YW - Darren Sandwich Ch I

Your Warmth

Darren Sandwich

By Black Waltz 0

†††

"Well… congratulations, BW. You're pregnant." Warren said at last after coming out from the back room of his clinic, where he did most of the pathology part of his work. He seemed a little confused.

BW, who had been sitting down on one of the beds in the ward at the time was almost knocked to the mattress by Sera throwing her arms around the other girl. She squeezed BW tightly, then realized it probably wasn't a very good idea anymore and relaxed her hold a bit. "Did you hear that?" Sera asked as if the mage girl hadn't just been in the room seconds ago. "I knew you weren't sick! I just knew it!" She proclaimed.

Compared to Sera BW appeared a little more subdued. It had been big news, monumental news, but she did seem happy. "So that means I'm not allergic to pears after all?" She asked. Zagtakh had given her a small box of them as a gift from when he had been trading one town over and they didn't stay ripe for very long. BW had tried to work her way through the crate before they could go bad, with predictable results.

Certainly they had given her a bad tummy ache but that was more poor judgment on the mage's part than anything to do with allergies. In the end it had unearthed this revelation instead. Warren looked down at the clipboard he was carrying with the test results scribbled on it. "No, you can still have as many pears as you like. If you still want them."

BW scrunched up her nose at him, remembering. "I don't want them anymore."

Sera giggled. She had expected as much. The red-haired elf turned to the doctor, smiling proudly. "That's great news. How far along is she, Warren? When should we be expecting?"

"Uh, well, if we're assuming her pregnancy is going to last the length of a normal human's then she's almost a third of the way there already. Nine weeks or so." If they had waited any longer to see him BW probably would have soon figured it out on her own, as she would have begun to show soon. Or maybe she wouldn't have; she could be oblivious about the strangest things. Ah, but Sera would have noticed. Definitely.

The elf made some quick calculations in her head, a hand on her own noticeably expanded belly. She'd been pregnant for quite some time herself, but elven pregnancies tended to take forever to complete. The numbers added up and a slow grin spread across Sera's face. "That puts our delivery dates almost on top of each other. I've only got six and a half months to go, myself." She explained.

BW gaped at her. "What, really? Are we racing now?"

"No, I just thought it was interesting. It'll almost be like having twins." Sera reassured her.

BW grinned. "I bet I could race you and win."

"What… in gestation? I've already got a head start!"

"Nuh-uh, but you're slower than me! I can catch up."

Sera sighed dreamily, content. "Oh BW, do you know what this means? Cyrus junior is going to have a little brother or sister! He's not going to be alone after all."

When she put it that way maybe having to go through all the crap Sera had experienced over the past eleven months or so wouldn't be so bad. At least BW had a pretty good idea now of what to expect. She smiled and poked Sera playfully in her rounded side. "Or a big brother or sister. I could still win."

The older woman rolled her eyes at her. "Okay, or a big brother or sister. Geez BW, it's not going to be a race. Come back in six months time when you're a beach ball with a girl attached and tell me how badly you want to 'race'." She exclaimed.

"Uh, ladies?" Warren interrupted sheepishly, feeling a little left out. They were supposed to be listening to him, not bickering amongst themselves. It was a bit of a relief to see that they were both happy, though, he had been afraid that they might freak out. He adjusted his glasses. "I hope you don't mind me asking such a personal question, but…"

Sera smiled brightly and pleasantly at him and the effect made her ridiculously beautiful. She was way too over the moon to mind a few personal questions. "Go ahead. You're our doctor, you can ask us anything." She said.

"Unless it's our dress sizes. You're not allowed to know that." BW interrupted bluntly.

Right. Okay. "I'm, er, not exactly sure how this could have happened. Aren't you two a couple? Did you use… magic or something? I don't really know much about magic except for the white kind. I guess it's none of my business, right?" Warren laughed nervously.

The elf supposed that Warren had every right to be curious. Both she and BW were girls, and Warren was a doctor so obviously he knew that somebody had spilled something on somebody, or else there would be no baby to speak of. Still, she could hardly believe that her cute little BW was pregnant as well. She wondered if the child would look just like her.

Sera put an arm around BW and held her close. The mage let her, snuggling into the hug and resting her head against Sera's left breast. "Let's see," she began, "I guess it must have been nine weeks ago. It would have to be, huh? Want to hear a funny story, Warren?"

