees finally. She leans forward and rubs a thumb across Jack’s cheek. “Be a good girl for Mom, okay?”

Something flickers in Jamie’s eyes at the word—the way they always have ever since Dani used it to describe her. That’s what she is: Jack’s mom. One of them, anyway.

“Tell Mommy you’ll be the best girl ever,” Jamie says and Jack coos out a noise as if in response. Jamie has that ability—that connection with their daughter that Dani can only stand before in awe. “We’ll be right outside, okay?” Jamie says next, jerking her head toward the door, and Dani nods.

Before they can go, she moves to one of the shelves against the wall and grabs another roll of floral tape before turning back around to hand it over. “Don’t forget this,” she says and Jamie takes it with a smile, moving her arm back immediately to wrap around Jack.

“Thanks, Mommy!” she says in her very own Mommy voice, and then blows Dani a little kiss on her way out the door.

It closes behind them and Dani stares at it for a long moment, warmth spreading throughout her chest and seeping into her veins. She can hear Jamie’s voice as she talks to Jack softly, hear the sound of her movement around the shop, and Dani lets it wash over her.

She’s not sure how she ever got so lucky, and she’s still contemplating it when she lies down on the couch and drifts into a light sleep.

__________

The afternoon sun is slanting in through the windows by the time Dani comes out from the back room, a little tired still, but certainly more refreshed. In the harsh lines of their light, little particles of dust float loftily, swirling with the drift of the air around them. Dani stands in the open doorway and brushes her hand through some of them, watching them part for her, as she listens to Jamie talking quietly on the other side of the shop.

Her back is facing Dani, and she hasn’t seen her yet, which means that Dani can simply stand there and watch her family. Jamie has the sling she’s always wearing when they’re working on, and Dani can’t see Jack but she doesn’t need to.

“I know, I know,” she hears Jamie say softly. “I miss Mommy, too, but somebody kept her up all night long, didn’t they?” She moves a little, picking up something from one of the vases in the corner. “What do you think of delphiniums, Jackie?” There’s a pause, but no noise. “Yeah, I like them, too. And the viburnums?” Another pause. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe just a little.”

She turns, then, eyes down on the flowers she’s holding and goes to the preparation table they keep by the counter. One of her hands rests on Jack through the stretchy wrap, who Dani sees that her head is back a bit, staring at the wall as it passes by.

There’s a vase on the preparation table, one of their prettier ones with its widened base and the thin, glass leg of it holding it upright. There are already flowers inside it: roses and lavender and hydrangeas. It’s beautiful—all pink and purple and green–Dani’s favorite colors, actually, and Dani can’t help but wonder what order it’s for.

“Look at that,” Jamie says as she places the newest additions in the rest of the arrangement, moving them around to make them perfect. “Good choice...Think Mommy’ll like it?” Jack fusses a bit and Jamie stops working, taking the time to press a kiss to the baby’s head, bouncing a little bit to calm her down. “You’re right. She’ll love it.”

The flowers, Dani realizes, are for her. Jamie has been putting an arrangement together for her with their daughter while she let Dani sleep and it hits her straight in the chest, stinging a little.

During the pregnancy, there’d been moments when Dani worried that the baby would be too much work, so much that she and Jamie wouldn’t have time together the way they had before. That they’d be so busy with her, figuring out how to love her and take care of her, that they would forget to love one another as well. But Dani knows now how silly a thought that had been.

She and Jamie will always be them. Will always be a team and a pair no matter what life throws at them, and, if anything, having Jack has only further proven how good they are together. Now they’re the best team Dani’s ever been a part of; they are moms together. And isn’t that something?

“Of course she’ll love it,” Dani says and then Jamie is turning, is looking at her again, is smiling bright and lovely and Dani thinks oh.

There you are.

Jack fidgets a bit and Dani moves forward, reaching out to smooth a hand over the baby’s back through the wrap keeping her pressed tight to Jamie’s chest.

“Hey,” Jamie greets softly, reaching out a hand to curl her fingers around Dani’s hip. “I didn’t know you were up.”

“I know,” Dani says. “You were a bit busy, weren’t you?”

Jamie’s cheeks turn a bit pink, so sheepish after eight years together, somehow. Like she doesn’t think she’s allowed to do nice things for Dani. Nice things like surprising her with a flower arrangement in her favorite colors. “Yeah, sorry. It’s a…” She takes a step aside so that Dani can see the flowers a bit better. “Do you like it, then?”

And standing there looking nervous and beautiful, their daughter held close to her, Dani feels so full that she could burst. Thinks she nearly does. Has to clear her throat.

“I love it,” Dani tells her. “Love you.” She has to crane her neck a bit, but she manages to kiss Jamie around Jack’s head. “Both of you,” she adds in for emphasis, giving Jack a kiss, too. “It’s beautiful.”

The way Jamie smiles then has Dani’s veins pulsing with pure devotion, and then Jack’s head is a bit tilted and she’s almost mimicking the expression—somehow, miraculously, her other mother’s mini-me. They’re perfect. Even when Jack wakes her up at one in the morning, screaming her head off. Even when Jamie leaves empty drinking glasses all over the apartment, covering the counters and tables in the living room, and table by their bed until she runs out of room. Even when they’re both fixing her with their best you’re kidding me expression.

But especially now—standing in the late afternoon sunlight, looking at Dani like she’s their whole world in the same way they are hers.

“She looks so much like you, Jay,” Dani says softly, and it’s clear that Jamie isn’t expecting this given the way her expression changes into one of mild confusion. “Seriously.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Jamie tells her, but Dani just laughs and shakes her head.

“I don’t care,” she decides. “She is absolutely, one-hundred percent your daughter.”

Jack makes a little noise and Jamie looks down at her, hand reaching up to cup the back of her head instinctively. They stare at one another for a moment, mother and daughter, and Dani and they really do look too much alike. Dani is certain she couldn’t imagine the resemblance.

“Yeah,” Jamie whispers finally, pressing another kiss to Jack’s forehead. “She is.” She looks up and smiles. “Our daughter.”

“Our daughter,” Dani repeats, and she leans forward, pressing her forehead to Jamie’s and pressing her hand to Jack’s back, breathing in the moment for as long as she can.

It vibrates to life in the air between them and Dani knows that things are different between them now, but they are not worse.

No, they are better. Changed. More now that Jack is with them.

The sunlight continues to press in, warming each of them as they hold onto one another, their child cradled between them, thinking about the way that they will never again be who they were before all of this.

And, dammit, if that isn’t a miracle.

#damie #dani x jamie #dani/jamie #damie prompt #dani x jamie fanfic #thobm #the haunting of bly manor #fluff fluff fluff

36 notes · View notes