Chapter Text
Ethan’s skin still felt tingly, even as he and Mark along with Amy started to clean up the mess they had made from filming the 'Recreating the Miracle of Childbirth’.
They also would have got Evan to help, but he had long taken off home since that morning when they shot the prequel to this video, which now himself would have to edit as well as the one they had just finished once he got home to Mika and Spencer that night.
“I hope that this red shit we used doesn’t stain the bathtub. It’s going to be a bitch for us to get out if it does.” Mark commented from the far side of the small room, where he was bagging the trash up into a green bag designated for the outside bin in a matter of moments.
Ethan just shrugged. “Well, you should have thought of that earlier, I thought that the balloons would stain the bottom for sure. After all, we sat in them. They were so slimy, just-urch.”
“I did think of it beforehand, dumbass.” Mark retorted back, but sighed. “Yeah, they were, but it's a giant ass balloon, man. It was most likely because we had our legs in the water. Or our whole bodies like we /weren’t/ supposed to.” He side-eyed Ethan intentionally.
“Hey! You gave no instruction on how it was going to go and anyway, I forgot, so sue me!”
“Come on, guys.” Amy (the holy voice of reason) chimed from her spot where she was disassembling the lights and other camera/media equipment. “There’s no need to fight. The video was good and even though I may regret giving you the idea after today, I’m sure your fans will not care about anything.”
“It depends on the video, but hopefully you’re right.” Ethan agreed, stretching as his shirtless form shone in the light from the hallway. “Speaking of videos, I’d better head home. I’ll take the SD card off you now Amy and just upload all the footage on my PC at home to start editing it before tomorrow’s shoot. I should be able to get up by midday or something.”
“Alright, but I’m trusting you on this one.” Amy handed the card over willingly, from the camera she had moments ago been holding up. “I’ll call you in the morning to see how far you’ve gotten. Don’t stay up too late, okay?”
“I’ll try not to.” Honestly, Ethan, despite everything being pretty low activity today (other than the tens machine making his stomach ache slightly for a period of 5 hours after they’d used it and maybe all the splashing and failing around they did in the tub) was rather exhausted and he could also see that Mark was in the same boat, struggling for that moment to stay completely awake as Ethan spoke. “Looks like your man is also going be sleeping early.”
‘Shut up…” Mark grumbled from his position at the side of the tub, shaking his head. “So what if I’m a little tired? Sometimes these videos take it out of you, man. I’m just getting old.”
“Well, old man-” Ethan joked as he pulled on his shirt again, chuckling as Mark made a rude gesture at him. “-us young men have to get some downtime before editing, so I’ll just say goodbye for now and see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow, asshole.” Mark said jokingly, chuckling himself as Ethan stuck his tongue out at him before moving downstairs to grab his stuff and car keys to go home.
Surprisingly, Ethan was bone-tired by the time he got back to his and Mika’s house, not even wanting dinner as he slowly ambled upstairs to take a shower and change into pajamas so he could start working on editing the two videos.
Of course, the first was already heavily edited by Mark, so he just had to add all the details and stuff to it (thumbnails, uploading and description) before he could personally start the editing on the second one.
They always took turns, so it was no big surprise that he felt slightly more awake once he went to his computer and uploaded everything, but he soon started to slip again and for some reason, just couldn’t stay awake long enough to do so.
Just barely managing to upload Mark’s video, he finally gave up and crawled into his and Mika’s bed, passing out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Unknowingly to him, during the night, he tossed and turned more than normal, but was so dead asleep he didn’t even notice. The only time he re-awoke, was when the sun was streaming in through the curtains and he could smell Mika making breakfast downstairs.
Groggy, he went to get up from where he was lying, but felt like his whole body had been pinned down by some external force. Plus, he was starving, almost feeling sick from how hungry he was and the feeling of needing to go to the toilet was becoming worse the longer he lied there trying to make sense of everything.
Groaning, he managed to swing himself into a sitting position, hands jamming into his back as he stood up to head to the bathroom. Geez, maybe he was the one getting old and not Mark. Shouldn’t have made that old man comment.