"That depends. Are we talking funny 'ha ha' or funny 'I'm going to feel awkward around you until those children come out'?" He asked. He was already kind of worried that they might end up delivering around the same time, or god forbid; the same day. He only had one pair of hands after all and he didn't want BW's 'race' to end up a photo finish.

"It's both!" BW declared, hands clasped in her lap. She looked thoughtful for a moment, amending her statement. "Well, I think it's funny. I dunno if it's something we should be telling Warren, though, Sera. It's kinda personal."

"Hm, I guess you're right." Sera agreed, nodding.

But now the doctor was really curious. It would bug him if he didn't find out. Maybe he had been spending a little too much time at the Guildhouse with Mieus. "I won't tell anybody." He promised. "It's fine. I'm your doctor, I have to be confidential."

BW brightened, sitting up a bit on the bed. She was eager, she loved telling stories. "Oh… then in that case it all started when…"

†††

It had all started when BW had begun to whine that their sex lives weren't quite as interesting anymore.

It wasn't really their fault, and it certainly wasn't Sera's, though as the young elf grew even bigger and bigger her movements had become a little restricted, her body became more delicate and frankly it was kind of hard to make the younger girl squeal with as much gusto when your midsection was the size of a small barrel of ale. Things got in the way. Sometimes it was almost like a jigsaw puzzle; figuring out who fit where and how.

They knew that it wasn't really something they could just wait out, either. Sera was big now and she was going to get even bigger – they still had many months to go and BW wasn't one of those 'celibate' kinds of mages. Being patient and waiting just wouldn't cut it. She tended to become… volatile when she was sexually frustrated. It was like leaving fireworks out in the summer sun, sometimes Sera even felt like sleeping with BW was a little like defusing a bomb.

Fortunately Sera was a practicing mage herself and felt that she could understand. It might have been one of the reasons why she had become attracted to BW in the first place; she was in many ways just like her, and she had been there to hold Sera and keep her sane when her husband, Cyrus, had died. The baby in her belly was really the only earthly reminder she had of him left and it was so very precious to her, but she guessed in the end the tragedy hadn't been all tears and regret. Every cloud had a silver lining, as he would have said.

It had brought BW closer to her, for one, and Sera knew that if Cyrus' spirit could see them now he'd probably be happy to see BW, herself and his child doing so well. He'd probably also make a stereotypically male comment about how hot it was that his wife had started dating her best friend but that was to be expected – if he could watch over them like that he was most likely watching their various make-out sessions, too.

But the point was that they had been having problems lately and both women felt that they needed something new to maybe spice up their life. On the day when everything had started BW and Sera had been hanging out in BW's room above the magic store she ran; just sort of relaxing at the end of another day.

Well, at least Sera was relaxing. She was lying down contentedly in BW's bed with some pillows propped up under her lower back for comfort reasons, watching BW clean out the large cauldron the girl used to brew her special potions and tinctures. She had to do this relatively often for safety and sanitary reasons; if residual potion traces ended up in an entirely different batch almost anything could happen.

She'd learned her lesson about that already. Spending an entire Wednesday afternoon trying to track down a scared Magi-turned-ferret hadn't been a lot of fun. Well… maybe it had been, a little, especially after seeing the look on his face after getting him back to normal. Since then she cleaned after every potion batch, even though it got her all damp and soapy and made her elbows ache like hell.

Sera had wanted to help but BW wouldn't let her; there was far too much bending over and almost falling into the pot involved. She was pretty much halfway inside already, upside-down with her legs and wings poking up into the air. The ridiculous sight of it made the elf smile, playing with the stuffed teddy bear that BW always kept next to her bed. "Do you have any suggestions?" She asked, continuing their conversation.

BW's voice had a strange tinny quality to it right now as she spoke from deep inside the iron pot. It was also somewhat muffled, but Sera could understand her easily enough. "Oh… I dunno. I don't really know all that much about that stuff. I guess I must still be too young." She admitted offhandedly.

The elven woman didn't really know exactly how old BW was, but then again neither did she. It was pretty young though, but that's what you got when you were the product of an alchemy experiment gone right. "We could try, um, an aphrodisiac. We could see just how crazy that makes us." Sera pondered, trying to think up ideas.

The winged mage girl's ankles twitched a bit as she strained to scrub the very bottom of the cauldron, just barely reaching as she stretched as best she could. The cramped conditions didn't help much. "Yeah, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get the ingredients to make something like that? It'd take a lot of work. Besides, using something like that might be bad for little Cyrus. Let's not risk it." She replied.

