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In Satoru Gojo’s (not so humble) opinion, cake is the perfect dessert.
Mostly because there’s so many different kinds, but it’s also just so good, yeah? It’s the perfect balance of sweet bread and sugary frosting, the texture of the toppings and whatever extras drizzled along the top of the icing a perfect contrast to both smooth, creamy frosting and silky, matte ganache.
There truly is nothing better, and so when it comes to eating said cake, Satoru doesn’t hesitate; he eats a lot of it, and he eats it often, indulging in the sweet treat so often so that both his dentist and his doctor have taken it upon themselves to re-introduce him to the concept of fruits and vegetables and a well-balanced diet, to the idea that savory foods are just as tasty as sweets.
But Satoru’s not at all convinced.
He’s not yet been persuaded that anything in the world is even half as delicious as a good piece of double chocolate fudge crunch cake, or maybe a strawberry chiffon cake with cream cheese frosting, and since he’s developed neither a shit ton of cavities nor any other health problems from his sweet tooth, he thinks he’s well within his rights to keep on eating as much of it as he pleases, thanks very much.
He’ll stuff his face if he wants to.
He just -
Isn’t sure that’s too appealing right now.
Because though Suguru had dutifully brought him home a big slice of coconut crème cake earlier this evening, it’s still sitting on the little square of baking paper that the workers at the bakery had used to pull it from the display case. He hasn’t even taken it out of the box, instead opting to stare down at it with the same sort of suspicion he normally reserves for very stubborn stains in the kitchen sink, and that’s -
Well, that’s kinda weird, right?
Like, he should want to shove this cake in his mouth as quickly as he possibly can, with little to no regard for how much of a mess he makes.
He should want to fucking demolish it, the way he has every other dessert he’s consumed since first discovering sugar as a toddler.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t feel like eating it.
He’s not even tempted, and like - is he feeling alright, is he coming down with something?
Satoru smacks a hand into his forehead, trying to see if he has some kind of a fever - but though his head is warm, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. He’s just warm in the way that all human bodies are, and he’s definitely not experiencing any aches, pains, or chills.
He just… really doesn’t want any cake right now, jeez.
With a sigh, he re-packages the treat, making sure the tabs on the box are secure before he carefully tucks it away in the refrigerator.
Whatever.
He’s sure this will pass, and that he’ll be back on his bullshit tomorrow.
The cake will last.
But as he’s stepping backwards, the fridge door already half-way shut, something else catches his eye. He freezes, his gaze settling on the produce drawer down near the bottom shelf. It’s filled to the brim with all kinds of berries, citrus fruits, and apples, all intended as ingredients for those god awful protein smoothies Suguru has been on such a kick for lately, and while Satoru has nothing against fruit, while he definitely like strawberries on his pancakes and raspberries with his chocolate, he doesn’t typically eat it on its own, yeah?
Like, an apple isn’t something he ever reaches for -
But damn, do the ones in the bin look tasty.
They look juicy, and ripe, and delicious, and so he bends down, plucking one from the bag and taking it over to the sink to give it a quick wash.
Once he’s made certain there’s no dirt on the skin, that he’s plucked off the sticker and the stem and tossed them both in the garbage, he brings it to his lips, wasting no time taking a big bite. Instantly, he’s flooded with a wave of satisfaction, the way the tart juice and the sweet, crisp flesh crunches between his teeth utterly gratifying.
He hums, taking the apple with him as he pads back out into the living room, plopping back down onto the couch to finish up his treat. He’s so consumed with eating it that he doesn’t notice the way Suguru stares at him, or the odd looks that Nanako and Mimiko are shooting his way. He doesn’t notice a damn thing, and when he’s finished, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he goes to set the core on an empty plate on the coffee table, he’s startled to find everyone is still looking at him.
“What?” he demands, a touch defensive.
Suguru blinks, the stylus in his hands going slack.
“Did you not see the cake I bought you?” he asks. “I thought I set it on the counter.”
