Discovered in a Christmas card--Day 3
Dec. 2nd, 2016 10:13 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
dawnebeth.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
discoveredinaljMerrily Christmas, and to Verity, a Good Night
By Dawnwind
Verity Pettifer-Brazelton had more than the usual number of fathers, something she was slightly puzzled by, but still quite proud of.
There was Papa-Colum, Daddy-Doyle and Babo-Bodie. Most of the kids at her school had one mummy and one daddy, although Verity’s best friend Anabel only had a mother because she was ‘dopted from China. And there was nasty Neville who had two fathers because his mum had remarried.
Which was “none of your bee’s wax, missy,” as Mummy reminded her. Generally after Mummy’d rolled her eyes and sighed, “do you ever run out of questions, Verity?”
Since it was Christmas Eve, and she rarely got to see them, Verity was quite pleased that she had the undivided attention of Daddy and Babo. They’d come super quick after Mum called to say that “her water had broken and how effing fast could they get here?”
Which, Verity was quite sure, was spy talk for “I’m going to have a baby. Today.” Because she knew her mummy and two fathers were spies.
She might be six years old, but she wasn’t dim. Not like Neville, who’d started acting up, as their teacher called it, after his mother’s divorce.
She’d known what was going on when papa and mummy packed a satchel, talking in whispers about the hospital, and the birth. Anabel’s Aunt Rosie had had twins, a boy and a girl, when she got as roly-poly as Mum was lately. Anabel had seen a video of the births, which she’d described as bloody and horrible, especially when the heads came out her auntie’s bum hole. Anabel had vowed that birth was, “Nothing I am ever going to do, ever, Ver.”
Without seeing the video herself, Verity was unconvinced. It did sound quite painful, particularly the way mummy had been moaning and rubbing her fat tum when Papa was getting the car out of the garage. Mummy did promise that she’d have a little brother or sister for Christmas.
Which was ever so lovely, but honestly, Verity had asked Father Christmas for a pony. Like Robin, the pony that took tourists around Castle Cranley in the jaunting car. Brown, with a dark brown mane and tail. Which she could ride, on her own.
This was how Verity came to be walking through Castle Cranley hand in hand with Daddy and Babo, after the children’s Christmas Eve service at St Andrew’s. The Nativity play had been glorious.
She and her mum didn’t attend regularly—in fact, Neville’s mother had got in a row with mum over something called baptism a fortnight ago, which had left mummy quite cross. She’d called Agatha Penvenen “a right cow” and then sworn Verity to secrecy, muttering about dunking Agatha’s head in a font full of water.
When Verity asked what she meant, there was the usual answer. “None of your bee’s wax, missy,” Mum said, and bought her a 99 because Verity loved the chocolate Flake on the side.
Perhaps Daddy and Babo would get her a 99, as well? For a Christmas Eve treat. She’d been awfully good lately, and hadn’t broken a thing. Well, except for Papa’s stethoscope when she and Anabel were examining their dolls for diseases. Papa'd had the stethoscope since college, so it was old. Mummy would get him a new one for Christmas—after she finished having the baby.
It was worth asking for ice cream after dinner, Verity mused. First, she had some questions about church.
Most of the service had been absolutely fantastic. An older girl from Verity’s school, dressed in a blue nightie with a white veil over her head, had ridden into the church yard on a real donkey led by Charlotte Bosker’s big brother Dan.
“That’s Mary and Joseph,” Daddy had explained, “Jesus’ parents.” He touched his forehead, chest and then both shoulders when they’d paraded past a large cross outside the front door of St Andrew’s.
Klari Deukmejian, her baby sitter, did the same thing on the rare occasions she took Verity to mass, when mum wasn’t around. Not sure what was called for in this circumstance, Verity glanced at Babo. He looked amused by the entire thing.
“Best hope the ass doesn’t—“ he’d smirked at Daddy, “uh, leave an extra gift for the Christ child on the narthex floor, yeah?”
Verity was pretty sure that Daddy almost giggled, but that wasn’t done in church. Klari had told her so—many times.
Once Mary heaved herself off the donkey, the church goers had trooped into the sanctuary. There, the girl produced a large doll from under her veil. Several more girls, all with cardboard angel wings trimmed in feathers and glittery haloes, had run around while everyone sang, “Hark, Harold’s Angels Sing.”
Verity had joined in happily, because Anabel’d taught her the words. Daddy had looked at her quite strangely and Babo laughed, singing as loudly as she did. Mum had always told her she had a “unique way with a song, petal.”
The best bit was when Anabel sprang up in her angel costume, which Verity had seen on Tuesday when Mum wanted a lie-down. “Verity, go down to Anabel’s for an hour so I can have a bit of peace, will you?”
Anabel was brilliant as the Angel, in her mother’s old white ball gown tucked up with a sash, and a huge gold halo, far larger than what the other angels had on their heads. Four boys, wrestling to keep a real sheep from wandering down the aisle, had pretended to be afraid of Anabel.
Which they were. Anabel could be quite fierce on the football pitch. She was tiny, but could outrun everybody in the first grade.
There had been a lovely bit where Father Felix came down to sit with Mary, Joseph and the doll Jesus to read from his big Bible.
