Thanks to [Lily] for the beta.

MPREG
By: Rhys

Give or take six months, it all started when Lance picked up a voice-mail from Joey that went something like this: “help me, LB-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” repeated ad nauseam until one final ominous, “get here, ‘kay? Things are weird in Orlando. Don’t drink the water.”

By the time Lance pulled up to Joey’s house, he’d resigned himself to the fact that one of them (probably Chris) had gone into rehab. It had to be Chris, because it couldn’t be Joey, and Lance had just watched JC on The Early Show that morning, and Justin. Well, maybe Justin, but Chris had free time on his hands, more than enough to nurse a full-blown heroin addiction.

“Dude,” Joey said when Lance knocked, fisting his hand in Lance’s shirt and pulling him inside, “I think I’ve gone completely mental. Or Kelly has, I dunno. Both of us.” Joey put his hand on Lance’s shoulder, looked Lance right in the eyes and said, “dude, it’s Chris.”

Lance’s stomach dropped like a stone through water. “Oh, God. Is he okay? Is it drugs?”

“I fucking wish it was drugs!”

Lance’s stomach climbed back to its rightful place in his belly. “Then what is it? Because, honestly, Joey, I can’t imagine anything worse than drugs. Or is he.” His stomach fell again, this time dropping out of his toes completely. Suddenly dizzy, Lance asked, “God, is Chris sick?”

“No, no, he’s fine, but hey, do you want a drink, man? I sure do. Is vodka okay?”

Lance nodded slowly then stumbled as Joey pulled him, his hand twisted in Lance’s shirt again, down the hall and into the kitchen. Briefly, Lance caught a glimpse of Chris and Kelly in the living room, Brianna perched on Kelly’s knees. Chris had his back to them, and didn’t turn around even when Kelly said, “hey, Lance,” and offered him a wave. That was a little strange.

Joey poured the drinks - a mug of vodka each - then started sipping at his, holding it like a comforting cup of steaming hot cocoa. His eyes were wide. His hair stuck out in all directions. Lance sniffed at his cup then took a mouthful, choking at the burn. “Did you call Justin and JC?”

Joey nodded, taking another long drink. “They should be here in a few hours.”

“Can I ...”

“No, said. “Just sit there and be normal, all right? And don’t fucking talk to me.”

“Joey.”

“Shut up,” Joey said firmly, “and drink your vodka before it gets cold.”

So Lance pretended to, spitting it back into the cup whenever Joey covered his face with his hand and shook his head, which was entirely too often for Lance’s tastes.

~~~

Later, Kelly came into the kitchen, pressing a kiss to Lance’s cheek as she passed. Brianna followed a few steps later, holding onto her blanket and sucking her thumb. Kelly hoisted her up to the counter then poured her a cup of apple juice. Joey had passed out at the table.

“Chris wants to talk to you,” Kelly said quietly, “before the other guys get here.”

“Uh, okay.” Lance stood up, wincing at the sharp squeal of the chair legs across ceramic tile. He looked into the living room where Chris was still sitting on the couch, staring out the window. Idly, Lance wondered if he was hot, wearing that hoodie. “Listen, Kelly, can I ...”

“Lance, no. No questions, please. Just promise me you’ll keep an open mind. This idiot,” she affectionately ruffled Joey’s hair, and he turned toward her in his sleep, “isn’t taking the whole thing as well as he could, but if he believes it, you can, too, okay? Promise me.”

“I promise,” Lance said, putting his hand over his heart.

Still, it took every bit of strength he had to walk into the living room and sit down next to Chris, who finally looked up and acknowledged his presence. He looked good, Lance noted, surprised. Not like an addict, or a guy on the edge of death, or anything really. Chris looked fine.

“I’m pregnant,” he said.

Lance was not going to play this game with Chris. He smirked. “What, no hello?”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Jesus. Hello, Bass. Oh, and by the way, I’m pregnant.”

Lance grinned unsteadily, half expecting Joey to jump out with a camera, claiming he’d only been drinking water, all haha, would you look at the expression on your ugly mug, but there was nothing beyond the quiet wheezing of Chris’s breath and Lance’s own erratic heartbeat.

“There’s just no good way to say it,” Chris muttered, lifting his hand and scratching through his hair. “I have pictures,” he said suddenly, reaching into the pouch of his hoodie and pulling out a crinkled stack of black and white photos. “That’s the kid. See? That’s its head.”

Lance looked where Chris’s finger pointed, on the light-coloured blob near the top. He’d seen pictures like these before. Stacey had emailed him a dozen throughout her pregnancy, which meant they were easy to get. Just, as a joke, it wasn’t very funny. Not in the slightest.

“For the record,” Chris said, taking his pictures and tucking them back into the pouch, “I didn’t think you’d believe me. I told Joey not to call you, not to call any of you. I can do this on my own, Bass. I just needed someone to get me groceries and shit, to mow my lawn.”

“This is a little unbelievable,” Lance said.

Chris shrugged. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Why would you ...” Lance stopped suddenly, and there his belly went again, diving for his toes. Chris had lifted up a little, and whoa, Lance thought, a sledgehammer of information hitting his head, look at his stomach, and then a second later, and what the hell is he telling me?

“Don’t hurt yourself thinking about it.” Chris pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and tucked his hands into the front pocket. Through the ripples of fabric, Lance could tell they were on his belly. “Whatever, Bass. I don’t need you for any of it, okay?”

“Oh,” Lance said as the sledgehammer of knowledge took one last swing at his temples.

“Oh,” Chris echoed, rolling his eyes again.

They sat there, staring at each other. Lance really wanted that vodka now.

~~~

Sometime between Chris telling him and JC and Justin showing up, Lance realised he actually believed Chris because why the hell not? Weirder things had happened, Lance supposed. He couldn’t think of any, but if Chris said he was pregnant, then he was pregnant. Sure, okay.

“Whoa,” Justin said when Chris told them in the same dry, underwhelmed tone he’d used with Lance, but the difference was that Justin believed Chris right off, no questions asked, adding excitedly, “no way, no fucking way! That’s fucking awesome, Chris! Can you feel it move?”

“Sometimes,” Chris admitted, his hands still tucked inside the front pocket.

“Is this a joke?” JC asked, which was more like it, but when Chris shook his head, that seemed to be enough for him. Lance missed Joey, who obviously understood how absolutely fucking impossible this whole situation was, but he was upstairs, sleeping off the vodka.

They passed around the pictures, which Lance squinted at a little closer, but the whole thing didn’t look like much more than vaguely defined fuzz to him. It didn’t much look like, well, it didn’t look much like him, which meant maybe Chris wasn’t saying what Lance thought he was.

“Who’s the dad?” Justin asked, eyeing one of the pictures closely.

“No one,” Chris said, but his eyes flicked in Lance’s direction, just briefly, enough.

Fuck, Lance thought, and carefully slid the pictures onto the coffee table, away from him.

“So it was, like, a spontaneous male pregnancy? Shit. That’s kinda weird, Chris.”

Lance snorted, because yeah, sure, that was kinda weird, but then JC said, “oh my God, Chris, is this, like. Dude, are you carrying another Jesus?” And they stopped and stared at JC before breaking into riotous laughter, probably all for wildly different reasons.

“Man, I thought it was a valid question,” JC muttered, drying his eyes with his sleeve, which set them all off again, because it was a valid question, and Lance couldn’t believe there were valid questions, and oh my God, he’s actually having my baby. Lance covered his eyes.

Justin said, “Lance, hey, are you okay, man?”

They’d stopped laughing, but Lance was still crying, and he felt hysterical. He needed Joey there to freak out with, to help him get it all processed, to understand for him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just not everyday you find out that, you know, that a guy can have a baby.”

“Spontaneously,” JC added.

~~~

Joey woke up, and he seemed better about it. Still not sober, but he was speaking in complete sentences again, laughing with Justin and JC. Chris wasn’t laughing much, and Lance had long since escaped to the backyard, nursing a bottle of icy-cold Aquafina.

“Hey,” Joey said, sitting down next to him. “Pretty freaky, huh?”

Lance nodded. They’d been here before, he realised. Joey had been pretty unhappy about getting Kelly pregnant, so Lance felt validated in the dread climbing through his veins. But at least Joey had ‘fessed up, had admitted that yeah, him and Kelly were having a baby, whoops.

“It’ll get better, dude, as you get used to the idea. You wanna cry on my shoulder?”

Lance snorted. “Not right now, thanks. I think I got that out of the way already.”

“When he told me how far along he was, I kinda pieced it all together. Sorry.”

“Yeah, well. You probably got it quicker than I did, because what he’s saying, it’s impossible, Joey.” Lance scratched a hand viciously through his hair before dropping it back down into the grass. “Guys don’t get pregnant, do they?”

“Weird shit happens all the time, man. Maybe they do.”

“I’m freaking out,” Lance whispered, blinking against the hot rush of tears.

Joey did what Lance had done for him three years ago: gathered him a fiercely tight hug and didn’t let go, not for a long time, not until Lance felt the panic pass from his body. Even then Joey held on, gently knuckling the back of his head. Lance sighed miserably, closing his eyes.

“I’m too young to be someone’s dad,” Lance muttered, “and maybe I don’t, you know ...” Lance let the words trail off, dropping like lead into a crystal clear pond. Joey got it anyway.

“Well, it looks like Chris is letting you crap out on copping to the deed, which you can’t let him do, Lance. Because, dude,” Joey gripped Lance by the shoulders, pushing him back until they could see eye to eye, “you’re better than that, and I’d be so fucking disappointed in you.”

Lance frowned. “Didn’t I use this speech on you?”

“Yeah, well.” Joey shrugged. “Why bother rewriting when it worked the first time?”

“Oh, good point.” Lance moaned suddenly, smacking a hand against his forehead with a loud slap. “Oh God, Joey, how the hell am I going to tell my parents? They’re going to be so mad at me. I mean, they know I have sex, they know I’m gay, but getting someone pregnant, God.”

Joey’s brow furrowed. “Are you saying ... dude. You didn’t use protection?”

“No,” Lance said miserably, adding, “and hey, cut it out with the slapping, Joey,” because the skin on his upper arm had already begun to sting, but Joey didn’t stop, and Lance didn’t ask him again. Maybe he deserved it. Having sex without protection was just not done in their circles. If the condom broke, then okay, that was shitty luck, but bypassing it all together ...

Lance had a myriad of excuses, ranging from spontaneity to being drunk out of his mind, but all of them made him feel worse, so he didn’t bother. Joey was livid enough with the reality.

“If I ever find out you didn’t use a condom again, I will kill you before the syphilis does.”

“They can cure that,” Lance muttered, which got him another vicious slap, and he shouted, “ow! Okay! I swear I always do, I swear to God, Joey, but with Chris, I thought it was safe, you know, that I could trust him. I didn’t know about his whatever, his special talent.”

“Jesus. Please don’t ever say that to him. I beg you.”

“I won’t,” Lance promised, and started crying again, just a little, uncontrollably.

~~~

Later, long after Joey had gone inside to sleep, Lance came into the dark house and got some apple juice out of the fridge, filling up a cup. He nearly dropped it when he noticed Chris sitting at the table, nursing a glass of milk. Lance pulled up a chair and sat down with him.

“I want to be part of this,” Lance said, forcing his voice to stay deep and steady, “part of this baby’s life, and part of yours while you do it. I was thinking, maybe, I could move in with you until you have the baby. I can be your manservant. That could be fun, right?”

Chris snorted into his milk, shrugging like he didn’t care, but Lance knew he did.

“And you can tell JC and Justin that you really aren’t carrying another Jesus.” Mentally, Lance pushed himself forward, chanting over and over I am a good guy, I am a good guy. “I mean, you can tell them the truth, that I’m the father. Chances are it’ll be kind of obvious, right?”

“C’s gonna be pretty disappointed,” Chris said, the corner of his mouth quirked, and Lance laughed a little crazily, even if the one thing that felt normal, finally, was laughing at JC. “But seriously, Lance. I can do this on my own, okay? Don’t stick around just because ...”

“I want to be part of this,” Lance repeated, knowing there was no power in the world strong enough -- not even Joey sticking around for his own surprise baby -- to make Chris believe that sometimes fathers did not run out on their unexpected children, but he had to try, for Chris’s sake as well as his own, even if every bone in his body told him to run, fast and far, until it all faded into the distance. “I’ll admit I’m freaked out, but I won’t be. Just give me time.”

“I freaked out,” Chris admitted, “oh, shit, Lance. I freaked the fuck out when I realised. I mean, on one hand, I was pretty fucking happy I wasn’t dying, but on the other hand, it took me a few days to really believe it and a lot fucking longer than that to find someone who would, you know, help me.”

Lance raised his eyebrows. “You have a doctor?”

“C’mon, Lance, gimme some credit here. Of course I do. I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, gee, sorry,” Lance said, pouring as much sarcasm into it as he could, because talk about a valid question. JC’s immaculate conception question had been iffy, but asking about a doctor was just expected. “How the hell do you find someone who deals with stuff like this?”

“The internet, dude. It took a month of searching, but I eventually found it.”

“But you said you knew before then. How?”

Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. I just knew. Well, okay, it took me a few weeks to clue in, because hey, I didn’t know what I was looking at, but one night while I was puking my guts out, I thought to myself, this has gotta be what morning sickness is like, and then wham, I just knew.”

“Wow,” Lance said. What else could he possibly say? “Wow, Chris.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I had to confirm it, so I took one of those home pregnancy tests, and it came out positive, but then I started thinking, well, they don’t make those things for guys, right?” Chris’s voice took on a fervent, excited pitch. “So I made Joey take one, too.”

Lance snorted. “You made Joey take a home pregnancy test?”

“Get Joey drunk, man, and that guy will do just about anything.”

Lance nodded. It was so very true.

Chris shrugged. “Anyway, it worked, because his test came out negative. I guess I could have done more, but at that point, you know, it seemed a little futile. I'd known from the moment I'd first thought it that it was true.”

Lance nodded, even though he didn’t know, couldn’t even really imagine.

Chris smirked. “Bet you wish you’d gotten me something better for my birthday, huh?”

“Something like that,” Lance replied, laughing shakily.

The other alternative was to bawl his eyes out, and Chris really didn’t need to see that right now.

~~~

Chris was right about Lance wishing he’d gotten Chris something better for his birthday. It had all really started when he bought Chris expensive monogrammed beach towels. The ones Chris owned were falling apart, and it went with the theme of sun, sand and surf in Jamaica. It was a well thought out gift. Lance had even bought two, one for Chris and one for the girl in the bikini he would inevitably charm. Chris always got the girl in the bikini, always.

“Dude, what the fuck,” Chris had said, staring at them. “You bought me towels?”

“They match,” Lance had replied lamely, ignoring Joey’s delighted grin of I-told-you-so. Joey had, indeed, told him so, numerous times. Joey had gotten Chris a subscription to Playboy, a phone call from Gwen Stefani and a pair of black silk boxers, which were really from Kelly.

The problem inevitably came when Lance’s pride began to suffer. Chris told everyone who would listen that Lance had got him lame ass towels, and everyone had laughed. The drunker Chris got, the more he talked about the lamest gift ever in the world, and the drunker Lance got, the more he got offended because, hey, he gave great gifts, he gave wonderful gifts.

“I can do better,” Lance had slurred, tugging on Chris’s arm. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

“Woo,” Chris had replied, and off they went, trotting down to the beach with Chris’s new towels in hand. It had seemed like the best idea ever, spreading those towels over the sand and lying down on them. They had talked for a while before abandoning all pretense and kissing.

Lance still remembered how hot Chris’s skin had been, flushed with booze and arousal, and how he tasted sweet like pina colada, the drink of choice at Chris’s birthday bash. It had been incredibly stupid, Lance realised now, that they had sex on the beach, hidden only by the overwhelming dark, the roar of the party and the woolly towels with Chris’s initials on them.

It was even stupider that Lance had slid his dick into Chris with just a thick coat of greasy suntan lotion -- stolen from Jessica Simpson -- between them. It was the booze or the heat that made Lance break his number one rule about sex. Chris, who hadn’t been fucked before but had begged for it, had promised Lance that he’d shut up about the stupid towels if Lance just fucked him, please.

The sex had been fantastic, but they hadn’t done it again.

Good thing it had turned out that the first time was the charm.

“Lucky us,” Lance muttered under his breath as he got into bed, completely exhausted, but he didn’t fall asleep for a long time. He couldn’t stop his brain from thinking about the baby, his baby, inside Chris’s ... whatever it was he had, just that it was there, inside and growing.

When Lance finally fell asleep, he had nightmares about Alien, which he had stupidly watched in early 1987. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything could possibly be scarier, but he’d been wrong. This, Lance decided, blinking at the harsh morning sun, was definitely worse.

~~~

A couple things happened right away:

They delayed the album, again, obviously.

Justin roughed Lance up in the bathroom with a grim, “if you fucking run out on him, if he even thinks for a second that you’re in this half-assed, I’m going to kill you, okay?” He laughed unsteadily, wanting to pretend that Justin was kidding, but Lance honestly doubted it.

JC was a little disappointed about the lack of Jesus in the future, but he also seemed relieved, explained with a casual, “I was a little worried about the other guy, you know, the Rosemary’s Baby guy,” which Lance laughed at, his first non-hysterical laugh since finding out.

And Lance started planning out the next few months with Joey’s help. Joey was calm and zen and laid back, and Lance couldn’t look at his Palm Pilot without flipping out. There was so much he was supposed to do, but Joey summed it all up by programming in Chris’s due date. Lance got to pick a few things he really wanted to do, but just about everything else was canned.

“Give me a week to get my affairs in order then I’ll be there, okay?”

“Whatever,” Chris said.

“A week,” Lance said again, a little pissed off at Chris for acting like he was, even though it made sense, which pissed Lance off even more but at himself for being an insensitive bastard. Of all the men in the world for Lance to get pregnant, it had to be Chris Kirkpatrick, of course.

Lance didn’t know what to expect when, after a frantic week of packing, he returned home to Orlando and to Chris. The reality was a little underwhelming: when Lance came in, Chris was asleep on the sofa, twisted around a stack of pillows, snoring with his glasses hanging off his nose.

~~~

Chris’s house had changed a lot, Lance noticed as he unpacked, folding his socks and his underwear and putting them into an empty dresser in one of Chris’s guest rooms. The room next to Chris’s had been cleared out, and the only thing currently in it was a wooden rocking chair.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a crib still in the box, and in the hallway there was a laundry basket full of plastic-wrapped baby clothes. Carefully, Lance looked through them, picking up a tiny jumper and staring at it. It wasn’t even big enough to fit one of Leighton’s dolls.

It hit him later, when he was waiting for dinner to be delivered, that Chris already had everything a baby would need, that Chris really had intended to do this alone. He’d planned on it. Obviously, Chris’s plan had been irreparably faulty, or he wouldn’t have gone to Joey for help.

“That fucker,” Lance muttered under his breath, shaking his head.

When the pizza arrived, Chris woke up, staring at Lance for a second before grabbing a slice and literally swallowing it whole. If he chewed, Lance didn’t notice. Stacey had been like that, ravenously hungry all the time, always eating. Lance really hoped the similarities ended there.

“You want a slice of this? I’ll eat it all if you don’t claim some fast.”

“I, no. You go ahead,” Lance insisted, suddenly not hungry at all. One part of his brain, the side that implicitly trusted in Chris always, was totally happy to accept Chris was pregnant. The other part, the side that really really really wasn’t ready to be someone’s dad, was nauseous.

Chris chomped happily on his third slice. “You gotta stop looking at me like that, man.”

Innocence had never looked good on Lance, but he tried anyway. “Like what?”

“Like I’m some sort of freakish mutant who’s having your baby,” Chris replied, mouth full of cheese and pepperoni and pearly white teeth. “I don’t even care if that’s exactly what I am because I know your momma raised you with tact. Relax, okay, or go stay with Joey and Kel.”

“You’re a freakish mutant?”

“How the fuck do you think it happened, Lance? Jesus.”

Lance had to admit that he didn’t have a clue how it had happened. He knew the usual spiel, the whole sperm-egg-penis-vagina stuff that had always left him feeling vaguely unsettled, and he did have one high school biology course under his belt, but it still made no sense.

Lance said as much before his brain could catch up with his mouth, and Chris looked at him like he was a complete and utter moron. “Oh, c’mon. It makes perfect sense. We don’t need no stinking woman, you loser. Look.” Chris scribbled on the pizza box with a pencil:

Lance blinked. “Is that a punnett square?”

“Hell yes, it’s a punnett square. Don’t play dumb with me, Brainiac. But see?” Chris left a greasy fingerprint over the lower XY, which made Lance think of KY, which made Lance think for at least the thousandth time that week that he was too stupid to be a dad. “We’re good, Bass. The chromosome Gods like us.”

“That YY doesn’t look very good.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that. The kid would already be dead if it was a YY baby.” Chris scratched the pencil over the YY, digging in so deep that it left a crater in the box. Lance shivered. “So, I guess there’s a 66% chance it’s a boy, and 33% that it’s a girl.”

“Do we know which one it is yet?”

“No,” Chris replied, sitting back with another slice of pizza. “I want to be surprised.”

“Okay,” Lance said, processing the information. He glanced at Chris, who was concentrating on folding two slices of pizza together, then at Chris's belly, which didn’t look that big yet, but sometimes, when Chris moved a certain way, the obvious curve peeked out.

“Stop staring, Bass,” Chris said without looking up from his food.

“Sorry,” Lance muttered, but he didn’t stop either.

~~~

“So how’s the mother-to-be doing?” Joey asked, a week later, when he and Kelly showed up with a box of Brianna’s old baby clothes. Chris and Kelly were going through them, talking in hushed tones and making vague references to stuff Lance didn’t want to know about anyway.

“He seems fine, but with Chris, who can really tell?”

“How’s the, uh.” Joey perfectly mimed a guy puking his guts out, complete with extended tongue, belly holding and soundless retching. “Is that still going on?”

“Unfortunately. He says it’s normal, but I’m pretty sure he’s making that up.”

“I dunno, man. Has he told you about that internet group he hooked up with? They sound like resourceful fuckers. I think this actually happens in the real world, and we just don’t know about it. Maybe I can have a baby, too. Wanna test your luck, daddy?” Joey leered.

Lance laughed, shoving at Joey’s face. “Fuck off. And don’t call me daddy.”

Joey, of course, made immediate plans to call Lance “daddy” for the rest of his life, but Lance easily ignored him. A far more pressing thought weighed on his mind: fine wasn’t the right word. Saying fine didn’t seem like enough. Chris was somewhere well beyond fine.

Chris acted like it was no big deal, but Lance had noticed the way he couldn’t keep his hands away from his belly, always walking around with them tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. Late at night, when Chris couldn’t sleep, Chris did things, like read Dr Seuss books out loud or walk the halls with headphones around his waist, hooked up to a blue Sony Discman.

Lance hadn’t bothered to ask why. He’d heard babies could hear things in utero, and that was explanation enough, but seeing Chris do these things, watching a smile always pulling at the corner of his lips, well, it kind of freaked Lance out. It was unfair, really, that Chris was so calm.

“Hey, Joey, does Chris seem different to you?” Lance asked, later, as he and Joey had a beer on Chris’s back porch. Lance had been ordered to drink two by Chris, who had stopped drinking the instant he realised he was pregnant, but Lance wasn’t sure he could even handle one.

Joey smirked around the mouth of his beer bottle. “Is this a trick question?”

“No, I just. Don’t you think it’s weird, that Chris is so, well, so normal about this?”

Joey shrugged. “What other choice does he have? It’s probably easier just to accept it.”

“It probably is,” Lance said, deciding to follow Joey’s advice as if he had meant to give it.

~~~

“What’s it listening to?” Lance asked, ignoring the way Chris glared at him. Private Chris time, blah, blah, blah, Lance should be in bed, blah, blah, blah, but with Lance sleeping at night, and Chris sleeping during the day, Lance was beginning to feel a little forcibly excluded.

“Joy Division,” Chris said, finally, after five minutes of intense staring. He pulled his knees up, making room on the couch for Lance. Lance abandoned his post in the doorway and sat down, leaning into the stack of pillows behind him. “I figured I’d brainwash the kid early.”

“How are you feeling?”

Chris rolled his eyes, and Lance thought, if he kept doing that with so much force, he was going to permanently strain something. “I’m always fine, Bass. Though, you might have noticed, I haven’t puked for twenty-six hours. That’s a personal record, by the way. I’m better than fine.”

Lance was too tired to raise the level of irritation he needed to be irked that Chris couldn’t answer a single damn question about his well-being without a generous helping of sarcasm and a side dish of eye-rolling. It was terrifying to think he had to take another three months of it.

“Christ, Lance.” Chris poked Lance in the foot with his toe until Lance looked up. Chris lifted his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, okay? I haven’t slept in fucking weeks, and this kid likes to sit on my bladder when, you know, it’s not body-checking my spine. I’m a little cranky, man.”

“Do you want to go out for a walk?” Lance asked, because that had always settled Chris. In Germany, they’d all taken turns walking the streets with Chris at 4 am, usually shadowed by one very tired member of the crew. Later, it had mostly been Big Mike’s job to babysit Chris.

Chris snorted. “No, sorry. I ain’t going nowhere, man. Have you looked at me?”

Lance had really been trying not to, but he had no choice when Chris grabbed the back of his own sweatshirt and pulled. Lance’s eyes opened so wide he feared they would fall right out of his head. “Oh my lord, Chris,” Lance said, bringing a hand to his mouth and rubbing vigorously.

“You really didn’t think these hoodies were some sort of fashion statement, did you?”

“Well, I just. In my head, six months seemed a lot. Well, a lot smaller, I guess.”

Chris ran his hand over the curve of his belly, pulling the headphones from his waist. What Lance assumed was Joy Division spilled from the speakers. Chris held out his hands, and Lance, trained like Pavlov’s dog, mirrored the movement. Quickly, before Lance could even think to pull back, Chris grabbed him by the wrists and shoved Lance’s hands under his hoodie.

His first thought was that Chris’s stomach was not only bigger than he’d thought it was, but harder too, like it was lined with muscle, and hell, maybe Chris’s .... whatever actually was. His second thought, though, abruptly brought heat to his eyes, because, wow, it was moving.

“God,” Lance breathed, moving his fingers against the fluttering round of Chris’s belly. He knew he probably looked like an idiot, eyes wide with wonder, jaw slack and open, but he didn’t care. How could he? There was a baby, his baby, dancing sweetly against his fingertips.

“You try sleeping through that,” Chris said quietly, but he was smiling so big that Lance stupidly started mimicking it, too. He was feeling a little hysterical again. When had his life taken such a bizarre turn? Probably when he had decided sleeping with Chris was a good idea.

~~~

Things improved after that, though. Chris’s posture was better, at any rate, no longer hunched inside his massive hoodies, even if he still wore the hoodies every day. Slowly but surely, Lance was freezing to death via a set-too-fucking-high air-conditioner running in an already cold April.

It wasn’t unusual for Chris to wake Lance up at three in the morning with a quietly hissed, “dude, I’m starving, and there’s nothing here I want to eat. Please get me cake right this very second.” Half-asleep, Lance would pull on his jeans, and stumble around for his keys, and practically be pushed out the door with random instructions like, “nothing with words on it.”

Sometimes, Lance called up Joey for the ride because Joey was usually awake, watching commercials for phone-sex numbers and old reruns of The Brady Bunch, but mostly, Lance used the time to think. Occasionally, he even walked through the diaper aisle without hyperventilating.

Lance was rarely the only guy in the grocery store looking exhausted and nervous. It was getting easier to pick the expectant dads out from the college kids and the night-shift workers. He was pretty sure people began to recognise him, not as being Lance Bass of Nsync but for being the guy who bought a small chocolate birthday cake, without any writing on it, once a week.

All in all, Lance thought he was a lot better about it all. It was starting to make sense, in a very strange way, and the more Lance learned, the more he believed that, well, everything was really happening. Chris had a ragged coffee-stained print-out (that had, Lance believed, been printed on a Dot Matrix sometime before the advent of the wheel) with an ominous handwritten title: MPREG.

So Lance read it because he was logical and concrete and all the other things children of math teachers and engineers grew up to be, and Chris had promised there were answers in it. Lance stayed up all night, feeling both reassured and even more terrified with each new word. There was also a chunk from the book suspiciously missing, where the count jumped thirty pages, but when Lance asked about it, Chris said it had come that way, so Lance let it go.

Maybe, Lance admitted, there were things he wasn’t quite ready to know yet, and he was had quite relieved about that and more, quite happy to let Chris hold a few things back. Information overload was a definite threat. Later, he’d care, but right now? Another man was having his baby.

It was really that simple.

Chris tried his own metaphors to help Lance wrap his brain around it all, saying stuff like, “I’m sorta like one of those one-use cameras, you know?” and then actually being surprised when Lance replied with equally stupid stuff like, “so what? You have a disposable man-uterus?”

Except, you know, every stupid thing Lance said usually turned out to be true.

Chris even drew Lance a picture, which Lance kept crumpled up in his underwear drawer:

Lance started laughing immediately, ignoring Chris’s glare, and asked, between gulps of harsh breath, “so how big, exactly, is your dick when it’s erect? The length of my arm?” which was the point when Chris took the pencil and added: “Chris Kirkpatrick’s enormous genitals.”

When Lance stopped laughing, ten minutes later, he grabbed the piece of paper before Chris could toss it and shoved it into his pocket. He was kicked off the couch a few minutes later, Chris complaining that his back hurt and if Lance fucking moved, he’d be able to lie down.

“Do you want a massage?” Lance asked, cracking his knuckles. It seemed polite to offer.

“I’m fine,” Chris muttered, curling around his stack of pillows, shoving one between his knees, but he didn’t look too fine. A few minutes later, he turned green, and Lance shoved the empty bucket from KFC in front of his face mere seconds before he started puking vigorously.

“Are you sure this is normal?” Lance asked, later, helping Chris into bed as Chris protested like an indignant child because it was too early. He tucked Chris in, shoving a plastic waste bin beside him. He felt an incredible urge to stroke Chris’s hair, but Lance resisted.

“None of this is normal,” Chris muttered, “but for the other guys, it was like this, too.”

“Okay,” Lance said, and stayed at Chris’s side until he finally fell asleep.

~~~

If the evidence didn’t point so clearly toward pregnancy, Lance would have wondered if Chris had joined a cult. The way Joey talked about Chris’s “other guys”, Lance had wild visions of satanic chants and virgin sacrifices. This image wasn’t helped when Lance made the mistake of asking for the detailed version of how Chris found them, and Chris actually told him.

“A fetish site, all right? Jesus,” Chris said, a chocolate birthday cake perched on his lap. Lance thought Chris would have eaten it with his bare hands if Lance hadn’t been so insistent on a fork. “There are guys in this world who actually get off on the idea of being pregnant, Bass.”

The story went something like this: Chris asked all the right questions (if there were right questions, Lance added mid-speech, because Lance didn’t seem to know any of them), so this guy in Dallas, where Chris happened to be recording with Ohno, suggested he and Chris meet up. Desperate, Chris went, and according to him, he just knew this guy was like him. The end.

“I shouldn’t even be telling you this,” Chris said, waving off any of Lance’s other questions, like how did Chris know and how many guys were there anyway, and all of Lance’s lectures, like didn’t Chris know how unsafe that was and what if they had wanted to exploit him.

But Lance shut up. Chris had obviously made up his mind about everything, and now Lance was waiting in the airport. Chris had just said, “you have to get my doctor, he’s coming in from Toronto via Calgary,” and Lance, who needed to learn to shut up, had replied, without even thinking about it, “is that in Ohio?” And Chris had snapped, “no, idiot. It’s in Canada. They hosted the winter Olympics in 1988, God, Bass,” and gone to lie down for a bit.

Lance wasn’t sure what he expected, but the man who walked up to him was in his mid-thirties, well-dressed right down to his perfectly trimmed beard and his manicured hands, and very extremely obviously gay. Lance had thought he was going to ask for an autograph.

“Hey, I’m Greg. I’m a friend of Chris’s,” and the way his voice hitched on friend, Lance knew he was the Canadian doctor from Calgary. (Though he later found out that Greg was really from some weird place called Medicine Hat, which Lance actually located in his atlas).

They drove for a while in silence. Lance didn’t know what to say besides, “hey, I’m the other dad, and you know what’s really funny? It didn’t even occur to me that most of the other child-bearing men out there would be gay. Boy, is my face red.” Plus, the whole thing just created more questions, which would inevitably frustrate Lance and piss off Chris even more.

“How’s he holding up?” Greg asked, finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“He says he’s fine,” Lance replied, marvelling at how well Chris had trained him.

Greg smiled. “But how is he really?”

JC and Justin had been asking Lance that every day for what felt like years. Justin phoned every morning and JC phoned every evening, and Lance hadn’t told them, hadn’t even told Joey, how Chris really was, but he found himself blathering to Greg until his chest ached deep inside.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said when he lost his breath and, thankfully, his ability to blather. “You don’t even know me, and here I am, making a damn fool of myself.” Lance hated that when he was emotional, his accent came back with a vengeance, like it was pissed that anyone would actually leave Mississippi and chose moments of weakness to make its feelings known.

“Don’t be,” Greg said. “It’s so much easier if Chris has someone watching out for him.”

Lance laughed abruptly, rubbing at his eyes, trying not to crash the car. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I think you’re entitled to feel overwhelmed. It’s a pretty surreal situation, eh?”

Surreal, Lance thought bitterly, didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of it.

~~~

As Greg set up the portable ultrasound equipment, Lance looked at the pictures of Greg’s son Andrew, and Chris complained how cruel it was to make a pregnant guy drink three glasses of water then expect him to hold it, because oh fuck, he was going to piss his pants, look out!

Technically, Greg had told Lance when Chris was out of the room, complaining that he couldn’t drink with two guys watching him and potentially making him laugh, Chris didn’t even need to drink that much water anymore. The baby was big enough that Greg could find it easily on the screen, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and Lance whole-heartedly agreed.

Just like Greg had surprised him, Andrew did, too. He looked so, well, so normal. Not like Lance had expected a tail or, like, glowing green eyes, but still. Trying not to be obvious, Lance fished one of Chris’s ultrasound pictures (that he had stolen) out of his pocket and stared.

“I swear to fucking God, Greg,” Chris shouted, legs tightly crossed, “I can’t hold it!”

“Then stop thinking about it,” Greg said without looking up.

Lance had looked up.

When everything was finally ready to go, Chris glanced sidelong at Lance and said, “hey, maybe you wanna, I don’t know, go sit in the kitchen.” Lance looked at him for a long, hard moment then shook his head. He wanted to see; he needed to see. He helped Chris onto the bed.

Lance had seen Chris naked so many times that he knew every mole on his hairy ass, but years of desensitisation had not prepared Lance for the enormous swell of Chris’s belly. Chris looked at him briefly then turned away, pulling his sweatshirt up higher as Greg spread the goo.

