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It had been laughably easy for Prompto to keep his pregnancy a secret. He still lived with his parents, sure, but they’d been leaving him alone since before he was actually old enough to look after himself. Now that his eighteenth birthday had come and gone it was almost as if no one else lived in the quaint house at all; their presence was only felt in the electricity bill that was quietly paid every month and the allowance for groceries that was deposited in his account before he could hurt enough to ask for it. When he’d used some of it to pick up the pregnancy test from the pharmacy down the street, heart pounding in panic the entire time, he hadn’t even considered what he might tell them.
When he sat on the toilet, staring at the two solid lines that meant ‘positive’, he didn’t consider calling or asking them to come home. They might as well have been the electricity bill and the monthly grocery money, quiet and out of sight.
It wasn’t until Noct texted later that night asking to hang out that Prompto spoke to anyone at all, and by then he had shoved the test back in the box and hidden it in his underwear drawer as if he could somehow forget what he’d seen.
But he couldn’t, of course, no matter how much he willed it, and some panicked part of him worried that those two solid lines were somehow tattooed to his forehead, that Noct would take one look at him and know. So he declined, as casually as he could, and pretended that it took him three tries to get through it because he was tired instead of shaking.
==
Prompto didn’t usually decline hanging out with Noct, at least not when he wasn’t actively in class or at work, but he managed to avoid him for that entire first week. He hadn’t intended to, of course, and hadn’t enjoyed a single moment of it either, but every time the offer arose he thought of the pregnancy test, still hidden in his drawer, and about what it meant. He thought about telling Noct about it, about admitting to another person what he was still trying to deny. He thought about discussing his options, about having to acknowledge that he had major life decisions to make that affected another much tinier life.
He thought about it, and immediately felt sick every time.
So he put it off; left all those tough choices and decisions in the underwear drawer with the pregnancy test and pretended it was happening to someone else. But then Noct got worried or bored or lonely and showed up at his house and Prompto kept not telling him all through dinner and the hours of video games they played, too.
They started hanging out again like nothing really had happened after all. It was much easier to forget about the pregnancy test when he had someone around to distract him. So he let Noct distract him that week, and then the next week, and then the week after. It became incredibly easy to actually forget about the pregnancy test pushed to the very back of his drawer, so much so that a month passed before he knew it. But even then the thought of it left him feeling anxious and awful, so much that he actively put it off for another month after that.
His first trimester came and went in a flash, and his options were ticking down with each month he let slip through his fingers. Was abortion even still an option? Did he have any other ones? He was barely 19 and even though he had years of practice taking care of himself, he would always be the first one to admit he didn’t have his life together. All of his free time was dedicated to his classes and his minimum wage job and Noct. He wasn’t in the right place emotionally or financially to raise a child and the very thought of it made him weak in the knees.
Seeing a noticeable bump in the mirror gave him a similarly weak feeling. He could barely tear his eyes away from his abdomen and when he finally could he spent a long time on the computer, not so quietly panicking as he researched everything he could find about pregnancy.
It turned out it wasn’t too late for an abortion, though that option was quickly ticking down. He looked into clinics and stared at the bus schedule until his eyes got tired and he had to turn off his computer.
Abortion was off the table, he discovered after he pulled a hood real low over his face and took the bus to the clinic. He waited outside for an hour, trying to build up his nerve, before he finally just gave up and went home. Instead he took a shower, trembling fingers hovering over his stomach and vision blurred from the shower and definitely not from tears.
Prompto had never felt so mixed up in his life, but as much as he wanted to talk to Noct or even Iggy and Gladio about the pregnancy, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words out loud. What if they judged him? What if Noct wasn’t allowed to hang out with him anymore? The media would eat him alive and find some way to twist the situation back onto Noct, question his judge of character and no doubt try to shake the people’s faith in him.