Which was the part Verity had questions about. She’d wanted to ask right then and there, but Daddy had put a finger to his lips and even Babo had motioned her to silence.
Well, she wasn’t going to be quiet any longer.
“What’s a virgin birth?” Verity asked as they started down Park Lane to Pettifer Hall.
~~**~~
Doyle stopped abruptly, staring over Verity’s head at his partner in all things. Bodie was frozen in place, breath steaming out of his mouth in a perfect mimicry of a comic strip character’s speech balloon. Alas, he didn’t seem to have any words to fill the empty air.
Verity peered up at him, expectantly. Doyle gazed back, seeing her all over again. She was gorgeous. He still couldn’t believe he had any part of her creation, but short of a paternity test, which Ruth had steadfastly refused to have done, there was little way of knowing whose daughter she actually was. Could two men—having sex with a woman at the nearly the same time—mingle their sperm to create a single child?
A fanciful idea.
Verity had bright blue eyes. Ruth claimed the colour was inherited from her own father, but they were exact shade of Bodie’s. Verity’s long hair was nothing like her mother’s thick blond tresses, and was remarkably similar to Doyle’s own in both the light brown-auburn colour and the riotous tangle of sausage curls. She had her mother’s winsome smile, when she wasn’t peppering every adult in audible range with questions. Her pert nose and pointy chin apparently came from a distant aunt. That insatiable, exhausting curiosity was undoubtedly a combination of all her parents, including a dash of step-papa Colum’s medical acumen.
“You’re the one was brought up Catholic,” Bodie put in with a ghastly grin. “This is all on you.”
“Thought this would be the start of a lovely tradition,” Doyle muttered grimly to himself. He and Bodie generally shepherded Verity—and sometimes her best mate Anabel— on happy afternoons with little intellectual content: a fun fair, followed by a cream tea, or in the summer, a trip to the seaside. They’d left the actual parenting, complete with dicey questions, to Ruth and Colum. Brazelton was, after all, in the medical profession, and had quite possibly studied about human procreation.
Walking down the darkened lane decorated with white fairy lights, Doyle went for a bluff. “Surely you’ve heard that story before.” This was not something he’d been sufficiently prepared for. He’d have preferably faced down armed Russian terrorists than field this dangerous, loaded question. “Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus?”
“No.” Verity regarded him suspiciously, clearly aware that he was stalling for time.
“Princess Ve,” Bodie said in that hearty voice he used when he didn’t have a convincing lie. “How would you like to go down to the shop for ice cream?”
“We haven’t had supper yet,” she answered. “Mum said Klari was fetching us roast beef and Yorkshire pudding at seven.”
Doyle glanced at his watch. “Nearly that now. We’d best hurry or we’ll be late for dinner. You know how Bodie likes his rare beef.”
Not to be dissuaded, Verity continued in a tone that could only be described as supercilious. “Mum and Papa are having a baby, so I know how that works.”
“Really?” Bodie asked in an octave higher than usual. He cleared his throat and continued, sounding more masculine. “Ruth talked to you about the birds and the bees?”
“Don’t know what you’re on about. Mummy wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing.”
“She wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing,” Doyle repeated, pleased that his assessment of Ruth’s sensible nature held true. Small girls were meant to play with Sindy dolls and skipping ropes, weren’t they?
“Charlotte’s brother Dan says that says a lady’s got a fanny and a man’s got a willy.”
She plucked her left hand out of the fake-ermine muff, forefinger extended, and raised her right hand fisted like a jelly-roll, the muff dangling from her wrist like a fishing lure. “He fits it in— “
She demonstrated with remarkable dexterity for a six year old, in Doyle’s opinion. Watching his pretty daughter, dressed in a crimson velvet frock, complete with a lace collar and white satin sash around her tiny waist, covered with the fake ermine jacket that matched the muff, instruct him in the delicate intricacies of sex was truly stupefying. He felt gob-smacked, and not in a good way.
“And you pull a baby out,” Verity declared.
“This is the Dan who played Joseph in the Nativity play?” Bodie asked, brows lowered like advancing thunder clouds.
“That’s right.” Verity skipped up to her house, giving Klari Deukmejian a jaunty wave as the older woman carried a heavy platter from her house across to Pettifer Hall. “Dinner!” Verity cried.
“May have to take that boy behind the church and beat some sense into him,” Bodie said murderously.
“Bodie, he’s twelve if he’s a day.” Doyle put a hand on his lover’s arm. “It’s our job to keep her safe, and give her accurate information. Not—“
“She’ll not have a boyfriend until she’s thirty,” Bodie growled sotto-voce. “Merry Christmas to you, Mrs Deukmejian,” he greeted more genially. Bodie wasn’t about to get on the cook’s bad side.
“So good to see you again, RaymondBodieDoyle.” Klari bobbed her head, scurrying out again. “I get the rest. Two shakes lamp’s tail and dinner be ready.”
Doyle had the giddy image of a lamp shaped like a lamb shaking its behind and stifled his urge to correct her English.
Having supervised the installation of the beef, Verity collected silverware to lay the table. When her fathers walked over, she placed a fist stuffed with butter knives on her narrow hip, obviously impatient. “Why’d Father Felix call Mary a Virgin birth?” she asked again.
