AN: This was inspired by angiemagz' lovely manip, which you can see a portion of in the cover image; the full version is on tumblr. Fair warning: If you're not acquainted with these versions of Sybil and Tom, you may find their language here to be a bit saltier than you're used to. They are aging punks, after all. :)

July 1998

Fourteen weeks. That's how far along she is. That leaves... twenty-six to go. Half a year, assuming Shrimpy stays inside for the full duration. Sybil smiles into the mirror at the thought of the baby's nickname, bestowed upon it last week when Tom read somewhere that it was now about the size of a medium-sized shrimp.

Six months she can handle. She wasn't so sure a few weeks ago, back when she was being sick five times a day and could eat nothing but bacon (burnt to a crisp), bananas, and ginger ale. But in recent days the near-constant threat of nausea has receded, leaving seemingly boundless energy and an appetite to match, along with glowing skin and lustrous hair. I could get used to this, Sybil thinks, leaning forward to inspect her reflection and fluff the somewhat thickened knot of curls on top of her head.

"You look gorgeous," Tom says dryly from across the room. "Now will you please put on your clothes so we can go? I'm starving."

"I don't see you getting dressed," she shoots cheekily over her shoulder. To be fair, he is ahead of her: Sybil's still in bra and knickers and he's only got to put his shirt on. Slowly, Sybil's eye travels the line of hair that descends his chest to disappear into the waistband of his trousers. As her liking for food has returned, other appetites have as well, though she's yet to do anything about it. Maybe she'll be in the mood for something sweet later.

Meanwhile Tom has turned away to reach for his shirt lying on the bed. It's an oxford, and he has a sports jacket ready to go over it. In the last couple of years he has shifted his leisure-time uniform by degrees, until the ratty T-shirts and Chucks seldom see wear except for when he and Syb go out to see bands and relive the old days for a night. Smoky pubs and the smell of stale beer mix badly with hyperemesis, so those nights have been all but nonexistent since Sybil became pregnant. He looks down at himself. Is that a belly I'm getting? He sucks in his abdomen, lets it out. Have to watch that. He's not 22 anymore, the lifestyle's starting to tell on him. Too much bad food eaten on the run; too many latenight whiskeys bolted in hotel bars. Not enough exercise.

He glances over at Sybil, whose stomach is as flat as ever. Flatter. Instead of gaining with pregnancy, she's dropped half a stone. As a weight loss plan I don't recommend it, she told him with an anemic laugh back around week nine, after shuddering and pushing away a perfectly innocuous plate of roast chicken and rice. Not to worry, though, she's told him: it's perfectly normal in the first trimester. She'd know better than Tom, in her line of work.

Still he can't help but be concerned, and the more he's away the more he worries. Last month Cora had to come down when he was off on assignment and Sybil got so ill she couldn't get out of bed for a day and a half. They didn't even tell him about it until he got back. I would've come home, he blustered when he heard. Exactly, she retorted.

So his heart is quick to leap into his throat when he hears Sybil gasp. "Oh! Wow," she says, sounding more interested than alarmed, but Tom whirls around anyway.

"What? What is it?" She's looking down at herself, and he scans her body anxiously. Nothing seems wrong.

He's completely confused when she starts fondling her own breasts. Not fondling exactly—weighing? Measuring? The impression is confirmed a minute later when she grins at him sheepishly. "I think they've gotten bigger," she explains. She tugs at her bra, which come to think of it does look a little tight. "Quite a lot bigger, actually. Damn, that happened overnight."

Tom grins in return. "You're going to have to stop swearing soon."

"Sod off."

"So they don't hurt anymore?" Acute tenderness was one of the first signs Sybil noticed, and Tom has almost resigned himself to her breasts being off limits for the next year.

"No. They're... sensitive—" she pushes them together, pinches her nipples lightly through the thin material—" but not painful really." Her eyes meet Tom's, follow his suddenly sharpened gaze back to her hands, still on her breasts. She smiles a slow smile. "D'you want to come and see?"

Adrenaline whooshes pleasantly in Tom's belly and he smiles back: this is the first such invitation he's received in a couple of months, Sybil having felt too unwell lately for these antics. He doesn't approach yet, though. "Why don't you keep doing that for a bit," he suggests, nodding at her hands.

Sybil chuckles low in her throat and half-turns to face him completely as she begins to move her hands again, slow and sensuous now that she's caressing instead of examining. With a smirk, she pushes her breasts up so she looks to be overflowing her cups and watches Tom's darkened eyes flit from her chest to her face and back, his tongue coming out to moisten his lips. A thrill goes through her, subsiding into a muted throb in her lower belly, as her breath begins to come faster.

She slides her left hand into the opposite cup of her bra and gasps at the sensation that jolts through her from the brush of her fingers against her nipple. An answering sound breaks from Tom, she can see his chest rising and falling more quickly, and Sybil smiles again. "Sensitive," she says, her voice hoarse.

"Right," he answers, and he's hanging on her every movement, his eyes fastened on her like there's nothing else in the world worth looking at and Sybil feels a rush of mingled arousal and potency. She circles her fingers over the nipple again—gently, gently—and sparks seem to emanate from the spot. She tweaks it and inhales shakily as another insistent jolt passes through her body.