It wasn’t fair for Prompto to put that sort of pressure on him, especially with Noct so busy preparing to take over the throne and dealing with his father’s failing health. Prompto’s entire purpose as Noct’s best friend was to distract from his problems, not add more to his plate. He just couldn’t do it; not that first month and certainly not the fourth. Before he knew it, he was swapping out loose T-shirts for sweaters and keeping his house as cool as the budget allowed to make up for it.
There was no room in the budget for doctor’s visits, but he did stop taking testosterone and the internet gave him a helpful list of things to keep an eye on. It wasn’t enough and he knew that, but there was nothing else he could do.
Before he knew it, even the sweaters could barely hide his growing stomach. Noct was obviously worried with the changes in his behavior, but with both their schedules so full it was getting easier and easier to avoid him. It was too late to tell his friends about the baby; he didn’t have it in him to explain why he’d waited so long. So instead he made himself as scarce as possible, as much as it killed him to do so, with a few well placed lies.
He was lonelier and more miserable than he’d ever been; his back and feet hurt all the time and he’d been by himself through every other fun curveball pregnancy had thrown at him, assisted only by what he could find on the internet. Working was necessary but difficult, and keeping his pregnant belly from his boss hadn’t been an option, though the man did just think he’d gained some unfortunately placed weight.
But he couldn’t keep going the way he used to; taking shifts every time he had a free few hours away from school and Noct. The aching in his back and his feet had become too much and, besides, the internet stressed the importance of taking it easy and refraining from heavy lifting. He pretended his sore back was from an injury and stopped taking as many shifts and stretched his funds as much as he could when it became clear he really couldn’t work as much as he used to.
The stretched allowance was awful even without arcade and best friend expenses, but he picked up what prenatal vitamins he could find and called the situation handled, even though it really wasn’t. He didn’t even know his due date because he hadn’t been to the doctor, but he thought he had a pretty good idea of when the baby was formed and created one for himself, to give some sort of peace of mind.
It was the culmination of many such mistakes that brought him to the day his water broke, which was not at all the due date that the calculator he’d found had predicted. That was still over three weeks out, the date circled in bright red marker on his calendar. As such, it took him by surprise while he was in the middle of class, though it wasn’t his water breaking that first alerted him to something being wrong. It was a pain, deep and long and hard, that was replaced every ten minutes or so.
Braxton Hicks contractions, the internet had warned, could feel almost like the real thing. It wasn’t worth missing a whole class over, so he stayed and powered through the remaining hour and a half. It had been hard to really pay attention with the cramps and when the class was over he’d never felt so relieved.
He didn’t live that far from campus so he usually walked, but the cramps were so annoying he had no choice but to take the bus. It was while he was finally walking in the door of his house that the fun part happened; a strange popping sensation and then what felt like urine running down his leg.
Mortified, he shuffled inside, pausing just long enough to close and lock the door before quickly making for the bathroom. The urine was still coming, dripping down his leg, but he didn’t bother kicking off his shoes as he quickly waddled through the house. He hadn’t even made it to the bathroom, however, when another false contraction hit. It was much stronger than the last ones had been, strong enough that he stumbled and nearly went down if not for the wall he caught himself on.
Moaning in pain, Prompto hiked up his sweater and wrapped an arm around his swollen stomach.
“C’mon, cut it out,” he said, voice thin, and took the last few paces to the bathroom.
Even though he’d clearly wet himself, he managed to sit on the toilet for several minutes, leaking more into the bowl. His boxers were soaked through, so he kicked them off with his pants and shoes and left them crumpled on the floor.
A quick search of his symptoms online didn’t help, most sources pointing toward seeing a doctor to be sure, as if he could afford that for anything less than the real deal. Braxton Hicks would go away eventually and he would feel ridiculous if he called a doctor over it. So he put on some comfortable pajama pants and draped himself across the couch, too uncomfortable to do anything more than pretend to watch TV and moan pitifully through each false contraction.
He was in pain for hours, with each cramp lasting longer than the last. Eventually he even turned off the TV and just laid down with a hand over his face, begging for it to end. It was only when he felt something eerily like an object descending that he was forced to admit to himself that maybe this wasn’t Braxton Hicks after all.
