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Jeremy’s heat is late.
He knows, because last month his heat had synced up with Cat’s, and Cat had made the joke that she was the Alpha between them, since Jeremy’s cycle was the one that conformed. He knows, because this month, Cat went into heat a week ago, and still, his has yet to hit.
But it could mean nothing.
It could—except he’d spent last month’s heat with someone, and he didn’t know when his preheat had officially started, and he didn’t know, for sure, that that the morning after pill he’d taken had worked.
Either time.
But still, it could be fine.
Still, it doesn’t mean he’s pregnant.
That’s what he tells himself as he readies for practice that morning, and as he stares blankly out the window in each of his classes; that’s what he tells himself in the periods between, as he and Jean head for the Lofts before their home game that afternoon.
It doesn’t stop the thought spirals from dragging him down, though. It doesn’t stop the fear, or the worry; doesn’t stop the way his scent keeps spiraling out of control, or the way it feels like everyone knows. It doesn’t stop him from biting his nails down to the quick, or his heart from pounding out of his chest; it doesn’t stop him from feeling like he’s on another plane of existence, or from being unaware of his surroundings as he steps down off the curb, and into the street.
A horn blares. Someone shouts his name. There’s a bruising grip on his arm, and then, suddenly, the world is rushing around him as Jean hauls him back to safety.
Behind him, he can hear the ragged sound of Jean’s breathing. All around him, he can smell Jean’s scent, tangy with fear. In his chest, his heart pounds so hard he’s scared it’ll give out.
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy mumbles, “I’m sorry, I—I wasn’t looking, I—“
“You haven’t been looking at anything,” Jean says, exasperated. “All day, it is like you are on another planet.”
He moves Jeremy from where he’d been plastered against Jean’s chest, and spins him around; grips his shoulders, searches his face. “This is more than just the usual distance you get when you go home. Something is wrong. Tell me what it is, so we can fix it.”
We, Jeremy repeats, dizzily, dreamily, and then shoves that thought right down.
He doesn’t have time for fantasies. And he can’t drag Jean into this, or ask that he handle this, this mess that Jeremy created. So he squares his shoulders, and pulls all the strength he can muster, and says, as normally as he can, “Nothing is wrong.”
But that, in itself, sounds wrong.
The statement comes out like a question. His voice is thin, and reedy, and his breathing is picking up, and Jean’s clearly not buying it, and hell, is it fair of Jeremy, to keep this lie when he’d promised he wouldn’t?
Jeremy closes his eyes. This is the last possible place he wants to be doing this—out here, in the middle of campus—but his mouth opens, and there is little he can do to stop the confession as he says, “I think I’m pregnant.”
Silence. He wonders, for a moment, if Jean heard him, if he even said the words at all, but opening his eyes again reveals that he had.
Jean is clearly shocked by the revelation—his eyes are wide, his face is pale—and all Jeremy feels is shame. Shame for not keeping his legs closed, shame for not being more cautious, shame for falling apart where everyone can see. Where Jean can see. Shame for how everyone will react.
Because if Jean, who said he’d stand with Jeremy no matter what, took the news with such—such disgust, then how would everyone else take it? What would they say? His mother, and Warren. Laila. Rhemann. His friends. His team.
What would he do if this got out? What would happen to him, and either future that dangled in the balance? Warren had already warned him of the consequences of stepping out of line again, and surely, he’d see this as Jeremy sprinting across it.
There would be no LSATs to worry about, then, because there would be no future as a lawyer. There would be no more Wilshires, no more Knoxes. There would be no exy career either. If Jeremy somehow managed to get scouted, surely they would drop him the moment they heard about his tendencies. About his scandals. And Jeremy would lose everything, once again, to his own carelessness. To his own selfish desires.
And isn’t that what he’s doing now? Being selfish? Laying this burden on Jean, like it’s Jean’s problem to fix? Like Jean had been the one who couldn’t handle his heats alone, like Jean had been the one dumb enough to forget his daily pill?