“Mary’s was a unique case,” Doyle said, sitting down. Truly, he’d never really thought much about it. Raised in the Church, he’d just gone along with Catholic doctrine. How exactly had the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary? Magic? Divine intervention? “Humans do it the regular way—which is slightly different than what Dan told you.”
“That’s telling her.” Bodie snorted a laugh, pouring wine.
“Different how?” Verity, as always, focussed in on the most pertinent word.
“God chose Mary to bear his son and sent…” Doyle frowned, surprised at his own internal conflict. How to explain something so…weird. Yet completely accepted by Christians everywhere. “An Angel to tell Mary she was going to have a baby.” No need to mention Mary was only fourteen at the time. “Mary didn’t get married to Joseph until after she was pregnant.”
“Like that girl on Eastenders.” Verity nodded solemnly as if that explained everything. Accidentally knocking the holly and ivy centrepiece askew, she set the knives and forks in their assigned places beside each plate. “So my mum’s not a virgin because she got married?”
“Yeah.” Bodie took a big gulp of wine, probably to hide his amusement.
Doyle grabbed the second glass, swallowing the Spanish red far too quickly. The wine was overly acidic for his stomach without any food to soften the blow. Verity was going to out-think him by the time she was ten at this rate.
Luckily, Klari bustled in with the Yorkshire pudding and a dish of carrots.
“Can we go to church again next week?” Verity asked, grabbing a glass of milk for herself. “The singing was brilliant. Anabel says on Epiphany, we get cake.”
“January six,” Klari said, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles. “Real day to celebrate, in Armenia.” She arrayed the dishes of food on the table and headed for the door.
“Klari, you’ve outdone yourself,” Doyle said. The food smelled fantastic. “Please join with us. There’s far too much for three.”
“Ruthie, she tell me, Klari take some yourself.” Klari nodded, satisfied. “My son, Mikayel come in the morning. We eat t’morrow.” She paused, pressing a kiss on Verity’s forehead. “Blessing, Ver’ty.”
“Happy Christmas, Klari!” Verity replied, hugging her. “I’ll open your pressie first, cause I know you’ve got me a My Lit’le Pony.”
“I thought you were going to open mine, first,” Bodie retorted, dishing up the food. “Sit down, Princess Ve, before it gets cold.”
“Klari takes me to S’Andrew’s once in a while,” Verity said around a large mouthful of pudding. “But never as grand as this was. The incense did get up my nose.” She rubbed the offended part of her face.
“Gets up me nose, as well,” Bodie agreed, catching Doyle’s eye.
Doyle could read his partner like a book. Bodie was keenly aware that Verity’s innocent yet probing question had flayed him.
“Do you b’lieve Jesus was born?” Verity asked, seemingly shrewdly. Her blue eyes showed nothing but interest. “Klari says you have to believe, but I don’t think mummy does.”
“Do I believe?” Doyle echoed, tasting the roasted carrots and Brussels sprouts. Yet another stalling tactic. He tested his heart, felt the measure of it—so full of Bodie, their daughter, the miracle of his own life after a brush with death nearly seven years ago, and surprised himself by nodding. It hadn’t even been that difficult a decision. “Yeah, I do. I believe in love, in something perfect and beautiful coming into the world.”
Bodie mouthed, “good answer.”
Doyle could almost feel the brush of his lips in a kiss from across the table. Without a sprig of mistletoe in sight.
“This has to be the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had,” Bodie declared. “More roast beast, Princess Ve?”
“You’re silly.” She giggled, holding up her plate.
“He is that, and more.” Doyle rolled his eyes fondly, watching his two favourite carnivores tuck into their second portions.
The phone rang as he was reaching for a splash more wine to go with the last of his Yorkshire pudding.
Faster than either of her fathers, Verity scrambled out of her chair and grabbed the receiver in a flash. “Brazelton rez’dence,” she recited as she’d been taught. “Hi, Papa! Is the baby born?”
Doyle and Bodie crowded in close to hear the proud papa’s voice, “Your mum had a baby girl an hour ago, at half six.”
“Congratulations,” Bodie said for all of them.
Verity screamed in delight and was dancing with wild abandon, knocking Christmas ornaments off the festive table.
“Have you decided on a name?” he continued.
“Merrily Ruth Brazelton, which is after my grandmother and, of course, Ruth,” he said. “Merry Christmas. I’ll collect Verity in the morning to visit the baby.”
“Have a wonderful night with your new daughter,” Doyle added, ringing off. “Verity, did you hear? Her name is Merrily.”
“Merrily, merrily, life is but a dream…” Verity warbled, off-key and incredibly loudly.
Doyle valiantly held back a wince. Her voice was even worse without the drowning out abilities of a church full of singers. He rescued a red and blue striped ornament from her dancing feet. “Let’s open a few gifts, and then some Christmas biscuits before bed. What do you say?”
“I say, both can be done at the same time,” Bodie announced, pulling a plate full of shortbread, chocolate enrobed Cadbury biscuits and a few slices of fruitcake from the fridge. “Klari left enough for an Army.”
“Or you.” Doyle chuckled. “Verity?”
“Can I have a virgin birth?” Verity asked thoughtfully, examining the Christmas cards hanging from ribbons tacked up in the hall. She tapped a finger on a card depicting the Holy Family, making the ribbon swing gently.