Adrenaline let him jump from the couch and speed waddle to his room for his laptop, where he had tab upon tab on labor and birth saved. Everything he saw pointed to this being the real deal, and though he’d looked up birth before, he was seeing every article and video in an entirely new light now that he knew his own birth was imminent.
Thoroughly spooked, Prompto could feel the panic building, quickly replacing practical thought with fear. The smart thing to do would have been to call an ambulance and finally admit he was in over his head, but he’d left his phone in the living room in his haste. He thought about going to retrieve it but before he could another contraction hit, this one stronger than the others. Taken by surprise, he shouted with the force of it and had to keep himself steady with hands on his desk.
Heart beating wildly, he trembled against his desk as another contraction tore through him and then another, strong and coming close enough together that he could barely catch his breath. He tried to stand up from his desk chair but the moment he even considered it he felt something different; a more clear movement and the most intense burning he’d ever felt. He gasped in his surprise and reached a trembling hand down between his legs, the material of his pants still soaked with fluid, to feel a slightly bulging form between his legs.
It was the head and feeling it firmly lodged in his birth canal only made his panic worse. He could hardly think straight, too preoccupied with the fact that a head was beginning to crown between his legs to behave rationally. He could have made for the discarded phone in the living room but instead he pushed his soaked pants down around his ankles and went rifling in his desk drawer for a mirror.
He positioned it between his legs and stared in equal parts wonder and horror at the tufts of hair just barely peeking between his lips.
Another contraction hit and he whimpered with it, dropping the mirror to the floor and nearly going down himself. Instead he dropped into a squat and kicked his pants off to keep from tripping on them. The new position seemed to make the pressure worse and he screamed, breath coming in panicked bursts as the bulging head descended down just slightly further.
The mirror was within arm’s reach and he maneuvered it closer, barely able to hold it still as he set it underneath him. The bulge was indeed bigger, the baby’s head a proper teardrop now.
“It’s too early,” He tried to reason aloud to no one, as if the child might hear and decide to try again in a few weeks instead, “I’m not ready!”
The baby didn’t care, of course. Whether Prompto was ready or not, it was coming, and Prompto was so far from prepared it might have been funny in any other situation.
Another contraction forced the baby down lower again but this time he couldn’t watch; squeezed his eyes shut instead and shouted through the entirety of the pain and pressure. He tried pushing with it, his body’s instinct to do so too powerful to ignore, and reached a hand around to cup the protruding head with a sharp noise of pain when it became too much too fast. Tearing was a very real concern; he remembered reading about how traumatic it could be and that you had to go slow to avoid it.
Feeling the child’s head under his trembling hand, he couldn’t fathom needing to push the entire thing out. So much of it was still hidden, he could feel the way his lips were struggling to stretch around even a small part of it.
The very thought of stretching around that entire bulbous head made him feel weak and dizzy.
“I can’t do this,” he realized aloud, heart beating so fast he felt faint and body trembling in panic. Another contraction and he tipped forward, bracing himself up with his hands as he struggled through the pain. He was on his way to a panic attack; his breaths were coming in gasps and he was feeling lightheaded. It wouldn’t be his first by any means, but certainly his least opportune.
All he wanted in that moment was his phone, but not for the ambulance. He wasn’t even thinking about professional help as an option any longer. All he wanted was to call his friends; call Noct or Iggy or Gladio and have someone else take care of the situation. As much as he’d dreaded telling them about his mistakes, in that moment all he wanted was someone to hold his hand and pet his hair and tell him everything was alright.
But everything wasn’t alright because he had half a head sticking out of him and no idea what to do. He placed a hand on his chest and forced his breathing a little slower, trying to drag in deep breaths instead of the short panicked bursts that certainly weren’t helping. But it was hard to control, especially during contractions. It wasn’t until he had a moment’s reprieve between them that he had a chance to slow his breathing at all, but he eventually managed it.