That was a surprising amount of responsible talk coming from her girlfriend, but when it came to Sera's child BW at least knew when to cut the crap. It was actually pretty sweet of her, knowing that she practically considered Cyrus junior to be her own. Sera rested BW's teddy bear on the large hump of her belly then playfully manipulated its stubby little arms as if it were talking. "Well just so we're clear I'm not really into all that bondage stuff; I just find it silly instead of hot." She said.

BW pulled her head out of the pot and looked at her friend. She had soap-suds on her chin and in her hair; it gave her a goofy sort of beard. "What's bondage?" She asked innocently.

"Uh… if you have to ask I guess it's not worth worrying about." Sera told her, still playing with the bear.

"Are you saying that or is Mr. Oboe saying that?" BW asked with a grin, spreading her wings slightly and folding her arms on the rim of the cauldron; leaning against it.

Sera giggled and let go of the bear. "You have a little something on your face." She pointed out.

The younger girl smeared away the soap bubbles with the sleeve of her robe, and then she had an idea. "Oh! I could make a special temporary potion for a day – kind of like that Cinderella story you read to me once. Only, instead of turning into a princess until midnight I could turn myself into a guy. I wonder what that would be like?" She mused.

"Is… is that possible?" Sera knew quite a bit about magic herself but she tended to specialize in the magic-chants, book-related spells and sword-magery aspects of the craft. BW was the specialist when it came to potions or anything chemical.

"Sure, I mean, it's only changing a few core buildings blocks around in a person's make-up. If you like I could find a guinea pig first." BW smirked evilly. "I could try freaking Magi out again, or we could see what Mieus would look like without the boobs. It'd be fun!"

Sera rolled her eyes at her. BW and her practical jokes. Though… the thought did intrigue her, especially the part about Mieus, but maybe there were some things best left unexplored. "Don't you dare. That's just cruel, and it would get us into a lot of trouble."

"I know. I'm just kidding." BW reassured her.

The elf woman sat up a little in bed. "I like you just the way you are, BW. Don't feel like you need to change that just to make the bedroom more… interesting."

The wickedness dropped out of BW's smile and now she just looked pleased, possibly even a little touched. She didn't know much about the world, or indeed even how to properly interact with the people within it, but she was glad to know there was such a thing called love and that she was allowed to have it for herself. Loving Sera was a kind of magic all on its own.

She walked over to where Sera was reclining on the bed and leaned over her, picking up Oboe for a second and hiding him under a pillow. This was a private moment and Oboe was a baby bear and shouldn't be seeing that sort of thing anyway. BW and the pregnant elf kissed, softly, sweetly, with just the right amount of warmth. Sera's lips were pliant and perfect, she felt like she could just keep kissing them forever…

Downstairs in her store BW heard the front doorbell clang. She had a customer. Sera felt the mage girl tense against her; she could almost detect the vibration of annoyance fizzle down from her head to the very tips of her toes. She pulled away, breaking the kiss and making a sour face at her. "Aw, man…" She whined.

"You'd better go see who it is." Sera told her, though it would have been nicer to just kiss BW some more. She ran a store herself though, she knew it was bad practice to keep a potential customer waiting.

"Do I have to?" She asked, like a child being told to carry out a chore.

"Yes. Go on, I'll be waiting up here."

"Alright. I'll be right back."

Unwillingly BW drew away from her resting girlfriend and left the room, stomping down the stairs that led to the ground floor of her home; the storefront. She'd left some incense burning on the counter a while earlier and the spicy scent of cinnamon filled the air. BW liked the smell because it reminded her of baking and the little cakey scrolls Sera would sometimes sell in her own store.

At first the magic store seemed to be a mess, but there was a sort of organized chaos to the way everything was placed. It had dribbly candles, stuffed taxidermy animals; even tribal masks from countries both mysterious and far away. Glass vials and bottles stocked the shelves, competing for space with a multitude of books and various dried herbs. BW got to the bottom of the stairs and stretched. Her arms still hurt a bit from all the cleaning.

She found her customer loitering suspiciously by the ground floor window, the one that looked out onto the public library next door. Oh, it was him. BW probably shouldn't have bothered coming down at all.

