Chapter Text
For almost 2 whole hours, the boys managed to slowly ignore the tumbling inside them (that was a lie, Ethan had been breathing slow and rubbing large stripes down his side with his free hand about an hour in and Mark was lying on his back despite not being able to breathe properly as his stomach towered over him and poking fingers into his flesh, a noise always escaping when he felt something poke him back) and tried their best to focus on what they had assigned themselves to doing.
Of course, given their conditions, this “important editing work” was mostly Mark checking Ethan’s editing work from the couch as best as he could before giving an affirmative or negative comment and going back to his phone games as Ethan continued with finishing and uploading their last video.
Once the video was uploaded successfully and live, Ethan swiveled in the chair with a groan, the pressure on his lower half having somehow become more intense in the last 30 minutes or so as he called out. ”Hey Mark?”
“Yeah?” Mark pushed himself up regrettably into a sitting position, stomach straining against the white of his shirt once again.
“Video’s done.” Ethan rubbed his eyes, still wanting to just lie down and call it a day.
“Sweet.” Mark nodded, eyes closed. “We’ll need to set up the camera, pretend we’re in suits, film a bunch of skits and look like we aren’t dying so we can get today’s video out of the way. We’ll make it a short one so that we can rest after, I think. The fans won’t mind.”
“Yeah, I think 10 to 15 minutes is best.” Ethan honestly didn’t even know if he could last that long right now, but he was willing to pretend to be in order to make their audience laugh.
“Wish it was less than that, but you’re right.” Mark used the arm of the couch to push himself up, but only managing to fall back down again. A number of tries later (Ethan swore it was 4 or 5, but Mark vehemently insisted it was only 2 tries and no more than that), he managed to stay up on his feet, Ethan following suit, using the back of the computer chair as a handhold, able to stand in one try even if his stomach was decidedly the biggest of the two.
After muttering something passive aggressive about ‘being lucky’, Mark moved into the living room where Amy had left the equipment for shooting from last night, about to toss Ethan the camera and everything like normal before remembering he was in the same state as him and instead, carefully passing the equipment back and forth between each other till it was mostly assembled and set up in the right corner of the place, waiting for use.
That ‘15 minutes’ proposed by Ethan soon turned into 1 hour, then 2 and then, unfortunately for both, turned into 3 hours of doing random shit to condense into one video. They mostly stuck to what they had been doing before, as they were both already exhausted, pasting smiles on their faces and cracking jokes as they attempted to walk the dogs, tidy the house, go upstairs and so on.
Eventually, after checking and rechecking their footage to find a suitable (or any point, please god) to wrap up the video, everything came to a head as Mark, finally spent and in the middle of the final skit (mostly them who was better at taking care of chores while pregnant), came crashing down on his knees, the wash basket he had been holding on it’s side, pain flooding his senses and hands wrapped around his abdomen.
Ethan, thinking that it was for the outro of the video, pretended to freak out and make out like the baby was coming (Mark’s groans helped) before ambling slowly over to the camera and switching it off, sagging as his whole body protested. “Oh my god. Thank god that’s over.”
However, when he turned to Mark after not hearing a response, his friend was curled up around himself still, belly practically touching the ground, cheeks flush and whimpering, tears streaking down his face.
“Mark?” Ethan called, concerned, moving as fast as his own body could take him to his side.
Keeling down as best he could despite his hips feeling like they would split in half, he quickly grabbed Mark’s shoulder and shook him, calling his name several times before a gasp of breath came from the older man as he fell on his side, panting.
“Jesus, Mark, are you alright?” Ethan was suitably freaked out as Mark attempted to get up before he looked up at him, scared and still trying to breathe, face white.
“I don’t-I don't think so.” He said in a small voice, but it was obvious he wasn’t okay.
Stupid question Ethan, you idiot.
“W-What is it? Is it…?” He didn’t want to call it a baby, not in front of Mark of course.
While he himself thought earlier that it might be one, he wasn’t sure Mark felt the same about that, so he tried to cater for both himself and Mark in case.
“I don’t know, everything just hurts.” Mark panted, before he suddenly let out a noise similar to a squeak, eyes wide. Ethan was about to ask again what was wrong, but soon saw Mark’s jeans had a dark stain growing on them, the light fabric becoming dark as it soaked up whatever was making them damp.
At first, Ethan thought maybe Mark had been holding in the need to pee for a while to finish the video and the pressure from whatever was living inside of them had just forced his hand.
Obviously that was embarrassing, but this seemed like a lot more than just urine.
The slow realization of what was happening suddenly dawned on him as he looked at Mark, who was looking back at him, terrified. “Mark...I…”
“What?” Mark let out quietly, swallowing hard as he felt the cold seep into where he could only guess he wet himself at this point, shame flooding in. “What is it?”
“I think that…that was your water, Mark.” Ethan looked at him, just as terrified.
“I think you just went into fucking labor in your own living room.”