Legs weak and trembling, Prompto forced himself up by bracing his arms on the bed and pulling, dropping himself onto the mattress with effort. He brought a hand back between his legs and found his progress gone, the head retracted almost fully back inside. It was the opposite of what he needed to happen, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel grateful for it.
Even while giving birth he was trying to put off the inevitable.
Immediate panic waning only slightly, he made for the bathroom and turned the tub on with trembling hands. He’d heard water births were easier and he’d watched videos of women having their children at home in their own bathtubs without help. Just to be sure, he grabbed the laptop from his room and set it up on the toilet. As the tub filled he pulled up videos of water births and played one, heart beating fast in newly growing panic. He’d watched the videos before, but he was in active labor now and couldn’t help the raw terror from mounting as he watched someone else grunt and scream in pain.
He hadn’t had time to get his phone before another intense contraction hit. He wasn’t even in the tub, which was only halfway filled. Bracing himself on the edge, he settled into a squat and pushed with the contraction but found himself shying away as the pain mounted.
It burned terribly, and he whimpered pathetically as he stopped pushing, his opening pulsing and muscles still contracting.
“Oh, gods,” he warbled as another contraction came immediately. He was still squatting just beside the filling tub, legs spread and fingers clutching at the porcelain lip in a death grip. Intense pressure forced the child down again and even though it hurt he couldn’t help pushing desperately against it anyway. He felt it slip past his outer lips again and forced himself not to stop even as he felt himself widen around the bulbous head. The only reason he didn’t wail was the fact that he was holding his breath, but doing so made him lightheaded and he was forced to release it all to suck in a breath. He reached between his legs as he panted to make up for his missed breaths, and breathed a little quicker when he felt more of the head than he had before.
Prompto’s breaths were quickly growing panicked again, his body trembling as he teetered on that edge. There was no way he was coming down from a panic attack if he let himself go there and so it was with tears in his eyes that he forced himself up and a shaking leg over the edge of the tub. He sat in the tub even as it continued to fill, and tried to take in slow breaths and calm his racing heart.
But the child wouldn’t wait for him to calm down. Already another contraction was forcing it lower, stretching him wider, and he sobbed as he was forcefully stretched around the widest part. His tub was narrow and hard to really spread his legs in but he hunched in on himself as much as he could and forced his own legs back, yelling with effort as he pushed as hard as he could. He felt the head continue, impossibly slowly and yet too fast, stretching him more and more until finally something seemed to give all at once.
It took three tries for him to stop the water, his hand was trembling so much he could hardly grip the faucet, but once the water was no longer disturbed he was able to strain enough to see an entire head protruding between his legs.
There was so much blood the water was tinged with it, but he was too far gone to consider how macabre the scene must have been. He was too busy staring at his child and wondering how he was going to get the rest out.
Of course, his body knew. The contractions weren’t over yet and they had him clenching his eyes shut and pulling his legs back again. He pushed and strained with each new contraction, trying desperately to free the shoulders. When they wouldn’t budge he cried, frustrated, and leaned over the edge of the tub toward his laptop. It was nearly impossible to type with his body in pain and surging with adrenaline but a few tries later he was looking up shoulder dystocia and biting his lip to keep himself from completely losing it.
“Please,” he whimpered, speaking to the child again as if that might help, and reached down with the intention of dislodging it himself. But he couldn’t; not at his angle. He was forced to change positions as the internet instructed, and draped himself across the edge of the tub in a squat. The water seemed to help take some of the pressure off of his knees, at least, as he lowered into a squat and braced his weight against the porcelain.
The new position must have helped to free the shoulders because only a few hard pushes later he felt the infant shift and then he was stretching even wider. He’d thought the widest part of the head was the worst but the shoulders were perhaps even wider. He tried to pull away from the pain as he was slowly stretched around the wide girth, but of course he couldn’t. Instead, Prompto was forced to endure every slow inch of his child’s wide shoulders and torso. He pushed desperately through another contraction, and then another, and then finally reached down and pulled it free the last few inches.
