Chapter Text
Time continued forward and soon it was time to make up a nursery and pick a few possible names for when the small one was born.
"Bet she picks one of my choices in the end." Both the boys had picked selections of names and they were going to sit down with Emily and vote on whether they liked it for their own child until they had narrowed it down.
"I fucking doubt it, you're terrible at picking names. But if you wanna bet I'll take you up on that." Sam hated the gloating and new from experience that whenever Jack was picked to name something they all hated it by the end of the week.
"Alright let's do a bet but not with money 'cause it'll end up going towards the baby anyway so neither of us truely win."
"Alright, who ever loses has to go a full day not able to take off their pants so if you need to piss no toilet for you." Sam knew it was technically still a win-win situation with them both having similar kinks but it would be more embarrassing to have to piss your pants no matter where you are.
"I'll take you up on that. Shake on it." They sealed the deal with smirks and a firm handshake before Emily finally walked in to lounge on the sofa and they threw names at her she knew she'd end up rejected if they didn't fit her own list.
"What are you two looking smug about? Actually I don't care let's get this over with so I can try to nap."
"If you need to sleep we can do this another time and go cuddle in bed instead." Sam tried to offer, not wanting his girlfriend to be grouchy during this.
"Nope everything is fine, let's do this." Emily energised herself to sit up straighter but waited for the boys to begin.
"Okay, if you're sure. How about... Charlie?" Jackson started.
"What is our child a future jock and/or a cop?" Sam asked rhetorically to help Emily reject it.
"Fine, no to Charlie then. That's all you had to say" Jack muttered to himself causing Emily to chuckle upon hearing him.
"What about Rowan?" Sam went next.
"What are the chances our child is a red head?" Emily shot back as her choice of rejection.
Sam crossed it out and the game went on for a while until they had gone through both the boys list and had all agreed to 10 names, 6 from Sam and 4 from Jackson. They left the list to be narrowed down again another time and all went to take a nap so that the baby, having now learnt how to kick, would stay settled as without one of the boys present they would become a football player using Emily's bladder.
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The 'another time' came with them all revoting to narrow it down to the final three and leaving it up until the baby's birth to choose the correct one for them.
The final selections left little hope of Jackson winning the bet with two of the names being Sam's and Emily showing her clear favouritism towards those.
But at least with Sam's terrible interior decorating skills, he was mostly in charge of the new nursery and could one up Sam by impressing their partner with the room.
A trip to IKEA and a couple other stores for paint and decorations, Jack was ready to begin and once he started painting the walls, Emily would be unable to enter because of the fumes which would allow for the surprise to truely show his commitment to any future endeavours the trio take together.
---
The days went by with them all working, Jackson spending most spare moments he was not working or enjoying time with his partners, finishing the nursery.
Sam spent his spare time not marking essays, doting on his girlfriend and constantly cooking meals and making disgusting concoctions to satiate her basic hunger and also her cravings that kept persisting.
The final checkup came and went with confirmation that the baby was completely fine and would be ready to enter the world any day now.
Realising how close they were to the due date and how much Jackson had left to complete for his perfect vision of the nursery he sulked towards Sam out of Emily's view to request their help.
"I need your help to finish the nursery but you have no creative freedom unless you absolutely hate it but then I'll be very sad."
"Jesus no need to attempt to guilt trip me into liking it, it probably looks great. Yes I will help you if you help me finish this meal before angry comes storming in here 'cause I'm taking too long." They had made their agreement so Jack quickly turned around to the counter to begin plating up ready items while Sam finished the fish.
Once plated they delivered it to Emily in the living room watching another drama and quickly left to finish the nursery. As they entered Sam was in shock. All the windows were open to hopefully get rid of the fumes of new paint quicker and the furniture was built. The wall Sam assumed the crib would be against had a beautiful mural painted in the center of a tree and a couple of animals as if they were peering inside the crib.
"There's the art degree in you. Holy shit." Sam remained in shock as he moved closer to look at the details of the still drying artistry to see little items hidden in the leaves - a book stating 'by Homer', a paintbrush and a parrot hidden within the canopy - the trio's favourite things. "This is beautiful, babe."
Sam was almost brought to tears by the detail and care Jackson put into before he came over to twirl them around and point at an unopened IKEA box. "That's for you to build and put below that window. The other three walls are dry but still try not to smash the place up."
"Yes sir." Sam was brought back to the present and at Jack's command found the instructions and got to work unboxing and building the set of chester drawers.
---
They had finished the room to at least be livable for the baby just in time as just days after they had finally built and set up the basics of the crib, the chester drawers, the wardrobe and a play box full of the toys they would need for the first few months at least, the baby attempted the leave their home for the past 9 months and come meet their parents.