A yard away, Tom sits down on the bed. He's decidedly worked up, his erection straining at the front of his trousers, but he's enjoying the anticipation—to say nothing of the view—far too much to end it quite yet. His heart begins to pound as Sybil's right hand slides down her stomach to toy with the waistband of her polka-dot knickers. Her eyes lock on his and she takes her lower lip in her teeth and smiles, raising an eyebrow as if to ask whether he wants her to continue.

The answer is clear in his quickened breath and widened eyes, the slight dip his chin makes as if to urge her on. But Sybil relishes the anticipation as much as he does and so her hand stays on the outside of her knickers for now. She moves it down to run her fingertips along the lace trim of the leg opening, just barely slipping a finger in and out of it and grinning wickedly as Tom swallows hard.

"God damn it, Syb," he breathes. She knows exactly what she's doing to him.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No. No, I do not."

She smiles at the vehemence of his reply and brushes her fingers over her nipple again. Her hips rock forward slightly, involuntarily. "Ohh." Tom appears to be vibrating, holding himself back from closing the distance between them by sheer force of will, and Sybil decides it's time to stop fucking around. She cups her breast, rubbing her thumb over the nipple as she slips her other hand into her knickers, unable to hold back a low cry when her fingertip grazes her already swollen clitoris. "Fuck," she gasps. Her eyes, which have fallen half-closed, flutter open.

Tom lets out a moan as she begins to touch herself in earnest. He can't see exactly what she's doing under her knickers, of course, but he can see the effect she's having on herself and he finds that much more exciting than an anatomy lesson. She sneaks little glances at him, obviously aroused at being watched. He can feel his own arousal trembling inside him, a controlled turbulence. He's past the point of mere horniness and into a kind of enthrallment: he wouldn't take his eyes off Sybil if a bomb went off outside.

She takes her hands out of her underwear to remove her bra and push her knickers halfway down over her hips, allowing Tom tantalizing glimpses as she starts again. His hands move in restless circles on the coverlet even as Sybil's fingers circle, teasing, stroking with more and more intensity until she has to take a backward step to lean against the mirror frame. Her other hand goes back up to caress her breast and she bites her lip again, sucks in a breath, looks at Tom, who's practically panting. She knows he likes it when she talks so she tells him how wet she's getting, how good this feels. Watching his eyes flame up in response almost sends her over, but she makes herself pause just to heighten it for them both.

Sybil's eyes hold Tom's as she holds herself, poised at the edge. "Sybil," he says, and it sounds like a plea. She answers it by plunging her hand back into her half-pulled-down knickers and less than a minute later her legs are shaking as the wave rips through her. He's there before her knees can buckle, supporting her with his hands on her arse, his mouth hot on her neck. His cock presses insistently against her stomach. He nips at her earlobe. "Jesus, Sybil, that was hot," he rasps.

"Hell yes, it was," she replies with a low laugh. She fairly climbs up him, wrapping her legs around his hips, and he laughs too and carries her over to the bed. "Now take off your trousers and fuck me. Please," she adds for effect.

"Well, since you said please." He deposits Sybil on the bed, where she lies back and watches him theatrically throw off his clothes. Once he's naked he bounces onto the mattress, crawling up to cover her mouth with his again. Tom wouldn't mind prolonging things a little more, but what he's just seen has made him impatient: he wants her now, needs her now. His hands go to her hips to peel off her knickers. In the next second he has buried himself inside her with a groan and another muttered curse. He moves in a way he knows she loves, circling his hips and reveling in her rising moans as she wriggles against him. "Yes, love, yes," he pants, and pushes himself up onto his elbows so he can watch her face as she comes again.

Now Tom is the one who pauses, as deep within Sybil as he can get. He lays his head beside hers, buries his face in her neck to inhale her scent. She stills her movements as well and draws her nails lightly up his back: once, then again, harder. For a long moment Tom stays balanced between not wanting it to end and needing it to, but soon enough the latter feeling wins out. As he begins to thrust again Sybil smooths her palms down his back to grab his arse, pulling at him, spurring him to move faster, and it doesn't take long for him to find release.

Tom lies motionless, not wanting to leave Sybil quite yet, but then something occurs to him to break through the post-coital haze. "This is okay, right? For the baby?"

Sybil laughs and gives his buttock a squeeze. "You mean in all your reading about fetus-to-food-item comparisons, you didn't find any information on sex during pregnancy?" Tom rolls off her and gives her a reproachful look, and she takes pity. "Yes, it's okay. It's fine."

"Well, that's a relief," he says, and she squeals as his hand comes up to fondle her breast. "Because it'd be quite a hardship, going without this for six more months."

AN: For emleng, who wondered if I'd do any more playlists.

Appendix J: Songs of Grown-Up Lust, Love, and Parenthood

Descendents: Pervert

Prince and the Revolution: Darling Nikki

Divinyls: I Touch Myself

The Clash: Lover's Rock

L7: Til the Wheels Fall Off

Wire: Feeling Called Love

John Lennon: Grow Old with Me

Talking Heads: Stay up Late

Carole King: Child of Mine

David Bowie: Kooks

Guided by Voices: My Son Cool

Woodie Guthrie: Little Sack of Sugar

Huey Lewis and the News: Hip to be Square :)