The moment he pulled it free from his body he felt a gush of liquid releasing and, with it, relief. Heart pounding, he settled back on his ass and lifted the child from the water in wonder. It wailed and he pulled it to his chest where it latched onto a nipple immediately. He jerked back in surprise but allowed it to latch, watching in open wonder as the small human he’d created began to suck.
In all the months he’d hidden the child’s existence, so unsure of what to do, he’d never actually considered what it might look and act like. He’d never considered the child a real person at all, so wrapped up in his own panic. Now, with the infant in his arms, he couldn’t help but feel conflicted for another reason.
Prompto laid in the tub with his child for several moments before the reality began to fully dawn on him. The water was tepid and filled with blood and he was sore and still attached to his baby by its cord. Plus, he was still alone and he knew both he and the baby needed to actually see a doctor. The thought of needing to move made his body feel even more weak and heavy but he still didn’t have his phone.
Taking in a deep breath, he pulled himself up to his feet. It was hard to move with the baby in his arms and its cord hanging out of him but he maneuvered the child into one arm and braced himself on the lip of the tub with the other. Slowly, he placed still-shaking limbs onto the ground and shuffled, naked and dripping, into the hall. His limbs felt like jelly but he held onto the baby securely and let himself lean against the wall a few times to catch his breath as he made his way back into the living room.
It was just as he was stepping into the room that the pain started up again, as intense as all the other contractions had been. He faltered in his step and braced his shoulder against the doorway, groaning as his muscles spasmed again.
He’d almost forgotten about the placenta and the fact that it relied on contractions for expulsion same as a baby. It was clearly too much to ask that the pain would at least lessen.
Prompto breathed through another contraction between the doorway and the couch, and then lowered himself in front of the couch to brace his weight against it without getting the whole thing soaked. His phone was right on the coffee table where he’d left it, and it was as he was reaching for it that he realized maybe something was wrong. His contractions were still as intense as they were in labor, so much so that he dropped his phone just after picking it up in surprise and pain.
Something was moving through his birth canal again, but it didn’t feel soft and pliant. It hurt even more than the baby had, in fact, and he was left scrunching up his face and breathing through the pain as much as he could as tears gathered in his eyes.
When the contraction passed he reached a hand between his legs again and drew up short immediately, eyes wide and heart clenching in surprise. He had to tip forward to see it with his own eyes, and when he saw what he had feared all he could do was stare, too shaken to do anything else.
There was a tiny foot sticking out of him and Prompto couldn’t get his brain working long enough to consider why. Not until another contraction hit, at least, and he was forced to bear down. More of the leg emerged, the clear reason for the immense pain he was still in, and as he leaned heavily back against the couch he could feel his earlier panic coming back tenfold.
Now was the time he really needed to call an ambulance but he felt like his brain was short circuiting. His heart was beating too fast and his breathing was coming in short bursts, the panic attack he’d tried so hard to keep at bay inevitable now. He couldn’t think straight, and as another contraction tore through him he couldn’t even push, suddenly terrified beyond belief.
In all the videos he’d seen and articles he’d read, he’d never seen a foot. Breech birth, sure, but those all started with the butt, didn’t they? Twin births were already risky, and there Prompto was alone and wholly unprepared for one baby let alone two.
He was trembling so hard he could barely keep the phone in his hand as he grabbed it and pulled up his contacts. It was entirely instinct that had him dialing Ignis; the most put together person he knew. All he wanted was Ignis there, taking charge in his stead and making everything better.
It only took two rings before Ignis answered and just the sound of his voice was enough to push the tears that had gathered in the corners of Prompto’s eyes down his cheeks. He knew that he must have been incomprehensible; he was breathing too fast and crying too much and tripping over every other word. He could hardly even hear Ignis over the panicked babbling he was spewing.
“I’m on my way,” He finally heard Ignis say, followed quickly by the sound of a door closing and a car starting.