“If I pee all over you,” Chris said sagely, “I apologise in advance.”

Greg laughed. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Now shut up, will you? I’m working here.”

“And they say Canadians are nice.” Chris snorted. “Bull-fucking-shit, I say.”

Lance was nervous. His hands felt like they were mimicking Niagara Falls, and he rubbed them on his jeans, irritated by his own reaction. His eyes stayed on Chris’s belly, knowing he was staring and unable to stop himself. Chris hadn’t exactly been prancing around naked recently.

“Ah, there we go,” Greg suddenly said, but Lance couldn’t bring himself to turn his head.

“Is that a tail?” Chris asked, “that squiggly thing? Because if that’s a fucking tail--”

Greg laughed. “I promise it’s not a tail, Chris. It’s an arm. You see? It’s waving at us.”

Chris made a noise of disbelief in his throat then he and Greg shared a warm chuckle. The laser jet printer occasionally ran off a page, and the noise made Lance jittery. Lance took a deep breath then looked over to the screen, forcing his eyes to focus on the ultrasound image.

Lance put his hand over his mouth, which didn’t really matter, because there weren’t any words anyway. Nothing but the frantic beat of his own heart in his ears and Chris, far off, saying something dumb like, “hey, can you tell if this kid has cloven feet with this contraption?”

Lance’s personal rule about not crying in front of Chris went out the window. Suddenly, Lance was weeping, huge tears rolling dramatically down his cheeks. Chris’s voice softened with a, “Bass, man. Are you all right over there?” Lance nodded, because he was fine, really.

Chris struggled to sit up. “Give us a moment, man?”

Greg was already standing. “If you want to take that piss first, please do. I’m done here.”

“Thank God,” Chris said, and he turned to Lance, putting a hand on his arm, “and you don’t fucking go anywhere, okay? Sit there, and do not leave. And Jesus, Greg, a little help for the pregnant guy trying to get off this fucking bed. I’m about to pee my Goddamn pants, fucker.”

~~~

Lance had pretty much stopped crying by the time Chris came back, but Chris had told him to stay, so he did. While he was waiting, Lance had carefully picked up the newest stack of pictures. He could see the ghostly suggestion of a face and five fingers on that waving hand.

“Feeling better?” Chris asked, plopping down on the bed and dragging a towel over his belly.

Lance shrugged. His eyes were itchy, and he felt like he could sleep for a week.

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: being pregnant has made me all sensitive and shit. Instead of making fun of you, I’m going to sit here and feel bad that you’re traumatised.” Chris lifted an arm, and Lance slid under it, forgetting he and Chris didn’t do stuff like he and Joey did.

“I’m not traumatised,” Lance said quietly, leaning his head on Chris’s boney shoulder. He didn’t know what to do with his arm, but Chris solved the problem by hauling it across his belly. The baby was moving. Lance could feel the gentle ripples against his wrist. “It’s just. I don’t know. Our baby has fingers, and I don’t even really know how far along you are.”

“Twenty-eight weeks, and maybe twelve to go,” Chris said, “not that I’m counting or anything.”

Lance sniffled, trying not to laugh and get snot all over Chris’s hoodie.

Chris gently rocked them back and forth. “Greg will tell you, man, the first time I saw this thing on that screen? Bawled my fucking eyes out for, like, five hours. I’ve been all over the map, Bass, and it’s just better if I stay where I am in Zen-ville. Better for the kid, too.”

“Is the baby okay?” Lance asked. “I mean, it occurs to me, that having two dads is ...”

“Greg says everything looks fine. Two arms, two legs, one head and, thank God, no tail. I ain’t gonna lie to you, Bass, and tell you the kid’s perfect, because I don’t know, and there’s a bunch of tests I’m not gonna have, but you know what? I’m just putting my faith in God.”

Lance sniffled again, drying up the last of his ocean, for the time being anyway. It occurred to him, briefly, that he should sit up, but he didn’t get to feel the baby often. Chris didn’t really offer, and Lance was too chicken to ask. Chris’s grip on his shoulders was firm.

“She’s okay. She’s made it this far, and according to the guys, that’s incredible.”

Lance strained his eyes looking up. “I thought you said we didn’t know the sex.”

“Very true, but you implied boy, so now I’m determined to have a girl just to spite you.” Chris’s voice was light and teasing as he tugged on the hair at the nape of Lance’s neck. “I know the odds are against me, but I feel good about my decision. Girl,” he said firmly.

“Boy,” Lance replied, smiling.

Chris put on a terrible British accent. “Care to place a small wager, Mr. Bass?”

Lance, who had spent far too much time in Las Vegas in the past year, knew there was something intrinsically wrong about betting on your unborn child, but he also liked to gamble. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll put my money where my mouth is. What do you want if you’re right?”

“If I’m right, you pay for this kid’s education. If I’m wrong, I’ll pony up the money.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Lance murmured, but he thought about how much it cost now to put someone through school, then factored in stuff like inflation, and the long line of dollar signs started doing the can-can across his brain.

Lance grasped Chris’s out-stretched hand and shook.

~~~

Greg went back to Medicine Hat, though he’d be back in two weeks to check on Chris again, and Lance moved more of his stuff into Chris’s house. Joey and Kelly came over a couple times a week to hang out and, Lance thought, to give the illusion that everything was normal.

But Chris hadn’t left his house in three weeks, not since going to Joey’s, and he wouldn’t even consider going out into the backyard. Lance felt a little stir-crazy, and he actually left the house occasionally to buy groceries and rent movies and whatever else Chris demanded on whim. Lance also spent a lot of time mowing Chris's precious lawn.

Justin stopped by a couple times, usually bearing gifts. He generally flew in from Los Angeles and typically only stayed for half a day. JC never visited unexpectedly. He called frequently, but he didn’t just show up like Justin did, invading Lance’s space, being annoying.

“Justin,” Lance finally said. “I’m not going to fuck him over, all right?”

Justin rolled his eyes. It was just like that chicken and egg question: who mastered the art of the perfect eye-roll first, Chris or Justin? Justin punched Lance in the biceps. “Shit, Lance. I know that. You carry baby pictures in your back pocket, dude. I’m not an idiot, all right?”

“Then why do you keep showing up without calling first? I keep thinking it’s the government coming to take Chris away,” Lance admitted. Chris had filled his head with so much nonsense that Lance was convinced that he’d been tossed dick-first into some bizarre experiment.

“You really think Chris is gonna let me visit if I ask him first?”

“Point,” Lance conceded, hating that Justin was always right, even when he was wrong. Most times, Lance couldn’t tell the difference. Justin always sounded so sure of himself. “Though you have to stop buying gifts. You’re already spoiling him, and he’s not even born yet.”

“Him,” Justin repeated, smirking. “Nice, man. Should I start calling you daddy, too?”

“Fucking Joey,” Lance muttered, ignoring Justin’s delighted laughter. Justin grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him in for a one-armed hug. Lance sighed. “I don’t think I’m actually at the daddy stage yet. I’ve accepted Chris and I are having a baby, but I just can’t imagine being called that.”

“Shit, man, you’ll be fine. You’ve got a few months before your kid starts talking.”

My kid, Lance thought, feeling crazy again. “Hey, have I showed you the new pictures?”

Between Joey and Justin, Lance felt pretty convinced that he had at least a shot at being decent at fatherhood. Lance found himself calling up his own dad on nights when Chris wanted to be alone and Lance couldn’t sleep with all the fears and worries racing through his head.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Lance?” His dad asked in that quiet tone of his.

Alone in the dark, Lance flushed, embarrassed. “I just wanted to see how you were, dad.”

“All right,” his dad said, and changed the subject.

~~~

“Have you told your mom?” Lance asked over breakfast, painstakingly trying to make a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich just the way Chris liked it, which Lance had mistakenly thought was not at all. Lance wondered if it was genetically possible to pass on traits like that.

“Maybe if you added a slice of cake to it,” Chris said, “and no, I haven’t.”

Sometimes, Lance worried that eating all this cake was not healthy for Chris or the baby, but then he thought about denying Chris cake, and everything else seemed unimportant after that. He cut a thin piece from the butchered chocolate cake then laid it down between the bread slices.

“Why not?” Lance asked, dropping the concoction into the frying pan.

“Oh, I don’t know. Because she’s gonna fucking kill me maybe?”

Lance pushed the sandwich around with a spatula. “This could be hereditary, you know.”

“It’s not hereditary, Bass. It’s a mutation. I am a mutant,” Chris said slowly, like Lance was too dumb to get it. He got it, sure, but the finer details still eluded him. “Some guys shoot lasers out of their eyes. Others can move mountains with their minds. I can have a baby.”

“Comic books are not real life, Chris,” Lance said wearily.

“Whatever,” Chris replied, rolling his eyes, “and hey, could you cook a little faster? I’m fucking starving to death here, Bass. Jesus.”

~~~

Chris’s belly seemed to grow exponentially. Every day, it seemed bigger, and every day, Lance was surprised that yesterday hadn’t been that big after all. According to Chris (who was told by Greg, who was actually an obstetrician), their baby was actually smaller than the average.

“It doesn’t feel smaller,” Chris had muttered when Greg told them, and Lance had nodded in mute agreement, but Joey had confirmed Greg’s statement by bringing over a series of horribly unflattering pictures of Kelly, who had her middle finger up in every single one of them.

“But was Kelly in this much pain?”

Joey looked up quickly. “Is Chris in a lot of pain?”

“I think he is,” Lance said. The only proof he had was the way Chris’s usually secret-smiling mouth sometimes bent into a straight line, and how he sometimes closed his eyes for longer than a blink, and the way he sometimes walked so carefully as if he was moving over broken glass. “I mean, he hasn’t said so.”

Joey shrugged. “I dunno. You’d have to ask Kel, man. I missed a lot of her pregnancy, being on the road and all. I can tell you she complained a hell of a lot over the phone, but she seemed okay. To me, the whole thing sounded like torture, but Kel said I just didn’t understand.”

“I don’t understand,” Lance admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“We aren’t supposed to, dude. We’re men. Chris is totally fucking with the system.”

Lance mulled this over for a few days and finally just flat out asked, “does it hurt?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Chris replied without looking up from his Parenting magazine. There were issues strewn all over the house, replacing those tacky biker magazines Chris had always been so fond of, the ones with the women who lifted up their shirts at every opportunity.

“You’d tell me,” Lance said slowly, “if you were in a lot of pain, right?”

“Nope,” Chris licked his thumb then turned the page, “sorry.”

Lance sighed. “You can be such a fucking jerk, Kirkpatrick, you know that?”

“Yup,” Chris said, and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

~~~

“I am so sick of having to piss every fifteen minutes,” Chris said one night while they watched the news. Chris hadn’t even wanted to, but Lance made him. If Chris was going to insist on being ignored by the world, he wasn’t going to do the same thing back. “Pass me that plant?”

Lance shifted his eyes to the fern in the corner then shook his head. “No, Chris.”

“Then get me a pail, Bass, because I am not getting up again.”

Lance figured it had to be annoying having a baby growing inside a body that wasn’t built to hold it, but he drew the line at giving Chris his blessing to pee in the closest houseplant. On the other hand, Chris was just the type of guy to piss himself to make a point. “Okay, fine.”

Lance was bored, and he was having problems hiding it. There was only so much a guy could do in Chris’s house. Chris seemed content to play X-Box and Playstation all day, but Lance needed more, like fresh air and social activities. Hanging out with Joey and Kelly didn’t count.

“Then fucking go out,” Chris said when Lance finally said something about it, hoping to goad Chris into a midnight drive around Orlando. In the dark, Chris would just look fat. “There has to be a couple guys in Florida you haven’t fucked, and you’re still famous enough to do it.”

“I was just,” Lance started then stopped. The last thing Lance wanted to do was fight about how slutty he was. Lance had pretty much stopped fucking around the time they had slept together, but that wasn’t something he could tell him. It wasn’t something he could tell anyone.

“The kid’s room isn’t finished yet,” Chris finally said.

It sounded like a peace offering, so Lance took it. “Okay, I can do that, if you don’t mind.”

Chris smirked, smoothing his hand over his belly. “I obviously missed that window, man. Paint fumes aren’t supposed to be good for the kid, and I didn’t want to test my luck. Sure, she doesn’t have four arms now, but she still might grow an extra set if I’m not careful.”

Lance’s stomach turned nervously. “Sometimes, I really hate your sense of humour.”

“You and me both,” Chris said, and flipped the channel to Trading Spaces.

~~~

Lance’s mom was suspicious, and he didn’t blame her. He’d all but moved in with Chris, having told his parents to redirect his mail from his Mississippi house to Chris’s address. Adding to it was the fact that Lance had recently been bemoaning his lack of a boyfriend. He looked guilty.

“Honey,” she said, “your father and I think you’re not telling us something important.”

Lance bit his lip. “It’s nothing, really. Chris just needs some help with this, you know, this thing. It’s just good to have, um, you know, someone there to help him, and you know. I think maybe you guys should come over for dinner pretty soon, and bring Bev.”

Joey laughed when he found out. “Man, Chris is going to kill you. Worse than I’m gonna die after the baby is born. He’s still ticked I got you involved, but fuck it, you know? Dads have rights too, and the minute he made the decision to keep that baby was the minute you got them.”

“Please spare me your liberal theories,” Lance said, but it was nice to have his support.

“What are you guys talking about?” Chris asked, walking into the kitchen, moving so slowly. Chris, Lance noticed idly, moved just like Stacey had at nine months, which worried him mildly. There were still more than two months to go. Lance knew Chris’s due date by heart now.

“Joey joined the Green Party,” Lance said quickly, inwardly wincing, but Chris just raised an eyebrow then resumed his struggle to get into one of the bar chairs at his counter. When Joey reached to help him, Chris levelled a vicious glare in Joey’s general direction and hissed,

“If you fucking touch me, Fatone, I will rip your fucking arms off.”

“Whoa,” Joey said, holding his hands up, “I surrender, man. Just don’t hurt me.”

Chris finally got himself into the chair then stared at Lance, but he didn’t look like he wanted to kill this time. Lance glanced at the clock on the stove then sighed, moving toward the fridge. “Hey, Joey, are you staying for dinner? I’m just heating up leftovers, ham and potatoes.”

Joey shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Joey and Chris weren’t exactly on speaking terms, but they did manage to chat idly about an episode of General Hospital they’d mutually watched. Neither of them would admit it, Lance knew, but they hadn’t unintentionally stumbled upon the episode. They were both addicted.

Lance fried up the ham, and microwaved the potatoes, and tossed a simple garden salad. It wasn’t like Chris was going to keep any of it down, and Joey would eat a rancid eel if someone else was making it for him. Lance filled the plates then poured Chris a tall glass of skim milk.

Chris cleared his throat when Lance set his plate down, and Lance sighed again. He plucked the plastic lid from the latest chocolate cake and cut Chris a narrow slice, balancing the piece on the knife before dropping it onto Chris’s pile of ham. Joey looked at him expectantly.

“Oh good lord,” Lance said but cut Joey a slice, too.

~~~

Lance made secret plans for his parents to fly into Orlando in two weeks. Lance bitterly regretted that Chris’s birthday was in October, and that throwing his own surprise birthday party was so very pathetic, because he had no good excuse. They bought that it was a surprise, but it took some wheeling and dealing, and heavy implications of Chris and Lance’s burgeoning love.

In the meanwhile, Lance divided his time between being Chris’s willing manservant, making a couple public appearances (skydiving in California and public-speaking in Michigan, two of the things he’d been unwilling to give up, which Joey had called him a nerd about) and, also, decorating the Baby Room. Lance thought about it in capital letters. It made it more ominous, more immediate, but the problem with coming into money at the same time he had come into his own place was that Lance didn’t know the first thing about home decor. He’d always hired designers.

Chris vetoed Lance’s Dr. Seuss theme, and Lance retaliated by putting his foot down about Chris’s suggestion that the room be done as a shrine to the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the end, Lance bought some gender neutral colours, purple and yellow, and went for stupidly simple.

The Baby Room. One day, there would be an actual baby sleeping in the Baby Room, his baby, Chris’s baby. Lance spent an hour standing in the middle of the empty white room, scared shitless. Eventually, he forced his knees to bend. Crouching, he opened a can of pale purple paint.

It was well after midnight by the time he poured the first of the paint into the plastic container, carefully wetting the roller. He had the windows open to force the fumes out, but it let the stifling heat in, too. Lance pulled off his shirt then, on second thought, took off his khakis.

Lance started painting around one o’clock, first lining the edges of the wall with a paintbrush then moving onto the roller. He sang under his breath, trying to remember the real lyrics, failing miserably. He spent a good hour imagining what the baby would actually look like, the colour of his eyes, the slope of his tiny nose, the colour of his hair, if he’d even have hair.

“Looks good, Bass,” Chris said from the doorway, “and hey, nice outfit.”

“Shut up,” Lance said, smiling. So far he’d done exactly one wall; it’d take him three hours. There was paint everywhere, blobs of it on Lance’s shoulders and chest, puddles on the newspapers he’d laid down to protect the carpet. It was amazing any had ended up on the walls.

“Come here,” Chris quietly said, and Lance stepped forward, wiping his hands on the seat of his briefs. When Lance was within grabbing distance, Chris took his hands and shoved them under his hoodie, holding them against the ripples. Goosebumps streaked down Lance’s spine.

“Do you like the purple?” Lance asked stupidly.

“You’ve done your research, Bass. Nine out of ten teenaged girls would agree it’s my favourite colour,” Chris replied, grinning. Under his hands, the baby was still moving up a storm, and Lance gently wobbled his fingers against Chris’s firm belly. “Don’t tap the fish tank, man.”

“Sorry,” Lance said quickly, but then Chris smirked, and Lance added, “fucker.”

“Tsk, tsk. The language, Bass. This kid can already hear shit, you know?”

“Asshole,” Lance said, but he was laughing.

~~~

The plan, once the walls were done, was to stencil yellow musical notes, bordering the room three feet from the carpet. Lance had even read a quick how-to sheet on stencilling and felt pretty confident he could pull it off and felt even better that it would look good.

Stencilling was precise work, involving huge levels of concentration and determination, which was why Lance lost track of time until Chris burst into the room and pushed him over. Lance felt lucky. Had Chris been anything other than pregnant, there would have been punches.

“You wanna tell me, Bass,” he said through gritted teeth, hovering over Lance like a grim angel of death, “why your parents are in my driveway?” When Lance tried to stand up, Chris knocked him over again, sending Lance into one of the bowls of vinegar he had lying around.

“Are they alone?”

“No, actually. Call me crazy, but I could’ve sworn my mom was in the backseat.”

“Crazy,” Lance muttered, rolling away from Chris and pushing to his feet. Lance glanced at his watch. It was hours later than he had thought it was. He ducked around Chris, jogging down the hall to his room, then pulled on the nearest, cleanest clothes. Chris followed him in.

“What I would like to know,” Chris said, “is why nobody gives a shit about what I want.”

Lance’s belly clenched guiltily. “They need to know, Chris,” he said, quietly.

“Bullshit. Nobody but me, and Greg, and Bobby needs to know ...”

Lance looked up sharply. “Who the hell is Bobby?”

“The guy from Dallas,” Chris said idly, his face softening for a second before the angles sharpened again and he pointed an accusing finger in Lance’s direction, “but who the fuck cares who he is? Notice whose name I didn’t say, Lance. Did you notice that, Lance? Huh, Lance?”

“You told Joey,” Lance said defensively. Joey, who wasn’t even the father.

“No, actually, I didn’t. I told Kelly, and Joey just happened to walk in while I was doing it.” Chris took a series of deep, harsh breaths, and Lance stepped forward, grabbing him by the elbow and making him sit down on the bed. Chris buried his face in his hands. “I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

Chris glanced sidelong at Lance, his fingers still partially obscuring his face. “You’ve been good about everything, Bass, better than I expected, but it doesn’t change the fact I’m a freak show. I mean, what the hell is this?” Chris gestured at his belly. “What if it’s not even a kid?”

Lance frowned. “But you said ... Greg said ...”

“Guys don’t have babies, Lance. I mean, it looks like a kid, but maybe C is right. Maybe one night some freaky demon thing decided I was the perfect vessel for its evil spawn.” Every word out of Chris’s mouth sounded preposterous, but Lance couldn’t deny the underlying point.

“What’s so bad about expecting the best?”

“Because my life has always been about the worst.” Chris looked, Lance noticed suddenly, exhausted, and not just in body. Lance lifted his hand and gently rubbed his knuckles against Chris’s stubbly cheek. Eventually, Chris sighed deeply. “And my mom’s gonna kill me.”

Lance smiled. “I’m pretty sure we’re in the same boat there, Chris.”

“I guess I’m just scared, you know?” Chris sighed again, rubbing under his eyes with his fingers. “Fuck, I’ve turned into a wimp, man. I’m sorry.”

“I’m scared shitless on the best of days,” Lance admitted. “It’ll all be fine, Chris. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Chris said, and sat there, quiet, as Lance finished getting dressed.

~~~

Lance came downstairs to find his parents and Chris’s mom sitting on the porch, chatting idly. They all stopped talking when Lance stepped out of the door and turned to look at him. Probably planning the wedding, Lance thought wryly. They were going to be sorely disappointed.

“Chris and I have something important to tell you,” Lance said, waving them all inside. He kissed his mom as she came in, then pressed another one to Bev’s cheek. His dad gave him a brief one-armed hug, and Lance was grateful. Being squeezed when you felt nauseous wasn’t the best thing.

After shouting up the stairs for Chris to come down and say hello, Lance ushered them all into the living room and politely offered drinks, recommending alcohol. At Chris’s 70's-porno bar-like monstrosity, Lance mixed up gin and tonics for the parents, and straight gin for himself.

“Honey,” his mom said, accepting a glass, “you could have just told us over the phone.”

“I think this is definitely one of those in-person situations,” Lance replied, sitting down in one of Chris’s recliners. Chris’s house was all about the overly comfortable seating. Impatiently, Lance glanced at the stairs, but he couldn’t even hear Chris moving around. He was a wimp.

On the mantle, Chris’s clock, which was shaped like a football, ticked loudly.

Lance twiddled his thumbs.

“I was thinking about ordering in Chinese food for dinner,” Lance said, finally. His parents nodded slowly, but Bev didn’t seem to be paying any sort of attention to him. She was looking around the room, mouth drawn into the same puzzled straight line Chris often wore.

Another minute, and Lance was going to physically carry Chris down into the living room, he heard the familiar creak of the third step from the top and relaxed. Slowly, with one white-knuckled hand curved around the rail, Chris made his way down.

The parents were lined up on the couch, so Chris collapsed into the other recliner, sinking into the deep cushions. “Lance and I are having a baby,” Chris said without any of the preamble Lance would have wasted on explanations and motivations. “The kid’s due in July.”

“Well,” his mom said, “this is sudden, but we’re happy for you, aren’t we, Jim?”

His dad nodded. “Congratulations.”

“Stand up,” Bev said quietly, and Lance looked over at Chris, who exhaled sharply then stood, his hands on his hips. He looked, Lance thought, extremely pregnant. Bev evidently agreed. Lance’s parents, God bless them, seemed to get it too, but looked a lot more surprised.

“I think I’m going to faint,” his mom said, and then she did.

~~~

They took it a lot better than Lance expected, even if it took a few minutes for his mom to wake up. Chris and Bev disappeared upstairs, which left Lance to deal with his own parents. He watched as his dad got a glass of water for his mom and then lovingly stuck a pillow under her head.

“So,” his dad said, finally, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Surprise,” Lance replied, holding out his hands. He couldn’t expression on his father’s face, which made him nervous. “I know you probably didn’t expect this. I have to admit that neither did I, but sometimes God works in mysterious ways, and I’m happy about this baby.”

“I don’t doubt that, Lance.”

Lance nodded, scratching over the back of his neck. He could barely meet his dad’s eyes.

“The ... conception ... it happened in the .... usual way?”

“Yes,” Lance said awkwardly, shifting his eyes to his hands. This was so much worse than Lance’s coming out speech, which had, until this very moment, been the longest and most uncomfortable conversation of Lance’s life. He didn’t want to tell his parents about the towels.

“You and Chris aren’t ... seeing each other, are you?”

“No,” Lance said slowly, “we’re not,” but Lance did have the sudden urge to marry him.

“So the condom ... broke?”

This was absolutely mortifying, only slightly less scarring than the time his mom had walked in on him with an actual dick in his mouth, which was dumb. It wasn’t like Lance had pictures of him and Chris doing it on the beach, though there was a chance that someone else did.

“We didn’t use a condom,” Lance said quietly, and his mom, who had been lying rather still with a damp cloth over her forehead, looked over at him. “I swear, I always have before. It was just Chris and just one time. I learned my lesson, and I will never have sex again, I promise.”

His mom raised an eyebrow. “That’s an awfully loaded promise, honey.”

“I mean it,” Lance insisted.

His dad smiled behind his hand.

~~~

Dinner was marginally better, except Chris ate chocolate cake with his chicken balls, which led to way too much discussion of pregnancy for Lance’s tastes. Lance was a good guy, but he abandoned Chris to the mothers, who were enthusiastically discussing the finer (and in Lance’s opinion, grosser) details, and went outside for a drink with his dad.

“Look,” Lance said, fishing a wrinkled ultrasound picture out of his back pocket.

His dad reached for it. “Is this my first grandson?”

“I hope so,” Lance replied. He sat back in the chair, bringing the glass of whiskey to his lips, swishing the ice around. “Chris wants to believe it’s a girl. I think the odds are in favour of a boy, but we don’t know for sure. The situation is very complicated. We can’t tell Stacey.”

“Mom and I thought that might the case. We won’t tell a soul without your blessing.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Lance had a million things he wanted to ask his dad, questions about being a dad, but he couldn’t find the words he wanted, so he just sat back and drank. Through the front window, Lance could see Chris on the couch between Bev and his mom, cheeks puffed up and eyes wide. When he caught Lance peeping, Chris tilted his head and tried to communicate with a series of frantic blinks.

“Dad, I’m going to head back inside,” Lance said. “Chris looks like he needs a rescue.”

His dad smiled. “You go do that. Lord knows no man should have to listen to the things I’m sure he’s hearing.” He held up the ultrasound picture, and the edges fluttered gently in the warm wind. “I think I’m going to sit out here a little longer and get to know my new grandson.”

“You can keep that one. I have, like, a million, at least. Probably closer to two.”

His dad laughed. “Thank you, Lance.”

Inside, Chris looked green, which meant only one thing. Lance inserted himself between the grandmothers-to-be, hauled Chris to his feet and pushed him into the bathroom with mere seconds to spare. Chris really needed to eat more attractive food. It looked horrible coming up.

“If you ever leave me alone like that again,” Chris said between dry-heaves, “I am going to rip off your balls, Bass.” Chris’s fingers tightened on the toilet bowl, and his head disappeared again. Lance felt his own stomach turn in sympathy. Chris spit. “Seriously, man, fucking disgusting.”

“I believe you,” Lance insisted.

“Yeah, I can see that you do, fucker,” Chris said, and promptly started puking again.

~~~

Lance tucked Chris into bed, even when Chris slapped at him, annoyed. He felt bad, a little, about being the cause of everything uncomfortable in Chris’s life, from the forced parental meeting to Chris’s unending nausea. It wasn’t like Lance intended any of it. It just happened.

“I’m sorry, about everything I’ve ever done to you that you haven’t liked.”

Chris had snorted. “Okay, great. Now can you stop fucking fussing already? Go away.”

“I’m serious,” Lance insisted, fiddling with Chris’s blankets, still perched on the edge of the bed, even knowing that Chris could shove him off at any time. “I just wanted my parents to know. They were so happy when Stacey and Ford had Leighton, and then me, well, you know.”

Chris sighed then nodded. “And then you were gay, and pretty much written off.”

“Something like that,” Lance muttered. “And your mom needed to know.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “So you keep telling me.”

Over dinner, Lance had noticed a strange undercurrent passing between Chris and Bev that wasn’t quite anger, but wasn’t entirely not anger either. Chris had a different vibe with his mom than Lance had with his own, and Lance had always been a little envious of it. Lance’s mom was his mom. She’d been thirty when she had Lance, an adult. Chris and Bev were much closer in age.

“What did you and your mom talk about?” Lance asked suddenly before he was able to stop himself. He was beginning to think he had serious control problems. And that he was nosy. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but if you want to, you can, because you know, I’m sorry ...”

Chris poked him in the thigh, and Lance snapped his teeth together. Enough time passed that Lance accepted he wasn’t getting an answer, but then Chris said, “when my mom was pregnant with Taylor, she didn’t tell me until she was almost six months pregnant. Ironic, huh?”

Lance nodded.

Chris rubbed an idle hand over his belly, keeping his eyes on Lance as he spoke. “Me and my mom, we don’t fight much. I mean, we did when I was a kid, but I was a terrible kid, Bass. Like, I-should-have-been-on-Ritalin horrible, and even then, most of the time, we still didn’t fight. She’d let me run around like a freak, and that usually worked. And I grew up fast.”

Lance couldn’t imagine Chris as a kid. He’d tried to picture him, numerous times, but it was impossible. Chris acted younger than Justin, but Lance had always been profoundly aware that Chris had lived a life before Nsync, a life that Lance couldn’t understand, and never would.

“But man, when she told me she was pregnant again, I flipped out on her.” Chris dropped his head then, though his fingers still danced on his stomach. “I called her a slut and shit, stuff you should never say to your mom, but you have to understand there was four of us already, and we didn’t have enough to eat, and I was going off to school and wouldn’t be able to help, and that fucking sperm donor had left months earlier, full well knowing that was his kid, you know?”

Lance nodded again. Chris didn’t talk about this stuff very often, if ever.

“I told her to get an abortion,” Chris said blandly. “Six months pregnant, and I told my mom to get an abortion. She didn’t, obviously, but I was just so angry. It was too late by then anyway, which was totally why she waited on telling me, but I couldn’t understand why she kept doing it to herself, kept having all these kids she couldn’t afford. We were so fucking poor.”

Lance bit his lip. “Did you ever, I mean, did you ever consider it?”

Chris looked at him. “That’s the kicker right there. So I find myself pregnant, and I know that the best thing for me is to have an abortion, and I did consider it for, like, ten seconds, but I couldn’t do it. I just, I wanted this baby so fucking bad that nothing else mattered, and then I finally understood.” Chris shrugged. “So that’s what we talked about. She’s not mad at me.”

Lance put his hand on Chris’s wrist. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome. Now fuck off and let me sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Lance agreed, but he lingered until he was sure Chris was asleep.

~~~

A few days after the parents left, JC and Justin showed up for Lance’s birthday, armed with presents. All of them were for the baby; Lance only got a lousy card. Lance sighed and put the gifts away before Chris could see them. Chris had practically banned Bev and Lance’s parents from buying even a “congratulations on your freaky conception” card before their kid was born.

“Dude,” JC hissed in Lance’s ear after Chris and Justin disappeared to play X-Box. Lance tried, but his hand-eye coordination was lousy on the best of days, and he wasn’t what anyone, especially Chris, would call competition. “Look at the size of him. Wow. He’s really pregnant.”

“Duh,” Lance replied, laughing, “but C, do me a favour and don’t mention that to him?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t. It’s just, wow. I mean, man, I knew he was, but just ... wow, dude.”

For the rest of the evening, JC kept looking at Chris and mouthing “wow” until Joey, who had shown up late but had at least come bearing gifts for Lance, folded one hand over JC’s flapping lips and used the other to pants him. Everything was made better by JC’s thong.

“These jeans chafe the goods,” JC said defensively, “and they’re way too tight, man.”

It was nice, Lance thought, having all five of them together, just sitting around and chatting. It was even better for Chris, who laughed and teased and was generally a jerk to everyone, just how they liked him best.

“What’s it feel like?” Justin asked quietly, squished on the couch between JC and Lance, and Lance socked him hard on the thigh. “Fuck off,” Justin added, punching Lance back, “I’m just asking, you know. He doesn’t have to say. The fucker’s refused to answer less than that.”

Lance looked over at Chris, who had his legs looped over the armrest of the recliner, his torso twisted in what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable position. He didn’t look amused, but he didn’t seem pissed either. JC and Joey both looked eager, like they wanted to know, too.

“It feels like indigestion,” Chris said finally, “except, like, I ate a rancid elephant head or something, like, something really big, that isn’t settling at all, ever. It just kinda, turns over and over, even when all I wanna do is fucking sleep, and it makes me really fucking nauseous all the Goddamn time, and gives me heartburn, and makes me have to piss, like, every fifteen minutes.”

“Uh,” Justin said, looking around help, but Lance wasn’t getting him out of this mess. It wasn’t his fault no one ever listened to him when he warned them not to say stuff to Chris. Sure, most of the time Chris told you to fuck off, but there was always the threat of truth to consider.

“It sounds worse than it is,” Chris muttered. “It’s all right. You fuckers couldn’t do it.”

“And thank fucking God for that,” Joey said, laughing, and they all tumbled in behind him, stupidly hysterical. Lance caught Chris’s eye, and Chris smirked, mouthing “idiots” and Lance nodded because, yeah, they definitely were, which was just fine by him.

~~~

After another hour of lounging around, shooting the shit about famous people they mutually hated, Chris and Justin disappeared upstairs after a whispered conversation. It was late, and Lance was uncharacteristically exhausted. Even the sugar from his slice of word-free cake didn’t help.

“Man,” JC said, “this whole thing still blows my mind. It’s so unexpected, you know?”

Lance hummed a little in agreement, lolling his head back on the couch. He could feel sock-covered toes climbing up his left leg, and knew it was Joey being an idiot. Lance shifted a little, idly kicking Joey away, and using JC as his support. JC’s arm slipped across his shoulders.

Joey chuckled. “Shit like this happens all the time, C, or so Chris’s internet dudes say.”

“Hey, maybe it does, but that’s not what I mean. Just that, dude, on the scale of who was more likely to knock someone up, Lance was pretty much last on my list, being gay and all.” JC knuckled Lance’s scalp affectionately. “I had my money down on me. Like, condoms do break.”

“Well, it helps if you use them at all,” Joey replied, and Lance opened his eyes to glare.

“Dude,” JC said reproachfully, and pinched Lance’s right nipple really, really hard.

“Oh my God!” Lance shouted, from asleep to awake in half a second, waving his arms psychotically in the air. “Okay! I’m an asshole! Just in case there’s anyone left in the world who doesn’t know: CHRIS AND I DIDN’T USE A FUCKING CONDOM!” From upstairs, Lance heard a faint, “what the fuck, Chris,” and he covered his face. “It was a mistake, and I’m sorry.”

“Oh, dude,” Joey said, climbing onto the couch with them. “It’s not the end of the world. I mean, you didn’t kill anybody. You kinda did the opposite, and that’s cool, too. Right, C?”

“Yeah,” JC said. “And it was Chris. There’s gotta be exceptions for us.”

