Work Text:
“Are you the father?”
Frank raised his eyebrows.
“I’m the husband,” he said. Poor Matt was getting an ultrasound done because he had had random stomach cramps that Lenny didn’t seem to be able to heal and he was constantly bloated. And since Matt was scared of pretty much everything he didn’t do on a daily basis (like fighting monsters and public speaking), he had asked Frank to come with him and hold his hand.
The doctor laughed.
“I understand the two of you are married, I’m asking if you’re the father of this little one – well, if you’re married, I assume you are.” He turned the screen towards Matt and Frank. Frank frowned. He had no idea what he was looking at in the moving grayscale picture of supposedly his husband’s guts, but Matt shrieked.
“What is that?!” he asked, pointing at the screen.
“That is…” the doctor moved the nozzle of the ultrasound a little. “A little boy!”
Matt did his little panic laugh, the one he saved for moments where he had decided not to believe something for the sake of his own sanity.
“There’s no way,” he said, grin on his mouth, terror in his eyes.
“There is,” the doctor confirmed.
“I have no uterus, no ovaries, how would that even… there is literally no way.”
The doctor shrugged.
“Look, I’m not going to explain all the physical intricacies of mpreg to you, sir, you’re just gonna have to believe me when I say that in… about four months, you’ll be having a baby.”
Matt shook his head and looked at Frank, who was absolutely speechless. He knew Matt hated it when anatomical inconsistencies weren’t explained to him. It annoyed him to no end that Frank would never explain how his organs worked when he was made of little cubes that moved around each other. Now he had a baby somewhere in his abdomen and he had no idea where or how.
The doctor took a paper towel and wiped the gel off Matt’s stomach before telling him he could button up his shirt again.
“I would refer you to a gynecologist...” the doctor said.
“But there is no gyneca,” Matt finished his sentence.
“Exactly.”
“This is absolute horseshit,” Matt complained as the two exited the hospital. He had a hand on his stomach. “I don’t have any of the organs needed to have a baby!”
“I don’t have any organs at all,” Frank said with a shrug.
“First of, that’s probably not true. And even if so, why aren’t you pregnant?”
“Well,” Frank said, putting an arm around Matt’s shoulders, “when two adults love each other very much-”
“Part of that process is an egg,” Matt interrupted. “It’s not just about who inserts something into whom.” He sighed. “I hate this, because now either, I don’t know what’s going on with me… or that insane doctor wasn’t lying and I’m going to have to birth a boy. How would I even do that? That’s already painful for women and they have everything they need!”
“It would be kind of cute,” Frank said, hugging Matt close to him as they got to the busstop. “Imagine the little thing playing with his cubic floating eyes.”
“Curses don’t manifest until early puberty,” Matt corrected him, leaning his head on Frank’s shoulder. “It would be cute… but it’s still insane. And impossible. I’m… I’m almost tempted to ask my dad for a second opinion.”
“Fuck no,” Frank exclaimed. “What would that bring?”
“Well, he hates shit that’s ‘different’ so much, that he’ll either tell me what’s really going on, or he’ll disown me again, which would be a confirmation of this pregnancy stuff.”
“Yeah, don’t mind me asking Elliot to free up his calendar if you do that, because you’re gonna need therapy no matter the outcome.”
“It’s just horseshit,” Matt concluded.
The bus arrived and the two of them got in. Frank smiled at the guy in the front of the bus who was staring at the two with his mouth hanging open while they showed their tickets to the driver. Frank knew that Matt didn’t like being stared at in public, to the point that he generally put most of his eyes into a satchel and traded his wizard robes for slacks and somewhat gay, patterned shirts. Frank loved being stared at in public. He had always figured that if he hadn’t been cursed, he would’ve looked unconventional in some other way. Maybe he’d have a bunch of piercings, or would be dying his hair a lot, or wear eye-catching outfits, something that would make him stand out.
They picked out two seats next to each other and Matt let his head lean on Frank’s shoulder again while Frank stroked his leg.
“Do you really think it could be true?” Matt asked in a soft voice.
“I don’t know,” said Frank. “Weirder things have happened to us.”
“Yeah, at age 10, when weird things are supposed to happen,” Matt sighed. “I’m just scared… If it’s true, that’s scary, but if it’s not true, I still have weird cramps and a weird doctor who’s telling me lies. Both are horrifying.”