“I saw it,” Satoru says slowly.
“Then… you don’t like that flavor? You don’t like coconut?”
Satoru frowns at that.
Because is it really such a big deal that he didn’t eat the damn cake? Like, is the world gonna fucking end?
He certainly doesn’t think so, and so he shrugs the question off without much concern.
“I like coconut. I didn’t feel like eating it tonight, though, so… guess I just wanted something light.”
“…uh-huh.”
Flashing Suguru with a grin, Satoru reaches out to pat his leg. “No worries, babe. I’ll eat it tomorrow!”
Though Suguru looks a little scandalized, he doesn’t say anything else.
He just continues to stare at Satoru like he’s grown a second head, his lips pursed, brow furrowed; his attention’s been thoroughly diverted from whatever tattoo he’d been in the middle of designing, and though Satoru feels a little bad about that, feels a little guilty about being so distracting, he also doesn’t?
Like, good grief, it’s just a piece of cake.
It’s literally not a big deal.
Nanako has no such scruples, though.
She has no problem continuing to poke and prod at the situation, and so she quickly jumps to her feet, walking around the coffee table to peer down into Satoru’s face. She looks absolutely befuddled at what she does or doesn’t find, pressing her hands to first his forehead and then his cheeks, and when Mimiko joins her a moment later, her expression just as confused and concerned as her sister’s, Satoru really does start to feel embarrassed
“Jeez, you two,” he laughs, waving her away. “Knock it off!”
“No,” Nanako insists, frowning. “You’re being weird. Something’s wrong.”
“What, a guy can’t eat an apple?” Satoru huffs.
“A guy can,” Mimiko says sagely. “But you can’t.”
“Not when there’s cake just lying around,” Nanako agrees. She pinches his cheek again, hard enough to actually hurt this time, and Satoru draws back with a yelp. “You sure you’re not feeling sick, Satoru nii-chan?”
It’s still new, that -
The twins, calling him their older brother. Though he and Suguru have been mated for close to a year now, and married for most of that, it had still taken them some time to get comfortable with him, and like - Satoru gets it, yeah? Just because he’s been around for a while now doesn’t mean that the girls are used to him; it doesn’t mean that they’ve come to see him as a permanent fixture in their lives, especially when Suguru has admitted that he’d never really brought his past relationships around them before. Satoru doesn’t blame them for being a little cautious.
But Mimiko had let it slip one night at dinner a few months back, slapping the honorific onto the end of the sentence as she’d asked him to help her with her math homework.
Satoru had been so startled he’d dropped the bowl of soup he’d been holding.
He’d spilled it everywhere, had gotten miso on the fucking ceiling - but Mimiko had just given him a soft, shy smile, very kindly not mentioning his very red face or the very large wet splotch on his t-shirt, and Satoru had been lost.
He’d been gone, hook, line, and sinker, and though Nanako had taken a bit more time to come around, she too had eventually started referring to him as such. It makes Satoru’s heart squeeze every time he hears it, and though Suguru doesn’t show it, he knows he’s just as affected, just as touched at how fully his sisters have accepted Satoru into their lives.
Those warm, fuzzy feelings do not mean that he’s just going to take this sort of questioning lying down, though!
With another huff, Satoru crosses his arms over his chest.
“Now, who’s being weird?” he snaps, pouting. “It’s just an apple! Eating an apple isn’t weird!”
“It is when it’s you eating the apple,” Nanako disagrees.
“Especially when you could be eating cake,” Mimiko adds.
“Oh, my god,” Satoru whines, letting his head fall back against the couch. “It was just a craving. It looked really good to me, okay? Like I just really wanted to eat it -”
“Satoru.”
He twists to the side, hoping Suguru has come to his senses and is going to tell the twins to knock it off. He hopes that he’ll finally have an ally against this ridiculous embargo the twins seem to think he has on all things green.
Instead, he just finds that Suguru’s gone very, very still beside him, his tablet and stylus abandoned.
