The Werewolf's Child

Oakley

When they woke the rain had stopped and the sun was filtering through green leaves outside the cave. The baby looked at them with his wide newborn eyes, then he stretched and yawned and his pink rosebud mouth let out a piercing cry. Remus took him to the breast again and he nuzzled hungrily, found the nipple and sucked contentedly. Sev looked on in wonder, marveling anew at this tiny perfection.

"How are you feeling?" Sev asked Remus, and he kissed him.

"Fine. Okay. Better than after a moon. He's really beautiful, isn't he?" said Remus, smiling down at the baby as he nursed. His mouth was wide open against the breast, his cheeks moving in and out as he suckled.

"Yes," Sev agreed fervently. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Not even close. "He is."

"Don't you want to hold him?"

"Me?" said Sev, startled. "I.....I've never held a baby."

"Best get used to it then," said Remus, smiling at him fondly.

"What if I drop him?"

"Don't do that."

"I....." But Remus was thrusting the tiny bundle into his arms and Sev had no choice but to take him. He hardly weighed anything at all, but he was dense with life. How could he be this small and live? He wriggled and settled against the warmth of Sev's chest. He looked up with deep eyes of dark blue. He seemed to be taking in his new world, looking about with quiet amazement. And Sev was filled with a fierce possessive joy. How had it come to pass, that with all his errors, after a life of loneliness and hiding, he had been given this tiny precious child to love and protect? The baby yawned, wrinkling his nose, then turned his huge slate blue eyes and stared right into Sev's and gazed at him with such a serious look on his face that Sev shook his head and laughed.

"Hello little mite," he said.

"Did you decide on a name?" Remus asked.

Sev hesitated, and swallowed. He ran a finger over the baby's head, smoothing back the fine black hairs. His skin was incredibly soft. Sev's finger looked huge and rough moving over his delicate scalp.

"It's really up to me then," he said.

"Your first act as his other father," Remus replied.

Sev looked at the little baby a long time as he lay in his arms. He was so tiny, so frail. It was hard to believe he was even human. But Sev realized, with a whole new set of terrors opening before him, that he would grow and change. That he would become a bigger baby, a child, a youth, a man. That someday, with luck he would be sitting in the same situation Sev was in now, trying to choose a name for his own child. The possibilities for catastrophe along the way seemed too numerous to count, and yet here they were, safe and warm in this leafy bower, with their newborn babe nestled between them. They had come this far. Maybe they would get through the rest as well.

"We can't just call him little what's his name forever," Remus said.

Sev took a deep breath "Oakley, then," he declared. He had already decided weeks ago, he realized.

Remus smiled up at him. "I like it," he said. "Oakley it is." He touched a finger to the baby's wee nose. "Hello Oakley." Oakley gave a tiny baby yawn in reply.

"What about a middle name?" said Sev.

"I'd like to use my father's name," said Remus quietly. "He would have loved him so much."

"What is it?"

"Romulus."

"Oakley Romulus Lupin," said Sev.