Frank nodded and kissed Matt on the crown of his head. It was nice that in Oxfordshire, most people had heard of St. Churnley’s and knew that cursed men were not to be fucked with, since they had had a thorough education in beating things up. Frank hardly ever had to deal with expressed homophobia over here. He saw the looks, of course, now that he and Matt were sitting very cutely, but knowing his husband had the power to shoot lasers at people was comforting. He sighed and stroked Matt’s shoulder.
“I hope it’s true,” he whispered.
“That’d be terrifying,” Matt answered, weaving his fingers through Frank’s on his own shoulder.
“Yes, but also really cute.”
***
Frank was met with a scream when he opened the door to their apartment. It had been two weeks since the ultrasound and some more tests had confirmed what the first doctor had said. Matt wasn’t coping well, to use an understatement. Right now, he sat on the floor – not even in the air – of their living room, arms around his knees as well as he could manage with his baby bump. Some of his eyes were on the floor, some were moving erratically through the room. It wasn’t his first panic attack and also not the first one Frank witnessed, so Frank knew how to act. Normally, he’d lay himself on top of Matt, like a very weighted blanket, but he didn’t want to risk it with the baby, so instead, he sat down behind his husband, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest and kissing his neck.
“Shhhhh, I’m here. I’m here,” he mumbled.
Matt grabbed his arms and squeezed hard into the little cubes, which Frank knew would hurt his husband, but not enough to really harm him, so it was fine. It worked grounding. Matt’s superficial breathing and high pitched whines slowly got deeper and calmer as he was regaining control of his emotions and they made place for tears that wetted the inside of the blindfold until there were enough for them to seep out.
They sat there for maybe half an hour. Frank moved a little so he could lean his back against the couch while still cuddling Matt and whispering soothing words to him. Matt was sobbing, sometimes more, sometimes less, which probably corelated to whatever his anxious little head was coming up with. He then moved his hands to summon a notebook and pen towards him, something he did regularly when his mind was ready to talk but his throat wasn’t.
I can’t have a baby, he wrote down and showed it to Frank, who rubbed his shoulders.
“You mean physically or mentally?” Frank asked.
Both, everything, it’s too much.
“I know, it is a lot. I wish I could help you physically. Mentally though, I really think we’ll be great parents.”
Or I die in childbirth.
“Or you die in childbirth… Please don’t. We’ll have doctors make sure that you don’t.”
Doctors who have no experience with male pregnancy, because it’s NOT A THING. I’m going to die, Frank!!!
Matt started sobbing again.
“We’ll take Lenny with us, okay? So if you bleed out, he can heal you. I won’t let you die.”
Matt swallowed and leaned back against Frank’s chest. He took a deep breath, and another one and swallowed again.
“What if we’re bad parents?” He asked in a small voice.
“Then we’ll have Elliot here, who loves children, and Kerry, who will probably babysit if we put our kid in her room and then run away quickly, and Ranjit, who may not babysit at that point, but he’s really cool and a strong father-figure nonetheless.”
“I don’t want Ranjit sitting our baby,” Matt said, a slight smile creeping up on his face. “Imagine him getting fed up with the kid and sending him to hell…”
“We’ll ask Elliot then. Elliot will make our child chocolate milk and read him books while bouncing him on his lap. Oh my god," Frank exclaimed suddenly. "I can make him toys! Like magical toys! This is gonna be so fun! Elliot and I can build a whole dollhouse, or a garage, or little dinosaurs! A dino-doll garage! Where they fix cars, or zeppelins! You can make the zeppelins float!”
“Okay, that does sound fun,” Matt admitted. He sounded relaxed enough that Frank felt safe nudging him to stand up before plopping down on the couch, instead of in front of it, and reaching out his hand to make Matt join him again in a more comfortable position. “I’d be much more excited about this if you were the pregnant one,” Matt admitted. “I’m just scared of, like… how this is gonna work, you know? Because it still doesn’t make sense, biologically.”
“It doesn’t, but our bodies have been through all kinds of stuff,” Frank said into Matt’s hair.
“Mine has.” Matt snickered.
“Yes… I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’ll figure out a way to make this work, okay? I mean, the baby somehow got in there, I'm sure that…”
“I guess..” Matt sighed. “Still not how things are supposed to work, but… We’ll see, I guess.”
“I love you and I’m here to help you with anything you need,” said Frank and Matt turned his head around to kiss him.