“N—“ Bodie started.
Doyle stuffed a slice of cake in his lover’s mouth. This he could handle. “Jesus is divine,” he said simply. “He’s different from the rest of us, even your sister, born nearly the same day. He was conceived in a special way, and he died in a special way, which is why Christians believe in Him and His father, God.” His mother had said as much to him once upon a time.
Verity narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Doyle was sure she was about to launch into a totally Verity—and to an extent, Ruth—sort of debate on the salient points of the Nativity. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Christmas is like magic, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bodie said, holding out a nice choccie bickie to her. “There is magic, here with you.”
She grinned. Red velvet skirts flying, Verity pirouetted into the lounge, only crashing into the ottoman and the rocking chair. Her hair in wild disarray, she crouched in front of the Christmas tree, tongue peeking out between her lips. “How many can I open now?” she asked, the fairy lights from the tree sparkling in her eyes. “Yours, Klari’s, and mum said there was a special one, as well.”
“Then, I expect that’s what you shall do,” Doyle answered. “But leave the rest for tomorrow when your Brazelton grandparents stay with you until mum and papa come home.” The Brazeltons lived down the lane, and would undoubtedly be celebrating the new member of the family with a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream right about now.
“That one’s from me.” His mouth full of biscuit, Bodie pointed to a box wrapped in gold. “And that one’s from Doyle.” A parcel covered in Santa Claus paper.
“And that one’s from Klari.” Verity snagged a red and white striped bundle before probing the pile of boxes and bags. “There’s more here than before.”
If Doyle knew his daughter, and he did, she’d already memorised, analysed and catagorised all the gifts with her name on them without ever opening a single gift.
“What’s in that one?” Bodie asked, sounding innocent.
Doyle knew that ploy. He’d watched Bodie pull it on many a suspect. Leading questions that brought results.
Verity yanked a long present wrapped in green and red paper from the bottom of the pile. “It’s from my sister!” she said, astonished “To my big sister from your baby sister,” she read off the card.
“So they knew?” Doyle grinned, looking over their daughter’s head at Bodie.
“Ruth works intelligence, she always knows.” Bodie lay a finger beside his nose. “Open that one and the other three, and it’s off to bed with you, Princess.”
Verity ripped aside paper and ribbon to reveal a baby doll, almost identical in size to a real newborn. She had blue eyes, tiny blond curls painted on her head and a white lace gown that would have looked appropriate at Prince Harry’s Christening.
“Not a pony,” Verity announced critically. Still, she cradled the doll in the crook of her arm. “Klari got me a pony,” she declared stoutly, whipping the wrappings off a garishly pink figure with a rainbow mane and tail.
Doyle and Bodie knew their daughter’s preferences, having toured many a toy shop with her. Their gifts continued in the equestrian theme: a book illustrated with Thelwell’s comically fat ponies ridden by pig-tailed little girls, which Verity tucked happily under her doll’s bum to be read later, and a stable full of Beyer horses, complete with miniature saddles and bridles. She was transfixed by the pony in perfectly detailed tack, and had to be told twice to go change for bed.
“You know next year she’ll be wanting a real pony,” Bodie sighed, whilst they waited for Verity to don her nightgown and brush her teeth.
Doyle crunched up discarded wrapping paper and stowed the ribbons in a sack. “How’d it come to this, eh, Bodie?” He looked around the lounge, totally happy. No fears this night. No worries that an IRA bomb would take one of them out. Or a foreign operative would shoot Bodie in the head—which had nearly happened last Christmas, forcing them to miss the celebration with Verity.
“You mean, are we domesticated?” Bodie shrugged, locating a bottle of Jameson in Brazelton’s drinks cabinet. “Don’t think the two of us can ever be tamed completely,” he said, pouring the fragrant whisky into two glasses. “Verity works her magic, though, doesn’t she?”
Doyle accepted the offering, rewarding Bodie with a kiss over the bottle. “She does indeed. And gives me more than my fair share of gray hairs.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” Bodie ran his fingers through Doyle’s curls. “You had gray hairs before she was born.” They clinked their glasses together. “Merry Christmas.”
“For tomorrow we’re back on stake-out duty watching that pair from East Berlin,” Doyle finished. Christmas day spent in a draughty bedsit with takeaway Chinese food. Made this all the more special.
“I’m ready!” Verity announced, Merrily’s twin stuffed under her arm and the Thelwell book held out to be read aloud. “Father Christmas won’t come if I’m not asleep, so we need to hurry.”
“And to Verity, a good night,” Doyle and Bodie said together, holding hands.
FIN
Title: Merrily Christmas, and to Verity, a Good Night
Author: Dawnwind
Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes, please
Disclaimer: I made no money on this story, only love.
Notes: If you haven’t met Verity before, you might be interested to read her first adventure with Bodie and Doyle—Verity’s One of Us: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2387135
By Dawnwind
Verity Pettifer-Brazelton had more than the usual number of fathers, something she was slightly puzzled by, but still quite proud of.
There was Papa-Colum, Daddy-Doyle and Babo-Bodie. Most of the kids at her school had one mummy and one daddy, although Verity’s best friend Anabel only had a mother because she was ‘dopted from China. And there was nasty Neville who had two fathers because his mum had remarried.