Emily was awoken early in the morning and had very little chance of going back in to the depths of slumber with the discomfort and pain her entire body felt to be in. She spent a couple hours laying there as to not disturb the two sleeping boys but as her tossing and turning increased, the light sleeper Jackson joined her in awareness of the world.
"Hey what's wrong?" He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake up Sam if it was nothing. Despite the two never officially stating or having a discussion about it, they both had separately acknowledged that they might as well be each others boyfriend and girlfriend but neither had breached the conversation as they were too preoccupied with the incoming new life they would have to raise.
"My back and stomach. Just go back to sleep and if anything else happens I'll wake you up." Jackson gave her an unbelieving look. "I promise I will. Stop giving me that look and go to sleep."
Jackson finally gave up fighting against her so laid back down, allowing Sam to roll over to lay on top of him, pressing their nose into his neck and wrapping an arm around his waist. Jack let out a sigh and tried to settle back down to sleep.
Hours passed of the same discomfort and to very little avail of getting back to sleep until finally the pain reached a peak too early in the morning that Sam would complain but Emily didn't care as she repeatedly slapped the pile of sleeping boys to get some reaction.
Jackson came to quickly and became aware instantly of being hit and looked over to see Emily's face scrunched in pain for a few seconds more before the pain calmed and the slapping stopped. During the moment Sam had awoken but, not being a morning person, had rolled over and snuggled back in the pillow and swaddled themself in the comforter.
"What was that?" Jackson was in panic mode, an idea of what had happened was running around his mind but he was too scared to let it be that.
"I believe a contraction. If it makes you feel better it might be Braxton-Hicks...?" Emily tried to reassure him but at the word 'contraction' full panic mode had set in and he leaped from the bed starting to gather stuff. "Babes it's fine that was the first one and my water hasn't broken so we don't need to do anything yet. Try to get more sleep, its like 7am."
"It is but we're gonna have a baby soon, at least within the next 24 hours. Maybe I should wake up Sam and get them to cook us breakfast."
"Absolutely not, Sam will kill you and then I'll have to raise the child alone so no." Emily grabbed a hold of one of Jackson's hands as he neared the bed and tried to soothe him with calming circles on the back of his hands. "Everything's going to be fine. Also you can cook so go make breakfast for me yourself."
She managed to calm him down enough that he let out a big breathe and turned to go downstairs and cook breakfast.
Beside Emily, Sam laid where he would be on a normal day for at least another hour but Emily had the unfortunate job of waking them up and giving them the news that the baby would probably be here today. Cuddled into the center of bed, most likely in fetal position under the covers, they slept soundly not letting any noise from the world outside his brain interfere with their daily 9 hours of sleep until Emily began to prod at their face and speak in whispers to rouse him from their slumber.
The smell of food started drifting upstairs before Sam's eyes began to open and blink the sleep away. A loud yawn escaped and he looked up at his girlfriend with a smile before confusion took over about why she was waking them up.
"Nice to see you alive. Unfortunately, I had to cut your sleep off 'cause I had a contraction and Jackson is downstairs making breakfast so don't worry about that." Sam had a similar reaction to the word 'contraction' as Jackson, launching up in bed to panic and grabbing all over Emily to check nothing else was wrong. "I'm fine you don't have to do that. It was the first one so we can stay at home for a few more hours."
Sam calmed down but stayed sat up in bed to reduce the chances of falling back asleep. "Good thing I told work I was starting paternity leave this week so I don't have to go in."
"You probably could have gone in and if I did rapidly go into labour you could just cancel or end the class early."
"Yeah sure. "Welcome in class." Then five minutes later having to tell them "actually it's cancelled" and that they can go home cause my girlfriend's gone into labour and I need to get to the hospital. What a productive day that would be." Sam joked about his one class they had to teach on a Monday and how he might as well leave them in the hands of a substitute that would at least be able to teach a full lesson and not just the title slide.
The conversation was cut after that as Jackson walked in with two plates of food. They would usually have a platter of food and all eat together but as the pregnancy progressed they realised that trying to take what Emily had silently designated as hers despite the shared plate was not a good idea so now the boys shared a plate while Emily got one to herself.
Breakfast passed and so did the first few hours of the day as slowly the contractions became longer and closer together but still her water didn't break so Emily was adamant that they had no need to go to the hospital yet and could stay at home. As the boys became more and more worried that if they waited any longer they wouldn't be able to make it in time, Emily stood with great effort and water spilled from her onto the floor.
"At least it wasn't on the sofa, but can we go now?" Sam asked as he was already trying to push her towards the door while Jackson ran to the door to grab the bag and unlock the car in preparation.
Emily just nodded as she waddled forward and out the house to sit in the back of the car with Sam as another contraction wracked her body and Jackson rushed out the driveway and down the street.