“I love you too. Also, if you want to help me with anything… I need pizza rolls.”
“What?”
“Pizza rolls? Pepperoni ones, with that horrible fake cheddar dip they have at that really bad ‘Italian’ place in Oxford? If you’ll do anything for me…”
Frank laughed and pushed Matt away gently so he could get up from the couch.
“Can I take Saikaku?” he asked. Matt levitated the keystone out of his coat pocked and made it fly over to Frank.
“If that means you’re back quicker, then by all means.”
***
“So, this is your last class from me for the time being…” Matt said. His belly had become way heavier than it had any right to be by now. Then again, there was a whole human person in there, so that made sense. He could levitate it along with the rest of his body, but it was still heavier than normal. “I’m eh… on pregnancy leave after today…”
Over the past two months he had gotten used to the idea, a little, but it was still odd saying it out loud to his students. Monty Finch raised his hand.
“Yes, Mister Finch?” he asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a question about-
“You are a man, right?” the kid asked in his somewhat emotionless voice.
“Yes I am.”
“So… how are you pregnant then?”
“Yeah, didn’t you just get fat?” Kevin Creely added and then quickly said: “Sir?” as if that made it less rude.
“Didn’t you get ‘portly’?” Roland Thudberry asked with a mischievous grin.
Matt shook his head.
“No boys, believe me when I say we double and triple checked before ending up at this conclusion. It is what it is, I’m afraid.”
The annoying thing about teens was that an ‘I don’t want to talk about it’-face didn’t really do the trick and Matt was glad when the school bell finally rang. There were just parts of his intimate life that the students didn’t need to know about – all of it, to be precise.
He hovered his body over to the teachers’ lounge, hoping to see Frank there, or maybe Elliot if not Frank. He was lucky to find both Frank and Elliot in the lounge. He was less lucky to also find most of his other coworkers, who had thrown together some kind of party.
“Happy pregnancy leave!” Elliot cheered when Matt floated in. “We thought we’d throw you a little baby shower!”
“Oh, thanks,” Matt said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster up, which wasn’t a lot. “God, that’s so sweet, but I’m so tired.”
“I know,” said Frank, “so you can just lie down on the recliner while we feed you cake-”
“-and-”
“yes, and cheap pizza rolls with chemical cheddar dip, and give you presents.”
“Damn, what a day.” Matt smiled and made his way to the recliner that was usually occupied by one of the older colleagues. He reclined, which felt pretty good.
Frank and Elliot had, unsurprisingly, clearly already started a competition on who could craft the most outrageous gift with Frank having made a plush hellpincer that walked around the room and Elliot giving a knitted sweater with the text “Baby (can throw)”.
“I wasn’t sure what name you had picked out,” Elliot said as an excuse. “So that’s why it just says ‘baby’.”
“Bobby,” Matt said and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Despite everything, he had grown to love the little thing growing in his… well, somewhere in his abdomen for sure.
“Bobby?!” Elliot exclaimed. “That’s so cute!!!”
“Frank had suggested Rob first. ‘Rob Lox HaHa’…” Matt side-eyed his husband. “But it got me thinking about the name Robert and other, non-cubic nicknames and we kinda fell in love with Bobby, so Bobby it is.”
“Bobby Lox HaHa,” Frank said, prompting Matt to fire a laser in his general direction. “Sorry, I mean Bobby Alexander Hinks-Hebden.”
“It’s a compromise,” Matt said with a shrug. “So Frank can still call him Roblox because that’s close enough to his real name, but the poor kid will have an actual normal name to use in school and stuff.”
“That’s… certainly a thing.” Elliot chuckled awkwardly, “Bobby is cute though! I like Bobby!”
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t actually have named my kid Rob Lox,” Frank said. “But we both like Bobby Alexander as first and middle names.”
Elliot and Kerry had apparently made sure that the other party guests had all brought more useful gifts than a living hellpincer or a funny sweater, so pretty soon, there was a table filled with diapers, cleaning products, stuff to baby-proof the apartment and some more practical clothes. Lenny had bought a bunch of formula.
“Cuz I doubt you’ll lactate,” he said. “But who knows, right?”
“Who knows indeed,” Matt agreed. “Frank was hoping for it – well, he hoped I’d get boobs… and then said that if I did, I should pierce my nipples…”
“That’s not good for baby teeth.” Lenny shook his head.
“That’s what I told him! Anyway, thanks for the formula, looks like we’re gonna need it.” Matt ran his hands over his flat chest.