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy repeats, and goes to turn, to pull out of Jean’s grip, but Jean refuses to let go, and Jeremy—Jeremy cannot breathe. “Forget I—forget—“
It’s like there’s no air left in the world.
Jeremy knows this isn’t true. He knows it, can see the trees in the distance, but he cannot feel it. Every inhale feels like he’s fighting against a hand around his throat, a vise around his lungs. And he hears it, then, the wheezing sound of his own breaths, through the staticky cotton in his ears. Has he been doing that long?
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and he can’t breathe, and every failed breath makes him feel dizzier, and his vision darken around the edges, and he’s going to die here, and it won’t matter what happens next, because—
“You need to breathe,” Jean says, like Jeremy hadn’t thought of that, but he tries to remember how anyway. He knows this is a panic attack, and he knows Dr. Spader has taught him the ways to control it, but he can’t remember, in this moment. He can’t think, and he can’t breathe, and he can’t have this baby, and—
Jean swears. Distantly, Jeremy hears it. Distantly, Jeremy feels Jean moving him again, across the street and into the parking garage on the other side. He feels Jean’s hand on his own, and then the hard, steady pounding of Jean’s heartbeat beneath his palm.
Jean keeps one hand on his, holding it in place in the center of his chest, and brings the other to Jeremy’s face. “Follow me,” he says. “In. Out.”
Jeremy tries. The first breath ends up as more of a choking gasp, but the second flows in a little smoother.
“Just like that,” Jean says. “You’re doing well.”
Jeremy keeps going. In, and out. Slowly, following the dramatized inhales and exhales Jean is taking for him, until he no longer feels like he’s going to pass out, and instead, all he feels is tired.
Until all he feels is shame.
He opens his mouth. To say what, he doesn’t know. That he’s sorry Jean handle his breakdown? That he can handle the rest on his own?
He looks away, disgusted with himself for letting this happen, for letting Jean see, but Jean only catches his chin, and turns him back. And there, Jeremy sees it, the same fierce loyalty, the same protection that Jean has offered him time and time again. And the sight, the relief of not having to do this alone, nearly brings him to his knees
“What do you want to do?” Jean asks.
Crawl into bed and pretend this mess doesn’t exist, Jeremy thinks. But if Jean could stand by him, then Jeremy could get through this.
He swallows, and collects himself, and says, “First, I need to find out if I’m right.”
They stop at a store, on the way back.
It’s empty, but that doesn’t stop Jeremy from worrying. He darts for the family care aisle, grabs the first two boxes of pregnancy tests that he can spot, and then falters after taking one step toward the register. Because he’ll need a receipt, for this. And Leslie will ask, and Jeremy won’t know what to tell her.
For a moment, he doesn’t know what to do. For a moment, he just stands there, frozen, and the next, Jean is reaching over, and gently plucking the boxes from his hands.
“I’ve got it,” Jean tells him.
Jeremy blinks, and then shakes himself out of his stupor, and follows. But by the time he gets to Jean, Jean is already paying, and the lady behind the register is clearly trying to get a read on them, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Outside, Jean’s motorcycle stands alone in the parking lot, and Jeremy stops before it, hesitant. They’d left his car at the stadium to make things easier, and, Jeremy thinks, so Jean wouldn’t have to worry about him driving, but even the act of being driven to the Lofts feels daunting. Especially since he knows what’s waiting for him when he gets there.
Maybe Jean knows that too, because he says, “It will be okay.”
Such optimistic words from a rarely optimistic man. Jeremy turns to him, a little skeptical, a little hopeful. “You don’t believe that.”
“I believe that what happens will happen, and that I will do anything in my power to help you,” Jean says. “It will be okay. By itself, or because we make it.”
He lets that settle in, and then asks, “Okay?”
And what other choice does Jeremy have, than to trust him? “Okay,” he says, and when Jean climbs on the motorcycle, climbs on after him.
