Learning Curve from the mpregverse that was never meant to be. Unbeta'd (because weird) Rating: G (because too weird to possibly offend) Disclaimer: No-one would want this anyway, it's too weird. But we all know who the two unnamed Daddies really belong to. Summary: Maes, infant guru, on the peculiarity of light, the nature of the universe, reality and fiction, and the joys of making random noise. Because Sunday afternoon is the best time to get experimental with mpreg fanfic prose ;) Above, light moves. * There is a warmth and the right smell but no longer as constant and all-encompassing. He's outside the world now, lost in outer space. He cries because he's alone, and the world. The warmth and the right smell returns, engulfs him again. * The warmth and the right smell brings comfort, removes discomfort. It makes the outside wet dry and warm again. It pats him until the inside pain is released. It offers food to fill the empty inside. It brings warmth to fill the empty outside. * The light moves above, breaks and moves and breaks. * The world outside the world is becoming more fragmented. Already it had split into light and dark and now there are colours in the light and dark. The warmth and the right smell comes with an aura of gold. There is another warmth, a dark blue warmth that smells wrong. He cries. The warmth and the right smell engulfs him again and he's safe. * Sometimes he cries just because the warmth and the right smell that was once the universe is so distant and small now. Crying makes it return. It makes noises as it engulfs him, long hushing streams of noise. Sometimes when he's raised high to the warmth he finds cold and wet. It's uncomfortable and that only makes him cry more. Noise, noise, noise, and one warm arm one hard arm, and the right smell. * Light stretched out high above. Where does it come from? In the light now are other shapes, bright blinking lights hanging towards him, small cut-out shapes of light turning and winking. He raises his arms. Why can't he feel the light with his hands? * He wakes in the dark alone in outer space and he cries. Distant creaks and thudding. Light breaks into the dark and then the warmth, the right smell lifts him up. Baby baby baby. A wet grown cold is removed, he's made dry again. The warmth murmurs to him, rearranges its face for him in different ways. He stares. And then the warmth reaches out a hand and touches something alien but a part of him on his own face. He doesn't understand and he blinks. The warmth laughs and touches the alien part of his face (but him!) again, and then takes his hand and touches it to his own face. And he is introduced to his own nose. The warmth takes his hand and presses it to its own nose. He runs his palm clumsily over the warmth's face, so big and broad. Aliens reaching out across a new world. The warmth murmurs to him baby baby baby and orbits the room a few times, slowly rocking him around the cot. And then it's light again and he's in the cot and he's alone. * The light spins and breaks. A hanging light. Fragments of light and a bed of light above them. So very much light that he fears suddenly it falling on him and gives the start of a cry- And the warmth and the right smell lifts him up into the enormous light of the window and makes noises. Baby. * He can't reach things. He can't reach so many things and he tries and he gets so frustrated. The warmth laughs and says baby, want, baby? and lots of other meaningless noise. Sometimes the warmth supplies what he wanted. Baby. Want? Baby want no don't daddy good love there. Some noises repeat themselves often. The other warmth is there sometimes. The dark warmth. Sometimes the dark warmth tries to take him away from the warmth and the right smell and he cries because the warmth and the right smell lets it. The dark warmth alone is a curiosity, a new alien to explore. But when he's with the warmth and the right smell he doesn't want another alien. He has everything he wants. * "Baby." It's the most common word. "Baby baby baby." It is his word. It is used for him. To get his attention; "Baby!" To soothe him; "Baby." "Baby?" "Baby . . ." The next most common is "Daddy". "Daddy" usually comes attached to much more noise. "Daddy . . ." and he doesn't understand. Noise for the sake of noise. No; communication, but in a language he doesn't know. Aliens reaching out across a new world. He understands Daddy, this Daddy, and Daddy, this Daddy, the same way he comes to understand hand, this hand, and hand, this hand. Different the same. The words come slowly. Daddy. And Daddy. Daddy bounces him, hushes him, laughs with him. "Hey, baby." And the disconnect happens, very slowly, he doesn't notice it happening. Not the universe, not his entire world of warmth, not the all-engulfing right smell, the universe, the