Joey nodded quickly. “Right. I’d totally fuck C bareback.”

“And I’d totally let him,” JC said helpfully. “Or I could fuck Joey.”

“You sure could,” Joey agreed.

“I’m never having sex again,” Lance muttered. Again, he was reminded that his friends were complete idiots.

“You just feel like that now,” Joey said comfortingly. JC nodded against Lance’s neck. “But you’ll be back on the horse in no time, dude. Hey, why don’t you, me and C go out and pick up a really hot guy with a huge dick for you? Hot guys with huge dicks make everything better.”

Lance shook his head. “I can’t. It’d be too,” but there were no words. “I just can’t, guys.”

“Okay,” Joey said, and JC nodded again. “When you’re ready, though, just call us.”

But Lance thought he’d never be ready again, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

~~~

JC and Justin left to live in the real world, and Lance learned another thing a few days later: it was easy to forget how abnormal the situation really was. Too easy. On the morning of Greg’s bi-weekly visit, Lance woke up and quickly got dressed. When he stumbled downstairs, Chris wasn’t on the couch like he normally was. Lance checked Chris’s bedroom and found him in the centre of the bed, curled around a stack of pillows, another shoved between his knees.

“Are you okay?” Lance asked, putting the back of his hand against Chris’s forehead.

“Yeah,” Chris murmured, his eyes flickering open, “just don’t feel like getting up today.”

“You look awful, Chris,” Lance said honestly.

“Thanks, Bass. You’re pretty fucking ugly yourself,” Chris replied, tugging a third pillow over his face. He didn’t, as far as Lance could tell, have a fever. When Chris spoke again, his voice was muffled, and Lance had to strain to hear him. “Go pick up Greg. I’ll be fine, Lance.”

It wasn’t that Lance didn’t believe him, it was that, well, it probably was that Lance didn’t believe him. He called up Joey, and begged him to come over, and pretend like he wasn’t there. “No problem,” Joey said, and showed up on the stoop ten minutes later with two porn DVDs.

“Not getting enough at home?” Lance asked, smirking, and Joey grinned back at him.

“Scared of getting any at home. Kel’s talking about another baby, and it’s all your fault.”

Lance laughed, but there wasn’t enough time to trade witty banter and snide remarks. He hopped in his car and drove like a maniac to the airport. He was beginning to miss the days of chauffeurs, but he was on a top-secret mission, and a car service would only arouse suspicion.

Lance had only met Greg that one time, but he felt like he’d known the guy all his life. It was strange to trust someone so quickly after years of being wary, but Lance supposed the whole male-pregnancy thing really helped two guys bond like superglue. They hugged a warm hello.

“So tell me everything that’s been going on with Chris,” Greg said in the car, “everything you know it would piss Chris off to know I know. That probably means it’s important, eh.”

Lance smiled weakly. He hated having to rat Chris out, but on the other hand, he knew Chris way too well. “He’s still puking an awful lot. And this morning, he just kind of ... looked like shit, and he’s spending a lot of time in bed, but he’s not sleeping. He just ... doesn’t move.”

“Okay,” Greg said, but that was the end of it for the time being, and Lance was relieved. He didn’t like to voice his worries. It made them real, and the last thing anybody needed in this situation was a healthy dose of sobering reality.

~~~

Lance and Greg stopped for a quick bite to eat. Lance didn’t stock much more than chocolate cake these days. There was some date-of-origin-questionable Chinese food in the fridge, a couple brown bananas on the counter, and a few tv dinners in the freezer, but all of that made Lance look like a lazy bastard who couldn’t get out to the store more than once a week.

When they got back to Chris’s place, Chris and Joey were on the couch, playing Halo. Chris glanced at Lance briefly, looking wholly unamused, but Chris was like that. Thought he could handle the whole fucking world without help. Well, Lance wasn’t having any of it, thanks.

“Imagine my surprise this afternoon,” Chris said slowly as Lance walked behind him, heading to the kitchen. He thought he had a few bottles of water in the fridge, too. “I mean, it’s not every day I walk downstairs to find fucking Joey Fatone masturbating in my living room.”

“If someone hadn’t put my fiancee on the prowl for my sperm, I wouldn’t have to do it here,” Joey replied in a light sing-song voice. It said a lot that Lance’s first instinct wasn’t to cover Greg’s ears but was, instead, to Febreeze the couch. “‘Sides, you interrupted me, dude.”

“There is a God,” Chris muttered, but he didn’t sound that pissed off, not really.

Lance got the bottles of water, and kicked Joey and his porn out of the house, and made sure to give Chris the recommended amount of liquid for a successful ultrasound. Chris looked like he’d kick Lance in the balls if he got close enough, so Lance just tossed him the water.

“So Chris,” Greg said, in a complete doctor-voice, “how are you feeling?”

Chris drained the bottle then narrowed his eyes. “This is a trick question, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Greg replied, sitting forward on the couch, his hands clasped on his knees. Lance wished he had the balls to get that close to Chris. Chris had that cornered-animal look on his face he sometimes got when he was scared. “I don’t know how much Lance knows about ...”

“I can leave,” Lance said at the same time Chris said, “I trust him with my life, Greg, so just say whatever you’re going to,” and that was wholly unexpected, because Chris had practically fought Lance at every step of the way. Still, Lance wasn’t chickening out now.

“I’m worried about the vomiting, Chris. It’s too much.”

Lance felt both vindicated and terrified at the same time. He put a hand over his mouth.

“And I’m worried that you’re pushing yourself too far. You’re not going to do any good to yourself or this baby if I have to deliver you now. It’s just too soon,” Greg said quietly, and Lance’s mind raced to keep up.

“I don’t want to spend the next two months in bed,” Chris said, keeping his eyes down.

“Quite frankly, Chris, you don’t have a choice here. You’ve done really well. Be proud of it.”

Lance thought he was maybe going to puke.

“Okay, fine,” Chris said blandly, but there was no hesitation either, and Lance picked that moment to actually vomit all over himself, because it made complete and total sense to do so.

~~~

“Classy, Bass. Way to impress our guest,” Chris said, later, when Lance came down in clean clothes, and Greg had cleaned up the mess. “You wanna go upstairs? Greg tells me he still has shit to say, and I kinda like my carpet clean. I didn’t know you were so delicate.”

“Fuck off,” Lance said, but he felt better with Chris ribbing him like he was a moron.

“We need to discuss delivery options,” Greg said after Lance had settled, nursing another ice-cold bottle of water, thinking he should have found some Pepto Bismal. “I know you want to have a caesarean, and I am one-hundred percent behind that, but in case I can’t make it in time ...”

“No, we agreed, man. You are cutting this devil spawn out of me.”

“Yes, but if I can’t ...”

“There is no can’t,” Chris said. “You are taking a knife and carving me up like a turkey.”

Lance’s stomach burbled loudly, and he was feeling clammy and nauseous again.

“If you have to, let me repeat, absolutely have to deliver naturally ...”

“Not listening,” Chris said, and clamped his hands over his ears, starting to sing Space Cowboy as loudly as he could, and it was pretty fucking loud indeed. If Lance was Chris, he would have done the same thing, but unfortunately, Lance was Lance, so he stupidly asked,

“What do you mean?”

Lance knew the moment Greg picked up the pencil Chris used for crosswords that he was doomed. Greg’s mouth moved non-stop as his pencil sketched freakish visions, and Lance knew he should listen and learn stuff, but the roar of blood through Lance’s ears was deafening. His ass clenched and unclenched uncontrollably as Lance thought about delivering ... no, no, no.

“Hey, jerk, that picture is inaccurate,” Lance heard Chris say softly, which mean he must have shouted it indignantly. Lance thought he was going to pass out, thinking about delivering, like that, like pushing a ... Lance clamped his hands over his eyes, and shook his head weakly.

“Lance, Lance,” Greg said, and it sounded close up, like he was yelling in Lane’s ear, and when Lance removed his hand, Greg’s fingers were up in his face, snapping. Chris was furiously making additions to the diagrams, scrawling away with his mostly-flat pencil.

“I’m okay,” Lance said stupidly, rapidly swallowing the bile in his throat. “It’s just ... that baby barely got in there,” at which Chris chirped, “I told him that! I told him about the epic battle between my ass and your dick!” Lance concluded with a quiet, “I just don’t think it’s possible.”

“It is,” Greg said, snatching the picture away from Chris’s manic sketching and slapping it down on the table. “I delivered naturally. It’s slow, and it can be painful, but Chris’s body will get this baby out the only way it knows how if it has to. I do have every intention of being here.”

“You better,” Chris muttered, rubbing at his swollen belly, chewing on the pencil.

Lance looked down at the picture:

Another addition to the freak-gallery, Lance thought morosely, and folded it up.

~~~

Greg stayed for dinner because his flight didn’t leave until after nine. Lance ordered in a pizza for him and Greg, and gave the last of the cake to Chris, making a mental note to get more very soon. Lance thought things were going well until Greg said, “have you thought anymore about breast-feeding,” and Lance choked a mess of pepperoni and cheese out of his nose.

“Uh,” Chris said, halfway through a massive bite of cake, “dunno?”

“Is it .... possible for him to ... breastfeed?” And somehow, Lance had turned into his dad, which was fine. In fact, it was the only comforting thought in Lance's head. Lance loved his dad, and his dad was the type of guy who stayed cool, took everything in stride, and never, ever freaked out.

Greg started talking at length about all the things that were possible, and Lance shared a long-suffering look with Chris, who had his arms crossed over his chest and his hands on the area Lance assumed were the man-boobs in question. Man-boobs that could feed a baby if they wanted to. Wow.

“You know,” Chris said suddenly, “I’m thinking we’re just gonna stick with formula.”

Greg smiled. “Okay, but if you change your mind ...”

Chris shook his head. “File this along with the anal-delivery option, will you? I won’t.”

Dinner was long, even though Greg filled the silence with mostly one-sided conversation. It was good for Lance to hear what he had to say, though. Like, he’d been a podiatrist, a foot guy, before Andrew was born, and had gone back to school to learn obstetrics.

Lance looked up from his slice of pizza. “How many are there, do you know?”

“Not many,” Greg admitted. “It happens maybe once or twice a year, in all sorts of places worldwide, and there are straight guys walking around who will never know they can bear children, because straight guys, typically, don’t find themselves having anal sex as often, if ever.”

“Huh,” Lance said, and nibbled lightly at his crust. “How old, usually?”

“Usually very early twenties, but it varies. It depends a lot on luck and safer sex practices and whatnot. We’re not always fertile, and the chances of a guy miscarrying in the first few weeks are pretty high, and I’m sure Chris has told you this is a one-off thing. The younger the guy, the better his chances are. Chris is one of the few guys I’ve seen do this in his thirties.”

“And is that okay?” Lance asked meekly, taking a swift foot in the shin for saying it.

“So far, so good,” Greg replied. Chris rolled his eyes, but Lance was sure he saw Chris’s mouth twitch with what looked like pride. Twisted fucker, Lance thought, and mirrored his smile.

~~~

Greg left, and Lance collapsed into bed and slept for fourteen hours. When he woke up, it was four in the afternoon, and he immediately sprung to his feet, tugging on a pair of jeans. Chris had probably starved to death! But Chris was reading when Lance burst into his room, glasses hanging off his nose, headphones wrapped around his waist with a copy of Justified on the bed.

Lance was out of breath when he asked, “Can I get you something to eat?”

Chris looked up casually from his book, but there was nothing casual about the glint in his eyes. Sometimes, this manservant gig seemed like one big mind-fuck. “So nice of you to ask, Bass, as my insides have started to eat each other in an attempt to keep me functioning.”

“Twenty minutes,” Lance said seriously, and took the stairs two at a time. He had forgotten a shirt, so he borrowed one of Chris’s leather jackets. The sun was bright and angry on the drive over, and the traffic was hideously insane. The supermarket loomed in the distance.

Lance escaped with two cakes, and only had to give fourteen autographs in to get them. Lance didn’t feel much like a famous popstar these days. He felt like a nervous dad-to-be, who worried too much about proper nutrition (which Chris wasn’t getting, thanks to the surplus of cake) and who freaked out at weird moments, like being asked to sign a pregnant woman’s belly.

“What’s wrong?” Chris asked when Lance stumbled in, barely holding onto the plate.

“We’re having a baby,” Lance said weakly. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed.

“No kidding,” Chris said, wiggling his fingers until Lance passed over the cake, digging in the moment he got his hands on the fork. “Well, just don’t think about it. I find that helps a lot, and it works until fucking Greg starts talking about shooting babies out your ass and then whoa.”

Lance snorted.

“I really hope this baby doesn’t shoot out of my ass,” Chris said thoughtfully.

“Then stop talking about it,” Lance begged.

Chris shrugged. “Okay.” Chris sucked the fork between his lips, nabbing every last trace of icing, then ran the flat of his tongue over the plate. “This is some Grade A cake, Bass. You’ve totally outdone yourself. You got it from that place by the video store with the good porn, right?”

“Yeah,” Lance muttered, rubbing his fingers over his face, “but I shouldn’t be enabling you. Cake isn’t good for you or the baby, Chris. There’s nothing nutritious in chocolate cake.”

“Bass,” Chris said slowly, “are you trying to tell me I can’t have my cake and eat it, too?”

Lance nearly broke his neck turning to look at Chris, and Chris’s face was so utterly unamused, so completely wry, that Lance couldn’t even hold the laughter in. “Oh my God, Chris!” Lance howled. “Tell me this whole thing hasn’t been some set up for a very lame joke!”

Chris rolled his eyes. “I wish. No. I eat cake because if I don’t eat cake, I feel like I could murder adorable puppies with my bare hands. I don’t even think I like cake anymore, but man, you have no idea how bad I want it, like, all the fucking time. I yearn for cake, man.”

“You’re going to be six hundred pounds by the time this baby shoots out of your ass.” Despite this threat, Lance knew the cake was here to stay. Chris couldn’t keep anything else down, and Greg had told him, privately, to continue with the diet, just to get something into Chris.

“Pfft,” Chris said, spitting all over the bedspread. “I’ve lost, like, twenty pounds.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Lance asked, his laughter fizzling out.

“Sorry,” Chris said, and poked Lance gently in the back with his foot.

~~~

He expected Chris to be climbing the walls after a week of bed rest, but he seemed okay. That was pretty weird, coming from the guy who still asked, “are we there yet?” whenever they were on the road, despite knowing perfectly well they weren’t there and wouldn’t be for a while.

Lance took daily calls from Bev and his mom, checking up on Chris and the “new puppy.” None of them every said the p-word, never even mentioned a baby, and Lance didn’t exactly know why, just that the phones being tapped wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. There was no realm of possibility. The government was probably already hiding in the bushes.

They played a lot of board games, even the ones like Backgammon that neither of them had ever wanted to learn. Kelly and Joey came over a lot, because their board game selection was better, but that also meant Chris had to put up with Brianna worming her way under his hoodie and hollering, “hello, baby!” at the top of her lungs. It had only been cute the first three times.

Lance had actually told Joey that he couldn't bring Brianna over in case she ratted them out, but Joey had wisely pointed out that this was the same kid who had an imaginary friend named Goat, who was actually a rabbit. His kid, Joey argued, had firmly established herself as a liar. Nobody would believe a word she said.

Chris shopped online a lot, so packages showed up daily on the stoop. He bought a new laptop, and Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, and all five Harry Potter books, and recipe guide offering “healthy cake alternatives,” which seemed to imply he intended Lance to bake for him.

“Chris,” Lance said weakly, “that’s an even more unhealthy alternative.”

Chris put his hand on Lance’s shoulder and said in all seriousness, “I have faith in you.”

Lance did laundry, and cleaned the house, and organised all the shit in Chris’s garage. He kept a baby monitor clipped to his belt, listening for Chris in case he needed anything and called him. Chris, of course, abused this power, and faked labour three times, and pretended he was having sex twice.

“You’re an unbelievable asshole,” Lance said the first time he ran into the house, bile in his throat and bladder threatening to leak, to find Chris grinning on the bed. Despite himself, Lance had laughed. Chris’s bad jokes had always been and would always be the bane of his existence.

Lance didn’t expect to be so happy, though. A few weeks ago, the idea of spending all his time in Chris’s house, venturing outside only for groceries, lawn care and personal hygiene products, with Chris Kirkpatrick, the most annoying man ever born, would have been truly preposterous.

Now, well, it was kind of nice, actually. Lance didn’t really mind it at all.

“Dude,” Joey said when Lance mentioned his state of constant contentment, “dude.”

“What?” Lance asked, poking Joey when he didn’t answer, following him around with, “what? What? Tell me, Joey. Tell me, tell me,” but Joey wouldn’t say another word, and Lance couldn’t keep the supremely annoying shtick going as long as Chris could. Chris was the master.

“Tell me,” Lance tried one last time, ushering Joey and his aggravating behaviour out the door, but Joey still wouldn’t say, and Lance didn’t really want to know anyway, because Joey was so often an idiot and Lance didn’t care about his stupid opinions, thanks, so Lance just dropped it.

~~~

And then there was Justin.

“You were just here last week,” Lance said as Justin pushed his way in, a backpack slung over his shoulder. A short trip then, which Lance could handle. He was beginning to feel a little prickly, like no one thought he’d be able to keep Chris reasonably content. “You know he’s fine.”

“Is that chocolate on your face?”

Lance scrubbed irritably as his cheek. “Fuck off, all right? I’m baking so Chris doesn’t starve to death.” It probably wasn’t Justin, Lance admitted to himself, but the fact that Chris had banned him from checking on him. Lance had just wanted to make sure Chris was comfortable.

In the kitchen, the counter was a mess of flour, cocoa in and various spilled liquids. Justin opened the freezer, took out a frozen dinner and tossed it into the microwave. Bitterly, Lance stirred his third attempt at edible, healthy-ish cake as Justin pulled up a stool and said,

“I had a few days off, and Cameron’s visiting her mom, so,” Justin shrugged, “had time.”

“He’s in a pissy mood,” Lance warned him, “like, he threw his Playstation at me.”

Justin winced in the middle of shaking salt all over the counter. “What did you do?”

“Got him pregnant,” Lance muttered, stabbing his spoon at the chocolate slop. It was nice of Justin to attempt to bite back his smile, but Lance didn’t blame him, either. Lance figured it was karma for all those months he had laughed at Joey scrambling madly for Kelly’s forgiveness.

Justin chuckled, leaning across the counter for his dinner then twisting to grab a fork and knife out of the drawer. There was something unhygienic about Justin rubbing himself all over the kitchen counter, but it wasn’t like Chris hadn’t put various bits of Justin in his mouth before.

“Chris is lying about a lot of shit, isn’t he?” Justin asked abruptly.

“I think it’s more a sin of omission,” Lance replied, pouring the brown slop into a silver pan. It looked almost as bad as it smelled, which was saying something. Lance was beginning to think Chris’s faith was misplaced. He certainly wouldn’t eat cake that looked like, well, shit.

Justin sighed deeply. “He’s a fucking asshole, you know.”

“Yep,” Lance agreed, and shoved the newest almost-cake into the oven.

~~~

They went up to check on Chris, but he was sleeping, twisted awkwardly around a lump of pillows. Lance put a finger to his lips, and silently, they crept back downstairs. Lance heated up another two frozen dinners and took the cake out of the oven, leaving it to cool. It looked better than the others had, more like moist cake and less like a jagged chunk of inedible rock.

“I can’t believe you guys are pulling this off,” Justin said idly, squeezing ketchup all over his roost beef. “Like, nobody in the real world has any idea what’s going on. I mean, yeah, Chris disappearing for months on end is par for the course, but you. Dude, you’re a fame slut.”

“I still do stuff,” Lance protested, “just not as much. I did too many things anyway.”

Justin shrugged. “Nothing wrong with having a little fun. Time and a place, you know.”

“I don’t miss it,” Lance confessed. “I thought maybe I would, but I don’t really. I’m just as happy here, with Chris and the baby.” Just hearing the words leave his mouth made Lance pause, and Justin was watching him curiously, like he expected more. “Anyway, things change.”

“They sure do,” Justin agreed, and shoved a slab of beef into his mouth.

Lance felt old suddenly, sitting there with Justin. Old, like he was somebody’s dad, and that was exactly what he was. Joey had been younger than he was when Brianna had been born, but Lance wasn’t sure if Joey had felt like this, as if his entire life had turned on a dime, all at once.

And if Joey had told him about feeling like this, would Lance have understood?

Probably not, Lance admitted, and telling Justin wouldn’t make him understand either.

“It’s really amazing that you guys are doing this.”

“You said that already,” Lance replied idly, stirring his gravy with his fork.

“I meant it differently. It’s amazing that you’re.” Justin empathically flopped around his hand, trying to grab at something Lance hadn’t managed to hold onto either. “You guys are having a baby together, and that’s really fucking cool, you know? I wouldn’t have thought, but.”

“What?” Lance asked after it seemed like Justin wasn’t going to continue.

“Nothing,” Justin said. “It’s just amazing, you know? Totally, completely amazing.”

“Shut up,” Lance muttered, but he couldn’t help smiling into his ugly frozen dinner.

~~~

“So I’m thinking of throwing you a baby shower,” Justin said casually.

Chris shrugged in the middle of moving his man around the Sorry! board. “Whatever.”

Lance looked up, darting his eyes between Chris and Justin. Chris was in a considerably better mood thanks to a few hours of sleep, but Lance still didn’t trust him not to tip the board. On the other hand, if he flipped it now, Chris wouldn’t get to knock Lance’s piece back to Start.

Justin squinted. “Is that whatever-yes or whatever-no? I can’t always tell these days.”

Chris rolled his eyes, sliding his man across the board and knocking Lance, just as he predicted, back to Start. “It’s what-fucking-ever, dickhead.” Chris made sure to place Lance’s piece on its side, signifying death. “Are you prying for info on my army of child-bearing men?”

“Why, yes, I am,” Justin said snidely. “You don’t have to be such a prick about it.”

Lance pinched the bridge of his noise. “Can we stop this pissing contest before it starts?”

“I’m just trying,” Justin said then stopped. Lance didn’t need to look to know Chris was glaring in that shut-up-idiot way he did. “Okay. It’ll be a small get together, just me and C and Joey, and you guys, of course, and your parents, and Kelly, and any of your child-bearing men.”

“Lance has Greg’s phone number,” Chris said idly then slapped his hands down on the mattress, perilously shaking the pieces on the board, “and you wanna make your move, jerk?”

Justin turned to Lance, finger pointed in accusation. “I blame you for this, you know.”

“Me too,” Chris added solemnly.

Lance gritted his teeth. “Will someone just fucking go already?”

“Fine,” Justin said, and ended up knocking Chris back to Start, too.

~~~

Justin left, and life went on as it had before his visit. The third cake turned out to be pretty successful. Chris had really liked the squishy apple chunks, which pleased him terribly. Since Chris was surviving solely on a cake-centric diet, the more healthy foods Lance could hide inside, the better it was for Chris. Oddly, the fried peanut-butter-and-banana-and-chocolate-cake sandwiches seemed to be the staple food. Chris hadn’t once puked up the concoction.

“Blame your kid,” Chris had said. “She’s obviously got your shitty taste in fine cuisine.”

Lance had hidden his overly pleased smile behind his hand.

The only bad thing was that Lance had so much trouble sleeping. Or, well, it was more that he had trouble falling asleep, because once he was there, everything was fine. It was getting his eyes to close and stay that way. It was getting his imagination to stop envisioning his baby’s face on the canvas of the ceiling. It was getting his brain to shut the hell up and stop worrying about every little thing, least of him being an awful dad.

These nights were becoming more and more frequent, and Lance resisted the urge to call Joey every single time. A small consolation was the fact that Brianna was still alive, had learned to talk and use the potty and all sorts of life-skills, and Joey was her father, and he was an idiot.

The Thursday after Justin left was a fretful night of the worst kind, the type that made Lance sweaty and anxious and ill. He was left hanging on the edge of consciousness, straddling that line between wakefulness and sleep where he was half-dreaming and half-freaking out.

Lance nearly jumped out of his skin when the mattress dipped. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw it was only Chris. Chris, who wasn’t supposed to be out of bed, unless it was an emergency or he had to go to the bathroom, and even then he usually picked the nearest plant.

Stupidly, the first thing Lance noticed was that Chris wasn’t wearing one of his hoodies, but had stripped down to a undershirt, which was stretched obscenely over his belly. Kelly had mentioned Chris was carrying high, and she wasn’t kidding. The hoodie had just obscured it.

“You okay?” Lance asked tentatively as Chris lay down on his side, his back to Lance.

“Sure,” Chris murmured, and bent his knees up as far as they would go.

Lance sat up and walked over to his closet, reaching up for the stack of emergency pillows. Only gay guys had emergency pillows, Lance thought. There had been too many nights where he’d ended up soaking his only pillow due to humping at it furiously while being fucked.

With two pillows under his armpits and another two fisted in his hands, Lance made his way carefully back to the bed. Chris grunted when Lance urged him to shift a little, sliding the pillows into spots Chris seemed to favour, like between his knees and under the side of his belly.

When Chris spoke, his voice sounded helplessly small. “I think I made a mistake.”

Lance lay down behind him, head propped up with one arm. “What do you mean?”

“Thinking I could do this,” Chris whispered, dropping his head. “I can’t do this, Lance.”

“You’re doing it.” With one hand, Lance started to rub at the small of Chris's back. Chris tensed briefly, but he didn’t say stop, so Lance pressed on. It was easier than speaking. Lance didn’t know to say besides state the obvious. Chris was, without a doubt, doing it.

Chris rolled his forehead against the pale skin of his upper arm, but didn’t reply. The line of his back was stiff and unyielding under Lance’s fingers, and his breath came in short, laboured puffs. Cautiously, Lance fitted himself against Chris’s back, draping an arm low across his hips.

“You’re okay, Chris.”

Chris shook his head, but he grabbed Lance’s wrist and hauled his hand upwards.

“You’re doing really great,” Lance said firmly, his baby, their baby, fluttering under his hand. When Chris made a noise of disbelief low in his throat, Lance added, “no, you are. I mean, I don’t have much to compare it to, but I know you’re right. This fucker couldn’t do it.”

Chris snorted loudly, and Lance smiled against the soft skin behind Chris’s ear.

“Having my baby,” Lance sang quietly, “what a lovely way of sayin’ how much you, uh.” Lance fumbled on the last little bit, not because he didn’t know the lyric, but because. Well, just because. Thankfully, Chris laughed at his very lame joke then elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

They lay there for a bit, quiet. Lance watched Chris’s mouth twitch, like he wanted to say something but the determined line of his jaw told Lance not to hold his breath. The baby rumbled like a storm, constantly in motion, already so much like Chris, and he wasn’t even here yet.

Chris hummed. “Mind if I sleep here? You’re kinda comfortable, Bass.”

“Sure,” Lance said and kept his hand there, against Chris and the baby, for another two hours.

~~~

Chris said, point blank, “could we not mention last night or any future repeats to anyone? Like, no Joey, no my mom, no your mom. Just, let’s pretend, okay?” And Lance had no choice but to agree, because a part of being Chris’s willing manservant was doing what Chris wanted.

Since he had nothing better to do, Lance reread the MPREG book. He thought about asking what happened to the missing pages but didn’t bother. Lance even forced himself to read all the gross parts, and the terrifying parts, and the incredibly boring parts, too. He paid more attention to the notes in the margins, noting both Greg and Dallas-Bobby had left comments.

The odd thing, Lance noticed, was that there weren’t any baby name books. When Kelly was pregnant, Joey had carried one around, spending hours on the phone with Kelly, bargaining. Using Chris’s computer and Chris’s MasterCard, Lance ordered a half dozen from Amazon.com.

When they arrived two days later, Lance handed the box over to Chris along with a stack of parcels that looked like vinyl records. Chris hadn’t even made it through his own CD collection, and really, despite what Chris claimed, there wasn’t much difference between vinyl and CD.

“You know,” Chris said, flipping one of the books over and squinting at the back, “it’s a really good thing that nobody at Amazon has talked to the media, because I totally look like I knocked a groupie up. Or, you know, secretly got married, or some bizarre shit like that.”

“That’s actually why I put it on your card instead of mine,” Lance admitted.

“Motherfucker. Nobody would believe you’d had sex with a woman anyway.”

“That’s definitely me: Lance ‘Big Fat Homo’ Bass.”

Chris rolled his eyes, thumbing idly through a book before settling on girls’ names. Lance picked up one of the others and started reading down the list on page thirty-one. Morgan, Morris, Mortimer. Ugh, Lance thought. Chris was making an equally disgusted face across the bed.

Lance closed his book. “I guess Lance Junior is out of the question, huh?”

“It was never in the fucking question, dickhead,” Chris replied sweetly.

Lance poked Chris in the foot. “It’s an all right name. It’s just very, you know.”

“I do believe gay is the word you’re looking for, Bass. So very gay.”

“Shut up,” Lance said, laughing, even though it was so very true.

~~~

“This thing just keeps growing,” Chris said, staring down at his belly, his fingers fanned on the round swell. He looked over the rim of his glasses, and Lance quickly nodded his agreement. “I don’t think my belly button is long for this world, man. Look.” Chris flipped up the hem of his hoodie.

Lance could see blueish veins under Chris’s translucent skin. “Uh. It looks okay, really.”

“Very convincing, Mr. Bullshit, thanks.”

“No problem,” Lance said, and went back to scanning the baby name book, occasionally dog-earing a page and circling the name of interest. It wouldn’t matter in the long run. Chris would take one look at the name, totally hate it and demand Lance find something more suitable.

“Kelly wasn’t this small, though. Our kid’s gonna be a midget, dude, mark my words.”

“I think the term is little people,” Lance replied idly, tapping his pen against the page.

Chris shut up for a little while, turning on the Nintendo and playing a few noisy rounds of Duck Hunt with the orange and grey gun. There were few video games Chris honestly sucked at, but Duck Hunt was definitely one of them. When Chris moved onto Tetris, Lance was relieved.

“I’m so. fucking. bored, Bass,” Chris said, finally. The admission was about two weeks overdue. Chris shifted on the bed, sitting up and putting his heels together, his toes curled against each other. Abruptly, Chris grabbed his ankles. “And dude, look at the size of my fucking feet.”

Lance glanced at the swollen monstrosities. “You always wanted a larger shoe size.”

“Yeah, in length, not width. And dude, it’s not the only thing getting wider, you know?” Lance snorted, but Chris said, “no, seriously. You have no fucking clue what’s going on with my body. Like, weird shit, you know? I don’t want to talk about most of it, but my dick is bigger.”

“I believe you,” Lance said, keeping his head down. He could feel his face getting warm. Maybe it was sheer desperation because he hadn’t gotten laid in so long, not from a hot guy with a huge dick, not even from his own hand, but hearing Chris talk about his dick was sort of ... sexy.

When Lance looked up, Chris was watching him curiously.

“What?” Lance laid the book over his lap, refusing to cross his legs and admit his guilt.

“Nothing,” Chris said quickly, “but do you wanna go out and buy me some yarn?”

Lance raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“I’ve decided to learn how to knit,” Chris said, and firmly bobbed his head.

~~~

At midnight, Lance ventured out of the house and headed to Walmart. There were only a few people there, and Lance was grateful. He wished his grocery store sold yarn. He felt safely ignored there. He was in the back of the store, comparing yarn prices and blends, when someone slapped his ass.

“Hey,” Lance said sharply, but he turned around to find Joey’s ugly face grinning at him. Lance sighed and returned to the wall of wool, feeling around for the softest, baby-friendliest ball. Joey started looking through the display of knitting needles. “What are you doing here?”

Joey shrugged lightly. “Rescue mission, daddy. Chris thinks you need to get drunk and screw, but you have to get him yarn first, because he was serious about the knitting thing.”

“I’m not going out,” Lance replied. “I don’t do that stuff anymore, Joey.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe it’s none of your business,” Lance snapped, grabbing two light purple yarn balls.

“That house is like a tomb, dude. I know why Chris has gotta stay in there, but I don’t see why you can’t get out and relax a little.” Joey leaned in close, arms crossed over his chest. “I mean, dude, you’re not gonna have much time in the near future to fuck around, you know?”

Lance ducked around Joey, going for the pale yellow wool. “I don’t care.”

“Was Chris the last guy you slept with?”

“You know, to you idiots with all your solo projects, it may not look like I do anything, but I actually find ways to fill my time that don’t involve fucking everyone who wants to fuck me,” Lance snapped, slamming three balls of wool into his basket. “It wasn’t intentional, Joey.”

“I forgot how good you gay guys are at denial.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Lance hissed, and stomped away, leaving without the knitting needles and instructional booklets Chris had also requested. It was too much to hope that Joey had gotten a clue and left the area. He was exactly where Lance had left him, thumbing through the display.

Joey looked up when Lance approached him. “I’m just saying be careful,” he said quietly, “and don’t do anything stupid. Maybe I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing, and dude, if I’m wrong, that’s cool. But there’s a reason me and Kelly waited to get married, you know.”

Lance sighed. “I’m doing the best I can here, Joey.”

Joey looked panicked, his eyebrows lifting all the way to his hairline. “Oh, hey, dude, I’m not saying anything like that. You’ve been totally awesome about everything. It’s just, things get complicated, you know, when there’s a,” Joey dropped his voice, “baby on the way.”

“Complicated,” Lance repeated dryly.

“Really fucking complicated,” Joey replied.

“Well, consider me warned. Now please get out of my way.”

“Come out for a drink with me? I swear, I won’t make you sleep with a single hot guy.”

“Fine,” Lance said, “just move your fat ass, please,” and Joey, finally, stepped aside.

~~~

Lance had only meant to have one drink, entirely to shut Joey up, but Lance had always had trouble knowing when to say when. Joey picked some low-key pub/club combo, whose crowd didn’t look entirely straight, but didn’t look entirely gay, either. They settled in a booth, and Joey started talking about crap that Lance didn’t want to listen to. He was still mad.

“That blond guy is eyeing you,” Joey said quietly, “the one with the nice teeth.”

“Obviously, that means he wants to suck my dick. Better bring him on over, Joey.”

“I was just saying,” Joey replied, kicking Lance in the ankle.

The blond guy was staring, but Lance simply wasn’t interested. It wasn’t likely, but what if the guy turned out to be great, and Lance wanted to get to know him better, and then had to explain where this new baby had come from, and how Chris fit into the picture, and everything.

And then there was Chris. Chris, who was sitting alone in his house, nearly eight months pregnant. Chris, who was the biggest pain in the butt Lance had ever come across, even before he got pregnant. Chris, whose house felt like home how, as if Lance never intended to leave.

Shit, Lance thought, and rubbed wearily at his eyes, feeling overwhelmed and miserable.

Lance ordered another drink, then another one, and kept on drinking. All the while, the blond kept looking over, kept giving Lance these looks that said, “I’m interested, are you?” And maybe Lance did want a blowjob, but he was so tired of having a stranger’s mouth on his cock.