Darren Walker turned to her as BW approached him, smiling mildly. He was a rather bashful youth living on the west side of town, a permanent boarder of that inn for adventurers who wanted to explore the local dungeon (read: pathetic single men without wives or homes). He looked to be around eighteen years old with shoulder-length dark hair and grey eyes. She considered him a good friend, definitely not to the same level as Sera, but still a good friend nonetheless.

It was still kind of annoying to see him now while she had much more important things to do. What would be the fastest way to kick him out of her store, besides… well, kicking him out of her store?

"Hi BW." Darren said meekly, holding onto a book he had pulled from one of the shelves. It was about refining the magical properties out of certain minerals and definitely not anything Darren would have any interest in. He had most likely just randomly grabbed it off a shelf to make himself look busy. He stepped away from the windowsill. "Don't mind me, I'm just browsing."

Oh yeah… he was browsing alright, but probably not through anything in her store. "Did you get kicked out of the library again?" The mage asked, folding her arms at him. If he had it wouldn't be for talking too loudly or even for returning books too late. He had… other issues to contend with.

Like the fact that he religiously stalked the librarian who worked next door. It was a harmless sort of stalking, like a puppy infatuated with somebody's leg – kind of 'aww' but also kind of '… eww'. Anyway, Darren wasn't a bad person; he just did creepy things sometimes.

Darren blushed, already caught out. He was pretty easy to embarrass, all things considered. "Uh, maybe. I'm sorry; it's just that you're right next door and all…"

"Geez Darren, you need to stop being so hung up over Mina. She's never going to go out with you; you might as well call it quits now." BW told him sternly. It might have seemed a tad harsh but BW told him this at least twice every week and it still wouldn't get through the youth's thick, hopeful skull.

The girl thought that she could almost see her sage advice bouncing off the young rogue's head. He smiled. "You never know, things might change someday. If I give up now then I know it'll never happen." He said.

BW sighed. "I don't think I'd ever be able to make a love potion strong enough to make Mina fall in love with you."

"Hey, that's mean. Don't step all over my heart like that, BW." Darren said reproachfully. "Anyway, I'm your customer; you're supposed to be nice to me."

"Oh yeah? You gonna buy that? Wanna know how much it's worth?"

"Er…"

She smiled. She really did like Darren, despite all his flaws. He'd been nice to her when she had first come to Adratea – one of the first people in town to treat her like a friend. He wasn't bad looking either; he was kind of cute in a 'frightened possum' sort of way. Maybe Darren just needed to get laid, that might stop his obsession with the librarian girl next door; assuming he was still a virgin.

BW looked at him again.

Yup, definitely still a virgin.

An obvious idea came to her. She wondered if Sera would like it, or shoot it down just like the other ideas she had had. BW relaxed, no longer looking so annoyed at her friend. She smirked and put an arm around him, squeezing him like a co-conspirator sharing a special secret. "That's alright. Take your time; I'm not closing for another hour or two. I need to be upstairs though, so if something changes and you suddenly want to buy something just give me a shout up the stairs."

The youth breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that he was going to be kicked out of the store for the second time that day. BW truly was a good friend. "Okay, I will. Thanks." He murmured. He'd buy the view of the library from this window if he could.

The mage girl let go of him and flew back up the stairs. Her customer had already stopped paying attention to her.

"Seraaaaaa… I just had the best idea!" She called.

†††

Later that night, back at the inn where Darren lived he received a knock at the door.

He turned towards the sound in mild surprise, putting on his hat. He'd just finished getting ready to go out, not that he was planning on going anywhere special, but the rest of the permanent boarders of the inn were downstairs and they had invited him to poker tonight. He wasn't very good at cards, he had far too many tells and knew that they probably only let him play because he was so easy to predict but it was nice being invited to things, sometimes.

And he felt that he was slowly getting better at it, too. He hadn't been expecting someone to come to the door though; usually they all just turned up around the same time at the inn's reception desk to play. Darren walked to the entrance of his room and pulled the door open, beginning to say; "I'm not late am I-"

But there was an entirely different person waiting out in the hallway than he had expected. BW grinned at him, enjoying the surprised look on his face. "Hi Darren." She said, leaning an arm against the doorframe. "Good evening."

Darren blinked at her, wondering what the special occasion was. He never got visits from anybody – especially girls. "Er… hello BW. What brings you here?" He asked, wondering if it would be polite to invite her inside or not. Probably not if he was going to be leaving so soon.