Which was “none of your bee’s wax, missy,” as Mummy reminded her. Generally after Mummy’d rolled her eyes and sighed, “do you ever run out of questions, Verity?”
Since it was Christmas Eve, and she rarely got to see them, Verity was quite pleased that she had the undivided attention of Daddy and Babo. They’d come super quick after Mum called to say that “her water had broken and how effing fast could they get here?”
Which, Verity was quite sure, was spy talk for “I’m going to have a baby. Today.” Because she knew her mummy and two fathers were spies.
She might be six years old, but she wasn’t dim. Not like Neville, who’d started acting up, as their teacher called it, after his mother’s divorce.
She’d known what was going on when papa and mummy packed a satchel, talking in whispers about the hospital, and the birth. Anabel’s Aunt Rosie had had twins, a boy and a girl, when she got as roly-poly as Mum was lately. Anabel had seen a video of the births, which she’d described as bloody and horrible, especially when the heads came out her auntie’s bum hole. Anabel had vowed that birth was, “Nothing I am ever going to do, ever, Ver.”
Without seeing the video herself, Verity was unconvinced. It did sound quite painful, particularly the way mummy had been moaning and rubbing her fat tum when Papa was getting the car out of the garage. Mummy did promise that she’d have a little brother or sister for Christmas.
Which was ever so lovely, but honestly, Verity had asked Father Christmas for a pony. Like Robin, the pony that took tourists around Castle Cranley in the jaunting car. Brown, with a dark brown mane and tail. Which she could ride, on her own.
This was how Verity came to be walking through Castle Cranley hand in hand with Daddy and Babo, after the children’s Christmas Eve service at St Andrew’s. The Nativity play had been glorious.
She and her mum didn’t attend regularly—in fact, Neville’s mother had got in a row with mum over something called baptism a fortnight ago, which had left mummy quite cross. She’d called Agatha Penvenen “a right cow” and then sworn Verity to secrecy, muttering about dunking Agatha’s head in a font full of water.
When Verity asked what she meant, there was the usual answer. “None of your bee’s wax, missy,” Mum said, and bought her a 99 because Verity loved the chocolate Flake on the side.
Perhaps Daddy and Babo would get her a 99, as well? For a Christmas Eve treat. She’d been awfully good lately, and hadn’t broken a thing. Well, except for Papa’s stethoscope when she and Anabel were examining their dolls for diseases. Papa'd had the stethoscope since college, so it was old. Mummy would get him a new one for Christmas—after she finished having the baby.
It was worth asking for ice cream after dinner, Verity mused. First, she had some questions about church.
Most of the service had been absolutely fantastic. An older girl from Verity’s school, dressed in a blue nightie with a white veil over her head, had ridden into the church yard on a real donkey led by Charlotte Bosker’s big brother Dan.
“That’s Mary and Joseph,” Daddy had explained, “Jesus’ parents.” He touched his forehead, chest and then both shoulders when they’d paraded past a large cross outside the front door of St Andrew’s.
Klari Deukmejian, her baby sitter, did the same thing on the rare occasions she took Verity to mass, when mum wasn’t around. Not sure what was called for in this circumstance, Verity glanced at Babo. He looked amused by the entire thing.
“Best hope the ass doesn’t—“ he’d smirked at Daddy, “uh, leave an extra gift for the Christ child on the narthex floor, yeah?”
Verity was pretty sure that Daddy almost giggled, but that wasn’t done in church. Klari had told her so—many times.
Once Mary heaved herself off the donkey, the church goers had trooped into the sanctuary. There, the girl produced a large doll from under her veil. Several more girls, all with cardboard angel wings trimmed in feathers and glittery haloes, had run around while everyone sang, “Hark, Harold’s Angels Sing.”
Verity had joined in happily, because Anabel’d taught her the words. Daddy had looked at her quite strangely and Babo laughed, singing as loudly as she did. Mum had always told her she had a “unique way with a song, petal.”
The best bit was when Anabel sprang up in her angel costume, which Verity had seen on Tuesday when Mum wanted a lie-down. “Verity, go down to Anabel’s for an hour so I can have a bit of peace, will you?”
Anabel was brilliant as the Angel, in her mother’s old white ball gown tucked up with a sash, and a huge gold halo, far larger than what the other angels had on their heads. Four boys, wrestling to keep a real sheep from wandering down the aisle, had pretended to be afraid of Anabel.
Which they were. Anabel could be quite fierce on the football pitch. She was tiny, but could outrun everybody in the first grade.
There had been a lovely bit where Father Felix came down to sit with Mary, Joseph and the doll Jesus to read from his big Bible.
Which was the part Verity had questions about. She’d wanted to ask right then and there, but Daddy had put a finger to his lips and even Babo had motioned her to silence.
Well, she wasn’t going to be quiet any longer.
“What’s a virgin birth?” Verity asked as they started down Park Lane to Pettifer Hall.
~~**~~
Doyle stopped abruptly, staring over Verity’s head at his partner in all things. Bodie was frozen in place, breath steaming out of his mouth in a perfect mimicry of a comic strip character’s speech balloon. Alas, he didn’t seem to have any words to fill the empty air.