Back at the lofts, Jeremy pees on test number one.
It takes a few tries to work up the courage, and then another few to get over the nerves of Jean crowding in the bathroom with him, but eventually, he manages.
After, he puts the test on a towel on the counter, and then pulls his shorts back into place. “Now we wait,” he tells Jean, and gamely pretends he can’t hear the shake in his voice. Jean does too. “Fifteen minutes.”
He makes note of the time, pulls himself up to sit on the other side of the counter—opposite the test, in front of Jean—and then—nothing.
The bathroom is quiet. The entire apartment is quiet. Jabberwocky is asleep, and the girls are still at class, and Jeremy can’t stand it, the lack of sound, the lack of noise. Like this, it is just him, and his thoughts, and—
“Tell me something,” he begs.
It’s unbearably selfish, but he’s on a roll today. Asking Jean to deal with this, asking Jean to calm him down and get him home and buy him a confirmation of his mistake. Asking him to distract him now, so he doesn’t have to calm him down yet again.
He nearly opens his mouth to tell Jean never mind, to ignore him, but before he can, Jean starts talking.
It is gibberish, at first. Jeremy stares at him, mildly confused, and finds Jean looking away from him, talking instead at the shower. And that’s when it clicks—Jean is speaking French.
Immediately, Jeremy listens. It’s hard not to. He has always found Jean’s voice entrancing, and when he speaks in his mother tongue, that feeling doubles.
He’s not far in his studies, though, so he can only make out half of what Jean’s saying. But in a way, that’s better. It gives him something to focus on, something to do. And for a while, he gets lost in it, in pulling out the handful of words he can recognize.
But then Jean stops, trailing off, and Jeremy glances over at his phone. And—oh.
Time is up.
He tries to muster up the courage to check it, and reaches for the test, once, twice, but no matter how he tries, can’t get himself to touch it.
It doesn’t make sense. If he’s pregnant, the damage will already be done. This will just confirm it. And yet—and yet he can’t bring himself to look, to know. Can’t manage to overcome this fear.
He pulls his hand away, and tucks it close to his chest. His eyes skirt away from Jean’s heavy gaze; his cheeks flush in embarrassment.
“I can’t,” Jeremy says. “I can’t.”
Jean holds his hand out, wordlessly, an offering, but not a demand, and Jeremy takes it without question. He shoves the test forward, not stopping to think about how gross Jean might find this, and feels his heart pick up speed again.
If it’s positive, he needs a real course of action. A plan to get rid of it, without anyone discovering that there was anything to get rid of in the first place. But—he’ll probably need to tell the coaches, in case there are restrictions, or complications, and he’ll need to find out if it would affect him in the future, because he does, one day, maybe want pups.
A new fear washes over him. He feels his knuckles go white, feels the color drain from his face. Was that possible? Could he have fucked up his chances at pups forever, thanks to one stupid mistake?
His thoughts are moving too fast, and Jean is saying nothing. Jeremy nearly pleads with him to get this over with, but then Jean is glancing up at him, and Jeremy’s words die on his tongue.
“It’s negative,” Jean says.
Relief—bone deep and draining. The world feels like it’s tilting, and suddenly, Jeremy does too.
He throws his hands out to catch himself as he tips forward off the counter, but Jean is faster. He gathers Jeremy up, two arms tight around his shoulders, and Jeremy wraps his own arms around Jean’s waist.
“See?” Jean asks at his ear. “What did I tell you?”
Jeremy laughs a little. But it’s a hollow, disbelieving thing. His legs still feel a little numb from the adrenaline, and he really should take another test to confirm, but he can’t make himself leave the safety of Jean’s arms. He can’t stop thinking, as his and Jean’s scents of relief mix around them, that the father of this pup, whomever it was, would not have done any of this—or any of the things Jean has ever done—for him.
He cannot stop thinking, as Jean presses a kiss to the top of his head, about how much he wishes Jean was his Alpha instead.