“Satoru, can you - can you repeat that?”
Satoru blinks. “I just really wanted to eat it?”
Suguru shakes his head, scooting closer and grabbing for one of Satoru’s hands.
“Not that part,” he says. “The part before it, what you said earlier.”
Satoru tries to recall exactly which words he’d used, precisely what he’d said. “I… it was just a craving?”
Suguru nods, squeezing his palm. “And have you ever craved fruit before?”
“I mean, not really,” Satoru replies, not understanding what Suguru is getting at here. “That’s why it’s a craving, yeah? Like, it just comes out of nowhere?”
Satoru jerks as Mimiko makes a sudden noise - it’s somewhere between a squeak and a shriek, and she instantly claps a hand over her mouth, blushing.
“What?” he demands, sitting up straight. “What is it, Mimi-chan, what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, plopping down onto the coffee table -
But again, Nanako has no such qualms, her eyes narrowing as her gaze flits from her brother to her sister and then back to Satoru again. She takes one long look at all of them and then starts squealing, balling her hands up into fists as she dances around the living room. She only makes it one full lap around the sofa before she darts down the hall towards the bedrooms, and Satoru, bewildered, turns back to Suguru.
“Is she sick?” he asks, perplexed.
Suguru just laughs at that, reaching up to brush the hair back from Satoru’s face. His scent has gone wild in the last few moments, spiking with something warm and spicy and… deeply, deeply satisfied, Satoru thinks, though - why he would be feeling so satisfied that Satoru ate a fucking apple is beyond him.
He’s not a fucking toddler.
But he’s also not really complaining at being the object of such clear, obvious approval, and so he just lets Suguru continue to pet his face as they wait for Nanako to come back out into the living room, a brown paper bag in her hands.
“Here,” she says, thrusting it at Satoru. “Take these.”
Satoru blinks, cautiously tugging it open. He reaches a hand inside, closes his fingers around what feels like a small, rectangular box -
Only to make a very, very ugly noise when he pulls it out and finds a pregnancy test sitting in his hand.
“No,” he chokes out, pushing it away. “No, I can’t - that’s not what this is.”
“Satoru,” Suguru breathes. “Baby.”
“I’m not pregnant, Suguru. I’m not -”
“You’ve woken up nauseous more than once these past couple weeks,” Suguru points out.
Satoru squeezes his eyes shut, swallows. “So?”
“You’ve been nauseous, your stomach’s been upset, and just last night, you told me that your chest felt sore -”
“Ew.”
“Gross.”
Suguru pauses to shush his sisters before twisting back towards Satoru, taking a deep breath. “It’s been two months since your last heat,” he says slowly. “You’re having all the early symptoms of pregnancy, and now you’re eating apples?”
The sound Satoru makes is less of a groan and more of a whimper.
“It’s just a piece of fruit. I’m supposed to eat fruit, it’s healthy for you,” he asserts, near desperate in his attempt to persuade them nothing’s happening here.
Because he can’t do this, yeah?
He can’t take that pregnancy test and have it come back negative.
That’s just not something he’s prepared to deal with, and so even though he wants a pup so badly it makes him ache, even though he’d tossed out his birth control almost as soon as they’d gotten married, he hasn’t really given it a whole lot of thought. He hasn’t really allowed himself time to stop and process the fact that he and Suguru are essentially trying for a baby every time he knots Satoru.
In fact, he’s done a very good job of doing the exact opposite, of pushing all thoughts of pregnancy and pups far from his mind.
Which, in hindsight, is actually kind of impressive.
Because Suguru’s ruts had synced up with his heats almost immediately; the way they’d gone at each other that first heat after their initial mating had been fucking feral. Suguru had had him locked in a mating press for almost four hours straight one day, fucking orgasm after orgasm after orgasm from his very tired, very sweaty body; he’d stuffed him so full of cum that his stomach had actually gotten kinda bloated, and while now he just recalls feeling vaguely uncomfortable, at the time -
Well, it had been really fucking hot.