“This is bullshit, Joey,” Lance said quietly. “Take me home.”

Joey sighed. “Okay, dude.”

After Walmart, they had dropped Lance’s car off, so it was only proper that Joey drove him home. Lance realised after ten unsteady steps that he was utterly sloshed. They hadn’t been there long, but there were at least seven empty glasses on the table, and Joey looked sober.

Lance didn’t say good night, because he was still angry, but Joey said, “‘night, dude, and I’m sorry, all right? I’m gonna stop listening to Chris now,” and Lance replied with a snappy, “please fucking do,” and slammed the door closed. Clumsily, Lance stumbled up the lawn.

In the kitchen, Lance devoured half a loaf of white bread and downed a bottle of water. He wanted to lie on the cool ceramic floor but forced himself upstairs. He ducked into Chris’s room. Chris was on the bed, legs crossed and propped up by a mountain of pillows, reading.

“You drunk?” Chris asked, licking the edge of his thumb then turning the page.

“Yes,” Lance said slowly, holding tightly onto the doorjamb.

“You get laid?”

“No,” Lance said, even more slowly.

“Your loss,” Chris replied, and turned another page.

~~~

Watching Chris learn to knit was like watching a blind man paint a room. He was close, but never quite got to that point where things looked okay. Also, the more Chris tried and utterly failed, the bitchier he got, which wasn’t something Lance wanted to encourage.

“Those how-to diagrams are hard to follow,” Lance said, finally.

“No fucking shit. I think I’ve established I can tie a mean knot, and that’s about it.”

“I can start it for you.”

Chris chuckled gleefully, gladly handing over the knotted mess of purple wool. “Where was this information when my teasing about your gay-boy tendencies still had some effect?”

Lance laughed. “Locked away for that very reason. Though, you know, I’m sure plenty of straight guys know how to knit.” Quickly, Lance untangled the yarn then slowly started making loops. Just because he knew how didn’t mean he’d done it in years. “You were awful, Chris.”

“It was for your own good, man.”

“I realise that. Now,” Lance added. At the time, he’d wanted to hide every time Chris made any sort of nonchalant joke about him being gay in front of the other guys. It’d been maybe a year after the group formed that he finally found the balls to come out, but they’d all known long before that.

Lance had spent the next year as Chris’s loyal sidekick, making sure he was part of the joke instead of the joke itself. It had worked very well in public, but behind closed doors, well, Chris had alternately made being gay feel like the most normal thing ever, and the most bizarre.

Lance looked over at Chris, who was staring at him with big watery eyes, and Lance lifted a curious eyebrow. So far Chris had pretty much two moods: extremely pissed off and reasonably content. Lance didn’t want to add randomly mournful to the list. “Hey, Chris, it’s really okay.”

“I just wanted you to be comfortable, dude.”

“It worked, I promise. I sucked a lot more European dick because of you.”

“Awesome,” Chris said earnestly, taking Lance’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Can you show me how to do the actual knitting, too?”

“I could teach you how to crochet, too if that tickles your fancy.”

Chris started laughing. “Okay, I didn’t think it was possible, but that’s even gayer.”

“I aim to please,” Lance replied, sagely, and delighted in Chris’s musical laughter.

~~~

“Hi, Lance! Only have, like, five seconds, but second weekend in June for the thing, and shit, man, I totally gotta go, but I just wanted to say, and holy fucking God, Trace, shut up for one fucking second, I know I’m late, I just have to, okay, shut up, but Lance, second weekend, bye!”

Lance stared at the phone then put it back into the cradle. Sometimes, when Lance watched Justin on television or whatever, he managed to forget what a complete freak he was. Then Justin would do something like that, and it all came rushing back. Lance’s ear was ringing.

“Who was that?” Chris asked as Lance came in with a chicken-caesar-salad-and-cake monstrosity that Chris had actually requested. Lance had put the cake off to the side, but knowing Chris, it was all going down in one gigantic gulp. Chris seemed to finally have his appetite back, provided there was cake somehow involved.

“Justin. Keep the second weekend in June open for the baby shower.”

“Oh, like I’m so busy sitting on my ass and waiting to pop.”

“Do they know,” Lance asked as he set up the tv tray for Chris then put down a tall glass of milk beside the meal and prayed Chris didn’t discover the mushed up vitamins, “who you are, your internet guys? I mean, that you’re,” Lance flapped his hand in Chris’s direction, “you?”

Chris shrugged. “Guess they’re gonna find out, huh? Greg and Bobby know.”

“Yeah,” Lance said weakly. If they found out about Chris, they found out about him.

“They’re cool, Lance,” Chris said, fork already halfway to his mouth. “I trust these fuckers, like, 100%, okay? And all they gotta know is that I’m pregnant. Having another dad around is pretty rare, man, so you don’t gotta tell them shit, like, that you’re the one who did it.”

“I just. I’m really not ready to be out to the general public, you know?”

“Oh, fucking A, Bass. For one, you can trust these guys completely, I promise, and for two, you’re already out, dickweed.”

“I’m not,” Lance insisted. “I haven’t said anything officially, so I’m technically not out.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “What-fucking-ever, Bass. You’re totally out.”

This wasn’t a battle Lance was going to win, and the idea of keeping it up all afternoon was exhausting, so Lance just shut up and started to eat his chicken caesar salad, sans cake. Chris ploughed determinedly through his bowl, mixing up the lettuce and the cake without discretion.

“Not many guys stick around, huh?”

Chris looked over at him. “Do you always get the names of the guys you fuck?”

“Not always,” Lance admitted. Sometimes, you just didn’t need names.

“I’m lucky to know who knocked me up. Even luckier that the jerk stuck around.”

Lance snorted. “Gee, I wonder who that jerk could be. Thanks a lot, Chris.”

Chris got serious so quickly that Lance actually saw the moment where all the happiness was sucked away and replaced by something more earnest and sombre. Whoa, Lance thought, and didn’t even pull away when Chris grabbed his hand and said, “dude, seriously, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Lance said lamely, “thanks for doing it.”

Chris nodded, and his hand was sweaty and hot against Lance’s palm. Lance’s heart sped up, climbing into his throat, and there was a moment between them, deep and profound, that hung there, suspended. If Lance was a fool, he would have kissed Chris right there, on the mouth.

“I have to pee so badly,” Chris said abruptly, fumbling into an unsteady stand.

“Have fun with that,” Lance said, sitting back and watching Chris slowly waddle away. When the bathroom door shut, Lance looked down at his own sweaty hand and sighed. At least one of them was still thinking clearly, and Lance was honestly surprised to realise it was Chris.

~~~

To keep himself busy, Lance decided to take inventory of all the baby stuff Chris had. With his trusty PDA at his side, Lance began sorting through the various piles. There was a pine crib, dismantled in box, and a bassinet, too. Lance found pieces of a highchair in the laundry room, covered by a mountain of fuzzy pastel linens and a stack of non-disposable diapers.

“Chris!” Lance called up the stairs, “are we using disposable diapers or not!”

“Not!” Chris shouted back, “it’s a fucking waste, and I’m not afraid of baby shit!”

Lance grabbed the diapers under his arms then started roaming the house for the changing table, which he’d seen and couldn’t remember where. He eventually found it in the dining room, propped up next to a folded up stroller. Lance took a minute to try and open it, failing miserably.

“Chris!” Lance hollered, “how do you unfold this stroller? I can’t find the instructions!”

Chris took a few seconds before yelling, “no fucking clue! Phone Joey and ask!”

Phoning Joey was a good idea, Lance’s default normally, but Lance hadn’t talked to Joey since they’d gone out and Lance had been a total jerk. Next to the stroller entry, Lance wrote, “phone Joey and apologise. Also, ask about stroller.” Lance tucked the PDA back into his pocket.

Lance started lugging all the big stuff up the stairs, pausing on the third trip to strip off his shirt and continue. All of it was a lot heavier than it looked. Outside the Baby Room, he arranged everything in a nice, neat order: the complicated-looking crib first then everything else.

It took him a few hours to sort through the mountains of stuff Chris had bought before he had started to show. Somewhere, there was a small army who could confirm that, yes, Chris Kirkpatrick of Nsync had a) knocked up a groupie b) secretly gotten married c) all of the above.

As night settled, Lance decided to get a start on actually setting up the Baby Room. The paint had dried into a soft, calming purple, and the border of yellow music notes looked fabulous. If the Nsync thing fell through, Lance thought maybe he’d try one of those interior design shows.

The only piece of furniture in the Baby Room was the rocking chair, which Lance had brought back in the minute the walls were dry and the room no longer stunk of paint and vinegar. Lance settled into it, rocking back and forth, letting everything sink in for the millionth time.

In less than two months, and maybe even less than that, he was going to be someone’s daddy, and he had never expected that. There were certain things he thought he’d given up by joining Nsync or denied by admitting he was gay, and having kids was definitely one of them.

And now, well. The unexpected was the reality, and Lance still couldn’t really believe it, except in the quiet moments when he let himself sit back and take stock of his life. And this, Lance thought, looking around the Baby Room, was definitely his life, and it was a little weird.

Lance slid down onto the carpeted floor, and, cross-legged, started to read through the instructions for the crib. The soft click click click of Chris’s knitting needles told Lance that Chris was still awake. That wasn’t surprising, but he also hadn’t slept in almost twenty hours, by Lance’s count.

Lance found putting the crib together to be a very calming activity. It was easy enough to do, but he took his time, carefully tightening every bolt, feeling for any rough edges to sand down later. It wasn’t until the crib began to take shape that Lance realised the clicks had gotten closer.

“Shit,” Lance said, turning around to see Chris in the rocking chair, slowly knitting.

Chris grinned. “How you didn’t see a pregnant guy coming, I have no fucking idea.”

“Believe it or not, I learned to block you out years ago,” Lance replied.

“Well, by all means, please continue a little longer. I don’t think I can talk and knit.”

“Pity,” Lance muttered then laughed when a ball of yarn bounced off the back of his head.

~~~

“Will you please put on a shirt, you fucking harlot?”

It took Lance a good ten seconds to realise Chris was talking to him, even though, duh, who else would Chris be talking to? It wasn’t like the house was full of people or anything. Eyebrows raised, Lance looked over his shoulder, tilting his head with a puzzled, “what?”

Chris spelled it out slowly: “Put. on. a. shirt. you. fucking. harlot.”

Lance didn’t think he’d been doing anything particularly strange. In fact, he’d been doing the same thing he’d been doing for the last half hour, which was putting the crib together. He had worked up quite the sweat, but that was just because Lance couldn’t do anything the easy way.

“I don’t even know where my shirt is,” Lance said, “and I don’t want to look for it.”

“Asshole,” Chris said, but that seemed to be the final word on it. Chris simply lifted his chin defiantly then resumed knitting. The blanket, Lance noticed idly, was coming along better. There were some holes near the top where Chris had lost his stitches, but those could be fixed.

Lance didn’t know why a crib would need wheels, but they came in the box, so he started trying to attach them to the legs. He was in the middle of a good grunt and twist of his wrench when Chris said, loudly, “will you please put on a shirt, Lance? Please, please, please, please.”

Lance sighed. “I’m sweaty. This is actually hard work, you know, doing all this stuff.”

“Bass,” Chris said then stopped. He licked his lips, and whoa, Lance thought.

“I’ll go put on a shirt,” Lance said, darting out of the room before he could think about anything. He came back wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt, and tried not to look at Chris as he finished putting the crib together, even though Chris was openly staring. Lance could feel him.

It was a little awkward after that, but Lance tried to ignore it. He hated not knowing what was going on, and worse, he hated knowing and still not understanding. And even more terrible, his dick was hard, and it was obvious, and where had all this sexual tension come from anyway?

“And stop wiggling your fucking ass,” Chris said, a few minutes later.

“I’m not,” Lance protested, resisting the urge to cover his butt with his hands.

Chris’s face went beet red for a moment and then he tossed his whole knitted mess in Lance’s direction and stomped, as much as an incredibly pregnant man could, out of the room. Lance pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming then went back to assembling the crib.

~~~

The next few days were like being trapped in a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. Not that Lance had ever really watched the Twilight Zone, but he could imagine. Chris alternated between bawling his eyes out at various soaps and yelling at the people on various soaps. He knitted like a maniac, suddenly decided he hated chocolate cake and generally ignored Lance.

And then there was the Bee Gees, which Lance didn’t understand and didn’t want to.

It was the Bee Gees that broke Lance down. He called Joey, just for some semblance of normal, and it was a sad day indeed, Lance thought wryly, when Joey Fatone became the poster boy for normalcy. Impatiently, Lance sat on the couch and fiercely devoured an entire bag of potato chips before the doorbell rang. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Lance rushed to the door.

“Chris is crazy,” Lance said, opening the door to let Joey in, “absolutely fucking nuts.”

Joey laughed. “Nah, dude. He’s having a baby. It’s just making him, okay, loonier, but it’s all the hormones and shit, man. Just roll with it.”

“You don’t understand,” Lance insisted, even though if anyone understood, it was Joey, but Lance was feeling irrational and thinking irrational, and if Chris didn’t turn the Bee Gees down this very second, Lance’s head was going to explode. His ears were ringing like bells.

“What’s with the Bee Gees, dude?”

“I don’t know,” Lance said, loudly, “but it started at dawn, and when I asked him to turn it down, it just got louder. C’mon,” Lance grabbed Joey by the wrist, and dragged him through the maze of Chris’s halls, pushing him into Chris’s home studio, “this room is sound proof.”

Lance collapsed into the nearest chair, rubbing his hands over his face. He could still hear the Bee Gees, but they were blissfully muffled now. Lance took a few seconds to regroup then looked over to Joey, who was poking curiously at the soundboard. Joey was a really good guy.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said quietly, “for being a prick to you that night.”

Joey shrugged. “I didn’t take it personal, dude. You got shit on your mind. I know that.”

“I just,” Lance said then stopped. He sighed. “I don’t know. Things got really confusing, and really damn serious, all at once, and I’m not dealing with it very well.” At that, Joey smirked, and Lance smiled sheepishly. “I don’t even know how I feel about Chris anymore. Is that weird?”

“Nah,” Joey said. “Remember you’re talking to the guy who’s proposed three times, and only heard yes once. I’m not even going to pretend that Kel was the level-headed one, because she was completely psychotic, but I wasn’t much better. I just wanted to do the right thing.”

“I’d probably marry Chris if I could, and he would kill me if he knew that.”

Joey grinned. “You just had to knock him up, didn’t you? Of all the men in the world ...”

“I know, and I didn’t try to, believe me,” Lance insisted, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Dude, I’m just messing with you,” Joey said, plopping down in the chair opposite him and lifting his feet to rest on Lance’s knees. “I’m not gonna tell you not to do what you’re gonna end up doing, cuz I tried that and you got mad at me, but he’s ... he’s Chris, you know? He’s ...”

“A lunatic? Yeah, I noticed, and I seriously think it’s contagious.”

Joey laughed. “Yeah, well, you only got a couple more weeks of madness.”

“Oh, God. Don’t remind me. I’m not going to make it.”

“Chin up, sport,” Joey said, and knocked his grubby foot against Lance’s jaw.

“Fucking ew,” Lance said, but he couldn’t help laughing. Joey was such a dork, and if he didn’t have him around, well, Lance didn’t want to imagine it. Sometimes, Lance just wanted to kiss Joey, repeatedly, in a chaste way that wouldn’t lead to them rolling around together, naked in the sand.

~~~

Lance casually brought up the issue of the stroller, and watched in rapt attention as Joey unfolded and refolded the whole thing in less than ten seconds. He even did it one-handed, the show-off. It didn’t look complicated when Joey did it, but Lance still badly pinched his fingers.

“Ow,” Lance said plaintively, sticking his fingertips into his mouth.

“Bonehead,” Joey said then merrily knuckled Lance’s scalp raw.

Joey stayed for dinner, and they shared a Meat Lover’s pizza from Pizza Hut as the Bee Gees yodelled loudly in the background. Joey begged off early, citing a Bee Gees-induced headache, and Lance didn’t blame him. Lance took a long bubble bath then tried to sleep.

It was a testament, Lance thought, to all those years on a bus with three rowdy guys and JC that Lance actually fell asleep. When he woke up, it was only because Chris was climbing into bed with him. Blearily, Lance squinted at the clock. It was barely three. The house was quiet.

“You okay?” Lance asked, trying to sit up before Chris’s hand came down hard on his chest and knocked him back to the mattress. Chris’s hand stayed where it was, and Lance fiercely wished he wasn’t such a wanton exhibitionist and had learned to sleep with clothes on.

“You wanna know something really weird?”

“Uh, I guess,” Lance said slowly, watching Chris’s fingers flex.

“I’m feeling bad about today. Like, major guilt here, man, and all I did was annoy you.”

Lance exhaled sharply and said a quick thank-you-for-sparing-me-from-seduction prayer.

“Sorry,” Chris said, lying down then curling himself around Lance, threading their legs together, and whoa, Lance thought, holy fucking whoa. They were face to face, belly to belly, and Lance felt himself sucking in, desperately trying to make everything fit like a perfect puzzle.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Chris hummed a little. “Yeah, sure. Just peachy.”

“I figured out the stroller,” Lance said weakly, trying to ignore Chris’s fingers and how they were brushing gently at his temples, walking into his hair, which he hadn’t gelled in days. “Well, Joey figured it out and made me practice, so we’ll be able to take the baby for walks.”

“Cool,” Chris said, a serene sort of smile pulling at his lips.

“You haven’t been, I don’t know, smoking anything, have you?”

Chris bit the tip of his nose.

~~~

Chris was back on the cake the next morning, and Lance’s nose was only mildly bruised. It ached when he poked at it, which meant he kept doing it until his whole face hurt. Regardless, Chris settled down a little, and reintroduced headphones into his life, and things were very good.

Except for Justin.

“Okay, so I don’t have a final guest list, because Greg is dealing with the you-know-who’s, and I’m not allowed to know. Like, I’m arguing that we’re kinda putting ourselves out there, too, but he thinks it doesn’t compare, which is bullshit, but whatever. Anyway ...”

Lance tried to listen to him, he did, but he had bathrooms to clean, and having spent the last eight years paying people to clean his bathrooms, Lance wasn’t very good at it. Or, rather, he was out of practice, because thinking he sucked at cleaning a toilet was a very sad thought.

“I’m gonna go light on decorations. Chris will just rip them down or something, because he’s an asshole and likes to fuck with me. And dude, tell me if the reception goes bad, because I just had to duck into a utility closet. All I want is a fucking second of privacy, you know? Shit ...”

With the phone pinched between his ear and his shoulder, Lance scrubbed at the toilet bowl, wishing he had done this sooner. It was pretty obvious that Chris had fired his housekeeper early in the game. There was mould, a lot of it, and Lance didn’t even want to think about why.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“A little,” Lance replied, “enough to be able to answer you quickly like that.”

Justin laughed. “Okay, I can take a hint. Can I talk to him, or will he yell at me?”

“He’s in a pretty good mood. You might as well milk it while you can.”

Lance shouted, “Chris, Justin’s on the phone,” up the stairs, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece with his hand. He grinned at Justin’s indignant yelps then hung up when he heard Chris’s, “hey, stud.” And, really, despite his underwhelmed reaction, the party was a good idea, if only to give Chris a chance to interact with the real world, and maybe feel a little normal, too.

Lance finished up with the bathroom then headed upstairs to deal with the one in Chris’s room. Chris was perched in the middle of the bed, the bottoms of his feet pressed together, one hand clutching the phone and the other rubbing at his belly. Lord, but it was huge.

Chris’s bathroom was the type of bathroom frat boys dreamed of achieving. Lance sighed then started sprinkling Comet over every porcelain surface, catching bits of Chris and Justin’s conversation. There was a mention of Chris’s “way bigger dick,” and some suggestions of names for the “new puppy,” which Chris thankfully nixed. No way were they naming him “Justine.”

On his hands and knees, Lance scrubbed like a maniac, digging into every crevice, scraping out all the gross brown stuff. He tried to ignore it when Chris’s voice suddenly got too quiet to hear. Despite all appearances, Chris wasn’t a stupid man, which meant they were talking about him, and Lance really, really hated when people talked about him and didn’t let him listen.

Spitefully, Lance thought about taking off his shirt as some sort of lame revenge, but he couldn’t predict its effect on Chris. Lance still wasn’t entirely convinced Chris accusing him of being too sexy had actually happened. It was almost too weird, like a really cracked out dream.

“Hey, Lance, you wanna talk to J?”

Lance poked his head around the doorframe. “Does he have anything more to say to me?”

“That would be a negative, captain.”

“Then no,” Lance said, and went back to cleaning Chris’s tub. Three minutes later, and Chris waddled into the bathroom. Lance allowed himself four more violent scrubs before adding, “you know, call me crazy, I think bed rest might mean you actually have to stay in bed.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s boring, man. Like, you have no idea how boring it is.”

“Probably as boring as it is to clean your disgusting house,” Lance replied sweetly.

Chris grinned. “You badmouthing my estate, Bass?”

“It’s more like a hovel.”

“Asshole,” Chris said, sticking out his tongue.

“Get back in bed. And no excuses, young man,” Lance added, pointing with his sponge.

“Yes, daddy,” Chris replied, and scurried as quickly as he could out of the room, which wasn’t very quickly at all.

~~~

“What are you doing?” Lance asked, finding Chris on his side with one ankle hooked over his headboard. Chris craned his neck back then rolled his eyes, resuming his squirming on the mountain of pillows. When he stilled, Lance sat and put the tray with Chris’s food down.

Chris stared at him; Lance refused to blink.

“If you must know, I’m trying to get comfortable,” Chris muttered, shifting around again before collapsing into a languid lump on the bed, his leg falling back to the mattress. “I don’t know why I even try. Fuck it, I’ll just suffer. So what did you bring me, Bass? Something fun?”

“Lunch,” Lance said apologetically.

“Blah,” Chris said, eyeing the meal with a frown. Lance couldn’t even muster annoyance. He was about as sick of preparing peanut-butter-banana-and-cake sandwiches as Chris was of eating them. Still, Chris took it and started to chow down. Hunger, as usual, won out.

Chris chewed unenthusiastically as Lance flipped through the nearest book of baby names. Chris had scratched out every name on pages twenty-three through to thirty-nine. Depressed, Lance closed the book. They would never, ever agree. Lance could already feel his will beginning to bend, ready to let Chris pick the name just so they could call him something.

Chris kicked him lightly in the ass. “Why so glum, chum?”

Lance snorted.

“Seriously,” Chris said, and there it was, that wobbly edge to his voice. Lance understood the concept of hormones, and he knew Chris’s were seriously out of whack, but Lance could at least deal with the irrational anger and inexplicable happiness. The melancholy was too much.

“We’re never going to agree on a name.”

“Sure we are,” Chris said, sounding unsteady, like he was lying, and Lance knew he was.

“This poor baby,” Lance muttered, putting a hand to his temple and rubbing. “We’re never going to agree on anything. We’re going to fight, and disagree, and be terrible influences, and he’s going to do drugs and get too many piercings and marry his high school gym teacher.”

Chris blinked, opened his mouth then snapped it shut. After two more false starts, Chris finally said, “just for the record, Bass, if I thought I could walk without my pelvis snapping into pieces, I would be running away from you and your incredible loser-ness. What the fuck, man?”

“Aren’t you worried at all? God!”

“Not about this kid’s name!” Chris shouted back, and it should have been effective, because Chris yelling was usually frightening, but the effect was diminished somewhat by the fact he was still lying on his side like a beached whale feel like an ass for fighting with a pregnant man. “We’ll find some sort of common ground. We always do.”

“Our only common ground seems to be sex and music,” Lance muttered bitterly.

Defiantly, Chris lifted his chin, and from that angle, it just looked weird. “Then I guess we only have two choices. We pick porn names, or we pick music names. I vote for the latter, if only because I’m pretty sure my mom would kill me if I named her Candi Sucksalot.”

Stubbornly, Lance set his jaw. “We still won’t agree.”

“Then we’ll pull it out of a fucking hat! This whole thing has been a crap shoot. Might as well go for gold and do it hardcore and make sure this whole fucking situation is entirely out of our hands. And who the fuck cares about names when this baby could shoot out of my ass!”

Lance tossed up his hands. “Fine!”

“Okay!”

“Fiiine!” Lance shouted again.

Chris sneered. “Okaaay!”

And it went on like that for another fifteen minutes, but by then Chris had managed to convince Lance to hold his leg up, Chris’s ankle hooked over Lance’s shoulder, and there was no way they could fight after that, even half-heartedly. Lance massaged Chris’s swollen feet instead.

~~~

Bev and Lance’s parents showed up a few days later, bearing real food and a new bottle of gin. Not that Lance had been drinking himself through the weirdness, no way, but he had gone through a significant amount in recent times. Sometimes, Lance really needed a gin and tonic.

“Can we come in?” His mom asked, looking apologetic enough that, if Chris put up a fuss, Lance could later claim his mom worked some strange mom-voodoo on him and practically forced her way inside. Politely, Lance stepped to the side, gladly accepting the proffered gifts.

“Where is he?” Bev asked, looking into the living room, probably thinking of the big-screen tv. The television in Chris’s bedroom was nothing to scoff at, but the living room tv was obscene, one of those plasma screens that were the modest size of an entire wall, and Lance had thought, on more than one occasion, that Chris was more familiar with the couch than his own bed.

“Upstairs,” Lance replied, ready to open the gin with his teeth if it came to that. “He’s on bed rest. Has been for a week or two.” Lance walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge door with the heel of his right foot and stuffing the food inside, then he went to grab a glass and ice.

“Is he okay?”

“It’s just precautionary, being a man having a baby and all.”

Bev and his mom clucked their tongues at each other disapprovingly. Lance poured the gin, tasted it then added more to the cup. He loved his parents, and he loved Bev, but their presence made him nervous, like they would realise he had no fucking control over the situation.

“Sweetie, if you would rather we leave ...”

“It’s fine,” Lance said, trying to smile, and boy, he thought, gin was really delicious.

~~~

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t sit up,” Chris muttered from his position on the bed, which strongly resembled a dead dog. Lance couldn’t tell, bad angle and all, but he was pretty sure Chris was giving him a death glare. In two or three months, Lance was going to get the beating of his life.

Lance sat down with his dad, watching as the moms thoroughly fretted over Chris’s condition. Desperately, Lance wanted to make an emergency exit, but the little promise Lance had made about never abandoning Chris to their mothers’s good advice niggled at his brain.

Weakly, Chris tried to slap the poking and prodding of motherly fingers away. “You know, despite my pathetic appearance, I’m really okay. My hips just hurt a lot, like, holy fucking shit, you know? But that’s normal, and whoa, mom! Watch where you put your hands, okay?”

“Does it feel better when I press here?” Bev asked, and Lance couldn’t see thanks to the motherly swarm in his way, but he could imagine where her hands were to incite such a response.

“No, actually. It feels like we’re big incestuous perverts. Show Lance, all right?”

Lance sighed, praying he wouldn’t be scarred for life by the placement of Bev’s hands, but they weren’t actually on Chris’s ass, just pressed thumbs deep into the small of his back. Lance paused briefly, because he had offered a back rub once and Chris had shot him down, but the look of panic on Chris’s face seemed to convince Lance to let bygones be bygones.

“You’re carrying a lot like I did,” Bev said, putting Lance’s hands on Chris’s back.

“Not like me at all,” his mom added, one knee on the bed. “I carried Lance really low.”

“Please, God, whatever I did wrong, I apologise,” Chris said loudly, ignoring them, but Lance found himself grinning insanely, stretching his cheeks so tight they hurt, but he couldn’t force himself to stop either. Firmly, he kneaded Chris’s back, feeling the tightness slowly bleed away.

Idly, Lance wondered if he shouldn’t invite his dad over to the melee on Chris’s bed, to make it a family affair, but Lance wasn’t that cruel. Above his head, his mom and Chris’s mom talked pregnancy, comparing and contrasting Chris’s experience with their own. Chris looked over his shoulder, rolling his eyes, and Lance nodded, just a bit, because, wow, but this was strange.

~~~

Chris spent the next few days watching the entire run of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. He even made Lance download the seventh season, just to complete the experience. In a burst of ingenuity, Lance had thought to tilt the television, making it easier for Chris to watch lying down.

Lance, on the other hand, had nothing to do. Nothing important, anyway. He paid his cell phone bill, browsed eBay for a few hours, looked at online porn. Normally, his porn tastes were rather gay, but he decided to branch out and look at other stuff, like stuff with women.

Pregnant women.

It wasn’t sexual. At least Lance hoped it wasn’t sexual, but he didn’t have his hand down his pants, so it was definitely something that didn’t give him a hard-on. Research, he guessed, or being nosy, or just plain weird, imagining Chris’s head on those bodies.

Okay. Maybe that gave him a hard-on, but just a semi, and it was more the idea of Chris naked that was doing it and not the image of Chris’s rounded belly. All Lance had to do was think of their baby inside and whoosh, the whole shebang deflated. Plus, Chris had a gut before.

He’d been pretty beautiful before, too, and he was still very beautiful, just differently. These days, he kind of glowed, magically and irresistibly, with his obvious happiness, and that, Lance thought, was pretty damn sexy. This was what Joey, and Chris, had tried to warn him about.

“Tm a pervert,” Lance muttered and felt properly chastised for about thirty seconds. The urge to kiss Chris crested and waned like the rise and fall of the ocean’s waves. Chris wasn’t really interested, and it would be a mistake if they hooked up, because they didn’t get along.

Disgusted with himself, Lance pulled down the laptop screen and went to have a drink. Water, not gin, because he never had learned the definition of moderation, and hangovers sucked. When he poked his head into Chris’s room, the television was off, and Chris was staring at him.

“Hi,” Lance said.

“Hey,” Chris replied, and there was something about the slant of his lips that pulled Lance forward, away from his bedroom and the time he had planned to spend brooding. Carefully, Lance settled on the edge of the bed and put his hand on the curve of Chris’s hip.

“Want a back rub?”

Chris nodded then rolled over. The back of his hoodie rode up slightly, letting Lance see where the elastic of Chris’s pants cut into his skin. Gently, Lance rubbed his thumb over the irritated pink lines then started digging into Chris’s back, hitting all the places he liked.

“What were you doing?”

“Looking at pregnant women porn,” Lance admitted. Chris needed the distraction.

Chris laughed heartily, pressing his mouth against the pale skin of his inner arm, and Lance let him. It was ridiculous, and Lance needed to be reminded of that, from time to time. Lance continued to knead at Chris’s back, careful to keep his hands completely off Chris’s ass.

Chris chuckled for a few minutes before looking over his shoulder and quietly saying, “dude, if you wanna see me buck, just say. I just didn’t want to freak you out. It’s kinda weird, you know? But it’s also kinda inevitable, me and you. I’m not going to be good much longer.”

Lance stopped pressing so hard, but kept his fingers brushing over Chris’s skin, trying to offer emotional comfort more than physical. Sometimes, Lance worried a lot about the stuff that was going on in Chris’s head. That was the stuff Lance didn’t always get. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you know, I’m gonna need help pretty soon to do things, you know, like pissing and shitting and bathing, and yeah.” Chris’s shoulders hunched, like he was embarrassed, but Lance didn’t see why he needed to be. Lance had seen him do all three things over the years. “If you want to help, I mean. If not, I guess I can probably handle it on my own. Greg did it all alone.”

“No, hey,” Lance said quickly. “I’m in this one hundred percent. I don’t mind at all.”

“Okay,” Chris s back and squeezing Lance’s wrist. “You still wanna see me naked?”

Lance smiled. “Maybe later.”

“Okay,” Chris said, the corner of his mouth lifting before adding, “pervert.”

~~~

“I can’t come to the party,” JC said, his words tumbling out in a breathless rush.

Lance stopped stirring the batter, hooking the bowl against his hip and switching the phone from his left ear to his right one. It was hard work, making cake and talking at the same time. “What do you mean you can’t come? What could you possibly be doing that’s so important?”

“Stuff,” JC said helplessly. “I just can’t come.”

“Well, okay,” Lance said, “but I think you should tell Chris yourself. You owe it to him.”

“Man, come on.” In the background, Lance could hear JC stamped his foot in frustration, and felt inwardly pleased that he had called JC’s bluff. “You just tell him, please. I swear, Lance, it’ll be bad if I come. I’ll stare at all of them and make them feel like freaks, and they’ll hate me.”

Lance started stirring again. “C, honestly, after the initial oh-my-God freak out, you’ll be fine. They’re a great bunch of guys,” Lance added, thinking that if Greg was nice, and if Chris thought Dallas-Bobby was nice, then chances were the rest of them were nice, too. Probably.

“Man, I just don’t wanna make any of them feel, like, freaky deaky or anything.”

“I thought we had erased that phrase from your vocabulary,” Lance said, "and you're using it improperly, aren't you? Doesn't that mean you'll make them horny?"

“See! I’m already acting like an idiot! I’ll just get worse, man. I can’t come.”

“You can, and you will. See you, in a couple weeks. Bye.”

“Lance, no!”

Lance hung up, feeling very happy with himself as he poured the cake mix into the pan. He was downright jovial by the time the cake was ready to be taken out, and he cut right into it, helping himself to a hearty slice before setting up Chris’s tray, which involved the usual suspects.

“Who was that on the phone?” Chris asked.

“C. He doesn’t want to come to your party because he’ll stare and be a freak and stuff.”

Chris grinned. “So typical JC behaviour?”

“Pretty much,” Lance said, laughing as he set the tray down. Without complaint, Chris started nibbling at it. It was a far cry from Chris’s usual eating habits, which typically involved rabid two-handed shovelling, but he had been complaining of vicious heartburn earlier.

“You mind?” Chris asked, pointing at his back, and Lance shook his head. He expected Chris to stay lying down, but he pulled himself up, leaning forward and putting his heels together. Lance slipped in behind him, taking Chris’s weight when he leaned back. “Mm. This is good.”

Lance snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Better than it was. The cake has actual taste now, which, you know, I enjoy a lot.”

Lance hummed as he pressed his thumbs into Chris’s lower back, the tips of his fingers brushing gently over the rise of Chris’s ass, but it wasn’t his fault. Chris was just badly put together, with his back and his ass too damn close. Chris’s sandwich appeared over his shoulder, and Lance took a hearty bite. It wasn’t that bad, really, just a little too sweet for him.

“Do the other guys think I’m a freak?”

“JC doesn’t think you’re a freak,” Lance said quickly. “Until now, the weirdest thing in JC’s life has been, well, JC.” Chris laughed, letting more of his weight settle into Lance’s hands. “I think Joey thought it was weird for about an hour. Justin, well, I think he thinks it’s normal.”

“I love that kid, man, even if he’s Martha Stewart’s love child.”

“He does throw good parties,” Lance said idly, still digging with his hands.

“Yup. I’m looking forward to it, actually. It’ll be nice to put faces to the names. I feel unnaturally attached to these guys. Without them, I’d be totally fucked. And without you,” Chris added, “of course, but that’s different, I guess, because they know, you know?”