Moving slowly, he managed to get to the bathroom to lean over the sink, but when his hands reached down to find his penis in order to whip it out, he got a nasty shock that woke him right up, his hands having connected straight to different skin than the one on his john.
Looking down, he choked back a sudden scream, seeing his stomach was hugely distended, bulging out of his t-shirt that had ridden up to sit on it like a tube top, feeling like bowling balls were stacked on top of his organs, making his lungs have to work harder to give him oxygen as he was starting to freak out.
Looking at it in the mirror, his lips trembled as he saw how large it was, his hips and sides now littered with small and large pink marks from where his skin had stretched.
What the hell happened during the night while he was sleeping!?
On the verge of an anxiety attack, he readied his voice to call out to Mika downstairs, when he suddenly felt a jolt from within him that made him go still, shaky hand raising up to up the bottom of the bump gently, before another jolt as strong as the last came from in him again.
Holy fucking /shit/!
Legs shaking, Ethan thankfully fell onto the toilet behind him as both his hands came up to cup the bump, him observing he couldn’t even get his hands to come together over the whole thing, bellybutton sitting on top of the mound like a cherry on a sundae as the moving under the thin skin continued, lighter, but no less terrifying.
There was something actually /fucking/ inside of him.
Oh god, if he was like this, what about Mark?! And Amy!? Or Mika!?
What would she think!? What would /any/ of them think!?
Oh god and what about the video!? He hadn’t edited it yet!
He wanted to dwell on these thoughts, get them all out into the open and panic alone in the bathroom where it was safest right now so he could figure out how to tell Mika when his mobile started shrilly ringing from next to his side of the bed.
Nervously trying to pull the shirt down over his new appendage (and failing), he moved as quickly as he could in his condition to the nightstand and picked it up, thinking that it was Amy and pressing the green button to answer. “Hello?”
“Hey, Eth!” Ethan could sense almost immediately that there was something wrong with Mark’s voice the moment he started talking. It seemed winded, or at least, more winded than normal. Mark usually called him after his run with the dogs in the morning if Amy couldn’t, so he shouldn’t have been too surprised. “How are you feeling today?”
Swallowing, Ethan tried to come up with a response, only to stutter endlessly before managing to push out an “A little unwell, but not bad. What about you?”
Ethan could hear Mark’s breath hitch a little, the noise noticeable as he also seemed to be not able to find the words to speak. “I’m...I don't know right now. Listen, can you come in early at all, to the house? Amy’s leaving us to filming today and having a day out on her own running some errands and I wanted to discuss ideas with you for today’s video.”
Oh shit, how would he explain this to Mark?!
It’s not like Mark /wouldn’t/ notice how skinny he once was had distinctly changed overnight.
“Uh…uh, sure, yeah I can do...that.” Ethan mumbled nervously, shaking his head even though Mark couldn’t see it. “I can be there in 20, if you want. Need me to bring anything?”
“Ugh-” Ethan could hear Mark’s groan as he obviously did something he shouldn’t have, hearing him whistle out a few long breaths before speaking again. “No, no, I was just going to order Postmates or something when you got here, if you're hungry.”
Oh god, he was starving and his body reminded him of this fact as soon as Mark mentioned it, feeling a growl and grumble from within his body, a few kicks (they had to be, he’d never felt anything like it before) accompanying it in protest. Seems whatever had taken up residence inside of his body was starving too. “Mika’s cooking breakfast, I’ll just get her to pack it up and bring some over with me. Is that cool?”
“Oh, that’s even better. No, totally cool. I’ll take whatever right now, I’m starving.”
Ethan made a conformational noise, while his head was spiraling. Mark, for the most part, sounded almost like him right now. Could it be that he was also…? No, no way.
“Sure, I’ll just go downstairs and head out. I’ll see you in a couple.”
“Yeah, see you in a couple.” The sound of beeping tone in his ear brought him back to reality as he swallowed, looking down at the bump forlornly. “Looks like I need to find something to cover you up for a while so I can figure out what’s going on here.”