He can kinda recall Suguru teasing him about it, pressing down on his belly and whispering awful, terrible things in his ear as he slowly ground against him.
Only kinda though, because he’d been so fucking blissed out at that point that he doesn’t really remember much of anything. He just recalls feeling warm, and full, and so, so satisfied, and like - he’s tried to hold onto that feeling as time’s gone on, yeah?
He’s tried to keep that sensation close to his heart, focusing on how good Suguru has always made him feel rather than the inevitable emptiness that comes afterwards.
He doesn’t like to think about the fact that he is, for all intents and purposes, barren.
And so he doesn’t, going right back to work as soon as his heat’s are over.
He gets straight back to business, throwing himself into his career and his hobbies and whatever other little passion projects he’s working on at the moment. He doesn’t give himself the time to think about whether or not he’s pregnant. He doesn’t stop to think about whether or not he’s finally, finally going to have a baby, and he’s definitely not stopping into the convenience store down the street after work hours and buying a couple of pregnancy tests.
Hell no.
He can’t do that.
He can’t, because if sees one little line instead of two, he thinks he might cry.
It might well and truly break him, to be faced with that kind of disappointment again and again and again, and so he’s just ignored it every time Suguru has thought to talk about it before. He just flat-out refuses to engage whenever the alpha tries to bring up hormone tracking apps and sex positions “statistically proven” to improve conception, and while he knows that’s childish of him, part of him is also convinced it’s just good, common sense -
Because he can’t afford to break down over a negative pregnancy test, yeah?
He doesn’t want to get so upset over something that is, objectively, pretty normal.
Like, it takes time to make a baby.
It takes time to conceive a child, despite every sex ed lesson he’s ever had instilling upon him the overwhelming reality that any potential coupling could result in an unwanted pregnancy. Just because it could happen doesn’t mean that it will, and he’s well aware that for most couples, it takes a couple cycles before conception.
He knows it doesn’t always happen on the first try.
He knows it often doesn’t happen on the second, or the third, or hell, even the fourth, fifth, or sixth times a couple tries to have a pup.
He is very, very aware that he is at the mercy of his body here, and since he and his body don’t necessarily always see eye to eye -
Well, he’d kinda just rather not deal with it at all.
He’d rather turn a blind eye to the situation and hope for the best, and like - he knows that that probably isn’t very healthy. It’s definitely not super productive, and he can tell it’s starting to frustrate Suguru, even as he tries to be understanding of Satoru’s complicated, messy feelings on the matter.
But he just doesn’t know how to handle it, yeah?
He doesn’t know what to do now that he’s finally gotten to the place where he needs to be to start a family. He doesn’t know what to do when it all feels so desperately out of his control, and much like he was when he’d been waiting for that first heat after eleven years on suppressants, he’s just kinda dealt with it by distracting himself with other things, ignoring any and all signs that his body is trying to give him, and like -
Is that what this is?
Is the apple supposed to be some kind of hint?
It seems a little on the nose, but… this time, things do feel different.
Things do feel real in a way they never have before, what Suguru has said about the nausea and the tenderness in his chest very true, so maybe -
Maybe one test couldn’t hurt?
He blinks his eyes open, fingers curling around the box in his hands.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
Suguru’s entire expression brightens. “Yeah?” he asks, breathless.
“I’ll take it, I’ll go… pee on a fucking stick.”
The excited reactions that announcement gets him are way too much for him to handle; Satoru pops off the couch and flees to the bathroom, barricading himself inside before anyone else can fucking follow him. He is not letting anyone watch him do this, no matter how giddy they are to see the results.
They can wait outside like normal people, yeah?
With a sigh, he sits down on the toilet, breaks the seal from the packaging.