Lenny leaned on the armrest of the recliner and brought his head closer to Matt.
“Maybe this is none of my business,” he said in a low voice, “but how’re you gonna get the baby out? Cuz eh, you got all the male plumbing, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I eh… we don’t really have a plan yet. C-section seems like the best option.”
“Right, right… do you know where the kid is? What you’re cutting into to get it out?”
Matt shook his head.
“Still a mystery,” he said, “which scares me shitless, to be honest.”
“Gotcha. If you’re interested, I have an alternative plan… well, if Ranjit agrees. I dunno if it’s better or worse than a C-section, but I think it will leave fewer scars? My idea was, and please let me know if this is super weird, that Ranjit might make a portal to reach the baby and we can get it-”
“Him.”
“We can get him out of you without cutting.”
“Okay…” Matt let the proposal sink in for a moment, his eyes staring at the ceiling of the teachers’ lounge, that had an impressive fresco on it of a kind of pandemonium. He frowned and directed his eyes towards Lenny again. “Ranjit’s portals go through Hell… Would that mean Bobby’s first experience outside of my body is Hell? Because I don’t know if anyone would ever recover from that. Also, if we don’t know exactly where he is, organ-wise, will Ranjit just teleport my insides in and out of Hell while searching for my child? I mean, don’t get me wrong, eh, it doesn’t sound worse than getting a random C-section looking for a baby, it’s just… all bad?” He took a deep breath.
“Well if it’s of any help, I’ve never experienced Hell while being transported by Ranjit. It’s just darkness for a bit, no pain or sounds or visuals…” Lenny offered.
“I’d also have Ranjit’s hands inside of my guts…” Matt mumbled. “Which is weird.”
“Well it’s that or a doctor’s hands,” Lenny countered.
“I’ll think about it. Thanks, Lenny.”
“Hang in there.” Lenny patted Matt on his shoulder and go up again. “You’ll be fine and your kid’s gonna be adorable.”
***
No matter how long Matt thought about it, Lenny’s plan did make more sense than just having a doctor cutting into him randomly. And having his organs go through Hell one by one was weird and might cause unforeseen complications, but it seemed like it was worth the risk. So about four weeks after the baby shower, Matt put on some stretchy pyjama pants and his bathrobe and hovered over to the nurse’s office with Frank in tow, where Lenny and Ranjit were already waiting.
“So here’s how it’s gonna work,” Lenny said as Matt had taken off the bathrobe and laid himself down on the bed. “I will keep a detect life spell rolling, hoping that I can sense the difference between Matt and… Bobby, right?”
“Bobby, yeah,” Frank confirmed.
“Cute name. Lemme try that first, before we get in with portals and shit. I hope my hands aren’t too cold.” Lenny quickly rubbed his hands to warm them up more and then put them on Matt’s abdomen, mumbling a spell. The palm of his hands emitted a soft, green light that was barely noticeable between his hands and Matt’s belly. “Oh yeah,” he said, “that’s definitely different! This is gonna be a breeze! Well, from my side at least.”
“What’s the difference?” Frank asked.
“Fourty-five year age gap. Sorry Matt, don’t mean to call you old, but…”
“I just have stale life energy, I guess,” Matt joked, despite being very nervous. He reached out his hand to Frank and grabbed in the air a few times, gesturing for his husband to hold his hand. Frank did and leaned over to kiss his forehead.
“Imagine if that baby comes out with red hair, blue eyes and a scouse accent,” Frank said.
“That would make so much more sense,” Matt answered and then added panicking: “Not that I cheated with Kerry! I just mean- then, like, there’d be a- a- an egg, right?”
“I know what you mean, love.” Frank squeezed his hand. “Don’t make yourself more nervous than you already are. Think of the baby.”
“The baby makes me nervous.”
“Because it’s Sarge’s,” Frank said with a wink, making Matt laugh despite the situation.
“Ready?” Lenny asked, looking at Matt and then at Ranjit.
“Ehm, is the plan for Ranjit to, eh, reach in? Into the portal, I mean? Or can Frank do that?” Matt asked. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding crude, but I’d rather have his hands inside of me…”
Lenny nodded and Frank agreed to do it, which put Matt at ease a little bit. Lenny went on to describe precisely to Ranjit where the baby was. Ranjit incanted something and an approximately baby-sized portal appeared in front of him. Another portal wasn’t visible, but Matt could very much feel it. It didn’t hurt per se, but it was weird.