“I’m not feeling the least bit left out,” Lance assured him.

“I think you’d like it,” Chris said thoughtfully, “being pregnant. It’s nice, you know? It’d be nicer if my body was built for it, even a little bit, because that part sucks a lot, but in my head? All the crazy bits are nice and quiet. I’m really happy. Like, so fucking happy I could burst.”

“I can tell,” Lance said. “I could tell, like, the minute I knew what to look for.”

“That’s good. I don’t want this baby to ever think she was unwanted, you know?”

Lance nodded. “He’s just a surprise. The best surprise.”

“Right,” Chris said, sounding pleased, like Lance had grasped something super complex, and maybe he had. The smile on Chris’s face made Lance’s stomach do flip-flops, especially when Chris leaned all the way back and the pretense of the back rub was dropped entirely.

Lance’s mouth was suddenly painfully dry. Chris looked up, grinning under the canopy of his longish hair. It’d been months, Lance figured, since Chris had gone for a haircut, more than seven, at least. It was soft, and tickled Lance’s nose when he breathed in, and smelled entirely like Chris, which meant he probably needed a bath. Gently, Lance kissed Chris’s temple.

“We’re having a sappy moment, aren’t we?”

Lance snorted. “We were.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s over then, because weird. I shouldn’t talk about this shit.”

“Yes, you should.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“Yes.”

“Nooo.”

They fought about at for a while, but it was half-hearted. When Chris fell asleep mid-battle, Lance didn’t take it personally. There were dark bruises under Chris’s eyes, and he was paler than even a man denied sunlight should look. Lance stayed up all night, helping Chris finally get some rest.

~~~

When Greg came out of the gate, Lance gave him a long hug then carried his luggage, which consisted of a duffel bag and a briefcase. They chatted idly about nothing all the way to the car. Greg showed Lance the newest pictures of Andrew, taken at a baseball game.

“We took our vacation in Toronto this year,” Greg explained.

“Doesn’t your, um, hospital wonder why you take all this time off? I mean, Chris and I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but for a secret mission, it takes up a lot of your time. And you probably have other patients, women patients, who need your talents just as much.”

Greg smiled. “They think I have a boyfriend in Orlando. One of those Internet things.”

“Ah,” Lance said. “You’re out at work?”

“The joys of not being famous,” Greg replied with a shrug.

“I’m gay,” Lance said fiercely. “You probably figured, but I am so. fucking. gay.”

“You don’t get to say that a lot, do you?”

“No, I really don’t.”

Lance felt good, having said it out loud, and knew Chris was wrong. He wasn’t out, not in the way that counted. There were things Lance didn’t like to think about, like the fact that this baby wouldn’t be his, not legally, not so long as they lived in Florida, and that even when people inevitably found out that Chris had become a father, Lance would never be able to say, so have I.

The rest of the drive was quiet. It wasn’t until they were in Chris’s driveway that Greg turned to him and put on the doctor face that said, “get me updated, tell me everything.”

“He doesn’t puke any more,” Lance said, happy when Greg nodded approvingly, “but he’s in a lot of pain. Like, lower back pain, and in his hips. He spends a lot of time lying down, and when he walks, it’s ... absolutely agonising to watch. I’m assuming this is normal. Maybe?”

“It is,” Greg said. “It doesn’t help that his knees aren’t in the best shape, either.”

“So there’s nothing I can do to help make it better?”

Greg smiled sadly. “You can make him more comfortable, but the pain won’t go away. Our bodies just aren’t made to carry babies. Some of the hormones typically associated with female pregnancy aren’t always released in male pregnancy. We haven’t done studies, obviously, but I’ve known enough guys now to be able to say for sure. Relaxin, for example, which loosens the pelvis, is one of them. If it happens at all, it’s not until the very end, and by then it’s a little too late.”

“Shit,” Lance said after a pause, “that really sucks.”

Greg laughed. “Don’t I know it.”

~~~

Lance got to stay for the check up, including the moment of excitement when Greg stuck his fingers up Chris’s butt. Lance had offered to leave, but Chris had been insistent he stay, even after Greg snapped on the latex gloves. The worse thing, perhaps, was Lance’s sudden hard-on.

Pervert, Chris mouthed, gleefully grinning for a few seconds before Greg did something that Chris's overly sensitive ass didn’t like much and his mouth opened into a surprised O. Lance chuckled, feeling a little better about the fact that his dick was a complete idiot.

Greg sat back with a quiet mutter of thanks, and Chris, as he wiggled his shorts up his hips, replied with, “no, no, man. Thank you. That was the most action I’ve gotten in months.”

“Everything appears to be in order,” Greg said, ignoring him and peeling off his gloves. He dropped them into the garbage bin then started prepping the ultrasound equipment. Helpfully, Chris rolled onto his back and lifted his hoodie. “And very healthy, too, so if that situation you don’t like me to talk about arises, there shouldn’t be any problems beyond the expected ones.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chris said.

Greg smirked. “I didn’t think you would.”

Lance would never get over seeing pictures of the baby. It even looked like a baby now, not just phantom images but actual defined features. He half-listened as Greg talked, saying a whole bunch of things Lance already knew. Obviously, the baby was on the small side. Just looking at pictures of Kelly at 33 weeks, and pictures of his own mom, showed that much.

“Have we decided on where we want this baby to be born?”

Chris looked vaguely guilty. “Um, well. I liked your suggestion. Nobody uses that room.”

Lance blinked. “We’re having a home birth? A caesarean home birth, with cutting?”

“Chris,” Greg said.

“I was going to tell him! I forgot, or I just assumed he’d realise, or something. I don’t know. He worries a lot, you know,” Chris said accusingly, levelling a glare in Lance’s direction like it was his fault. Lance offered his own retaliatory stare. “I just didn’t think about it, okay?”

Lance turned on Greg. “Is that even legal?”

“Very little of this is going to be legal, Lance. I thought you understood that.”

“I probably would have, if someone hadn’t ripped thirty fucking pages ...”

That sent Chris reeling into protest, complete with frantic arm flapping and huffs of utter disbelief, like Chris couldn’t believe his gall. “I did that for your own good! It was boring anyway!”

“Guys,” Greg said, “please. Chris, the more Lance knows, the more he’ll be able to help you, which is a good thing, eh? And Lance, I promise you, I have done this before, and I have not had a problem. It sounds unsafe, I realise that, and it sounds like Chris could be put into a dangerous situation, but remember that people did surgery before the advent of the hospital.”

“But what if something goes wrong?” Lance asked meekly, ignoring Chris’s glare.

“I’m a medical doctor, Lance, and I won’t be working alone. Together, we’ve planned for any number of situations. I won’t lie to you and tell you that it’s 100% guaranteed success, but Chris knows that, and he is willing to take that chance,” Greg said, like that was the end of it.

“But he’s a moron!” Lance protested, “I’ve known him longer than you! He’s an idiot!”

“Lance,” Chris said, grabbing him by the wrist, “trust me, okay? It’s gotta be this way.”

Lance exhaled sharply. Chris would play that card. “Fine,” he said, defeated.

But they didn’t say much to each other, after that.

~~~

Lance stomped around for a couple days, pissed beyond all reason at Chris, before waking up on the third morning and realising all the anger had bled right out of him. What was the point? It wasn’t like they had a lot of options, and if Chris was willing to do it at home then Lance was, too.

Sure.

Wearily, Lance got up and took a quick, cold shower. He shaved, brushed his teeth then looked for something to wear. Maybe later, he’d go out and shop a little. Chris needed clothes that actually fit. It would figure that Chris didn’t own anything practical, like giant sweatpants.

Chris was knitting when Lance came into his room, sitting up, which was a welcome improvement. Greg had given him vague warnings on the way to the airport about Chris lying too long in one place, bedsores and stuff, bad things Lance really didn’t want to think about.

Maybe Joey was right. Maybe gay guys were unnaturally good at denial.

“I’m sorry for freaking out like that,” Lance said.

Chris looked up from his almost-done blanket. He shrugged. “It’s okay, man. I get it. If you wanna read those thirty pages, they’re in my underwear drawer, though I gotta warn you, you’re gonna have to go through a bunch of sex toys you probably don’t want to know I own.”

“Do you want me to read them?”

“No,” Chris said unapologetically, “but you’re not a sixteen year old kid anymore, and I don’t have any right to keep this shit from you. It’s just a bunch of stuff that’ll bring you down, anyway. It brings me down knowing half the things I do, like the shock of getting this baby out of me might kill me, or this kid might not be right.”

Lance bit his lip briefly then said, “if that’s true, if so many things could go wrong, wouldn’t we be finding, I don’t know, clues?”

“What? Dead guys with babies?” When Lance didn’t reply, Chris widened his eyes threateningly, and Lance offered a meek nod. “I don’t fucking know. Could be that every instinct I have tells me to stay away from anything threatening. You have no idea what I would have done to you if you’d tried to take me away to the loony bin, whether or not I actually belonged there.”

“But there would be something,” Lance insisted, “logically.”

“Bass, once this kid is born, there’s never gonna be any trace of the fact I’m the mom in this fucked up scenario. My body’s gonna reject everything inside me that makes me like I am. There’ll be nothing left, except that one fucking ball of mine, and the doctor always told me it was useless anyway. Okay? My man-uterus is gonna melt like a popsicle and ooze out my ass for God knows how long, and it’s going to be pretty damn disgusting, but it’ll be gone after that.”

“There’s going to be a scar,” Lance pointed out.

“Where I accidentally stabbed myself with a steak knife. Yeah, I know all about it. Believe me, Bass, you can’t even imagine some of the shit that’s in that book. Okay? Let it go. You know the basics, and you’re right. Maybe none of that shit’s gonna happen, so why worry?”

“Maybe I don’t want to read it.”

Chris rubbed a hand under his nose. “I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t.”

Lance nodded, feeling a little sick to his stomach again. On the plus side, if he puked, it would give Chris a reason to make fun of him, which would make Chris happy. On the negative side, Lance really needed to grow a pair of balls. Bad things happened to good people; Lance knew this already.

“Want some snuggle time with the baby?” Chris asked suddenly, putting down his knitting and waving Lance over to the bed. Lance approached slowly, still not convinced that Chris wasn’t going to twist his nipple or pinch his nose. There was a lot of precedent, after all.

When he noticed, Chris rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a fuck, Lance. I’m out of breath just sitting up. Do you really think I’d waste all that energy on you when I might have to piss later?”

“I just don’t want to get punched in the balls,” Lance replied, inching closer then yelping when Chris grabbed him around the waist and hauled him onto the bed. It was recklessly dangerous, and Chris was such a total moron, and Lance couldn’t stop laughing. “You jerk!”

“Only because everything has to be production with you, you big drama queen.”

“Only because you make me crazy,” Lance muttered, laying his arm over Chris’s belly, secretly delighted when Chris made him lift it and pulled up his hoodie, exposing skin. Lance had the insane notion to kiss Chris’s belly, so he did, and loved how Chris jiggled with laughter.

~~~

Joey came out shopping with him, no arm-twisting involved. Kelly’s mother and sisters were visiting, and Joey was feeling scarily outnumbered. “I love them all, dude,” Joey said, climbing into the car, “but they make me nervous, so I say dumb shit, and then they yell at me.”

“Well, if you need a break but don’t want to do this with me, you can stay with Chris.”

Joey grinned. “Why do I get the feeling that if I stay with him, I’m the one who’s gonna get his ass kicked the minute he pops? Like, more than the beating I already have coming, of course. I’m already training, so I can run away when he tries. I’m still right, though.”

Lance sighed. “Leaving him alone makes me nervous. What if he goes into labour?”

“You have your phone on?”

“Yeah,” Lance said defensively, “but what if the battery dies! Or I don’t get service!”

“Or what if you’re an incredible bonehead? Yeah, I can see the problem.” Joey ruffled Lance’s hair, too quick for Lance to duck out of the way. “Relax, man. Let the guy have a couple hours to himself without you hovering over him, giving off hardcore worry-wort vibes.”

Lance snorted but let it go. Joey was right, and he was wrong, and he knew it. Still, Lance honked at everyone in traffic who even looked like they were thinking about cutting him off, and got into a yelling match with some young punks who called him gay and made fun of his car.

It was the middle of the day, which meant kids were in school, and they were allowed to shop in relative peace. Joey got bored quickly, and squawked about the food court until Lance let him go. Lance tried to think like Chris, and what he would like to wear, but it was hard.

Fashion. That was another thing they didn’t have in common.

Lance went to the bargain racks, and looked for something with elastic. Bitterly, he regretted not having measured Chris before he left, but if he’d whipped out a measuring tape, Chris would have guessed his intentions. Lance was pretty good at guessing men’s sizes, though.

Lance grabbed a couple pairs of shorts, hanging them over his arm. They were cheap, and with good reason. They were the type of shorts nobody ever went out in public wearing, but the chances of Chris leaving the house were slim. It would have to be on fire.

Lance went to look at tee-shirts, thinking XXL would give Chris room enough to breathe. It was almost June, which meant the hoodies were about to be retired, even if Lance had to rip them off Chris’s body himself. Lance couldn’t handle the extreme air conditioning much longer.

“I found the perfect shirt,” Joey said, sucking a Dairy Queen milkshake through a straw. Proudly, he held it up, and Lance laughed. It was one of those The Man, The Legend shirts, and if Joey’s legend was his gut, then Chris’s was definitely their baby. “I think Chris will like it.”

Lance snatched it away and into his pile. “I’m jealous I didn’t think of it first.”

“Feel free to claim the idea as your own, dude. Doesn’t matter much to me.”

“Thanks, Joey,” Lance said, bopping Joey on the shoulder with his forehead, grinning.

~~~

“I can’t believe you bought me giant underwear!” Chris said when Lance finally admitted just why he’d spent three hours at the mall with Joey. Chris stretched the pair of briefs as wide as they would go. “Look at the size of these things, man! They’re, like, something Joey could fit in.”

“They’re actually two sizes bigger.”

“You’re an ass,” Chris said, half-heartedly. He was too busy pulling the briefs over his head.

Lance laid out the rest of the clothes for Chris to examine. It wasn’t much, barely enough for a week, but Chris was the type of guy who kept wearing clothes until they started smelling bad, and then a little bit after, too. Lance pulled the price tags off, tucking them into his pocket.

“Hm, Lance,” Chris said, and Lance looked over. Chris had his fingers curled into the sides of his hoodie, slowly inching it up, the sliver of naked belly growing with each impatient tug. Leaning over, Lance took hold of the hem and lifted, and kept going when Chris raised his arms.

Wow, Lance thought, with the hoodie crumpled in his lap. He’d seen Chris’s stomach, and a quick glimpse of Chris’s bare ass during Greg’s last visit, but this, the pale expanse of his shoulders, the lines of his naked arms, Lance hadn’t seen since that delirious night on the beach.

Chris’s arms were crossed loosely over his chest, but when Lance tipped his head inquisitively, Chris dropped them. Lance’s eyes widened without his permission, but he couldn’t help it. There he saw the greatest difference, in the dark hue of Chris's nipples and the startling roundness beneath them. Obviously breasts, small and firm, but somehow uniquely male, too. It must have been all the chest hair.

Chris framed one of them with his hand. “At least I got a nice rack, huh?”

“Very perky,” Lance murmured, watching the nipple tighten at Chris’s fleeting touch.

Chris dropped his hands to his waist, fiddling with the button to his too-tight shorts. Lance helped then, too, pulling them down Chris’s hips when he lifted, his arms straining. Chris stayed back, propped up by his elbows, and tilted his head in the direction of his briefs.

Carefully, Lance edged his fingertips into the tightly drawn elastic, tugging them down Chris’s legs. His knees were swollen, Lance noticed idly, and his feet, too. Lance folded his hand over Chris’s left knee, and held it in the cradle of his palm. Chris’s body had changed so much.

“At least look at my dick and validate my whole existence.”

Lance grinned, and did what Chris asked. It was visibly bigger, and so were his balls, even if the colour was odd. Darker than Lance remembered, not from that night on the beach, because there had only been moonlight then, but the many times before that, when he had spied.

“Increased blood flow,” Chris muttered. “Pretty cool, huh? And if you come closer,” he added, breathless, and Lance was already leaning in, his eyes shamelessly glued to the dark line of Chris’s full cock, “I’ll tell you a cool secret.” When Lance was near enough to touch, Chris put his hand on Lance’s cheek and said, “I have never been hornier than I am right now.”

Lance knew he meant to say. It was going to sound something like, “don’t say stuff like that, Chris, or else I’ll have to kiss you, and neither of us want that,” but he never got a chance. Chris’s mouth closed over his, his tongue streaking like lightning between Lance’s lips.

When they pulled apart, Lance said, “Chris, I,” just as Chris murmured, “just gimme a handjob, please, anything. It doesn’t have to mean shit, I’ll do it back, but please, Lance,” and Lance’s traitorous hands were already snaking between Chris’s legs, trying to ignore the belly between them.

“Why haven’t you just,” Lance asked, his hand circling the red hot skin of Chris’s dick.

“I kept banging the kid, man. I couldn’t. It was too weird, but you could, please.”

“Don’t beg,” Lance murmured, already pumping his fist, entirely unable to stop. “You don’t need to.”

Chris nodded against Lance’s shoulder, one of his arms looped securely around Lance’s neck. Lance kissed his open mouth, having suspected how desperate he was for this, but still surprised, somehow, by the intensity, like he would shake apart without Chris holding him down.

When he came, Chris scratched his nails down Lance’s back, and Lance arched forward, pushing his mouth harder onto Chris’s, and came in his jeans with an undignified yelp of surprise. Lance sat back, staring at his hand, unsure of what to do now. He wiped it on his jeans.

“Thanks for the giant underpants,” Chris said.

“No problem,” Lance replied, and thought maybe he should have got some for himself, too.

~~~

Lance hadn’t intended to fall asleep right there, like that, beside Chris, but Chris had passed out quickly, and Lance had felt like an ass every time he even thought about walking out the door. When he woke up, it was morning, and his jeans were super-glued to his crotch.

“Gross,” Lance muttered, trying to inch his way to the edge of the bed without waking Chris, who was lying on his side, still completely naked, a mass of pillows clutched between his hands and his knees. Lance could count every knob of his spine. Chris grunted softly in his sleep.

Lance unzipped his jeans, wincing as his skin separated from the heavy denim, plucking various hairs from Lance’s body. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, so Lance whisked off his shirt and dipped it into the cup. Frowning, he started scrubbing at the mess.

There was nothing Lance hated more than being covered in dried semen, even if it was his own, especially if it was his own. He’d done his time, and survived his late teens and early twenties, and he was supposed to have better control over himself now, thank you very much.

Lance was too busy grumbling at his pathetic desperation to notice Chris’s hand in his crotch until the fingers had circled his dick, promptly falling into a steady stroke. Lance batted them away in a fit of mild irritation then sighed as Chris’s fingers tightened in silent retaliation.

“Chris, don’t,” he said, rubbing angrily at an especially gross patch of come.

“I said I’d do it back, and then I didn’t. I’m a man of my word, Bass.” Chris’s words spread warm across Lance’s back, and Lance pushed his elbow at him, trying to get him to back the fuck off. Chris’s swollen belly pressed insistently at his hip, and it freaked him out.

“Chris, cut it out,” Lance said. “I can’t have sex with you, okay? You’re pregnant.”

“You had sex with me last night,” Chris pointed out.

“Last night was different. Last night was,” Lance swallowed, “a mistake.”

“Bullshit, man. You’ve been after me for weeks. Don’t think I didn’t notice. The rumours of my stupidity have been highly exaggerated. Look at me, Bass,” Chris said, tugging at Lance’s waist until Lance turned, laying back and bringing his feet onto the bed. “You, oh. Hi.”

Lance raised his eyebrows, waiting for Chris to continue, but Chris was staring at Lance’s crotch, eyes wide, lips parted. Lance looked down, and if some guy had laid back on his bed, shirtless, with his jeans zipped open and his dick pulled out, it would have been pretty sexy, too.

“Chris,” Lance said, uncomfortably.

Chris wet his lips with a pink slide of tongue. “You said I didn’t need to beg, Lance.”

“I feel like a pervert,” Lance protested weakly, digging his fingers into the mattress. Chris was breathing on his crotch now, close enough that Lance knew them doing it again was pretty much inevitable, but that didn’t mean he had to sluttishly submit to Chris’s whims. “I mean, you’re carrying my baby. You’re thirty-odd weeks along. It’s just. It’s really perverted.”

Chris looked up at him. “Why? Are you attracted to babies?”

Lance reeled back, hitting his head on the headboard. “What? Ew! No!”

“Then what’s the problem? Your parents probably screwed when you were a fetus.”

“My parents have never screwed,” Lance said indignantly, lifting his hips so Chris could tug his jeans and briefs off. It required Lance keep his pelvis tilted upwards for a few minutes. Chris was doing it one-handed, and undressing someone like that wasn’t easy, Lance knew.

When Lance was naked, he collapsed back onto the bed and stared at Chris. Chris stared back at him. For all his protests, Lance wanted to reach out and touch his hand to Chris’s stubbly cheek and kiss his mouth. Lance wanted, very badly, to have sex with Chris forever if he could.

“So are we on?” Chris asked, sliding his hand up Lance’s thigh.

“We’re on,” Lance said, and spread his legs for easier access.

~~~

It got weird very quickly. Not just the sex, though that was definitely odd, but everything after that, too. It was a big ol’ orgy of strange. The sex on the beach had been normal, dumb but normal, like in the movies, where everything in the world melted away except them, and that first instance of pregnant sex had just been some kissing and a handjob, like teenagers would do.

But the sex after that? Very weird. And hot, too. Impossibly, incredibly hot. Lance could hardly stand having it, it felt so good.

“Chris, what are you doing?” Lance had asked the second Chris pressed his face between Lance’s legs, not sucking or licking or anything, just pressed up in the damp crease of his hip. When he inhaled sharply, his fingers tightening on Lance’s thigh, Lance had added, “seriously.”

“Mmm. Okay. Just let me,” Chris had murmured, dragging his face across the skin of Lance’s lower belly, his scraggly beard scratching along in the most delightful way. And he had kept sniffing, snorts of air loud enough that Lance could hear. “You smell so fucking good, man.”

“I don’t.”

“There’s this thing about being pregnant where you can smell things, like, hardcore, and mmm.” Chris had dragged his nose down the length of Lance’s cock then back up again, snaking into the space between his dick and balls. When Chris stopped, he had been panting. “It’s why I puked so much, you know? Because so many things smelled so fucking bad, except cake. And those fucking disgusting sandwiches, and jalapeno peppers, and your, mmm, your crotch.”

It shouldn’t have been hot at all. It should have been freakish enough to knock the hard-on right out of Lance’s cock, but Chris had been so into it that Lance hadn’t been able to stop him, hadn’t wanted to. Nobody had ever approached Lance’s dick with such open desperation.

“You aren’t going to, um, wow! I mean, please don’t, you know, bite me or anything.”

Chris hadn’t said anything, but then, his mouth had been suddenly full of Lance’s dick, devouring the entire length in one frantic gulp, his lips stretched impossibly tight. It hadn’t even been a good blowjob, but again with the open desperation, like Chris would just die without sucking it, and nobody had ever wanted Lance as badly as Chris had seemed to want him.

Lance wasn’t allowed to thrust, because Chris couldn’t move quickly or, well, at all, and he wasn’t allowed to pull Chris’s hair, because then Chris really would bite him. Lance had just hung on, his arms lifted in the air, bent at the elbows, his fingers clutching at the headboard.

“You,” Chris had said, licking frantically at the length of Lance’s cock, like a popsicle, “you are just,” he had opened his mouth wide and swallowed Lance again, bobbing three times before pulling off, “you are so fucking delicious, man. You are just,” and had done it all again.

So, yeah, definitely weird, but so hot that Lance just hadn’t really cared.

~~~

Lance walked around guiltily for the next week, alternating between having hot, hot sex with Chris and hiding from Chris, who always seemed to want hot, hot sex. Lance even phoned up Greg, looking for an excuse to stop the whole thing, but Greg wasn’t saying the right words.

“I’m sorry, Lance, but there’s no medical reason for me telling Chris that he can’t have sex with this nameless person,” Greg said patiently, his voice lowered. In the background, Lance could hear Andrew asking Greg when he was going to come back. “If there was penetration ...”

“There isn’t,” Lance said glumly.

Greg chuckled. “I know Chris’s condition is high risk, but the sex you’re talking about is not going to trigger any unwanted complications. There’s a chemical in sperm than some experts think may start things, but if there’s no penetration, well, I’m sorry, Lance. I can’t blame him really, with the ...”

Lance sighed. “Increased blood flow. Yeah, I’ve heard all about it.”

“It’s something else. Anyway, I have a whiny son to attend to. See you in a couple days.”

“All right,” Lance said, and hung up. It wasn’t the news he was hoping for, but Lance wasn’t the type of guy to dwell on the negatives. At least he wasn’t fucking up their baby by being unable to resist Chris’s charms, and Chris was in a wonderful mood almost all the time.

Lance just wasn’t sure he could keep up with Chris’s insatiable need.

When Lance walked into Chris’s room, Chris was sprawled on the bed, looking absolutely pitiable in his ugly shorts and XXL tee-shirt. They’d done it three times already, and it wasn’t even suppertime yet. Lance hadn’t even come that last time. “Service me, Bass.”

Lance collapsed in the nearest chair. “You’re giving me carpal tunnel syndrome, Chris.”

“Why don’t you shut your trap and then, uh, why don’t you open it again, hm?”

Lance snorted. “Nice one, Chris. I’m just an orifice to you, aren’t I?”

“An awfully mean orifice. You knock me up, you deny me simple pleasures ...”

“Oh, will you shut up,” Lance said, laughing, but his hand was already snaking into Chris’s baggy shorts, circling his constantly hard dick. It was easier, all things considered, to just give him a handjob and shut him up, and if there was a God, someday, Chris would be satisfied.

Lance hoped so, anyway.

~~~

There was still so much do, and with Chris’s sudden preoccupation with using Lance as his very own sex slave, Lance found he suddenly didn’t have enough time. The Baby Room was done, except for a few small things, like socks in the dresser and a nightlight and electrical outlet covers.

And then there was still no name, which was a constant thorn in Lance’s side.

“Can you get off that please?” Chris asked when Lance brought it up, being smart enough to mention it when he was in the bathroom washing his hand and far away from Chris. “Do you honestly think this kid isn’t going to have a name? What’s the fucking rush, you impatient ass?”

Lance came out of the bathroom, drying his hand on his jeans. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because this baby is due in a month and a half, and I’d like to be prepared in case, you know, things happen. I don’t want our baby to spend his first few days called Baby Kirkpatrick.”

“Yeah, about that. Greg thinks maybe you and I should talk.”

Lance inhaled sharply. “Bad shit or good shit?” He hated these type of conversations.

“Annoying shit. Neutral shit, in the way that you’re meaning. But, like, you know that you’re not gonna be. I mean, you’re gonna be this kid’s other dad, but not. I mean, the state of Florida isn’t going to.” Chris rolled his eyes. “Do you want to move to, like, California?”

“You hate California,” Lance said.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s so fucking unfair, Bass! It’s not your fault you like dick so much!”

Inwardly, Lance winced. Chris’s eyes were already glistening wet. Without a word, Lance pulled a few tissues out of the box and shoved them in Chris’s direction. “Listen,” Lance said, “we don’t need to talk about this. I know where I’m going to stand, okay? I’m fine with it.”

Chris dabbed at his eyes. “I don’t mean to be a freak about this, man, but I don’t want you to think I’m hogging this baby. It probably looks like I am, seeing as I tried to hide the kid from you and all, but I only did that because, well, okay, I do know why I did it, but I’m also just stupid.”

“You’re not,” Lance said, patting Chris’s hand, and God, but Chris was a freak.

Chris sniffled. “You want to move to New York instead? Or how about Minnesota?”

“I’m fine with Florida, Chris. I come from Mississippi, remember.”

“But they hate you!”

“Everyone hates me, Chris. Even if I wasn’t gay, I’d still be in Nsync.”

“Oh, good point,” Chris said, blowing his nose with a loud, satisfied honk.

~~~

They reached a sort of understanding where Chris reluctantly accepted that Lance wasn’t a sex-bot patterned after the Energiser bunny. It was a double-edged sword. On one hand, Lance’s body had the chance to recover. On the other, it meant Chris got bored and bitchy.

“At least entertain me,” Chris said, three pillows stuffed between his knees.

Lance looked up from his magazine. “We can discuss baby names.”

Chris groaned. “I’d rather have sex, man. I’ll suck your dick again. You liked that.”

Lance’s cock stiffened against his will, but while he had liked that a lot, his body seriously required a break. Or, at least, a few hours to lessen to embarrassing amount of need Lance felt for Chris, and not even the sex bits. Joey was right to warn him. Lance felt wild.

Lance turned back to his copy of Rolling Stone, flipping the page, ignoring Chris’s pouting mouth, the sensual slant of his lips. Lance thought of fundamentally unattractive things, like dead kittens and rotten roast beef and Lou Pearlman, and that helped a little, especially Lou.

“Michelle, ma belle,” Chris sang softly under his breath, and Lance looked up again, his lips pulling with a reluctant smile. Chris was a dork, but Lance couldn’t think of anything better, and it was Chris’s way or the highway these days. “These are words that go together well, my Michelle.”

Chris finished the rest of the song, a pleased look on his face, then lifted his eyes expectantly. Well, Lance thought, it was something, and the musically-inspired name thing did seem sort of inevitable, seeing as they couldn’t agree on anything, ever. A name was a name.

Lance cleared his throat, but his voice still cracked embarrassingly on the first note. “Ben, the two of us need look no more. We both found what we were looking for. With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone, and you, my friend, will see. You've got a friend in me.”

He didn’t finish the song. He couldn’t remember the rest of the words, and Chris still clapped politely, even though Lance knew he had sounded horrible. Lance hadn’t sounded like a pre-pubescent boy since he was eight, and even then his voice had been pretty low.

Chris cracked his knuckles then started slapping his hands together until he found the beat. “Oooh, Cecilia, you're breaking my heart. You're shaking my confidence daily. Whoa, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees. I'm begging you please to come home, please come home.”

Lance was at an unfair disadvantage. Chris knew he didn’t have the head for remembering song lyrics, not on the fly. He usually needed sheets of music, and literal choreography, and days of intense memorisation. Still, Lance was a musician, and he could play this game. He would.

Then it hit him, and it was actually in his range this time, and it was mildly impressive. “Ruuudy's on a train to nowhere, halfway down the line. He don't wanna get there, but he needs time. He ain't sophisticated, or well-educated. After all the hours he's wasted, still he needs time. He needs time, he needs time for living. He needs time, for someone just to see him.”

Chris whistled. “Supertramp, Bass. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have it in you.”

“My dad was a huge fan,” Lance replied, grinning.

Chris nodded appreciatively then launched into, “Roooxanne, you don't have to put on the red light. Those days are over. You don't have to sell your body to the night. Roooxanne, you don't have to wear that dress tonight. Walk the streets for money, you don't care if it's wrong or if it's right.”

“Okay, hold on,” Lance said before Chris could finish the song, holding up his hand. “I can’t name any child of mine Roxanne. My mother would kill me, Chris. No, I veto the name.”

Chris grinned, a devilish glint to his eye, and Lance knew he had already lost. “Hey, man. If the hat tells us we have to name this baby Roxanne, we’re gonna name her Roxanne. Don’t fuck with the system, and anyway, you’re the one who brought Rudy into this. Kids named Rudy get beaten up, Lance, repeatedly, and they deserve it. You started it. Be more careful next time.”

Lance sighed, but Chris was right, even if it was stupid. Lance took five minutes to wrack his brain for a name then mentally thanked Stacey for her taste in music. “My name is Luka. I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you. Yes, I think you've seen me before.”

Chris laughed. “You are full of surprises, man.”

“I aim to please. And quit stalling.”

“I don’t need to stall, man. I’m the living jukebox, remember?” Chris hummed, then cleared his throat and threw his arm open, starting to sing. “Whoa, I got time on my hands tonight. You're the girl of my dreams. When I'm near you, my future seems bright. I want you to be my girl. I want you to be my movie. I am Sal Mineo, and I need you so, sweet Bernadette.”

“Who sang that?”

“Paul Simon, fucker. I didn’t expect a youngster like you to recognise it.”

Lance started to roll his eyes then caught himself mid-roll. It was official: he’d spent too much time around Chris. Instead, Lance closed his eyes, and thought really, really hard. Nobody wrote songs with boy-names as titles. And then it hit him like a sledgehammer: “Joey, baby ...”

“No,” Chris said abruptly. “We are not giving this kid the same name as that fat ass.”

Lance grinned. “I’m sorry, but rules are rules, Chris.”

Chris scrunched up his nose and sneered, but he accepted it, and Lance was just grateful he’d been cut off. He couldn’t remember a single word beyond those first two. Chris, of course, started with, “she was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene. I said, don't mind, but what do you mean I am the one who will dance on the floor in the round?” And finished with a frighteningly earnest chant of, “Billie Jean is not my lover. Billie Jean is not my lover ...”

“You scare me sometimes,” Lance said.

Chris grinned then flapped his hand impatiently in Lance’s direction, drawing his knees up as close to his body as they would go “Enough with the chit-chat. I gotta pee so fucking bad.”

Lance was scraping the bottom of the barrel, and he would bitterly regret to the end of his days if this was the name that stuck, but he refused to let Chris have the last word, not when Chris had started it and looked like he go on forever. Chris didn’t even pause when it was his turn.

Lance wet his lips then started. “Levon wears his war wound like a crown. He calls his child Jesus 'cause he likes the name, and he sends him to the finest school in town. Levon, Levon likes his money. He makes a lot they say, spends his days counting in a garage by the motorway.”

Chris crowed, his eyes widening in utter delight, and Lance couldn’t help but grin back, even if, please God, no. “Oh my God, Bass! I change my vote! I want a boy, too, just so we can name him Levon. Levon! God, I’m so fucking envious here, you have no idea. Levon! Levon!”

Even as he was saying it, he was struggling to sit up, and even though Chris hadn’t asked, Lance didn’t think he ever would, so Lance grabbed him under the arms to get him standing. Chris was still chuckling as they ambled slowly to the bathroom, and Lance was grateful for the distraction. Lance had actually caught him crawling yesterday, and it had upset him to see it.

Chris was still muttering, “God, Levon, I love it,” when they entered the room, and when he turned to Lance, he was close enough to kiss, so Lance did, softly on the lips. Chris snorted. “Just set my pregnant ass down, Bass. I can’t even stand up long enough to piss anymore.”

“Do you want me to, um, stay?”

Chris smirked. “You into that sorta thing, Bass?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I’m fine,” Chris said, “but keep the door open.”

