Chapter Text
"...So how long have you two been together, then?"
"Mmmm. Not sure. How long -has- it been, Doc?"
The Doctor let out a grunt. He despised that nickname, its informality, its inherent chumminess.
"Almost eleven years, now. Desmond -was- my apprentice at first, and a very fast learner indeed."
Desmond glowed with pride, filling a paper bag with their customer's prescriptions. The Doctor's gloved hand ruffled the curls of his hair, blonde and messy.
"But... our professional relationship didn't stay that way for long."
Letting out a breathy sigh, caught up in a daydream as his husband bid their customer farewell, The Good Doctor took a moment to think, inwardly gushing over everything that'd come before.
The apprenticeship. The surgery. The conception, something which at first had been nothing more than a vanity project for The Doctor. Until, of course, he'd had to grapple with the reality of it, the contractions, the labor, actually having to bring his children, -their- children into the world.
It was painful.
And it wouldn't have been possible without Desmond. All of it.
"...Woah, you're uh... kinda squishing me, Doc."
His arms loosened, being pulled back to reality as Desmond squirmed, half-smothered by the Doctor's plump, softened frame, the boy's muscled arms cradling his heavy hips.
But he didn't let go of him.
After all, Desmond hadn't explicitly told him to stop.
There was a certain emptiness, after a while. After delivering the children, jumping through the hoops of early parenthood, the Doctor had begun to notice a yearning, a distinct lack-of, as if he'd somehow become incomplete in a way. Desmond, being the bright little button that he was, had suggested it might've been post-partum depression - an obvious, grounded choice.
Desmond had also suggested a potential treatment.
It was a ridiculous idea, to put it lightly. But anything would've been better than the pit he'd found himself in, and as an added positive, it'd provide them with a solid, second income.
Surrogacy wasn't something that The Doctor had pictured himself offering as a service. But being paid for his first delivery put any doubts he had to rest.
And, for a while at least, it seemed to fill that certain emptiness.
The cycle of conception, growth, delivery - it was taxing. Straining. Sometimes, it made the Doctor feel as if he were merely a walking womb, a churning, gurgling factory. Each successive pregnancy left him feeling just a little larger, a little more milky, new holes being drilled into his belts by his apprentice.
The growing softness of his stomach, the bizarre way he could -feel- his organs swelling, stretching with each bout of gravidity, the way his body changed, bones shifting, growing more matronly, more fecund.
The way that each surrogacy worked its wicked magic on his mind, hormones leaching into him.
The way that, after a time, the -idea- of conceiving, of gestating seemed less a means of making money, and more of a guilty pleasure.
But, no matter how big, how heavy he got, the emptiness always returned.
"I can't keep restitching your trousers forever, Doc."
Desmond tried not to think too hard about what he was saying. He'd loosened the pants as much as they could feasibly be, offering them to the Doctor as he sat at his desk, poring over some of his tomes.
"Eventually you're either gonna need entirely new pants, or a skirt."
"I am NOT wearing a skirt."
"So you'll wear nothing under your cloak, then?"
Desmond smirked. It wasn't an unattractive idea, the Doctor being dressed in his cloak and nothing else underneath. He dwelled upon the idea, stripping his own clothes, slipping into their bed.
"Could always do that. Wear your cloak, just some underclothes underneath. A nice, lacy bra-"
"No."
"So you -want- people seeing how full you are underneath your robes?"
The Doctor stiffened. He folded his arms, his expressionless mask somehow conveying a sense of embarrassment, trying not to notice the thin streams trickling from under his forearms.
"It... doesn't matter how I look underneath my cloak-"
"Think of it as you advertising your services!"
The Doctor let out a sigh, slumping back in his chair.
"...It seems as if that's all I really offer, anymore. My -services-. I can treat the sick, heal the wounded, but..."
He trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging there, unfinished. It seemed as if he didn't want to finish it, as if the words left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Hey."
Desmond patted the empty space beside him - the fluffed pillow, the immaculate sheets, taut and crisp.
"Come to bed. Let me hold you... okay?"
The bed's joints squealed and creaked as The Doctor heaved himself in, immediately stealing most of the duvet.
...They held eachother, lamenting over the stresses of their lives. Surprisingly forward with their feelings - or at least, the Doctor was forward with them. Desmond had always been the one with the missing filter, the lewd comments, the teasing jokes and jeers. Only now, it seemed, did The Doctor let himself open up, vulnerable and soft-skinned.
"I think about it a lot."
"About what?"
The Doctor would roll over, heavy hips and pillowy frame nearly squishing Desmond.
"About... my other line of work."
Desmond's fingers sniffed and nuzzled around, playing across the surface of The Doctor's stomach, the plumpened, gently yielding pot-bellied swell, faint slashes of pinkish stretch marks visible around its underside.
It felt... warm?
"I think... maybe it's time I considered a break."
"It's not a bad idea, Doc. I mean... the month-long window you give between birth and conception, it's just... it can't be good for you to carry like that."
"A break... yes, I think... if only for a year, perhaps two."
Desmond's hand patted his partner's stomach, and he tried not to make obvious how much he just wanted to grab and -knead- it.
The two of them slept close, that night. Arms tangled in eachothers', legs crossed over.
It was a decision that carried a lot of weight. The Doctor was a surgeon, and that in itself was lucrative enough when to him, tuberculosis was a mere wave of the hand, but the money they earned from surrogacy, the communal goodwill.
It made them feel good.
In time, however, The Doctor would come to realise that his body, however much he wanted to ignore it, had an unspoken say in his affairs.