“You okay?” Lenny asked and Matt nodded. He had most of his eyes turned away towards the wall so he wouldn’t have to see what was going on.
“Bit of a pit in my stomach,” he joked.
“Good, good, Frank, I’m pretty sure Ranjit found the right spot, so you can do your thing.”
“Alright, here I come,” Frank announced, carefully reaching into the portal with both his hands. “Oh shit, I feel him! Hello little guy. He’s round! Like, not cubes! Gotta be careful there… I think this is his head? Should I just… what should I do?”
“Try to get him out with as little pressure as possible,” Lenny answered. “Matt, can you push him down? Like with your midriff or your abs?”
“I can try…” Matt said. “Shit this is- holy fuck…”
“Gottem gottem gottem gottem!” Frank exclaimed, as he managed to get his hand safely around the baby. Matt screamed. It wasn’t so much pain as just the pressure on his abdomen becoming even bigger with Frank’s hands in there as well. He was clearly focusing on rounding out his cubes as much as he could manage, so he wouldn’t cut Matt. “Oh my god, look!” Frank said.
Matt tentatively turned one of his eyes towards the portal and then let his other eight eyes follow as he saw how Frank was slowly pulling out the most gorgeous baby boy Matt had ever seen. Not that he had ever really paid attention to newborns, but they couldn’t possibly be any more beautiful than this one, he was sure. The little thing had a bit of a purplish red tone to his brown skin, which Lenny assured them was normal. When Bobby was all the way out, Ranjit closed the portal and Matt finally felt like he could breathe again. He also felt weirdly lonely. Looking at the little boy in Frank’s arms was weird, when that boy had been with him for presumably nine months, even if he had only known about it for four. He stretched his arms out towards Bobby.
“Can I-”
“Yes, of course!” Frank ran his finger carefully over Bobby’s little head one more time before gently placing him on Matt’s chest and Matt immediately fell in love. Well, he already loved his son, even before he was born, but now, the way butterflies coursed through his body… he knew he was overwhelmed by hormones, of course. Adrenaline, endorphin, whatever else he didn’t care about. He had a son. He had a son! And he could use all of his nine eyes to look at his son! It was such a little drop of perfection! And that drop of perfection crawled towards his nipple. Poor thing.
“Lenny, I think we need the formula,” Matt tried to say, but only half of those words came out thanks to the mental state he was in, so instead he pointed at Bobby and said: “Lenny, milk!”
He placed his hand on Bobby’s head and softly stroked the few fuzzy hairs he had. Frank stood next to him, one hand on Matt’s shoulder, the other on Bobby’s back. He had a huge smile on his face and blinked away a tear from his eye.
“Look what you made,” Frank said with a blissful giggle. “I thought I was the craftsman, but you just made a whole human.”
“He’s gorgeous,” Matt said. He bent his neck and planted a careful kiss on Bobby’s head.
“He’s going to be an absolute menace,” Frank chuckled. “Being a combination of the two of us.”
“Yeah…” Matt agreed. “And a nerd. I wonder what his curse will be.”
“Cubic eyes,” Frank suggested.
Lenny came back in. Neither Frank nor Matt had noticed that he had left, but he was holding a bottle with milk now, which he gave to Matt so he could feed Bobby. Ranjit had left in the meantime and Matt couldn’t blame him.
“The three of you should get some rest,” Lenny advised while Matt was feeding Bobby. “I’m sure you’re exhausted. Do you think you can make it back to your room without help?”
“Yeah, I’ll just…” Matt tried to levitate himself but with 90% of his brain being focused on his child (his CHILD!) he couldn’t muster up the focus he needed.
“I’ll carry you,” Frank said, putting his arms under Matt’s shoulders and knees before lifting him up bridal style.
“Are you sure, love?” Matt asked, hearing the grunt that escaped from Frank’s throat.
“Yeah, yeah, I can do this.” Frank turned to Lenny. “Thank you, you were amazing.”
“You guys were also amazing,” Lenny returned. “Now go upstairs, get some sleep and let me know if you need help with anything, yes?”
And that they did. A little while later, Matt and Frank crawled into bed with little Bobby. Matt, exhausted from everything that had happened to his body, fell asleep almost immediately. Bobby followed soon after and Frank had the privilege of looking at his perfect little family.