Lance nodded, and didn’t watch as Chris struggled to get his shorts down, and stayed stiff as a board against the wall, listening for emergencies, for the toilet to flush. When it did, it was followed quickly by a loud, “half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you, Juuulia,” and Lance laughed out loud.

~~~

They had, in only a few weeks, gone through ten jars of peanut butter, so Lance took two of them, labelled one BOY and the other GIRL, and offered them to Chris, who had written down all the names on slips of white paper. They currently sat on Chris’s dresser, ominously.

“But we still get to pull the name out of a hat, right?” Chris asked.

“Yeah. There’s no way your hand or mine is fitting in those jars.”

Chris crossed his fingers and closed his eyes. “Dear God. Please let it be a boy, so we can name him Levon. Thank you very much. Love your very favourite member of Nsync, Chris.”

“Oh, you’re awful,” Lance murmured, but laughed a little, too.

Lance wondered, sometimes, if this was what other parents went through waiting for their baby to be born. Their situation was a little unconventional, but Lance figured it was pretty close, even though most people probably hadn’t bet on their baby’s future education, or left the naming completely up to luck, or were two guys and one of those guys was the child-bearing kind.

“Did you and Kelly do all this stuff?” Lance asked when Joey showed up with boxes of hamburgers and hot dogs for the baby shower. Joey didn’t want to talk about it, but he and Kelly had been recruited as the caterers, which had to suck. Justin could get a little intense, sometimes.

Joey stopped trying to force the boxes into the freezer and looked over, grinning wide. “Freak out about every little thing? Hell, yeah. Kel was worse than me, though. I figured, if Steve could be someone’s father and not fuck it up too badly, so could I, cuz dude, he’s an idiot.”

“That does give me a hope.”

“You’ll be fine,” Joey said, and ruffled Lance’s hair.

Lance took phone calls from his parents and Bev, and occasionally convinced Chris to pick up the phone and talk to them himself about the “new puppy.” Lance washed and folded all the baby clothes, freaked out over how tiny they were, and organised them all by colour and style.

Chris was mid-way through his CD collection, begrudgingly letting their baby listen to bands he had once liked but currently thought were crap, like Metallica and Guns ‘n’ Roses. Lance didn’t think the baby should be listening to either of them, but it was Chris’s belly, not his.

They had sex often, very often. Chris still gave the worst blowjobs ever, but they were so hot that Lance couldn’t really complain. Sometimes, he was terrified Chris was going to go that extra step and bite it off, but mostly, there was a surplus of slurping and only a little teeth.

“Mmm, God,” Chris murmured, his tongue covering every inch of Lance’s cock and balls, catching his thighs and lower belly, too. Lance tried to watch, tried to make his eyes focus on the wild fury of Chris’s pink tongue, but every touch of Chris’s mouth shook him to his bones.

“If you want,” Lance gasped, trying so hard not to move his hips at all, “I can blow you.”

Chris looked up, his lips slickly wet from Lance’s eager dick. “Oh, yeah?”

“If we have a pillow,” Lance added, nervously, because there was a reason he hadn’t yet. There was something about his face being so close to the baby while doing that, regardless of any barrier of skin between them, that sort of freaked Lance out. “I mean, no offense, but the baby, you know.”

“Hmm, being made to feel like a freak or getting a blowjob. Decisions, decisions.”

Lance opened his mouth to speak, and got a mouthful of pillow instead. He arranged it up against Chris’s naked belly, using one hand to keep it secured, and bent down. Up close, Chris’s dick looked huge, and Lance said as much with an impressed, “your cock is gigantic.”

“Consider yourself forgiven,” Chris said, but Lance didn’t believe him. The next words out of his mouth were, “and hey, that must be like coming home for you, huh, not having to see the guy you’re blowing?” Which was the actual response Lance had expected. It was Chris.

Lance smiled. “I’ve only heard of glory-holes, Chris.”

“I can one up you there. First guy I ever blew was through a glory-hole. Good thing, too, because God, I sucked in that bad way, and shit like that tarnishes a guy’s reputation, you know?”

“Hmm,” Lance said, not having the heart to tell Chris he still sucked, but it didn’t matter really, with Chris’s dick all up in Lance’s face, begging to be licked and kissed and held in the hammock of his tongue, slick and delicious. Surprised, Lance pulled back. “You taste amazing.”

“Yeah? Come up here,” Chris said, tugging Lance by the hair until he was leaning over him, careful not to touch his belly. They kissed hard and deep, Chris’s tongue slicking into his mouth and sweeping over his teeth. Chris grinned. “Wow, you’re not kidding. Must be the cake.”

“Must be,” Lance said, and kissed him again.

~~~

The thing about Chris that Lance had to remember was that, underneath it all, he was still Chris, and came with all sorts of issues and idiosyncrasies and other things that drove Lance nuts, like his completely inability to ask for help, even when he needed it. Even if he had gone to Joey, or Kelly, or whoever, Chris had waited months to do it, and that still pissed Lance off.

“You stink,” Lance finally said. At first, it had been charming, so very Chris, but now he just smelled bad. Chris slowly looked up from his copy of War and Peace, eyes wide and innocent. “I thought you were going to tell me when you needed me to give you a hand?”

“Ah, no. I told you I was going to need your help. I never told you I would say when.”

“Can you get up?”

Chris shook his head. “Not today, no. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe then.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Where have you been pissing?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Chris replied, grinning, and Lance swore under his breath, making a mental note to throw out everything within reaching distance. “Listen, if it bothers you so much, you can always hang out downstairs. I do own a whole house, you know.”

Lance made a face then walked into the bathroom, turning on the bathtub faucet. When the water was warm, Lance dumped out the bowl Chris used to hold all the bars of hotel soap he had stolen over the years and filled it. He grabbed a washcloth and a sponge then walked back.

Lance set the bowl of water on the bedside table, placing the sponge and washcloth next to it, then pulled a tiny bar of hotel soap out of his pocket. Chris watched him without speaking, lifting his arms when Lance grabbed the hem of his tee-shirt, slowly inching it up and off him.

“It pisses me off that I can’t do this myself,” Chris said quietly, “that’s all.”

“I’m not mad,” Lance replied, his fingers hovering on the bumps of Chris’s ribs. The first thing Lance was going to do when Chris delivered this baby was make sure Chris ate a pizza, or seven. “I would rather you tell me things, but I’ve known you long enough to not need you to.”

“Almost ten years,” Chris said fondly, “officially my longest relationship ever.”

Lance smiled. “I thought it was JC who was married to his best friends.”

“C’s the only one stupid enough to say it out loud.”

Lance laughed, his cheeks drawn tight, and pushed at Chris’s hips until he rolled over, displaying the broad expanse of his back. Careful not to spill, Lance dipped the washcloth into the water then wrung the excess, bringing it to Chris and gently sluicing the water over his skin.

Chris hummed appreciatively as Lance washed, sliding the cloth across Chris’s back, into the curve of his armpit, the tight skin of his side, the dip of his hip, before following the same path with the soap and then the sponge. Then Lance made him roll over, and did it all again.

When Chris started shivering, Lance dried him off with a towel and tucked him under the covers. He started to stand, but Chris grabbed him by the wrist and tugged impatiently until Lance slid into the blankets with him. Chris rested his hand on Lance’s shoulder, and held his hand.

“You’re going to be an awesome dad,” Chris murmured, the bulk of his belly held in the hollow of Lance’s stomach, kept taut by the cautious breath that Lance held. “Helps me sleep easy knowing that, man.” Chris yawned widely against his neck. “Mind if I crash on you, Bass?”

“I guess all my super important stuff can wait.”

Chris snorted. “If you hadn’t just stolen my superpowers, I would turn my stink on you.”

“Shut up, Chris,” Lance said, and he thankfully did.

~~~

The next few days, weeks, passed much like the ones before them had, except with more sex, and a lot less sleep. More often than not, Lance found himself staring at the ceiling, wishing for dreams and getting only glimpses of the future: first wary step, first day at school, first date. The only consolation was that Chris wasn’t sleeping either, except that was really nothing new.

They divided their time between having sex, fighting over stupid stuff, and reading to the baby. The Harry Potter books, which had been sitting innocuously on Chris’s floor for weeks, finally came into play. Lance had hoped for some easy answer, but Chris wanted things difficult.

“Chris,” Lance said. “I can do one accent. I can do a Mississippi accent. That’s it.”

“Bullshit, man. Cockney accent, c’mon, I know you can do it.”

“I can’t,” Lance insisted, talking over Chris, who had already started in on the first chapter. It was unnatural how well Chris could fake a British accent. Lance had heard all the embarrassing childhood stories, had witnessed it firsthand when they were touring Europe, but he still marvelled at Chris’s talent. It was, Lance thought, actually rather sexy, listening to him talk.

As Chris read, Lance snuffled into Chris’s long hair, his nose deeply buried in the tangled mess. It hurt his back to be sitting like he was, behind Chris with his legs curled around Chris’s own crossed ones. It was easy to press his hands into Chris’s lower back, massaging away the tension, and even easier to hook his chin over Chris’s shoulder and read along with him and the baby.

“Your turn,” Chris said, finally. Lance shook his head. “Bass, don’t you love your kid?”

“I love my kid enough to spare him the pain.”

“You fucking pussy. Just do it. Who’s going to make fun of you?”

“You,” Lance said.

“I always make fun of you, Bass. I made fun of you the second I met you, and I will make fun of you to my dying breath. I’m making fun of you right now for being an incredible loser.” Chris tilted his head back, grinning. “C’mon, Lance. I let you have sex with me. You owe me.”

Lance laughed. “What world are you living in, Chris?”

“Chris World. Where everybody is British and having sex with me is a gift from God.”

“I’ll try,” Lance said, poking Chris in the butt, “but no promises, and no making fun, okay?” Chris nodded, still gleefully grinning, and Lance took a moment to lay down some ground rules. “No shaking the page while I read, and no commentary from the peanut gallery.”

Chris sighed. “Oh, fine. Take all the joy out of it. Now do it before this kid is in college.”

Lance cleared his throat then carefully started speaking, trying to remember the sound of every English person he’d ever met. The list was not long. There was that guy he’d slept with in London, that other guy he’d slept with from London, and the London guy he’d tried to sleep with.

“You really suck at this,” Chris said, sounding awed. “Like, you seriously blow, man.”

“You just broke rule two and four,” Lance replied, closing the book.

“Actually, I think that was only rule four. I wasn’t making fun; I was pitying you aloud.”

“That’s a technicality,” Lance said, trying to be irritated, but it was hard to do anything but nuzzle Chris’s warm neck. Plus, he was so damn tired, and fighting took energy, more energy than he was willing to spare on something he didn’t enjoy at all. “You read.”

Chris scrunched up his nose. “It’s hell on the throat, man. I think I’ll just get the audio books instead.”

“You’re nuts,” Lance said. “You just.” He paused. “This was your idea, Chris.”

Chris shrugged. “I changed my mind. Wanna have sex, instead?”

“Oh, I guess,” Lance said, “if you talk like a sexy British man again.”

Chris grinned devilishly.

~~~

“Maybe I should breastfeed,” Chris said, randomly, one balmy afternoon.

Lance blinked. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Boobies can feed babies, but I don’t blame you for not knowing that, you big homo.”

“But you,” Lance said, then stopped. Lance wondered if he should start keeping a tally of the things Chris backtracked on after making it clear they were never going to happen. Lance also made a note to ask Joey if Kelly had changed her mind about every thing in the universe, too.

“It’s all this propaganda,” Chris said, waving three pregnancy books in his hand. “I mean, it’s supposed to be great for the kid, and this kid needs all the help she can get, and Greg keeps saying shit like engorgement, and I really, really don’t want my cute little rack to explode.”

Lance wasn’t sure if he was supposed to support Chris, or remind him that just a few short weeks ago Chris had vehemently opposed the idea. “I don’t know, Chris. I mean, if you want to, then maybe you should. And I really don’t think your, um, breasts are going to explode.”

“Spoken like a guy who doesn’t have them. They’ve been aching for months, man.”

“Then breast-feed.”

Chris cupped his left breast, squinting at it. “Isn’t it a little ... weird?”

“No weirder than you having a baby in the first place,” Lance said, rubbing his forehead. Keeping up with Chris was exhausting sometimes, worse when he hadn’t slept at all.

“I think it would be really nice,” Chris said, a little too wistfully.

“Then do it,” Lance said wearily.

“Well, maybe I will.” Chris narrowed his eyes suddenly, and Lance sighed, bracing himself for whatever bizarre thing Chris had to say. “But I’m still not shooting this baby out of my ass, Bass, no matter how hard you try to get me to change my mind. No fucking way, man!”

“Fine,” Lance said. He had a terrible headache now.

“Fine,” Chris replied snidely.

~~~

“I changed my mind,” Chris said after Justin phoned from the airport, announcing that his plane had landed and that the party plans were on schedule. “I don’t want to meet these guys. I don’t want a baby shower. I don’t want JC to come within a hundred feet of my freaky ass.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Lance replied, folding the linens he had just washed. Chris had enough sheets to keep the entire US Army in bed, but they had smelled musty and old and unused, so Lance decided to wash them before their guests arrived. “They’re in the air, and they’re coming, so decide what you want to wear, will you?”

“You mean, pick between ugly shorts and even uglier shorts?”

“Right,” Lance said, and began making stacks for specific rooms, ignoring everything Chris said after that. He was just being pissy for the sake of being pissy, and Lance wasn’t going to fall for it. When he looked over at Chris, Chris was staring intently at two pairs of shorts.

“Can you go buy me, I don’t know, a pair of pants that aren’t hideously ugly? I mean, I realise these guys are pretty much expecting me to look like I’ve been carrying a baby in a body really not meant to carry anything other than an impressive beer belly and a humongous cock, but.”

Lance looked at his watch. Justin was set to arrive in less than an hour, and Greg and Dallas-Bobby were arriving ahead of the pack a little after that. “Okay, I think I can manage that, but I’m warning you, Chris, I’m coming back with honest-to-goodness maternity clothes.”

“Okay, but no overalls,” Chris said. “They don’t put zippers in the crotch.”

“Okay,” Lance replied, grabbing his towers of linens and trying not to think about the fact they had just had an entire conversation centred around the word “okay.” He distributed the sheets, shouted a quick goodbye to Chris and zipped over to the mall to buy Chris stylish clothes.

It took a bit longer than Lance had hoped. Women’s sizes were seriously foreign to him, and everything looked a little too girly for Chris to pull off without raising eyebrows. In the end, Lance broke his promise, bought a pair of overalls and quickly ran them over to the alteration booth for a zipper, where he waited impatiently and annoyingly, constantly checking his watch.

Lance got a speeding ticket on the way home, and was in a right awful mood by the time he stomped up the stairs to Chris’s room. Justin was already there, and Greg, and a very attractive man Lance didn’t recognise but had to be Dallas-Bobby. He didn’t look any older than twenty, except in his eyes.

Chris flopped a hand between them. “Lance, Bobby. Bobby, Lance.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lance said politely, offering his hand, and Bobby shook it kindly. There was something familiar about him, something Lance couldn’t quite place. Lance shook it off, brought Chris’s brand spanking new overalls into the bathroom and returned to laughter.

“What did I miss?”

“Pregnant guy humour,” Justin said, shrugging. “I didn’t get it either.”

It was strange, watching Chris with other guys and knowing that they shared something the rest of the world didn’t understand. Lance kept close to Justin, who looked like he was seeing it, too. It tasted too much like jealously, which annoyed him. It was a dumb thing to be jealous of.

Lance got up, and went down to the kitchen. When he turned around, Justin was there, reaching over him to grab a glass. Two glass, actually, which he poured gin into, and added ice. He sat down at the counter, bringing his feet up on the stool, and Lance settled down beside him.

“This all feels really normal,” Justin said, “until I’m the odd one out because I’m a man who can’t have a baby.”

“Hmm,” Lance said, nodding. “Of course, how do you know? Maybe you can.”

Justin blanched then took a long swig of gin. “Okay, I don’t want to even think about that. I mean, all the power in the world to Chris for doing this, but I really don’t want to find out I’m a card-carrying member of the club. Here’s to being straight,” Justin said, lifting his glass.

Lance smirked. “I really wouldn’t know.”

“Trust me, it’s not half bad. At least, not since they invented birth control.” Justin paused, staring intently into his cup for a heartbeat. “You really should have used a condom, Lance.”

“I don’t regret it,” Lance admitted quietly. “I think I’m actually glad we didn’t.”

Justin tilted his head then nodded, like he approved, and Lance exhaled.

~~~

Everyone else, including JC, were arriving the next morning, semi-early, so Lance showed Greg and Dallas-Bobby to their rooms, and put Justin in his own room. It wasn’t like Lance had been sleeping there recently, choosing to sleep with Chris, even though there was barely room for Chris, Lance and the army of pillows. Sometimes Lance just slept on Chris’s couch instead.

“So Bobby’s pretty hot,” Lance said, casually.

Chris looked up at him, eyes staying on Lance’s face for a second before dropping back to Lance's crotch. One track mind, Lance thought, and stripped his shirt the rest of the way off. “Yeah, I guess. If you want to sleep with him, I suppose I won’t stab you in your sleep for it.”

“I didn’t mean,” Lance said then stopped. He didn’t know what he meant.

“See? This is why you should have let me cancel. It’s gonna get weird.” Chris exhaled into his pillow, scooting back a little when Lance laid down beside him. “I like Bobby, man, but he’s just a kid with a kid. Call me shallow, but shit like that is too messy. Believe me, I know.”

“I’ll stop being a jealous psycho,” Lance promised, snuggling down into the blankets.

“I’d appreciate it,” Chris said, and the sound of his voice was the last thing Lance remembered until morning, when a sliver of blinding sunlight across his eyes woke him up. Chris was already awake, watching him, and Lance grumbled at him, pushing his grinning face away.

“Oh, you’re so dreamy,” Chris said, biting lightly at the edge of Lance’s hand.

“Fuck off,” Lance said. It was too early in the morning for Chris’s mocking. Wearily, Lance sat up and rubbed his hands vigorously over his face. Chris walked his fingers across Lance’s lower back, dipping into his briefs and sliding down between his ass. “Chris, seriously.”

“C’mon, just to take the edge off? And wow, that sounded like I’m a sex addict. Sorry.”

“You are,” Lance said, even as he turned to face Chris, sliding his hand into Chris’s briefs. He was hard already, or still hard, and fit perfectly into the bend of Lance’s palm. Lance kept his eyes on Chris’s blissful face, watching the dark lashes settle against his pale cheeks.

“When you die, Bass, I’m totally gonna have your hand bronzed.”

Lance snorted, dragging his fingers along the underside of Chris’s dick, watching him stretch his neck, shivering and moaning. With his other hand, Lance started to tug Chris's briefs off, slowly edging them down his bent legs. Chris’s fingers scrabbled weakly at Lance’s thighs.

“Can you,” Chris said, lifting his hand to Lance’s jaw, “put your mouth on me?” When Lance reached for the pillow, Chris grabbed his wrist. “No, I meant, here,” and with the pads of his fingertips, led Lance’s face down to his chest. “I know it’s a little straight, but if you could.”

“I slept with a transsexual once,” Lance confessed.

“Kinky motherfucker,” Chris murmured, kicking out his legs when Lance closed his lips around one of Chris’s nipples and sucked it between his teeth. It was beyond hot, the way Chris thrashed and moaned, combing his fingers through Lance’s hair and keeping him tightly there.

It didn’t take Chris long to come. It never took Chris long to come, and Chris had only just got his hand curled around Lance’s cock when Justin burst into the room with a chipper, “rise and shine, losers, and holy fucking shit! What the hell are you guys doing? Lance, you ass!”

Chris rolled his eyes. “J, for the millionth time, you are not a virgin.”

“I know that,” Justin snapped, his hand folded over his eyes. “Lance, can I talk to you?”

“No,” Chris said.

Lance tugged his shorts up, ignoring Chris’s look of mutinous betrayal. “Yes, you can.”

Lance left Chris grumbling, not only about stupid Justin, but about stupid Lance-bought clothes, and stupid baby showers with stupid internet guys, and stupid back that hurt so much, and stupid world in general. In the hall, Lance crossed his arms and looked expectantly at Justin.

“Shit, Lance,” Justin said, finally, “you know you’re playing with fire, right?”

He probably was, and Lance would admit that. He could claim Chris was thinking rationally until he was blue in the face, and it still didn’t make it true. Lance didn’t think he could put into words the myriad of reasons why he wanted this so bad, but he was still going to try.

“I love him,” Lance said, and it was the first time he’d ever said it out loud, and it sounded more right than anything Lance had ever heard in his life. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t go telling him that. This whole us having sex thing, it’s not supposed to mean anything.”

Justin snorted. “I suppose Chris told you that.”

“To get me to have sex with him, yeah. It wasn’t my brightest moment, but.” Lance shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve heard this all before, from Joey, from Chris before he decided I was too sexy to live.” Justin grinned. “Yeah, that’s when I thought he’d lost his mind, too.”

Justin tipped his head for a moment then nodded. “Okay. Just don’t fuck him over.”

“We could argue I already have.”

“No,” Justin said, like it was that simple, and Lance supposed maybe it was.

~~~

Joey and Kelly arrived with meticulously arranged meat and cheese platters. Justin hummed approvingly and let them inside. JC was in Orlando somewhere, making a run for decorations, which Justin had changed his mind on last minute. Greg and Bobby were at the airport to collect the wayward travellers, and Lance had heard from both his parents and Bev.

“Might as well get this over with,” Chris finally muttered. It was a good day, but that didn’t really make much difference. Lance grabbed Chris under the arms and pulled him up, taking Chris’s weight when his knees buckled at the first flash of pain, which Chris wore obviously on his face.

“I can carry you,” Lance whispered.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Chris said, and straightened defiantly.

They walked slowly out of Chris’s room then down the hall. Justin came bounding up the stairs but didn’t say anything when he saw them. Chris’s face was screwed up in concentration; Lance wasn’t sure he had even noticed Justin was there. Inch by inch, they edged closer to the stairs.

Chris groaned. “I guess it’d be a little politically incorrect to throw me down, huh?”

“Just a little,” Lance said, smiling. Chris’s arms were sticky warm around his neck.

It took them half an hour to get down the stairs. Joey was outside stalling the parents, and Justin was at the top of the stairs, watching. Kelly took one look at Chris and said, completely unfazed, “I like the overalls, Chris. I might have to borrow them if I can ever pin Joey down.”

Chris grinned. “I always found grabbing him by the balls worked.”

“If only. I kind of need the balls to be functioning,” Kelly replied, and Chris laughed.

At the bottom, Lance thought he was going to pass out from the strain of keeping Chris upright. Justin passed behind them, tilting his head at a chair in the living room. Slowly, Lance moved Chris toward it then dropped him down the minute he was sure Chris’s ass would hit.

Chris wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his The Man, The Legend tee-shirt. “How do I let you idiots talk me into shit like this?”

“The same way you talked me into those twenty-one tequila shots on my 21^st birthday.”

“Those were some good times,” Chris said, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

“My stomach didn’t think so. Neither did my liver, for that matter.”

“Whine, whine, whine. Would you like some cheese with that? Let me play my violin for you. Boohoo, poor Lance.” Chris curled out his bottom lip, and Lance pursed his own, refusing to betray any hint of amusement. Encouraging Chris was like poking a rabid dog with a stick.

Lance sat down beside him, and exhaled sharply. He understood that Chris had more right to be nervous, but Lance was about to out himself to a horde of guys he didn’t know. Despite his recent practice on Greg, Lance didn’t even remember how to come out. It’d been so long since he’d been allowed to do it.

“I hope this goes good,” Chris said, crossing his fingers. “Please God, let this go good.”

“Amen,” Lance murmured.

~~~

JC arrived, chauffeured in by a taxi, and Lance thought he was a little drunk. “Man, I’m not,” JC insisted, shoving at Lance’s face, but Lance caught a whiff of his breath, and he was definitely not sober. Lance watched as he went in to say hi to Chris.

“Man, I apologise for anything I’m gonna say that’ll offend you, like, fuck me, shitty, look at the size of you!” JC slapped his hand against his forehead, his eyes widening comically. Chris’s mouth twitched. “I mean, sorry, but. Holy smokes, dude! Is that even comfortable?”

“Not in the slightest,” Chris replied. “Hey, C, gimme your hands, will you?”

JC whimpered. “Are you gonna break them? I told you I was sorry.”

“Hands,” Chris repeated, holding out his own, and Lance hid his smile as he watched JC slowly slide his palms across Chris’s. Chris tugged forward, shoving JC’s hands underneath the overalls. JC’s lips spread into a surprised O. “You’re gonna give this kid a complex, C.”

“I can’t believe you’re having a baby,” JC said softly.

“Me neither, but I obviously am. It’s weird, but can you maybe calm down about it?”

JC nodded then mournfully confessed, “I’m a little drunk, man.”

“There’s gin in the kitchen if you need to be drunker. Lance is practically an alcoholic.”

“I’m not,” Lance insisted, both JC and Justin looking over accusingly, but the gin sounded like a good idea, especially when Joey stuck his head through the front door and said, “they’re he-ere,” like in Poltergeist, which was another movie that had scared the crap out of Lance as a kid, even worse than Alien had. Lance wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

Justin welcomed everyone inside, taking bags and setting them near the stairs, and it was almost comical, watching each face dawn with recognition. Idly, Lance wondered whose idea it had been, Chris or Justin’s. It was almost too perfect. Probably a combination of both, then.

“Can I have some of your gin, man?” JC asked, face appearing over Lance’s shoulder, and Lance nodded, keeping his arms crossed, focussed entirely on the group. Chris said the majority of them had never met before, but there was an obvious closeness between them.

Lance watched as Greg and Bobby and all those other guys crossed the room toward Chris, a strange twist on his lips like he didn’t know what to make of them. That set up lasted about three seconds and then Chris was getting the shit hugged out of him by each guy in turn, and there was laughter, and shouts of surprise, and quick introductions always prefaced by their online handle.

This was, Lance realised, a world he was never going to be part of, even as the other dad, and that was almost okay. He still hadn’t decided if he was going to come forward as the second half of the puzzle. Logically, Lance realised these guys wouldn’t out him, but illogically, well, Lance had practically made sexual ambiguity into a sport, even if everyone knew like Chris said.

Chris caught Lance’s stare and tilted his head inquisitively, and Lance felt his stomach drop to his knees. It’s no big deal, Lance thought bitterly, and wondered if he should get a therapist for all his internalised homophobia. Chris raised his eyebrows, and Lance lifted his shoulders helplessly, knowing he was a dork, but utterly unable to help it. He’d been born this way.

After a series of blinks and eye-rolls, shrugs and frowns, Lance finally located his balls and walked over to the group of child-bearing men. When Chris took his hand, Lance didn’t protest, and slouched down into the seat next to him. Chris wove their fingers tightly together.

“This is Lance,” Chris said, “the sperm donor.”

“No fucking shit,” the tall guy in the back said, clapping his hands.

“But I’m the only guy he’s ever been with,” Chris said seriously, “he’s so very straight.”

Maybe it would have worked, if JC-the-drunkard hadn’t giggled loudly, and Joey hadn’t snorted like a wild boar, and Justin hadn’t helpfully added, “oh, yeah, he’s totally into chicks. We think he’s even seen one naked before.” Lance thought he should have been a little offended.

“I see you’ve already met Chris,” Lance said, “the complete and utter moron.”

Chris elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh, good one, Bass. I’m wounded. I’m really hurting.”

“Shut up,” Lance muttered, and let himself be properly introduced as the second dad, red face and all.

~~~

The turnout was small but decent, and Justin was pleased. There was Greg and Dallas-Bobby, but also Aaron, the guy who clapped when Lance had sort of come out, who was from Buttfuck, Wisconsin, or so Chris claimed. There was Dave from Manchester, England and Dave from Vancouver, Canada. There was Wilson from Jamaica, and Jon from Alaska, and Shea from Dublin, Ireland, who was, as far as Lance could tell, straight. He even had pictures of his wife.

“This,” Joey said, checking out the photo of Shea’s wife, “makes me very afraid.”

Shea laughed, clasping Joey on the shoulder. “Live in fear, my man, live in fucking fear. If your missus,” he tipped his head in Kelly’s direction, and she smirked, “says she thinks it’d be hot as sin if you did it with another guy, say no. Or use a fucking industrial-strength rubber.”

“It’s really very rare,” Greg insisted, on his third American beer, which he had earlier dismissed as piss water then drank anyway. Justin was doing a good job of keeping everyone in high spirits, even Chris, who was debating the current state of rock music with Dallas-Bobby.

“No offense,” Joey said, “but I don’t even want to risk it. I mean, where does this baby come out, you know?”

It was almost comical, the identical winces that swept across the room. Even his own dad made a face, and the last thing Lance ever wanted to know was that his dad had thought about his own ass like that, even if it hadn’t happened until he was well over fifty. Ever was too soon.

“It’s really not that bad,” Greg insisted. “I swear to God, you forget how bad it hurts.”

“You do,” Dave-from-Manchester said, “and at the time, you’re so bloody mad from all the hormones and the worrying and the fear that you don’t have time for the pain. It’s all right.”

Chris slapped his hands over his ears. “Here it comes, millennium, and everybody’s talking 'bout Jerusalem ...”

“Fuck, I love that song,” Aaron said happily. “You are amazing,” he told JC.

JC beamed. “Dude, thanks. Tell me more.”

“This is a mad house,” Lance murmured, and Justin snorted somewhere close by. Lance looked up to find him at his shoulder. Lance plucked three rolled up pieces of ham from the plate when Justin tilted it at him. It was madness, complete and utter, but Chris seemed happy, and Lance’s world was rapidly separating into two parts, stuff that made Chris happy and stuff that didn’t. Lance sat back, and listened, and smiled to himself whenever Chris laughed.

~~~

Justin had managed to find a list of Baby Shower games, and nobody had the heart to tell Justin how lame they were. Normal was very important to Justin, and Lance understood what he was trying to do, and he thought it was nice of him. Chris was obviously torn between being touched and wanting to make fun, but Chris really was more sensitive these days, sort of.

Joey, however, was not.

“You’re fucking, aren’t you?” Joey asked when Lance went into the kitchen, looking for something that was not beer. In solidarity, Lance wasn’t drinking, and he and Chris were the only ones. This was the type of thing people needed to be drinking for. Chris didn’t seem to mind.

Lance pushed by Joey, making a beeline for the fridge. “Fucking who?”

“Me.” Joey shoved him. “Who do you think, bonehead?”

Lance sighed. “I’m a grown man, Joey, and so’s he, and don’t give me this he’s-not-thinking-rationally thing again, because I know he’s not, but I just.” Lance wrenched open his bottle water and took a long satisfying gulp. “I’m in love with him, okay? I have been for ...”

“A very long time,” Joey said, and Lance nodded. “Me and you, we got a lot in common.”

“Poor us,” Lance replied, and Joey grinned. “It was always going to happen, Joey.”

“I wonder if Chris knew that.”

Lance’s smile dropped off his face. “Why? Does he not, I mean, do you know something I don’t? Like, do you mean he doesn’t ...”

“Relax,” Joey said, placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “I’m not saying anything like that. Me and C and J, we all agree that you guys had something going on before Jamaica, but we don’t know what, and probably neither did he. You know Chris. He’s crazy sometimes.”

“I’m ready for this,” Lance said bravely. “For Chris, for the baby. I’m ready for all of it.”

Joey grinned. “You just think you are, man. You have no idea.”

“You have to stop saying stuff like that,” Lance said, feeling vaguely nauseous, as always.

“You’re fun to freak out. I kinda wish you’d knocked me up instead,” Joey admitted.

“Ass,” Lance said, laughing. Silently, he thanked God that it had been Chris.

~~~

The parents didn’t last long, and Lance knew it was all downhill when Aaron took him aside and asked, “is JC, you know, a little queer?” Shortly thereafter, JC and Aaron also left, headed back to JC’s house for some privacy, ignoring the hoots and whistles of the room.

Justin, who had gotten a little wasted after he’d done his duty as host, ended up going home with Joey and Kelly. As Chris said, “if the kid starts puking, I’m going to start puking, and then Greg and Lance are both gonna kill me. I’m almost three weeks vomit-sober. Go me.”

Justin managed to plant a wet, sloppy kiss on Chris’s cheek before Joey and Kelly dragged him out of there. Chris looked a little puzzled then shook his head. “Fucking kid,” he said, grinning. “That’s Justin Timberlake, people. Never mistake him for being cool again.”

“Nobody had any idea who you were. Who you are,” Jon said, sipping his coffee.

“I’m either the luckiest or unluckiest bastard in the world. I haven’t decided yet.”

“I think we’re all still trying to decide that,” Dave-from-Vancouver said, and everybody but Lance laughed. Lance was too busying watching and listening to really get in on the conversation. It made him feel better, that he could look at these guys and marvel at what they could do, at what they had done. All of them had survived and had an actual kid to show for it.

Chris’s fingers tightened on Lance’s hand suddenly, and Lance quickly looked over, but Chris had just shifted in his chair. Even the slightest movement caused discomfort these days. They all noticed. Lance saw the flicker of recognition in each and every one of their eyes.

“This is the worst,” Dave-from-Manchester said, “these last few weeks. You feel like you’re going bloody mad.”

“And you never sleep,” Wilson added, “not that you really have since you found out.”

“And you have to piss every Goddamn second of every Goddamn day,” Shea said.

Chris grinned. “You fuckers aren’t helping, you know.”

“You miss it sometimes, though,” Dallas-Bobby said. The others hummed in agreement. Chris had a quiet, thoughtful expression on his face as his thumb brushed softly back and forth over the back of Lance’s hand. “It’s the best and the worst, this time. The anticipation, the waiting to see what this thing inside you is going to turn out to be, the knowing you’re going love it any way it comes out, knowing it’s going to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. And it's so hard, because you can’t tell anybody about what you’re doing and how truly amazing it is, but you want everyone in the world to know. You’d shout it out, if you could.”

“Oh, shit,” Chris said, bringing his fingers to his eyelids, “you fucking idiot.”

“Rock on, I win,” Dallas-Bobby said, holding out his hand and gleefully receiving the twenties slapped into his palm. He must have noticed the look on Lance’s face because he added, “it’s this thing we do. It seems a little mean, but you gotta, you know, make the guy cry.”

“First time we’ve seen it in person,” Jon said, laughing as he handed Chris a tissue.

“It’s a tradition,” Chris explained tearfully, dabbing at his eyes. “They’ve been writing me heartfelt posts on the mailing list for weeks, trying to get me. I was doing so good, too.”

“Nobody will ever beat Aaron’s record,” Dave-from-Vancouver said, and everybody laughed, already knowing the joke. Thankfully, Greg jumped in.

“I got him two days after he delivered with a Hallmark card,” Greg said wistfully. “I had an unfair advantage. He had enough drugs in his system to down an elephant, and I knew it. After all, I’d given them to him, but I made four hundred dollars American, so I don’t regret it.”

“You guys are weird,” Lance said, completely devoid of sarcasm.

“Honey,” Wilson said, camping it up, “you got no idea how weird we are.”