Verity peered up at him, expectantly. Doyle gazed back, seeing her all over again. She was gorgeous. He still couldn’t believe he had any part of her creation, but short of a paternity test, which Ruth had steadfastly refused to have done, there was little way of knowing whose daughter she actually was. Could two men—having sex with a woman at the nearly the same time—mingle their sperm to create a single child?
A fanciful idea.
Verity had bright blue eyes. Ruth claimed the colour was inherited from her own father, but they were exact shade of Bodie’s. Verity’s long hair was nothing like her mother’s thick blond tresses, and was remarkably similar to Doyle’s own in both the light brown-auburn colour and the riotous tangle of sausage curls. She had her mother’s winsome smile, when she wasn’t peppering every adult in audible range with questions. Her pert nose and pointy chin apparently came from a distant aunt. That insatiable, exhausting curiosity was undoubtedly a combination of all her parents, including a dash of step-papa Colum’s medical acumen.
“You’re the one was brought up Catholic,” Bodie put in with a ghastly grin. “This is all on you.”
“Thought this would be the start of a lovely tradition,” Doyle muttered grimly to himself. He and Bodie generally shepherded Verity—and sometimes her best mate Anabel— on happy afternoons with little intellectual content: a fun fair, followed by a cream tea, or in the summer, a trip to the seaside. They’d left the actual parenting, complete with dicey questions, to Ruth and Colum. Brazelton was, after all, in the medical profession, and had quite possibly studied about human procreation.
Walking down the darkened lane decorated with white fairy lights, Doyle went for a bluff. “Surely you’ve heard that story before.” This was not something he’d been sufficiently prepared for. He’d have preferably faced down armed Russian terrorists than field this dangerous, loaded question. “Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus?”
“No.” Verity regarded him suspiciously, clearly aware that he was stalling for time.
“Princess Ve,” Bodie said in that hearty voice he used when he didn’t have a convincing lie. “How would you like to go down to the shop for ice cream?”
“We haven’t had supper yet,” she answered. “Mum said Klari was fetching us roast beef and Yorkshire pudding at seven.”
Doyle glanced at his watch. “Nearly that now. We’d best hurry or we’ll be late for dinner. You know how Bodie likes his rare beef.”
Not to be dissuaded, Verity continued in a tone that could only be described as supercilious. “Mum and Papa are having a baby, so I know how that works.”
“Really?” Bodie asked in an octave higher than usual. He cleared his throat and continued, sounding more masculine. “Ruth talked to you about the birds and the bees?”
“Don’t know what you’re on about. Mummy wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing.”
“She wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing,” Doyle repeated, pleased that his assessment of Ruth’s sensible nature held true. Small girls were meant to play with Sindy dolls and skipping ropes, weren’t they?
“Charlotte’s brother Dan says that says a lady’s got a fanny and a man’s got a willy.”
She plucked her left hand out of the fake-ermine muff, forefinger extended, and raised her right hand fisted like a jelly-roll, the muff dangling from her wrist like a fishing lure. “He fits it in— “
She demonstrated with remarkable dexterity for a six year old, in Doyle’s opinion. Watching his pretty daughter, dressed in a crimson velvet frock, complete with a lace collar and white satin sash around her tiny waist, covered with the fake ermine jacket that matched the muff, instruct him in the delicate intricacies of sex was truly stupefying. He felt gob-smacked, and not in a good way.
“And you pull a baby out,” Verity declared.
“This is the Dan who played Joseph in the Nativity play?” Bodie asked, brows lowered like advancing thunder clouds.
“That’s right.” Verity skipped up to her house, giving Klari Deukmejian a jaunty wave as the older woman carried a heavy platter from her house across to Pettifer Hall. “Dinner!” Verity cried.
“May have to take that boy behind the church and beat some sense into him,” Bodie said murderously.
“Bodie, he’s twelve if he’s a day.” Doyle put a hand on his lover’s arm. “It’s our job to keep her safe, and give her accurate information. Not—“
“She’ll not have a boyfriend until she’s thirty,” Bodie growled sotto-voce. “Merry Christmas to you, Mrs Deukmejian,” he greeted more genially. Bodie wasn’t about to get on the cook’s bad side.
“So good to see you again, RaymondBodieDoyle.” Klari bobbed her head, scurrying out again. “I get the rest. Two shakes lamp’s tail and dinner be ready.”
Doyle had the giddy image of a lamp shaped like a lamb shaking its behind and stifled his urge to correct her English.
Having supervised the installation of the beef, Verity collected silverware to lay the table. When her fathers walked over, she placed a fist stuffed with butter knives on her narrow hip, obviously impatient. “Why’d Father Felix call Mary a Virgin birth?” she asked again.
“Mary’s was a unique case,” Doyle said, sitting down. Truly, he’d never really thought much about it. Raised in the Church, he’d just gone along with Catholic doctrine. How exactly had the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary? Magic? Divine intervention? “Humans do it the regular way—which is slightly different than what Dan told you.”
“That’s telling her.” Bodie snorted a laugh, pouring wine.
“Different how?” Verity, as always, focussed in on the most pertinent word.
“God chose Mary to bear his son and sent…” Doyle frowned, surprised at his own internal conflict. How to explain something so…weird. Yet completely accepted by Christians everywhere. “An Angel to tell Mary she was going to have a baby.” No need to mention Mary was only fourteen at the time. “Mary didn’t get married to Joseph until after she was pregnant.”