universe. Daddy. "Baby baby baby." Daddy. * Light turns and flashes, sudden glinting of lights overhead, hanging from the great overpool of light run across the ceiling. He can't reach it, can't touch it, illusory light, why can't he touch it? How can light come and go, the impermanence offends him, he's angry with the light - what is it? Why can't he understand? What is it? * Hand, this hand, and hand, this hand, and leg and leg and leg and leg and he can move. Now nothing is out of his reach. Now nothing- "There you are. Where're you goin' in such a hurry?" No no no. He can wriggle and wriggle but he can never get free, though sometimes the thought of getting free of Daddy realises itself to him and the terror makes him cling, wakes him in the night alone and makes him scream, he needs to know that Daddy is there, if Daddy isn't there then it's not exploration it's losing himself. Daddy remains the centre of the universe even if the universe is bigger than Daddy alone now. He needs to navigate by him. "Look who's home." Bouncing swing as he's walked down the hallway, high from the ground, a giant in Daddy's arms. "Here's Daddy!" Different arms, different smell, different body, dark blue and shining things he focuses on amidst the blue. And words in a deeper tone; "Good evening, Maes." The confusing duality of the universe continues; Daddy and Daddy and hand and hand he has grasped, and he's beginning to understand that as difference can be linked, so can same be different - he is both Baby and Maes. Baby baby baby and Maes (always single). He is a plurality and yet still him. He doesn't know how to respond to Maes, stays silent, and when raised he stares into the face of Daddy and waits for some action he's familiar with, the bounce, the baby baby baby, the laughter, the nuzzle. All he gets is a returned stare. * Water, bubbles, duck. Yellow duck, more yellow than anything else in the world, more yellow than Daddy's hair, more yellow than the walls, more yellow than runny eggs. Plash splash bash the duck in the water and Daddy will make it make shocking noise for him, will laugh for him. Everything echoes, noise repeats here, resounds off the shiny white tiles, reflects like light back to him. Water over his skin. He lifts an arm, lets the water run off, touches the water again, and it moves out of the way but it doesn't. He lifts an arm again and water runs down and away. If he repeats the experiment enough he will understand. Water runs down his head, Daddy strokes his hair smooth. "He does love you, baby, he's just, he's busy an' he doesn't know how to . . ." Wet cloth rubbed over his face, around his neck, down his arms. Rough, wet, soft all at once. He dashes water up with an arm, splash plash but it runs down the side of the bath and vanishes again. How does water work? He repeats the experiment. Splash splash splash. "He thinks he can make it work just through the words but you need more than words, don't you?" Daddy's face over the side of the bath, his orbiting moon. He touches it with a clumsy wet palm and Daddy blinks against the water, grins. "I know. I do too." * He lays on his back in the not-dark not-light and tries to catch the spinning shadows/lights overhead. Can't. He shifts and wriggles, can't turn over, kicks the blanket, shakes little fists, an angry god trapped in his cot. He raises his voice, practises his voice, makes the commanding sounds but they won't come out as words. Words are power. Daddy can be stupid and Maes has to make him understand not that toy, that toy, and he needs the words to make the order. Not the orange food again. Not bedtime yet. Don't pick me up! I'm exploring! There's a great deal of pleasure in making sounds come out of his throat. Noisenoisenoisenoisenoise. To be able to make your own noise is to be god-like. Noise! He kicks. He is glory. Noise! "Someone's got a lot to say for themselves this morning." Arms. Daddy! Maes gives him the noise, look what I can do! And Daddy laughs, and swinging-bounces him to the window and the curtains rattle aside and light spills in like water, over his skin but not. Maes looks up, to the spinning flash of the moving lights, reaches up. "What is it?" He reaches, reaches. He can't reach- Even without the godlike power of words Daddy understands sometimes, walks him closer, holds him up. Maes grabs the spinning light, hard plastic in his hand, shining yellow. He pulls and pulls. "No, baby," Daddy says, disentangling his hand. "You'll break it. Look, it's a duckie. Like in the bath, like at the pond. Duck." He holds it up. It's flat yellow plastic, the light makes it shine. It is not a duck. And yet Maes understands that it is, at the same time, it's the outline of a duck, it's the representation of a duck, duck in the bath, duck in the pond, duck in the a...
Mojaunicorn