~~~

Chris and the guys talked until dawn. Lance stayed quiet, listening, occasionally falling asleep with his eyes open then jolting awake whenever Chris laughed. He missed huge gaps of the conversation, but what he did hear calmed his raging nerves. A little bit, anyway.

They all had pictures, and every one of them ended up in Lance’s lap, who was the only one who hadn’t seen them a hundred times before. Dallas-Bobby and Shea had girls, but everyone else had boys. Greg’s son Andrew was the oldest, but Manchester-Dave’s son was only eleven months younger. They predated the internet group, and were the only two guys who had delivered naturally. Greg was, as far as anyone knew, the first guy to give birth.

“Are y’all doctors?” Lance asked sleepily, which made his accent thicker than it typically was. He was only half paying attention to what they were saying, but he’d overhead them talking about Dallas-Bobby, who was studying nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington.

“Just me, Jon and Dave-from-Manchester, but Aaron and Bobby are nurses.”

“That’s pretty convenient.”

“I was an accountant before I got pregnant,” Jon said simply, shrugging. “If it hadn’t been for Greg being so close, I don’t think my ass would have ever been the same. If I can help another guy out, be there for him like Greg was there for me, it was worth going back to school.”

“Really,” Greg said, “the anus is elastic. It’s not that bad. I’ve even had sex since.”

“Me too,” Manchester-Dave said, “a couple of times at least.”

“That’s just swell, guys, we’re really happy for you,” Chris said, completely dismissively and completely unapologetically, but instead of getting pissed off, they both shrugged and grinned in unison, like Joey and JC would do when Chris hit them with a double-whammy insult.

“We shouldn’t even be telling you this,” Vancouver-Dave said, sounding vaguely reminiscent of another conspiracy theorist Lance liked to call Chris in his head, “but we’re a whole community of doctors and lawyers and computer geeks. We’ve become all these things.”

“What are you?” Lance asked, turning to Chris, who had a strange look on his face.

“Exactly what they’ve needed,” Chris replied wryly. “The millionaire.”

~~~

It was over before it really began. The next day everyone but Greg and Dallas-Bobby left. Aaron and JC returned in time for the farewell breakfast (catered by Fatone & Baldwin’s Fucking Good Eats), and they looked like they had a good time if the purplish smudges on their respective necks were any indication. Lance had quietly jerked Chris off in the bathroom before they arrived.

“That’s, yes, thank you,” Chris whispered breathlessly, one hand curled around the towel rack, the other pulling at Lance’s hair. After, he’d grabbed Lance by the neck and hauled him in, and Lance stayed there, on his knees, cheek pressed to the top of Chris’s belly, puzzled.

“Are you okay?” Lance asked, straining his eyes upward.

“I don’t know,” Chris admitted, “I just don’t fucking know anything any more.”

Lance didn’t know what that meant, and Chris wouldn’t expand upon it. The parting between Chris and his guys was solemn and quiet, and it reminded Lance eerily of a wake, where everybody stepped up to whisper their final remarks. Lance pushed that thought away fast.

Chris wasn’t an affectionate type of guy. His idea of sentiment usually involved mocking or physical pain. He wasn’t like Joey, who’d pick a guy clear off the ground and squeeze the shit out of him, or Justin, who would do that comforting half-hug, half-pat-on-the-back thing, or even JC, who would just stand there and believe it was enough and it usually was. Chris just didn’t do hugs. It wasn’t his style.

But every single one of those guys hugged him fiercely, and he hugged them back just as hard, and they whispered to each other, words that most guys weren’t meant to hear. Cue the sappy music, but Lance had always thought Chris was special, in that extraordinary meant-for-great-things kind of way, and all of this had just confirmed it. Chris was having his baby. That was just amazing.

JC stepped up beside Lance. “You really love him, huh?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Sometimes,” JC said, arms crossed over his chest, watching the same scene Lance was.

“Did you have a nice night last night? I thought these guys freaked you out.”

“They still do, but I don’t know, man. It’s not like they’re abnormal, you know? Aaron’s got all the manly parts I dig so much, and I’m only assuming Chris does, too.” When JC glanced over, Lance nodded. Chris had all the manly parts, and then some. “They’re just new.”

“The new breed of man,” Lance murmured.

“Dude, it’s something to think about, anyway. It’s, like, the future is here, in Chris’s living room. It makes me a little afraid, too. It makes me want to save the environment. Maybe all those chemicals we’re spilling into the air are changing things, like, changing people.”

Lance really wished his friends would stop saying shit like that. “Is that really so bad?”

JC shrugged. “Just because we have the ability doesn’t mean we’re ready for it, man. Part of me thinks they’re complete idiots for hiding like this, so scared of being new, but I understand it, too. It’s nice to think that everybody would be cool about it, but I don’t think so.”

Lance nodded then bumped JC with his elbow. “Hey, are you sober?”

JC smiled. “Yes, Lance, I’m sober,” and as an afterthought added, “sorry, man.”

“It’s okay,” Lance said.

~~~

After Justin finally left, and it was just the four of them, Lance made up some sort of excuse that he needed milk or coffee grinds or something, and sent Greg and Dallas-Bobby over to Walgreen’s. At least, that was what he hoped he was supposed to do. Chris’s glares weren’t always clear on what they meant, and all his blinks and coughs rarely helped clear things up.

“Can you do this?” Lance asked, eyeing the stairs. They looked so long and unending.

“No,” Chris said, finally, shaking his head. “So if your earlier offer ...”

“It does,” Lance said, sliding one arm under Chris’s knees, and the other across his back. “Hold onto my neck,” Lance murmured in Chris’s ear, bending his knees and saying a little prayer before standing up. For a second, Lance thought he was going to drop him, but then a gust of iron strength came from somewhere, and Chris didn’t feel so heavy any more.

The walk up the stairs was slow and careful. Lance didn’t want to risk harming Chris or the baby, and he was no superman. He was panting by the time he reached the top, but it was exhilarating, too, like he could bend metal pipes with his bare hands or open a beer bottle with his teeth.

Gently, he laid Chris on the bed, and ignored the twinge in his back. It was nothing, he realised, to what Chris felt every second of every day. Still, when Chris tugged him onto the mattress, Lance went, and didn’t bat away Chris’s fingers when they pressed at his tail bone.

“They were nice guys, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, smiling.

“I should write Justin a thank you note, or buy him some rims, or something.” Chris yawned loudly, his fingers coming to rest on Lance’s lower back, hooked into the elastic of his briefs. “And shit, I’m tired. Can’t do those all-nighters like I used to. I’m somebody’s dad now.”

Lance turned over, and slid down to lay next to him. “Giving up your lifestyle?”

“Maybe, a little, but I’m gonna have one last hurrah, you know?” Chris hooked a leg over Lance’s thighs, resting heavily against him. “The minute this kid is born, I’m gonna roll the fattest joint, like, the size of my fucking arm, and I’m gonna smoke it till it’s ash in my hands, and then I’m gonna drink a six-pack of beer and wash it down with tequila, and I’m gonna puke for the only reason a guy should puke: he’s poisoned his liver with delicious alcohol.”

“I guess I’ll be babysitting that day,” Lance said, smiling.

“Hell, no. We’re shipping the kid off to the grandparents, because after all that, when I’m recovered and eating a whole pizza with everything on it, I’m gonna fuck this ass of yours,” Chris grabbed the round of Lance’s butt and squeezed, “and possibly jerk off, too, alone.”

“Well,” Lance said slowly, “I guess, but only because you asked so nicely and all.”

“Thanks. Oh, and I’m going to beat the living shit out of Joey for being such an ass.”

“Please don’t,” Lance said. “He was only trying to help, and it worked out, right?”

“Sorry, but I gotta beat his fat ass,” Chris said. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Not if you want to fuck this ass, you won’t.”

“I knew you were going to play that card, Bass. Okay, I won’t beat Joey up. I promise.” Chris opened his eyes. “Hey, you just wanna stay here, like, after the baby is born? Move in, I mean. It’d be easier, right, to have you around, and like, you’re mostly here already, and ...”

“Okay,” Lance said, before Chris could blather on, before he needed to.

“Great,” Chris said, and shyly added, “thanks,” which made Lance blush irrationally.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. Chris’s breathing evened out quickly, and he started snoring like a chainsaw, which was something he’d only begun doing recently. Lance was so happy he felt like he would burst. I love him, he thought giddily, and was surprised how easily it came.

~~~

They napped for a few hours, and when they woke up, Greg and Dallas-Bobby were sitting by the window, looking through the MPREG book. When Bobby caught Lance looking, he said, “you know there’s 30 pages missing out of this, right?” And Lance said, “yeah, I know.”

“Just call me Big Brother,” Chris murmured, lifting his head, under which Lance stuffed a bunch of pillows. Greg had his doctor face on, which meant they had to talk about things neither of them really had any impetus to discuss. Without Greg, there would be little communication.

“Go ahead,” Lance said, when he realised Greg was waiting for an invitation.

“Okay,” Greg said, leaning forward, “so it’s getting closer to game day ...”

“Could we please not go the sports metaphor route? Lance won’t understand.”

Lance rolled his eyes in Chris’s direction, even though Chris was technically right. Lance could fake a keen interest in sports, but the minute someone quizzed him about the finer details, he was a goner. All he really knew about football was that they knocked each other down a lot.

“Anyway,” Greg said clearly, “as I was saying, it’s getting closer to the delivery date, and there’s still a lot of things we need to talk about. Chris, do you still want Bobby to assist me?”

“Sure do,” Chris said, snapping one hand on Lance’s balls, and Lance closed his mouth. Smirking, Chris looked up at him, and Lance sighed. They were valid concerns, he thought. Bobby was practically a kid, and hadn’t even finished school yet, and a million other things, too.

“Do you still want to have a caesarean?”

“Yes,” Chris said firmly. He kept his hand on Lance’s crotch, unmoving, like a threat.

“And do you still want it done in the room in the back?”

“I never liked that room anyway. Carve me up as you see fit, doctor man.”

Greg and Lance exchanged pained looks as Dallas-Bobby grinned like a love-struck teenager, but Greg recovered quickly. He pulled out his Palm Pilot, using the pointer to bring up what looked like his calendar. “Okay, I have the two weeks before your delivery booked off.”

“I’ll give you a million dollars if you make it a month,” Chris said seriously. “I’m gonna fuck up the method, Greg, I know I am. Ask Lance. I screw things up all the time. Better safe than sorry, right?” Chris squeezed Lance’s balls, and Lance felt himself nodding enthusiastically.

“Two weeks. We agreed, Chris.” Greg’s voice softened. “I’ll be on call if you need me, you know that.”

“It’s a fifteen hour flight,” Chris replied. His other hand was pressed against his belly. Every time he swallowed, Lance could see it in his throat. His own stomach was knotted up, and he hated it. The sooner Chris had the baby, the better, or else Lance was going to get an ulcer.

Fifteen hours, Lance thought, surprised. He knew Medicine Hat was far away, but thirty hours round-trip? Wow.

“Chris,” Greg said, and Chris dipped his head, nodding. Greg sighed. “Okay. Three weeks, but if I lose my job, you’re supporting me until I can find someone else to hire me.”

“Just call me sugar daddy, man,” Chris said. The relief was visible on his face.

~~~

Two days after Greg and Bobby left, the air conditioner broke, and Chris wouldn’t let Lance call anybody to fix it. Paranoid bastard, Lance thought, but conceded to Chris’s irrational wishes, even though it was really fucking hot. Chris cooked on the bed while Lance tried to sew.

“Ow! Fuck,” Lance muttered, every time he pierced his thumb with the needle, which was often. Five minutes before Greg had planned to leave, Chris had casually brought up the issue of breastfeeding, and Greg hadn’t even been surprised by the change of heart. He just answered Chris’s questions and, later, took Lance by the elbow and expanded on what he had said to Chris.

“I feel like a fat over-cooked chicken wing,” Chris said loudly, “and a big pile of fresh dog shit. Both of them, Bass, at once.”

“That’s nice,” Lance mumbled, trying to get the plaid patch level with the other one. Greg had said stuff like leakage this time, but Chris had vetoed traditional maternity bras, which left Lance with no choice but to be inventive with undershirts. Plus, it gave him something to do.

“Also, I woke up this morning, and the baby was not where I left it. Like, I think it’s going to fall out of me. And then there’s the matter of this baby being unnaturally close to my balls now, and that’s freaking me out. If you gave me head right now, you’d be face to face.”

Lance looked up, using the break to suck on his bleeding thumb. “The baby dropped?”

“Oh, boy, did it ever. But on the plus side, I’m the opposite of horny, so you’re freed from sex-slavery.”

Lance pursed his lips. He was sorry he’d ever complained about it, even internally.

“It sucks too,” Chris continued, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips, “because I was going to get you to fuck me with a dildo. I bought one, you know, after you fucked me.”

At that, Lance pouted. He had no shame, and the thought of a dildo gave him a hard-on.

“I can breathe better, though. Doing this,” Chris inhaled deeply, “it’s as good as sex.”

“That’s great, Chris,” Lance said, dismissively. Nothing, in his humble opinion, was as good as sex, least of all breathing. Maybe if Chris hadn’t been able to breathe for a while, it was as good as sex, but only just. And it wasn’t that long until the baby was born. Chris could have waited to breathe.

“Oh, my ice cubes melted,” Chris said gloomily. “Can I have more? I’m really hot, man.”

“If you would just ...”

“No, fucker,” Chris said, and gave Lance the finger.

~~~

Greg called with his new flight info, and Lance was shocked to realise it was a mere week away. He took calls from the parents every few days, and calls from Justin even more frequently, and JC a little less. Joey stopped by off and on, usually to bring Lance real home-cooked food.

“Jeez, why’s it so hot, dude?” Joey asked, fingering the neckline of his tee-shirt.

Lance sighed. “The air-conditioner man will peep through the windows and turn Chris in.”

“That sucks,” Joey said, lolling out his tongue like an overheated dog, and Lance nodded.

Lance finished sewing the man-bras, and even went to the store at four o’clock in the morning to buy cotton pads that would stop the leakage problem Greg tormented them with. As an afterthought, Lance also grabbed a breast-pump, the newest issue of Parenting, and a pacifier.

At the check-out counter, Lance pulled his baseball cap as low down over his eyes as he could manage without blinding himself. Every beep of the scanner echoed in his heart, and he didn’t know why he was so worried. So what if people assumed he was having a baby? He was.

Maybe, Lance thought, if anybody asks, I can just claim I have a fetish. All the cool kids had crazy weird kinks they liked, even if Lance had always been dreadfully vanilla. Having sex with Chris while he was eight months pregnant was about a radical as Lance would probably get. Oh, and the transsexual that one time. Lance couldn’t forget that eye-opening experience.

Lance made a clean getaway, and dropped off the stuff in the Baby Room before going to check on Chris. Lance took a second to look around, and imagined the baby sleeping in the crib, tiny and cute, his son. Or daughter, Lance supposed, since that couldn’t be ruled out just yet. Lance really didn't care just so long as the baby was healthy.

Chris was right where Lance had left him, lying on his side and baking like a miserable cookie. He was sleeping more, which Lance didn’t think was good. Everything he’d read said Chris was supposed to sleep less, and it was impossible to get him to ever sit up now that the baby had dropped. Lance did what he could with pillows, and rubbing Chris’s back and hips.

Lance sat down on the edge of the bed, and fanned his fingers on Chris’s naked belly. It was firm and hot under his hand, and Lance felt a big swell of love gather like a storm in his heart, wild and natural and huge. It was for Chris and the baby. He was a sap. He didn’t care.

“It’s going to happen so soon,” Lance murmured, mostly to himself.

“Don’t jinx shit,” Chris muttered, flexing his shoulder blades.

“A month is soon,” Lance protested, “I’m just stating the obvious.”

“Sure,” Chris said, and didn’t sound very happy at all.

Lance lay down behind him, kissed the back of his neck, and loved him more quietly.

~~~

Days passed by, and Lance did as many normal things as he could think of, like laundry and baking and cleaning the bathroom, which wasn’t anything Lance would have considered normal two months ago. Two months ago, he had a maid who did all of that for him, and he was better off for it. Lance didn’t have a domestic bone in his body. He dyed their underwear pink.

Chris was unnaturally quiet and withdrawn, but Lance did his best to keep Chris’s spirits up, making him help sort through all the loot from the baby shower. Usually, Chris loved stuff, but Lance had to laugh at the weird baby-sling by himself, trying to figure out how it worked.

“How’s Chris?” Joey asked when he stopped by, bearing a still-warm casserole.

“Depressed,” Lance answered honestly, “and nothing I do seems to help him.”

Joey put the casserole on the kitchen counter then pulled up a stool. Evidently, he intended to eat, too, so Lance got out two plates and set them down. He handed Joey a huge spoon, and Joey scooped out even huger servings. Eventually, Joey said, “so what’s up then?”

“I don’t know. He’s been like this since the baby shower.”

“Ah,” Joey said, chewing his noodles carefully and swallowing before speaking again. “I’d probably be depressed, too. I mean, I spend X amount of months feeling like a freak, and then suddenly, I’m surrounded by these dudes who are just like me, and then they leave again.”

Lance winced. “God, when you put it that way ...”

“What? When I put it like the truth? It’s all fine and dandy to have periodic reminders that there are other guys like him out there, like Greg and that Bobby kid, or to have, like, the practically invisible support of his internet dudes, but to have it all in-person and face-to-face?”

“Don’t tell Justin,” Lance said stupidly.

“Nah, I wouldn’t, and Chris will get over it, and it was fun. Good for him, you know?”

“I thought so,” Lance replied, pushing his casserole around his plate. He wasn’t hungry.

“Plus,” Joey added, “he’s more than eight months pregnant. I’d be miserable, too.”

“Good point,” Lance said.

~~~

Chris held out longer than Lance thought he would, but he finally agreed to let the air-conditioner man come and pay them a visit. Chris insisted on watching from the window, peeking through a hole Lance cut in the curtains. Lance was told to stay outside and keep watch.

“Nice house,” the air-conditioner man said. “You rich or something?”

“Something,” Lance agreed. “Will you be able to fix it?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s an easy fix, but very expensive,” he was careful to add, and Lance nodded. He would pay this guy whatever he wanted if he just hurried it up and left before Chris had a heart attack or something. The guy jogged to his van for a part then jogged back. “You mind?”

“I’ll go stand over there,” Lance said, and went to linger by Chris’s pool, looking up at Chris’s window, waving a little, knowing Chris was watching. The air-conditioner man clanged and banged and swore his way through the repair, and Lance impatiently glared at his watch.

Finally, the guy handed Lance the bill, and Lance paid in cash. He ran inside to turn the fucking machine on and came out to listen to it purr. The air-conditioner man made his getaway, and Lance went inside, dropping the receipt with the rest of Chris’s completely ignored mail.

“I miss going outside,” Chris said when Lance walked into the room, “just sometimes.”

“We could go for a drive,” Lance offered.

“No, we couldn’t. Not when I look like this,” Chris said, gesturing down at his huge belly. It looked different, Lance noticed, since the baby had snuggled head-first deep into Chris’s pelvis, heavier. It was a wonder Chris was still sitting up in the chair.

“I think you look beautiful,” Lance said, and he meant it, even if Chris laughed at him.

He didn’t. He just turned back to the window and said, “yeah, well, you’re a big freak.”

Lance shrugged. He probably was, but that was fine, too. He was comfortable with himself, oddly empowered after the baby shower. Lance didn’t get to hang with other gay guys too often. Oddly content, Lance climbed into the chair opposite Chris and gazed lovingly at him.

It took him a minute to realise Chris was singing under his breath. Longer than that to identify the song, but when he recognised it, he smiled. Chris was such a weirdo, and Lance laughed when Chris looked over at him and grinned like a total maniac.

“You like that?”

“You’re a dork,” Lance said.

“I wanna be where the people are,” Chris sang, voice high and pure, “I wanna see, wanna see them dancing. Walking around on those ... what do you call 'em? Oh, feet.” Lance rolled his eyes, and Chris continued on, undeterred. “Flipping your fins, you don't get too far. Legs are required for jumping, dancing. Strolling along down a ... what's that word again? Street.”

Chris grinned devilishly, and really started laying it on. If he could have managed it, Lance had no doubt Chris would be doing his best mermaid impression, and Lance was really glad to be spared. “Are you done yet?” He asked dryly, unable to swallow his smile completely.

In perfect falsetto, loud and clear, Chris belted out, “up where they walk, up where they run, up where they stay all day in the sun. Wandering free, wish I could be, part of that,” and he stopped.

“Chris,” Lance said, the smile falling off his face, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Chris said quickly. “I’m just really tired, I guess, and it hurts. Could you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance said, carrying Chris the short distance from the window to the bed, being careful when he set him down. He didn’t take it too personally when Chris rolled away. Well, he tried not to, anyway. “Do you need anything? Cake? Water? Anything at all?”

“Just sleep,” Chris said, drawing his knees up a little, and pointedly added, “alone.”

“Okay,” Lance said. He didn’t understand, but what Chris said went. Those were the rules. “Chris, I’m going to keep the baby monitor on if you need me. Or just holler. I’m right down the hall, okay?”

“Whatever,” Chris said, “just get out.”

Lance left.

~~~

Lance thought about phoning someone, anyone, but what would he say? Chris started acting like a jerk, when he’d spent the last two months randomly acting like a jerk? Lance had no idea what the trigger had been this time. Lance hadn’t done anything he could remember.

Lance worried and fretted then eventually dozed off, having a terrible nightmare about The Exorcist, which was another movie that had left an indelible mark on Lance’s fragile psyche. When he woke up, he could still hear Chris’s voice, chanting “Lance, Lance” over and over.

Except, he realised blearily, he was hearing Chris’s voice. Quickly, Lance tugged on the nearest pair of jeans and stumbled down the hall, bursting into Chris’s room with barely contained panic. Chris looked over at him, said, very quietly, “I think you should call Greg.”

“He’s probably on a plane,” Lance said stupidly. “It’s three weeks from the due date.”

Chris laughed bitterly. “Yeah, well, I think this kid missed the memo.”

“You’re in labour,” Lance said, blinking.

“I hope so,” Chris replied, scrunching up his face and taking several harsh breaths. One fist thumped weakly at the mattress, and it seemed to stretch an impossibly long time before his features relaxed again and his breathing evened out. Lance exhaled sharply, and Chris looked at him. “Call Greg, and that’s it, okay? Don’t call my mom. Don’t call your mom. Don’t call the hospital. No one, Lance.”

“What about Bobby?”

“Yes, yes. Him, too. So fucking sorry. I’m not really thinking clearly here.”

“Can I please call Joey, too? I’m not sure I can help you like this alone.”

Chris gritted his teeth then nodded. “Fine, Joey, too, but not C or Justin.”

“Thanks,” Lance said, breathlessly. His brain was a gooey puddle in his head.

“The phone,” Chris said quietly, “pick up the fucking phone and help me please.”

“Okay,” Lance said, and dialled Greg’s cell phone with shaking, useless fingers.

~~~

Greg was at the airport when Lance called, and shouted “what!” at him when Lance blurted out the situation without a single cleverly coded word. Lance didn’t have the time, not with Chris in labour. In labour! About to have a baby! A man about to have a fucking baby!

“How far apart?” Greg asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Lance said, “I didn’t ask, but I don’t think they’re close together yet. I’ve only seen the one, and it’s been almost half an hour. Maybe it’s just indigestion? He gets that.”

“Maybe,” Greg said, but he sounded doubtful, like he didn’t really believe it, and Lance didn’t blame him. Chris was obviously in labour, and after the big deal everyone had made about Chris carrying to term, THREE WEEKS EARLY loomed in Lance’s head in big block letters.

“What do I do?” Lance asked, panicking. He took it all back. He was not ready for this.

“Wait,” Greg said bluntly.

When Joey showed up, Lance flung himself into Joey’s arms and desperately clutched at him like a heroine in a romance novel. “It’s too soon,” Lance murmured against Joey’s shoulder, and Joey replied with a soothing, “then we’ll deal with that, dude. Just don’t freak out, okay?”

“I’m not ready,” Lance confessed weakly. “I’m not, I’m not.”

Joey laughed. “I told you that you were talking out your ass. Who’s always right?”

“You are,” Lance said glumly, trying to hide his terror behind humour, trying so hard.

It didn’t really work.

~~~

Joey wasn’t allowed in Chris’s room, only Lance, so Joey sat downstairs and watched tv with his cell phone sitting at his hip. Lance stayed with Chris, not sure what to say, if Chris even wanted to hear anything. Greg said wait, so that’s what they would do, wait. They had a lot of practice doing it together.

Three hours and several contractions later, Greg called again from Calgary. Lance took the call outside in the hall, brushing off Chris’s cold stare. “Okay,” Lance said, “what do I do?”

“It occurred to me on the flight that I overlooked a vital piece of information,” Greg said, ignoring him. Such a doctor, Lance thought wryly, and hated the whole medical profession. “Can you tell me if anyone in your immediate circle is the same blood type as you-know-who?”

“Justin,” Lance said quickly. “I don’t know why I know that, but I do.”

“I’ll need him there for the delivery, but if he can’t make it, I can use Bobby.”

“Justin would bend heaven and earth for Chris. He’ll make it,” Lance promised.

“Good. Okay. What you have to do is wait. Keep him as calm as you can and make sure he breathes through the you-know-what’s. I promise you, Lance, this will move slower than you or Chris will like, but it’ll give me time to get there, and it’ll happen, regardless of my presence.”

With a sigh, Lance said goodbye and hung up. He didn’t feel any more in control of the situation that he had before Greg called. Worse, when he came back into the room, Chris was whimpering, his face pressed into his pillow, his entire body twisted up like a stale pretzel.

“I have to call Justin,” Lance said when Chris was done.

“I heard,” Chris replied, out of breath and red in the face. “Better call C then, too. Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance offered.

“Whatever,” Chris said, clutching a pillow to his chest. He looked viciously angry, which Lance didn’t understand. He knew how this had to happen. “Do what you gotta do. It’s not like anyone’s listened to me from the beginning. You, Greg, the guys, my mom. Whatever, okay?

“Okay,” Lance said, and went downstairs to call Justin, and make Joey hug him again.

~~~

Hours passed, and they waited. Lance read a Stephen King book he’d found in Chris’s room, even though he knew it would give him nightmares for the rest of his life. He didn’t have the balls to deal with terror. His white middle-class upbringing hadn’t taught him much.

Joey knocked on the door. “Dude, can I talk to you for a second?”

“I’m not dead yet,” Chris said. “Whatever you can say to Lance you can say to me.”

Joey paused and then, “okay. Greg’s flight out of Calgary was delayed due to engine troubles, so he’ll have missed his connecting flight by the time he lands. According to the airline lady, the next flight out is tomorrow morning, because Toronto is stupid like that, and closes.”

“What about Bobby?” Lance asked. When Joey didn’t answer and Chris turned his evil glare on him, Lance slapped his hand against his head, enlightened. “Shit! I didn’t call him!”

“Asshole,” Chris said, and socked Lance in the hip. “You fucking bastard!”

“I’ll call him,” Joey said, “and stop beating up my best friend. He’s sort of a sissy.”

But Chris’s hand was already on Lance’s hip, rubbing where he had punched, and he looked severely chastised, like Joey hadn’t been kidding. Lance grabbed his hand and put it back on the pillow, shaking his head. Chris rolled his eyes angrily, and Lance snorted his retaliation.

“Is everything okay in there?” Joey asked, knocking on the door again.

Chris growled. “Will someone please call Bobby, who’ll give me drugs? Jesus!”

“I don’t have the number, fucknut,” Joey replied sweetly.

“Just so you know, the beating is back on. Lance had almost talked me out of it, but I just changed my motherfucking mind!” Chris screamed it, and Lance was up off the bed in an instant, already scrolling through Chris’s cordless for Bobby’s number. Lance threw open the door.

Joey looked nonplussed. “He’s a little high strung, isn’t he?”

“He’s in labour,” Lance replied, pushing the phone at Joey, who fumbled it. They did a little dance to see who could grab it before it hit the floor, but it fell anyway. With shaking hands, Lance picked it up. It looked okay. “Joey, do you remember where this baby could come out?”

Joey winced. “Oh, yeah.” He put the phone to his ear. “Sounds unbroken.”

“Wonderful,” Lance said, “and can you pour me a gin please?”

“Sure thing, dude,” Joey said, and jumped down the stairs two at a time.

Lance closed his eyes, took a deep breath then went back in to sit with Chris.

~~~

Nine pm, and Chris had been in labour for twenty-fours, if you could call it that. It was unnaturally slow in its progression, but hadn’t Greg warned them? Slow and painful, just like he promised, and Lance was helpless to do anything but wait and watch Chris lay still on the bed.

Lance couldn’t stop from simmering bitterly over the twelve hours Chris had wasted, the twelve hours he had himself lost by not seeing the obvious. Maybe it would have made difference, or maybe not a damned thing would have changed, but they could have at least tried.

“I didn’t have time to fix my blanket,” Chris muttered, his brow glowing with sweat. From time to time, Lance wiped it dry with one of the baby’s wash clothes. “It looks like a rag.”

“It’s a good first attempt,” Lance offered, eyeing it where it lay draped over the couch.

“I don’t know why I try this shit,” Chris said. It didn’t sound like he was talking about the blanket anymore. There was a faraway look in his eyes, and his mouth curved down like the arc of a rainbow. Quietly, Lance stood up and grabbed it, taking it back to the bed and settling down next to Chris. He put his hand on Lance’s thigh, and the damp heat bled through Lance’s pants.

Lance started crocheting flowers, just like his grandma had taught him. The memory came quickly to his fingers, and soon enough he had a pile of them. Then, just as quickly, he knotted them to the blanket, pulling the gaping holes together and creating a simple pattern.

When Lance looked back, Chris’s eyes were pinched shut, tears leaking from the corners.

“It’s okay,” Lance said, putting his hand on Chris’s head. “You’re fine, Chris.”

“If I lose this baby now,” Chris whispered, pressing his face to Lance’s thigh.

“You won’t,” Lance said softly. “This is just labour, Chris. It’s nothing more than that.”

Chris nodded, but he didn’t speak. His fingers clenched and unclenched against Lance’s thigh, grabbing him then letting him go again. A contraction followed, and they were getting closer together, because that was the third one in the last hour. Chris gasped his way into it.

“You have to breathe,” Lance said firmly.

Chris moaned, his mouth leaving a puddle of spit on Lance’s pants. “It’s so hard, man. You have no idea what this feels like.” Chris gagged wetly. “How it feels like I’m going to break apart. Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted over and over, riding it out, his eyes pinched shut.

Lance offered his hand, and Chris took it, squeezing so hard that Lance’s joints popped, and then it was over, passing over them like a ghost, leaving Chris pale and shivering. Lance took the blankets and wrapped him up tightly, rubbing his arms and shoulders until he relaxed.

“The baby blanket isn’t soft enough yet,” Chris murmured, licking his dry lips.

“I’ll wash it in the sink and leave it to dry. That should help.”

“Yeah,” Chris said. His eyes stayed closed.

~~~

Justin showed up at midnight, bursting through the door less than five hours after Joey had called him. The house shook as he thundered up the stairs, and Lance met him in the hall. Chris had heard him coming, and made it clear no one, not even Justin, was allowed to see him.

“I got here as quickly as I could,” Justin panted. “I grabbed C and off we went.”

JC was with him, looking visibly worried, but he tried to smile. It almost looked real when Joey came up behind him and started rubbing his shoulders. “J-Dawg has his own airplane, man. It’s baby blue, and he calls it the TimberJet. We flew from LA and made awesome time.”

“You have your own plane?”

“Yeah, and for the record, it’s not officially called the TimberJet or anything. That’s just my nickname for it,” Justin said defensively. “And I’m trading it in once the baby is born. I just had it for emergencies. Good purchase, huh? I bet you fuckers never thought to buy an airplane.”

“I don’t think I could afford my own plane,” Joey admitted.

“Man, I could,” JC said wistfully.

Lance rolled his eyes, then got them caught up on things. The labour was progressing as slow as Joey could run, blah blah blah, Chris didn’t want to see anyone, blah blah blah, if two of them could hang out at the airport tomorrow to pick up Greg and Bobby, he and Chris would appreciate it, thank you kindly. Joey and JC quickly volunteered; Justin looked a little left out.

Lance took him aside when JC and Joey went downstairs to put coffee on.

“You and Chris are both A-positive, right? Blood type, I mean.”

Justin nodded. “Yeah. Remember, we got analysed and shit in Japan. Why?”

“I think Greg needs you to donate blood, or something like that. I don’t know.”

The lines of Justin’s face sharpened as he grew dead serious. He gripped Lance by the shoulders. “I’ll give Chris my fucking kidney if that’s what he needs. Anything. You know that.”

“I know,” Lance said, and for the first time in forever, wrapped his arms around Justin and hugged him. Without hesitation, Justin hugged back, and they stood like that in the hall until, through the door, the sounds of Chris moaning bled through, and Justin pushed him toward them.

~~~

With the blinds closed, blocking the sunlight, Lance lost all track of time. There were periodic updates from beyond the door, mostly telling him that nothing was happening. Minutes stretched long. Chris didn’t sleep. Whenever he dozed off, a contraction woke him up again.

“I didn’t do this for you,” Chris said quietly, sometime during the night but before morning. Lance looked over at him, startled at how yellow Chris’s eyes were, how bright. “I don’t want you to go around thinking I’m a selfless bastard. I’m not. I’m selfish, Bass. I did this all for me.”

“I know you didn’t do it for me,” Lance said quietly. “I wouldn’t think that, Chris.”

“Yes, you would. I know you. I know how you’d feel if.” Chris thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. Lance grabbed his wrist. “Shit, I can’t even say it. If I die, okay? We should have had this conversation long before now, but I’m chickenshit. I don’t even want to do it now.”

“You’re not going to die,” Lance said numbly. “Don’t talk like that, Chris.”

“I’m not talking like anything. I’m telling you how it is. When Greg and me first met, the first thing he said to me was, ‘tell me now if you’re not willing to die for it,’ and I didn’t hesitate, Lance, because I am, and it’s my decision. I did this all for me, and none of it for you.”

Lance stuck his legs under the blanket, alarmed at the heat radiating off Chris’s skin.

“Don’t turn me off. Don’t ignore me. You have to listen to me, before I’m no good, and I’m rapidly approaching that point, Lance. Listen to me, you asshole,” Chris repeated, viciously.

“I’m listening,” Lance snapped, staring straight ahead, admiring Chris’s beautiful wall, right.

Another contraction arrived, so Lance waited for it to pass. It was a short one, but he wasn’t sure Chris could tell the difference, or that it really mattered. When it ended, Chris took a series of harsh breaths and blinked, like he was confused. When he spoke, his words came slow.