“Like that girl on Eastenders.” Verity nodded solemnly as if that explained everything. Accidentally knocking the holly and ivy centrepiece askew, she set the knives and forks in their assigned places beside each plate. “So my mum’s not a virgin because she got married?”
“Yeah.” Bodie took a big gulp of wine, probably to hide his amusement.
Doyle grabbed the second glass, swallowing the Spanish red far too quickly. The wine was overly acidic for his stomach without any food to soften the blow. Verity was going to out-think him by the time she was ten at this rate.
Luckily, Klari bustled in with the Yorkshire pudding and a dish of carrots.
“Can we go to church again next week?” Verity asked, grabbing a glass of milk for herself. “The singing was brilliant. Anabel says on Epiphany, we get cake.”
“January six,” Klari said, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles. “Real day to celebrate, in Armenia.” She arrayed the dishes of food on the table and headed for the door.
“Klari, you’ve outdone yourself,” Doyle said. The food smelled fantastic. “Please join with us. There’s far too much for three.”
“Ruthie, she tell me, Klari take some yourself.” Klari nodded, satisfied. “My son, Mikayel come in the morning. We eat t’morrow.” She paused, pressing a kiss on Verity’s forehead. “Blessing, Ver’ty.”
“Happy Christmas, Klari!” Verity replied, hugging her. “I’ll open your pressie first, cause I know you’ve got me a My Lit’le Pony.”
“I thought you were going to open mine, first,” Bodie retorted, dishing up the food. “Sit down, Princess Ve, before it gets cold.”
“Klari takes me to S’Andrew’s once in a while,” Verity said around a large mouthful of pudding. “But never as grand as this was. The incense did get up my nose.” She rubbed the offended part of her face.
“Gets up me nose, as well,” Bodie agreed, catching Doyle’s eye.
Doyle could read his partner like a book. Bodie was keenly aware that Verity’s innocent yet probing question had flayed him.
“Do you b’lieve Jesus was born?” Verity asked, seemingly shrewdly. Her blue eyes showed nothing but interest. “Klari says you have to believe, but I don’t think mummy does.”
“Do I believe?” Doyle echoed, tasting the roasted carrots and Brussels sprouts. Yet another stalling tactic. He tested his heart, felt the measure of it—so full of Bodie, their daughter, the miracle of his own life after a brush with death nearly seven years ago, and surprised himself by nodding. It hadn’t even been that difficult a decision. “Yeah, I do. I believe in love, in something perfect and beautiful coming into the world.”
Bodie mouthed, “good answer.”
Doyle could almost feel the brush of his lips in a kiss from across the table. Without a sprig of mistletoe in sight.
“This has to be the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had,” Bodie declared. “More roast beast, Princess Ve?”
“You’re silly.” She giggled, holding up her plate.
“He is that, and more.” Doyle rolled his eyes fondly, watching his two favourite carnivores tuck into their second portions.
The phone rang as he was reaching for a splash more wine to go with the last of his Yorkshire pudding.
Faster than either of her fathers, Verity scrambled out of her chair and grabbed the receiver in a flash. “Brazelton rez’dence,” she recited as she’d been taught. “Hi, Papa! Is the baby born?”
Doyle and Bodie crowded in close to hear the proud papa’s voice, “Your mum had a baby girl an hour ago, at half six.”
“Congratulations,” Bodie said for all of them.
Verity screamed in delight and was dancing with wild abandon, knocking Christmas ornaments off the festive table.
“Have you decided on a name?” he continued.
“Merrily Ruth Brazelton, which is after my grandmother and, of course, Ruth,” he said. “Merry Christmas. I’ll collect Verity in the morning to visit the baby.”
“Have a wonderful night with your new daughter,” Doyle added, ringing off. “Verity, did you hear? Her name is Merrily.”
“Merrily, merrily, life is but a dream…” Verity warbled, off-key and incredibly loudly.
Doyle valiantly held back a wince. Her voice was even worse without the drowning out abilities of a church full of singers. He rescued a red and blue striped ornament from her dancing feet. “Let’s open a few gifts, and then some Christmas biscuits before bed. What do you say?”
“I say, both can be done at the same time,” Bodie announced, pulling a plate full of shortbread, chocolate enrobed Cadbury biscuits and a few slices of fruitcake from the fridge. “Klari left enough for an Army.”
“Or you.” Doyle chuckled. “Verity?”
“Can I have a virgin birth?” Verity asked thoughtfully, examining the Christmas cards hanging from ribbons tacked up in the hall. She tapped a finger on a card depicting the Holy Family, making the ribbon swing gently.
“N—“ Bodie started.
Doyle stuffed a slice of cake in his lover’s mouth. This he could handle. “Jesus is divine,” he said simply. “He’s different from the rest of us, even your sister, born nearly the same day. He was conceived in a special way, and he died in a special way, which is why Christians believe in Him and His father, God.” His mother had said as much to him once upon a time.
Verity narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Doyle was sure she was about to launch into a totally Verity—and to an extent, Ruth—sort of debate on the salient points of the Nativity. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Christmas is like magic, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bodie said, holding out a nice choccie bickie to her. “There is magic, here with you.”