Something about BW's smile didn't quite seem so sincere. It was almost shark-like, as if she knew an amazing secret and had no intention of sharing it with anybody, yet was perfectly content with it wreaking havoc amidst everyone around her. "You know, I don't think I've ever been up here at the inn before. You really live here, huh?" She asked, peering over his shoulder and looking into his room. It was a bit of a mess; he hadn't cleaned up properly in a while.

"It's not that bad." Darren protested, trying to defend what little home and possessions he had.

BW didn't stop smiling. "Well, whatever. I guess it's better than living in the street. I'm here tonight to pick you up and bring you over to Sera's place. You've been invited to dinner." She said at last, revealing her reason for being there.

Darren cocked his head to one side slightly. "Dinner? I don't remember…" He began.

"I invited you. Or, um, I'm inviting you right now. Sera always makes way too much food and she said I could bring a friend. You're a friend, so I thought it would be alright." The girl explained, but then her smile dropped and she seemed a little worried. "You don't want to come?"

He hadn't eaten yet that night and, though unexpected and a little strange having dinner with Sera and BW might be a bit more fun than losing all his money to Reiyu and Ravendor for the umpteenth time again. BW had come all the way across town to see him; it would be rude to say no. Darren shook his head, but then realized this would put him in the negative and nodded instead. "I'd love to come, BW. Thanks. I just wasn't expecting a dinner invitation so suddenly." He admitted.

The girl seemed pleased, bouncing up and down a bit on her heels in delight. "Oh, yay! This might just work after all!" She declared.

He wasn't sure what that meant. "Huh?"

BW seemed to have another thought and went stern for a moment, but she was still smiling so she couldn't have been that serious. "But don't consider this a date or anything 'cause Sera will be there too. Don't get any creepy ideas." She warned.

That was okay, as far as he knew he and BW were just friends. She had Sera, and he had Mina… kind of. In a way. Darren stepped out into the hallway with her and locked his door. "I won't. Uh, let me just tell the guys downstairs that I won't be playing tonight. We'll pass them by on the way out." He explained.

She had no problems with that. "Okay."

By the time the rogue and the mage got to the lobby of the inn downstairs most of the poker party had already gathered. There was Reiyu, of whom BW was also rather good friends with (but he wasn't part of the plan), then Magi, Ravendor, and a woman Darren didn't quite recognize. She was probably a new adventurer staying at the inn for a few days; she was certainly dressed for no-nonsense combat.

Reiyu seemed to be the dealer this time. He was pretty good at it, quick and dexterous with his hands. "Hey Darren, we've been waiting for you. Five hundred gold gets you in; ready to play?" He asked, in the process of shuffling.

The young rogue seemed a little nervous. Even though it wasn't a big deal he didn't like having to say no to his friends. He shook his head and laughed a bit, raising his hands. "A-Actually I'm going out with BW tonight. Sorry, you'll have to take someone else's money instead."

BW gave Darren a look. Sure they were going to be at certain places at the same time, but he could have used a better turn of phrase than 'going out'. She had a girlfriend, after all. Well… maybe it was a subconscious guy thing, trying to show off to the other men.

The mage girl then noticed Magi sitting with the others, drinking something that looked like juice when compared to the beers the other two men and woman had. The shark-like smile returned. "Heya Magi," she called, "been feeling better lately? Not as fuzzy?"

Magi seemed uncomfortable at having BW try to talk to him. He was still a little traumatized over the whole affair. He inched away from her in his chair, moving closer to Ravendor on his right. "Keep her away from me." He said softly. "She's a monster."

"Aw come on, you were cute." The girl protested much to Magi's chagrin, which caused Ravendor to start chuckling quietly.

Magi hit him. "Shut up, you weren't even there!"

"I know, but I can imagine it."

While the archer groaned Reiyu nodded at Darren. Losing a player didn't bother him all that much; they had enough people already. "That's okay; Selithia can take your place." He said, indicating the glasses-wearing woman beside him.

She gave a curt wave. "Hi. Gonna take these suckers for all they're worth." She told him.

Not if Reiyu could help it, but regardless it was kind of amusing seeing Darren trying to have, well, a life. It was about time. "You two go and have some fun." He instructed, waving them away from the poker table.

Unexpectedly BW sighed. "Oh… now I wanna play cards too!" She announced, but knew she couldn't. Maybe some other time. She had to stick to the plan.

Taking the young rogue by the arm, BW led him away.