“Okay. There are papers. Greg has them all ready. If anything happens to me, everything reverts to you, okay? The DNA test will prove the baby is yours. You tell them the mom didn’t want it, didn’t want the fame, and that you don’t even remember who she is. There’s so many.”

Lance’s eyes felt hot, like they were cooking in his head. “I’m gay, Chris.”

“You’re bi,” Chris said. “And me, I left. I couldn’t take my life, so I left, and I took five million dollars, and I disappeared, and you all respect my wishes. You hear from me via a couple postcards, five of them, then never again. Nobody looks for me. I leave notes saying goodbye.”

“They’re in your underwear drawer,” Lance said, and Chris nodded.

“There’s also a video I made for the baby. Show it to her as often as she wants to see it, and not a second more. Please don’t ever let her think I didn’t love her, or, if she finds out where I really went, that I regretted doing this for her, because I don’t. I’d do it all again a million times over if it meant I got to do this.”

Chris took a deep, ragged breath, and it echoed the ache in Lance’s chest, making it hard to breathe, making it downright impossible to stop the dizzying spin of his head.

“Tell, her, tell her I’d never been so happy in my life when I realised who I had in me. Thank her for finally making all the demons in my head go away. Teach her to love music even if she’s tone deaf. Make up shit about me if she asks and you can’t remember. You know me best now.”

Lance pressed his lips together, and the wall blurred in front of him.

“Don’t take me to a hospital. I won’t ask for it, so you have to have the balls to bear it, too. Whatever happens after, it’s Greg’s burden, and Greg’s alone. Nobody gets involved. Don’t even think about it. If it seems disrespectful, it’s not. I’m only one man, and I chose this for myself, and it’s not just me we’re protecting. This is God’s will, so you let me go, okay?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Lance whispered, wiping his nose on his arm.

“You have to,” Chris said, and his voice cracked on the last word, raw and wet. Tears hung off his chin. “I don’t want anyone to get in trouble for this. This is what I wanted. If it ever seemed like it was too much, it wasn’t. You have no idea how much I love ...”

“I know,” Lance said, a salty river of tears flowing over his lips. “Chris, I know.”

“I’ve never loved like this. I’m afraid to die, but I’ll do it if it means she gets to live, and it terrifies me that I don’t know if she will or not. I don’t know how long she’ll wait. I’ll do it naturally if I have to, I will, but I read that book, Lance, and I know what could happen ...”

“A million things could happen, Chris. That book is just a book.”

“It’s my life,” Chris said, kissing Lance’s wrist when he put his hand against Chris’s cheek to catch his tears. Another contraction hit, and Lance kept his hand there, letting Chris’s bite the pad of his thumb and sharing the pain. “Shit, shit, shit,” Chris chanted, eyes wide open.

Lance sat with him until it passed, and all was quiet again, even Chris.

~~~

Chris’s skin was hot as fire, but he couldn’t stop shivering. Sweat had bled through Chris’s clothes and into the bed sheets, mixing with whatever else had managed to leak out of him in the last few hours, so Lance stripped Chris and the bed, getting fresh sheets to pull over his naked, trembling body. With a washcloth, he cleaned up Chris and wiped down his slick skin.

“Good thing I don’t got much shame left, huh?”

Lance smiled. “Did you ever? I knew you, what, two days, and you farted on my face.”

Chris laughed roughly then tumbled into another contraction. He choked into the pillow, his toes fanning out farther than Lance thought toes should go, every muscle in his body knotting impossibly tight. “Just breathe, Chris,” Lance murmured, pulling Chris’s wet hair from his eyes.

“Shit,” Chris hissed, and it looked like he was trying to push, but he stopped when Lance put his hand on Chris’s head and whispered, “don’t, Chris. Don’t even try.” Lance didn’t know how he knew, but it was too soon. Chris struggled through it, then exhaled sharply and relaxed.

“Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah,” Chris murmured, “but can you get me some ice cubes?”

“Sure,” Lance said, making sure Chris was securely tucked in before leaving. Legs numb with worry and fatigue, Lance stumbled down the stairs, his arms full of soiled, soaking sheets. Justin was on the couch, eating McDonald’s. Lance smiled weakly then headed to the laundry room.

“I got you breakfast,” Justin said, hovering in the doorway as Lance loaded up the washer.

“Thanks. I’m actually a little hungry,” Lance admitted, surprised to feel such a deep ache in his belly. He poured in half a box of detergent then followed Justin into the kitchen and finally looked at his watch. It was morning, which also surprised him. He unwrapped an Egg McMuffin.

“Joey and C headed to the airport. Greg’s getting on his flight soon, and Bobby will be, too, so barring any more bad luck, they should be here by noon.” Justin picked up a hash brown and started munching on it. A few bites later, he tilted his head. “What’s going on up there? Is Chris okay?”

Lance felt tears prickle across his eyelids. He shrugged.

“I don’t know how y’all stood it, you and him, with the waiting and the not knowing.”

It was a small comfort to hear Justin’s accent come back, smooth like flowing water, but it helped, too. It meant Justin felt as raw and scared as he did. It meant Lance wasn’t as alone as he thought. “I did it because he needed me to,” Lance confessed, “just like I’m doing it now.”

“He’s lucky to have you, and he knows it. He’s just an idiot sometimes.”

“I don’t doubt,” Lance replied, “but it’s hard, loving him like this, having to be so ...”

“Strong,” Justin said, and Lance nodded. “If you need anything, just holler. I’m here.”

Lance sighed, bobbed his head one last time then stood up with a queasy half-full belly. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand then dried it on the seat of his pants. “I better go back. Will you keep me updated on the Greg and Bobby situation?”

Justin nodded.

“Okay, thanks, J.”

Upstairs, right outside of Chris’s door, Lance realised Justin had only been half-right.

The waiting was hard, yes, but the not knowing, it was even worse.

~~~

Hours ticked by, so damn slow it hurt. Joey called from the airport, with news of a delay on Greg’s end. Bobby’s flight was still on time. Greg was in the air, Joey said, but the plane had been delayed slightly, due to turbulence or mechanical problems or something, Joey didn’t know. Hearing this, Lance started to cry, his nerves tangled and frayed and his whole body aching.

“Dude,” Joey said. “Don’t cry when I’m too far away to squeeze some sense into you.”

“He thinks he’s going to die,” Lance whispered, rubbing angrily at his cheeks.

Abruptly, Joey started laughing. “Is that all? Dude, they all think they’re dying the first time around. Hell, Kelly had me updating her will on a napkin when she was in labour. You wanted normal? Well, there you go. Hell, call Kel if you want to. She’ll tell you how it was.”

Lance didn’t say anything. His throat felt like someone had a hand around it, squeezing.

“Lance,” Joey said softly, “it’s okay. It won’t go on forever. You just have to bear with it until it ends, and it will, man. You think it’s hard on you? Imagine how it is for him. After, you can bawl your eyes out, but you can’t do it yet. Chris would kick your ass if he knew, dude.”

“He would,” Lance said, laughing a little despite himself. He said goodbye to Joey, then, with the hem of his shirt, dried his eyes. He rubbed underneath them, urging away the redness, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, he looked like he had going in, merely exhausted.

Lance sat down next to Chris, and wiped him down again. Chris shifted his eyes and looked up at him, wholly unimpressed, and it was so very Chris that Lance had to smile. Lance grabbed one of the ice cubes that Justin had freshly brought up and held it to Chris’s open mouth. Chris licked at it, his throat bobbing with each desperate swallow, then settled back and relaxed.

“We never picked a name,” Chris murmured.

“We’ll do it now.” Lance swiped the jars off the dresser. “Boy or girl first?”

“Boy,” Chris said. “You pick it out, but you gotta get a hat. There are rules, you know.”

Lance grabbed one of Chris’s baseball hats, shook the jar then spilled the scraps of paper into the cap. He closed his eyes then danced his fingers around the names, finally pinching one. His belly twisted nervously. He untwisted the paper then read it. “Fuck us,” he said. “It’s Rudy.”

“No,” Chris moaned. “Lance, man, I know the rules, but we can’t. Anything but Rudy.”

Lance sighed, but Chris was right. Plus, if he gave in, that meant he got to veto Roxanne. Closing his eyes again, he reached in. Forget Chris, fuck me, Lance thought, looking at the name. “Levon,” he muttered, and showed Chris so he wouldn’t think Lance was humouring him.

“You can change it after I die,” Chris muttered, grinning.

“Shh,” Lance said, because it wasn’t funny, even if it was exactly the sort of thing Lance would expect Chris to say, even if it was true, especially then. Lance’s throat clogged up again, and his hands started shaking like his grandma’s did when she held something far too heavy.

“It’s my turn,” Chris said, putting his hand on Lance’s knee. “Hurry up before another contraction hits, and I’m useless. I want to know to call her when I meet her,” and that was all the apology Lance needed. Trying counted a lot in Lance’s world, even if you didn’t mean it.

Lance repeated the process for Chris then held out the hat, watching his fingers fumble blindly before grabbing hold of one scrap. He held it out to Lance, who unfolded it and read it. “Bernadette,” he said, and Chris smiled peacefully and held on to it as long as he could, which wasn’t long at all. The corners of his mouth pulled back and a contraction hit like a hammer.

~~~

By noon, the contractions were quicker, longer and far more painful. Chris openly wept through them now. And there was another delay in Greg’s flight, but not too bad, Justin assured them, only ten minutes, and Lance wasn’t even surprised, but he didn’t tell Chris. He didn’t dare.

Chris was slowly leaving him right before his eyes, and there was not a thing he could do.

“I’m not made for this,” he gasped as Lance moped his brow, making sure the salty sweat pouring off his face didn’t sting his eyes too badly. “I can’t do this, Lance. She doesn’t know where to go. She can’t get out of me. I can barely feel her anymore. She’s barely there, Lance.”

“She’s right here,” Lance said, putting Chris’s hand on his belly. “You know she’s fine.”

“I’m killing her,” Chris whispered, his lips cracked and bleeding despite the watering they got from the tears. Lance wiped the cloth over Chris’s face, gathering the spillage, and kissed him three times on his battered mouth. Chris clutched at him weakly and told him, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Lance replied, combing his fingers through Chris’s hair, trying to keep his head from thrashing against the bed and hurting his neck, which had always given him problems. “But don’t go thinking about me, Chris. I know all that. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I lied when I said I didn’t know why,” Chris said, his eyes wide and frantic, hyped up on adrenaline or whatever it was that was keeping him going now. Neither of them had slept in nearly two days, and Chris hadn’t eaten anything more than ice cubes. “It was too much to lose.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me,” Lance said, not quite sure what they were talking about. Chris was practically delirious, his words tumbling out in a feverish slur, and Chris had said he didn’t know why he’d done a bunch of things. “I found out, and I stayed. I wanted to. I promise.”

“No,” Chris hissed, “no, I knew that. That’s not what I mean.”

Lance put an ice cube against Chris’s lips. “Then what do you mean?”

Chris suckled at the ice, swallowing the water that drizzled into his mouth with ragged breaths. When he spoke again, his voice wasn’t quite so rough. “I could lose me, but losing you, too? It’s the only reason I fought so hard against loving you. It makes it so much harder to leave without regret. There are so many things we didn’t get to do together, and I’m sorry for that.”

“I’m not losing you,” Lance said. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re fine.”

“You’ll be a great daddy. That’s why the decision was so easy. I knew that even if I couldn’t, you could.” Chris looped an arm around Lance’s neck and pulled him into the next contraction. “But I got scared, you know? I keep thinking about all the bad shit, and that the media would find out about me, and they’d make it into a circus. I just wanted to have a baby.”

Lance held him through the contraction, took the pain Chris offered him and barely felt it when Chris’s nails dug holes into his back. His belly pulsed between them, and Lance didn’t know where the movement came from, Chris or the baby. “You were right to go to Kelly, Chris.”

“A moment of weakness,” Chris murmured, exhaling momentary relief into Lance’s ear.

“A lifetime of strength,” Lance whispered back.

~~~

Lance took a break because he needed to and not because he wanted to. It seemed like the cruellest thing in the world to leave Chris in the middle of it, but Chris had used up a fair amount of his strength shoving Lance off the bed, so Lance humoured him and left, vowing to return.

“Go,” Chris growled, digging his teeth into his pillow and screaming soundlessly into it. All of Lance, except the part that had promised to go, wanted to run back and sit with him and murmur comfortingly, but Lance also thought, if he tried, Chris would turn that pain on him.

Justin looked up when Lance tripped his way down the stairs. “Is he still okay?”

“Sure,” Lance said, and went to the kitchen to find food. There were some browning bananas, which he devoured, and half a loaf of stale white bread, which he slathered in peanut butter and made into three sandwiches. He inhaled those in a series of rabid, clumsy bites.

Lance sniffed, wondering what stunk then realised it was him. He’d been sweating nearly as much as Chris, his body tense and anxious, and his deodorant was long gone. Under his own stench was the lingering smell of Chris, which wasn’t all that pleasant either, but was comforting.

He took a quick shower, then pulled on more comfortable pants, a pair of well-worn pajama bottoms he found in his underwear drawer. As he was pulling them on, he noticed the folded up scraps up paper he kept stuffed in with his briefs. Lance picked them up, unfolding Chris’s shitty hand-drawn diagrams. The description made him smile, briefly and ruefully.

He should have asked more questions, he realised, looking at the diagrams. Why hadn’t he asked more questions? He was doing so well for a while there, making everyone explain everything, demanding pictures to describe the things he couldn’t imagine. And then he’d just stopped, and he couldn’t remember when or why. Everything had suddenly seemed so normal.

But things weren’t normal, and things weren’t anything like he had been told they would be. Greg had said the pain wasn’t that bad, but Lance knew Chris, could read every line of his face, and Chris was in agony. Chris had said everything was fine, but that, in there, wasn’t fine at all.

It was a nightmare.

Chris could die, and Lance knew, on some level, that he’d always known that. That was where all the stomach aches and the random bursts of tears had come from, but why was he only admitting that now, when it was too late? But it had always been too late. Lance had entered into the picture too late. Chris had made sure of that. Why had Lance been so easy to fool?

“I wanted to be fooled,” Lance muttered, looking at his reflection in the mirror. He looked really tired, and old, and so stupid, like someone had finally let him in on the joke. That was the crux of it, really, him being an idiot, going along docilely like a lamb to slaughter.

Lance crumpled the diagrams in his fist then tossed them into the garbage.

They were useless now, like he was.

~~~

There were more and more contractions until the pattern resembled the type of thing he’d seen on tv, where they came fast and hard, and the woman screamed bloody murder all the time. Joey called from the airport, telling them that Greg’s plane had landed and that JC was already heading back with Bobby. Lance’s breath came a little easier after that, though not by much.

“No ass baby,” Chris muttered, over and over again, delirious from the pain. He jerked whenever Lance touched him, so Lance didn’t. There was something wrong with his hips, if Lance understood him at all, some deep agony that pulled pure animalistic roars from his mouth.

Lance didn’t know what to do, what he was supposed to know. Could he tell if Chris was actually delivering? He’d been sick that day in health class when they’d shown the Miracle of Life video, so he didn’t even know that. He peeked at Chris anyway, but he looked normal.

He was pretty out of it himself when Bobby came bursting into the room, looking young and scared, and Lance felt pity for him. If he felt even half of what Lance did then that was a crying shame. Bobby went immediately to Chris’s side, took his pulse and stuck a finger up his ass.

Bobby leaned close to Chris’s face and said, “are you all right, Chris?” Chris mumbled something that sounded like, “no, motherfucker.” Bobby turned to Lance and said, “I have to get the room ready. Just a bit longer, okay?” Lance nodded, because they’d waited this long already.

Lance looked at Chris’s hand then jumped when Chris grabbed onto his. Their eyes met, and Lance thought, he’s still here, he’s still with it, and Lance found he wasn’t surprised. Chris was the strongest guy he knew, in all the ways that countered. Thinking that gave Lance hope, so he clung to it like a life preserver.

It was a little later that Greg was there, though Lance would never remember how much time had passed. He was only vaguely of it all when he picked up Chris in his arms, naked and shivering, and walked him past Joey, JC and Justin and down the hall like he was as light as air.

The back room blended reality and fiction. Wow, Lance thought, it looks just like a hospital room, and it did. The wall had been covered with green sheets, and Greg and Bobby were both dressed in hospital scrubs. Justin helped Lance into a pair, tapping him on the cheek.

“You make sure that bastard knows where he belongs,” Justin said, and Lance nodded.

And then there was Greg and Bobby talking over each other, and Chris’s high continuous moans, and the clang of metal instruments, and blood. Dark blood that spilled onto the carpet, which was covered in plastic, and when Lance looked over, he saw deep inside Chris’s belly.

“Okay, got it,” he heard Greg saying, faraway, like in a dream. Lance blinked and then there was a baby, a vibrantly pink blood-and-mucous covered baby with arms and legs, who was folded up the size of a football. Bobby took the creature and stuck something in between its lips, and then it screamed, just opened up its tiny little mouth and wailed with all the strength it had.

Numbly, Lance looked at the baby then looked down at Chris, whose eyes were closed.

Lance turned around and walked right out of that room.

~~~

Later, when the feeling came back, Lance realised he was standing in the corner of the laundry room, the rumble of the dryer hot at his hip. His cheeks were wet with tears, and a river of snot flowed over his upper lip, and he had no idea how long he’d stood there, crying like a …

Well, crying like a baby, he supposed.

Lance blinked hard, and there were those damned tears again. He opened the dryer and pulled out the clean sheets and pressed his face to them, wanting to scream and finding that his throat was raw and his voice was hoarse. He wanted to throw things, but his arms felt weak.

“Dude,” Joey said, “are you hiding out in here?”

“No,” Lance said, then bowed when Joey folded over his back, his arms cinching Lance around the waist. Joey, who would keep him standing even if his legs felt like toothpicks. “Oh God, Joey. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. He loved being pregnant so much. It’s not fair.”

“It happened like it was supposed to happen, and it’s fine now. He’s okay, you know?”

“Is he?” Lance asked, and Joey nodded, his cheek pressed up tight to Lance’s.

“I told you, man. They always think they’re dying. Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Because you talked me into fighting that bull once, remember?” Lance replied, and Joey chuckled warmly against his neck. Smiling, his face stretched tight with relief, Lance turned in Joey’s arms and put his hands on Joey’s shoulders, steadying himself. “Is Chris really okay?”

Joey nodded. “Yeah. He’s in rough shape, and Greg thinks he’s gonna be out of it for a couple of days, shock or something, I don’t know, but that’s nothing. That’s actually good, you know? Greg says, if the baby was in distress, he’d be up and pushing himself too far, killer instincts or something, so him being out means that he knows his baby is safe.” Joey leaned in close. “And I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this, but Chris came really fucking close to shooting that kid out his ass, dude.”

“I think he knew that,” Lance said. “He would have done it, too. He was doing it.”

“Ouch,” Joey said, and Lance nodded. Really fucking close had looked painful enough.

“What happens now?”

“You,” Joey said, “have someone to meet.”

~~~

Lance checked on Chris first, and he looked alive, more or less. Lance followed the rise and fall of his chest with his eyes, but ignored the pale of his skin and the line of plastic tubing that connected his arm to Justin, who was thumbing through a magazine. He looked up when Lance cleared his throat.

“Hey, congratulations,” Justin said. “C’s out looking for those chocolate cigars.”

Lance smiled. “Thanks.”

Once he was convinced of Chris’s future in the world, Joey grabbed him by the arm and steered him into the Baby Room. Greg stood in the middle of it by the crib, with a stethoscope in one hand and a clipboard in the other. Between the wood bars, Lance saw a tiny white bundle.

Greg looked over then waved them in. When Lance didn’t move, Joey pushed firmly at the small of his back. His legs felt like week-old jello, and he had hoped the fear that had made itself so comfortable inside him would have disappeared with Chris’s belly, but it was still there.

“Did you guys agree on a name? Chris told me you were worried you wouldn’t.”

“We did,” Lance said slowly, “but they’re both pretty gender dependent.”

“I’m sorry to say that Chris won the bet,” Greg said with a smile.

“That’s fine,” Lance said. He really didn’t care, just so long as the baby was healthy and alive, and she looked like she was both, but he still didn’t have the balls to ask if she had a tail or cloven feet. “We were going to have to name the baby Levon if it turned out to be a boy.”

“Levon,” Joey said, “awesome name.”

Lance ignored him, and stared at the baby until his eyes felt dried out. When he blinked, she was still there, with her squishy pink face and tuft of jet-black hair. She looked, he thought, a little bit like an alien then felt horrible that the idea had even crossed his mind.

“You can pick her up,” Greg said quietly, “just be careful of her head.”

“And don’t drop her,” Joey added helpfully.

Lance ignored him, again. His hands were too big to hold something so tiny without crushing it, or that was how it felt. Weren’t babies supposed to be bigger, fatter and less like aliens, or did that come later? He tried to remember what Brianna and Leighton had looked like when they were born and couldn’t.

“Here,” Greg said, sticking the clipboard under his arm, and grabbing the little parcel of baby like it was nothing. He delivered her to Lance’s hands, and he nearly fumbled her like a football before getting her snug in the crook of his arm. She was as light as a bag of feathers.

“And fuck,” Joey said, “me without my camera. Fatherhood looks good on you, daddy.”

“Don’t call me daddy,” Lance murmured, testing her weight, amazed at her warmth. When Greg handed him a tiny white hat, Lance carefully pulled it over her head, one-handed. With the hat on, she looked even more like Chris. He had one just like it except his was blue.

“What do we call her?” Greg asked, his pen ready to preserve it on his clipboard.

“Bernadette,” Lance said, and started to hum quietly under his breath.

~~~

After showing her off to Justin and JC, Lance took her into Chris’s bedroom, which was neater than he remembered. Someone, probably JC, had changed the sheets and opened the blinds, letting the sunlight pour inside for the first time in months. Lance put her on the bed and sat down in front of her, cross-legged, not quite sure what to do now. He didn’t know anything about babies. She was making his job pretty easy by sleeping, but what if she got hungry?

“Hi,” Lance said, and felt stupid, suddenly, like someone would hear him and laugh.

He leaned forward and carefully unwrapped her, wondering what he would do if she did have a tail or cloven feet then realising it really wouldn’t matter. Somehow, he’d fallen terribly in love with her, even though he’d known her for about four minutes. She was wonderful.

“Ten fingers,” Lance said, holding her hands between his fingers and his thumbs, counting twice just to make sure, “and ten toes.” Her feet were the most adorable feet he’d ever seen, tiny and curled, and he softly kissed each one on the sole.

When he looked up, her eyes were open.

“Oh,” Lance said, “hello,” and blinked in surprise. He wished that Chris could be here to see this, to marvel at the fact their baby had eyes, but he wasn’t, and it hurt a little to think about. “Um, I’m one of your dads,” Lance continued, feeling weirdly shy, “your other dad is sleeping.”

Bernadette looked at him, and he could see shades of Chris in every soft slope of her face, but her nose, he thought, looked just like his, which was unfortunate, but nice, too. When they took her out in public, it would be easy to see she was Chris’s child and even easier to make Lance the secret, and if that ever got him down, he would look at her nose and feel almost okay.

“You’re beautiful,” Lance said, touching his finger to her face and tracing the shape of it. He followed the length of her arms and her legs, and admired her tiny belly, careful of the piece that was left from her umbilical cord. It was a shocking reminder of where she had come from.

Lance wrapped her back up again. The room was pretty chilly, and Chris hadn’t liked being naked in it, either. He carefully lifted her, mindful of her head, and cradled her in the bend of his elbow, rocking her gently to and fro, but when she started to squeak, he almost dropped her again.

She was full on crying when Greg knocked on the door and said, “she’s probably a very hungry little girl.” When Lance didn’t reply, Greg stepped into the room holding a bottle. “We’ll start her on this. When Chris is conscious and ready, we’ll switch her to the breast, easy as pie.”

“Sure,” Lance said, letting himself be led to the couch. “What do I do?”

“Hopefully, she’ll tell you. Just hold it to her mouth,” Greg instructed, watching as Lance poked the nipple at her lips. After a heartbeat, she parted them. “This is breast milk. Good thinking, by the way, buying that breast pump. I swear, it gets to the end of these things, and we all fall apart.”

She started sucking, and Lance exhaled sharply. She obviously had Chris’s brains.

“She’ll eat little but often at first. You’re not going to be sleeping much, Lance.”

“I haven’t been sleeping much,” Lance admitted.

“In some places,” Greg said, “they call that training.”

~~~

The next few days passed in a blur.

Lance slept beside Bernadette, him on Chris’s massive bed and she in her bassinet, warm and snug and wrapped tightly in Chris’s handcrafted baby blanket. He woke confused whenever she cried, always lost in that moment where he simply forgot that his life had changed. He changed her diapers, and made sure she was fed, and tried to keep her alive as best he could.

He was exhausted, in mind and in body, but he didn’t slow down. If he did, he would crumble and sleep for weeks, and he didn’t have time for that. Chris still hadn’t woken up, but there was no sign of infection. Greg thought he was just recovering from a hard eight months.

Lance ploughed on, and didn’t let himself feel much of anything, except love for his baby. His daughter. He continually marvelled at that, and her, and could hardly believe that this baby, this tiny little thing who already knew how to smile, was partly his. She was partly him.

He loved feeding her the best, and just as Greg promised, she wanted to eat all the time, though she never ate as much as Lance thought she should. He didn’t mind sitting with her at three in the morning, holding her in the bend of his arm, watching her tiny lips suck at the bottle.

The very best was after, when he lifted Bernadette to his shoulder and softly patted her back. The musical chirp of her tiny burp always made him smile, and then he just had to kiss her rosy cheeks, and her fuzzy little head, and the tiny curls of her fists. He had never in his life loved anybody this much, except maybe Chris, and that was an entirely different kind of love.

Sometimes, it was very overwhelming.

One night, the second or third day, Lance called his parents’s house even though it was late, knowing his dad would pick up. It was Thursday, and they always showed cheesy sci-fi movies from the 50's on tv, which was something his dad had always loved. He’d be awake.

“Hello?”

“Dad, hi,” Lance said, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder, gently rubbing Bernadette’s back with his hand, his other arm snug under her bum. “What are you watching?”

“Lord only knows,” his dad replied, laughing quietly, which meant his mom was already passed out on the couch. Lance had been the only one who could ever stay awake through the movies. He’d liked them for all their cheesiness. “How are you, Lance? How’s the new puppy?”

“Here,” Lance admitted, pressing his lips to the top of her head, careful of the soft spot. “Early. It’s been, well, I have no idea, two or three days. Sorry I didn’t call sooner. It was a bit of,” Lance paused to swallow the lump in his throat, “well, she’s here now. That’s what matters.”

“Another granddaughter,” his dad said fondly. “What’s her name?”

“Bernadette. Like the Paul Simon song.” Lance looked down at her, smiling. “She’s amazing, dad. She looks everything like Chris,” and nothing like me, which Lance didn’t add. Paranoia still lingered. The phones could be tapped. “And she’s got a full head of black hair.”

“You were bald when you were born. You were bald until you were nearly one, actually.”

Lance laughed then laughed louder when Bernadette softly burped. Gently, he laid her back down in his arms where he could see her face. “You and mom are going to love her. I’ll email pictures.” Lance paused, biting his lip. “But I think it’s better if you hold off on visiting.”

“Rough arrival?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, feeling that lump crawl back into his throat. “I mean, things are fine, but it was rough. I thought,” his voice trailed off, and the heat in his eyes spilled over onto his cheeks. “I thought I was going to lose everything, but I got so much more than I was expecting.”

Lance could feel his dad’s smile through the phone. “Amazing, isn’t it? Being a father.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, sweeping a thumb gently over Bernadette’s face where his tears dropped on her skin. “I didn’t think I could love anybody this much, and I barely even know her. I’m afraid of how much I’m going to love her, when I finally discover who she is. I’m terrified.”

“You’re supposed to be scared. I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

Lance laughed abruptly “Then I’m doing good.”

“You’re doing great,” his dad said, “just like I knew you would. You’re my son, after all. Listen, don’t you worry about your mother. I’ll let her know about the new arrival, and I’ll make sure she gives you some space. I’ll tie her down if I have to. I’ll even call Bev. Is that good?”

“Yes, thanks.” Lance sniffled. “I love you, dad.”

“I love you, too, Lance. I’m so proud of you.”

“Me too,” Lance confessed, and he hung up to laughter, feeling stronger and better about things. He dropped his phone on the floor then carefully lifted Bernadette, who was fast asleep. They checked on Chris, and Lance compared them, father and daughter, side by side, smiling.

Not exact, Lance thought. There was definitely a bit of him in her, too.

~~~

Finally, on the fourth day, Joey came up to him, slapped him on the ass and said, “dude, guess who woke up this morning?”

“It better be Chris,” Lance said, up to his wrists in a poopy baby diaper.

“Bingo. And he’s asking for you, and for her.” Joey kissed her head. “Hiya, sweetpea.”

Joey watched as Lance cleaned her up and dressed her in a purple jumper with fuzzy white sheep on both knees. He thought about a dress, but it seemed like overkill. Chris probably felt like shit and didn’t want anything big. Lance was nervous to see him and wasn’t sure why.

“Let’s go, hotshot. Your kid will be thirty by the time Chris finally sees her.”

“We’re going to see daddy,” Lance murmured as he picked her up. She fit between his hand and his elbow, weighing in at a whopping six pounds and tiny compared to the hefty eight-pound-something-ounces of Brianna and Leighton. She’d lost some, too, since being born, but Greg said that was natural and would reverse eventually. Lance loved carrying her in his arms.

He paused at the door, righting her against his chest. “Joey, what if ...”

“Shut up,” Joey said, bopping Lance on the head. “Enough with the worrying, okay? You got a kid, and you got a boyfriend, and your life is wonderful. Shit like that, what you and him went through, it’s the type of stuff that glues two people together, for better or for worse.”

“Stop saying shit around my daughter,” Lance said, laying a hand over her ear, the other pressed to his shoulder. She smelled wonderful, that fabled sweet baby smell he’d always heard about but never quite believed in. The babies he had known had always smelled a little stinky.

“Then stop making excuses and go in and see the poor guy before he thinks you don’t love him any more.”

“Okay, fine.” And as Joey dragged him from the room by the belt loops, he whispered softly in Bernadette’s ear, “you’re going to love him, too, I promise.”

As an afterthought, Lance rushed back into the room and grabbed Chris’s ratty blanket, wrapping her in it, safe and warm.

~~~

Chris was sitting up in bed, and staring down at his stomach. It must have felt weird to go sleep with a baby in your body then to wake up and find that it’s missing. Lance cleared his throat, and Chris immediately looked up, smiling when their eyes met. He looked really tired.

“Someday,” Lance said, “we’re going to have a talk about scaring the crap out of me.”

“And void my life of fun and meaning? No way,” Chris replied, grinning. Lance watched as his eyes shifted downward, to the purple bundle in Lance’s arms. “Greg wouldn’t tell me who won the bet. He said I should hear it from you. So tell me, Bass. Who’s ponying up the cash?”

“The cheque’s already written. You were right.”

“Duh,” Chris said, shifting in bed when Lance walked closer, making room for all three of them to sit. Chris kept his eyes on Bernadette, but Lance couldn’t read his expression. “Bass, you know me. I’m not a gambling man. I’m not going to throw away my money on a whim.”

“You feeling okay?” Lance asked quietly, settling down beside him, but he noticed Chris made no move to take the baby from his arms.

Chris shrugged. “All right, I guess. Greg let me get up and walk to the john, which was weird. I could see my dick for the first time in, like, three months, and it looked the same as it always had. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. It also feels like I was run over by a truck.”

“I’m not surprised,” Lance said. “It looked like it too, from what I can remember.”

“I don’t remember much, you know. It’s all pretty foggy. I don’t even know her name. I know I said I would remember, but I had weird dreams, man, and my head is, like, still there.” Chris smiled suddenly. “I guess we didn’t end up naming her Levonette, huh? You look too happy.”

“Bernadette,” Lance said, and carefully tipped her in his direction. Chris’s arms came out instinctively, and Lance passed her over, minding the head. She opened her eyes and stared at Chris, like she knew who he was, and maybe she really did. “She’s really smart, Chris, and cute.”

“Takes after her old man,” Chris murmured. “Me, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Lance assured him, watching as Bernadette turned her face toward Chris’s chest, which had filled out even more than Lance remembered. The undershirt was drawn tight across Chris’s breasts. Sheepishly, Lance gestured at him and confessed, “Greg has been ...”

“Milking me like a cow?” Chris snorted. “Yeah, I noticed. I woke up when he was doing it, which was just about the perfect way it could have happened. Of course, then I had to sit through a demonstration, in which he fondled me in a very un-doctor-ly way, the big perv.”

“I bet you liked that,” Lance replied, grinning.

“Loved it,” Chris replied smugly then he looked down. “Has she eaten recently?”

“No, I didn’t have time. She’s also very messy and demanding, but you get used to it.”

Chris nodded, his hand hovering at his right breast, like he was unsure, and Lance wondered if he maybe he wanted privacy and turned to leave, but then Chris said, “no, hey, I’m just trying to figure it out. Greg’s demonstration didn’t involve a baby. It was purely theoretical.”

“Maybe she’ll just know,” Lance said. “She really is very smart for a four-day-old baby.”

“Start saving up for Harvard now, Daddy Warbucks,” Chris murmured, pulling the undershirt off his shoulder and baring one very full breast. He brought Bernadette closer to his dark nipple. There was a moment when Lance worried it wasn’t going to work, that Chris wouldn’t be able to do it and neither would she, then Chris sighed, and she sighed, and so did Lance.

Lance watched for a while, then forced his eyes elsewhere. He spotted the MPREG book sitting on Chris’s bedside table, looking significantly thicker than it had when Lance read it. Carefully, he picked it up and pondered reading those missing pages. He put it back down again.

“What do we do with it?”

Chris looked over. “Burn it,” he said then grinned. “Kidding. No, we give it back to Greg, and he locks it up in his safe in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and it remains there until the next unlucky bastard doesn’t use a condom or has it break on him then we wait for him to find us.”

“I wonder who he is,” Lance said thoughtfully, eyes drifting back to Chris and the baby.

“Who knows, but I can tell you this, that poor son of a bitch isn’t going to see it coming.”

Lance snorted. “He’s in for the surprise of his life, isn’t he?”

“Just wait until Greg is kind enough to show him the afterbirth he kept in a jar just so the guy could marvel at the miracle of birth.” Chris shuddered, and his breast popped out of the baby’s mouth, spraying her face. “Whoops. Sorry, kid.” Guiltily, he put it back. “Could we maybe not mention that to anyone else? I’m trying to act like I know what the hell I’m doing.”

“I won’t tell,” Lance promised, knowing exactly how Chris felt, finally.

Fin.