She grinned. Red velvet skirts flying, Verity pirouetted into the lounge, only crashing into the ottoman and the rocking chair. Her hair in wild disarray, she crouched in front of the Christmas tree, tongue peeking out between her lips. “How many can I open now?” she asked, the fairy lights from the tree sparkling in her eyes. “Yours, Klari’s, and mum said there was a special one, as well.”
“Then, I expect that’s what you shall do,” Doyle answered. “But leave the rest for tomorrow when your Brazelton grandparents stay with you until mum and papa come home.” The Brazeltons lived down the lane, and would undoubtedly be celebrating the new member of the family with a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream right about now.
“That one’s from me.” His mouth full of biscuit, Bodie pointed to a box wrapped in gold. “And that one’s from Doyle.” A parcel covered in Santa Claus paper.
“And that one’s from Klari.” Verity snagged a red and white striped bundle before probing the pile of boxes and bags. “There’s more here than before.”
If Doyle knew his daughter, and he did, she’d already memorised, analysed and catagorised all the gifts with her name on them without ever opening a single gift.
“What’s in that one?” Bodie asked, sounding innocent.
Doyle knew that ploy. He’d watched Bodie pull it on many a suspect. Leading questions that brought results.
Verity yanked a long present wrapped in green and red paper from the bottom of the pile. “It’s from my sister!” she said, astonished “To my big sister from your baby sister,” she read off the card.
“So they knew?” Doyle grinned, looking over their daughter’s head at Bodie.
“Ruth works intelligence, she always knows.” Bodie lay a finger beside his nose. “Open that one and the other three, and it’s off to bed with you, Princess.”
Verity ripped aside paper and ribbon to reveal a baby doll, almost identical in size to a real newborn. She had blue eyes, tiny blond curls painted on her head and a white lace gown that would have looked appropriate at Prince Harry’s Christening.
“Not a pony,” Verity announced critically. Still, she cradled the doll in the crook of her arm. “Klari got me a pony,” she declared stoutly, whipping the wrappings off a garishly pink figure with a rainbow mane and tail.
Doyle and Bodie knew their daughter’s preferences, having toured many a toy shop with her. Their gifts continued in the equestrian theme: a book illustrated with Thelwell’s comically fat ponies ridden by pig-tailed little girls, which Verity tucked happily under her doll’s bum to be read later, and a stable full of Beyer horses, complete with miniature saddles and bridles. She was transfixed by the pony in perfectly detailed tack, and had to be told twice to go change for bed.
“You know next year she’ll be wanting a real pony,” Bodie sighed, whilst they waited for Verity to don her nightgown and brush her teeth.
Doyle crunched up discarded wrapping paper and stowed the ribbons in a sack. “How’d it come to this, eh, Bodie?” He looked around the lounge, totally happy. No fears this night. No worries that an IRA bomb would take one of them out. Or a foreign operative would shoot Bodie in the head—which had nearly happened last Christmas, forcing them to miss the celebration with Verity.
“You mean, are we domesticated?” Bodie shrugged, locating a bottle of Jameson in Brazelton’s drinks cabinet. “Don’t think the two of us can ever be tamed completely,” he said, pouring the fragrant whisky into two glasses. “Verity works her magic, though, doesn’t she?”
Doyle accepted the offering, rewarding Bodie with a kiss over the bottle. “She does indeed. And gives me more than my fair share of gray hairs.”
“Don’t kid yourself.” Bodie ran his fingers through Doyle’s curls. “You had gray hairs before she was born.” They clinked their glasses together. “Merry Christmas.”
“For tomorrow we’re back on stake-out duty watching that pair from East Berlin,” Doyle finished. Christmas day spent in a draughty bedsit with takeaway Chinese food. Made this all the more special.
“I’m ready!” Verity announced, Merrily’s twin stuffed under her arm and the Thelwell book held out to be read aloud. “Father Christmas won’t come if I’m not asleep, so we need to hurry.”
“And to Verity, a good night,” Doyle and Bodie said together, holding hands.
FIN
Title: Merrily Christmas, and to Verity, a Good Night
Author: Dawnwind
Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes, please
Disclaimer: I made no money on this story, only love.
Notes: If you haven’t met Verity before, you might be interested to read her first adventure with Bodie and Doyle—Verity’s One of Us: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2387135
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 01:36 pm (UTC)Season's greetings and thank you! :D
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 10:43 pm (UTC)I love the sentence "Which was ever so lovely, but honestly, Verity had asked Father Christmas for a pony." because I think that could be really happen.
Thank you for this.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 12:31 pm (UTC)Which was ever so lovely, but honestly, Verity had asked Father Christmas for a pony.
Heh. Apparently before I was born my parents asked my bro if he wanted a little brother or a little sister and he said he'd prefer a puppy :)
Thanks for this heartwarming treat!
no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-04 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-05 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-05 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-07 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-05 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-05 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-05 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-07 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-06 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-07 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-06 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-07 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-09 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-09 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-16 05:57 pm (UTC)I'm late, and lunging at LJ to catch up... and oh boy, look what I've missed! I loved Verity the first time round, and she's charmed me all over again - thank you both so much!
no subject
Date: 2016-12-17 05:12 pm (UTC)