His hands are shaking as he reads over the instructions; though he knows exactly what to do, he forces himself to comb through every line, every warning and stipulation the manufacturers had been forced to put on the insert, and when he’s finished, the two tests that came in the box sitting scrunched up in his fist, he takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut once again.
He exhales it out slowly, breathes another lungful of air in, and then -
Satoru stands and tugs down his pants.
It takes less than a minute.
He’s putting the caps on the sticks and setting them back on the counter before he even finishes fucking peeing, and after he’s done cleaning himself up, he sinks down to the floor and sets the timer on his phone.
Two minutes, the insert had said.
It would take, at most, two minutes for the test to work - less, if the concentration of gonadotropins was high enough. He buries his head in his arms as he waits it out, not daring to look up before the proper amount of time’s elapsed -
But even when his phone starts to vibrate, he finds he can’t look.
He can’t move, paralyzed by the mere thought of what he might find, and after a while, his phone stops buzzing. It stops going off, silenced with a single flick of his finger, and when five minutes pass, and then ten, fifteen -
Satoru snorts, pressing his face into his knees.
Pathetic.
This is fucking pathetic.
It’s not like whatever he finds on the counter is going to determine the course of the rest of his life, it’s not a death sentence.
And yet, in some ways, it kind of is.
It’s kind of gonna set the tone for at least the next few days, and so Satoru just can’t bring himself to look, even as he desperately, desperately wants to see the results.
Eventually, Suguru comes knocking.
He manages to pry the door open, and when he sees Satoru curled up in a ball on the floor, he sinks down to his knees, wrapping his arms around him.
“Aw, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
Satoru shudders, leaning into him. He feels more than sees Suguru run a hand over his face, and when Suguru presses his lips to his temple, urging his face up and out of his arms -
“I’m sorry,” he says, grimacing. “I shouldn’t have - fuck, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Satoru blinks, long and slow.
“We can keep trying,” he continues, forcing a smile he obviously doesn’t feel. “You’ve only had a handful of heats since we got mated, and there’s still - there’s still time.”
“Time?”
Suguru’s expression softens. “To have a baby, for you to get pregnant.”
Then, when Satoru just continues to stare at him, he adds, “You… aren’t pregnant, right? The test was negative?”
“…I don’t know.”
Now it’s Suguru’s turn to blink, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
Satoru huffs, beginning to get annoyed. “What do you mean, what do I mean?” he snaps. “I don’t know, it’s self-explanatory.”
“Well, didn’t you take the tests?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t read them.”
“You couldn’t read them,” Suguru repeats. “Like, they were inconclusive?”
“No, I just -” Satoru snaps his mouth shut, irritation fading away to embarrassment.
Suguru gives him a gentle nudge, ever patient.
And ever eager to please, Satoru groans and admits, “I couldn’t look at them,” his voice no more than a mumble.
”…oh.”
Suguru sits back, considering.
About five different expressions cross his face, all in the span of a couple of seconds; Satoru can’t quite track them all, is just opening his mouth to tell him to come out and say what he really means when he asks, “Do you - do you want me to look?”
And like -
Yeah, actually. Satoru does want that.
It’s probably the easiest way for them to get an answer without him having to actually look at the tests himself, and so he gives a tentative little nod, tugging his lower lip between his teeth as Suguru presses back up onto his knees.
He grabs for the tests, staring down at the little window where the lines are supposed to appear. He stares and says nothing, and that -
Fuck, that hurts.
It hurts even more than Satoru had thought it would, and he looks away, the sudden lump in his throat making it impossible to think, impossible to breathe.
“Throw them away,” he chokes out, blinking back tears.
Suguru jerks his head up, frowning. “What?”
“Get rid of them, I don’t -”
He waves a hand at the trash can, already choking on his own spit.
Because he feels sick, the apple he’d had just a few short minutes ago turning rancid in his stomach; he feels a little like he’s going to throw up, and Suguru had better get his butt out of the splash zone before he ends up as collateral damage -
But then something odd happens.
Something unexpected.
Instead of tossing the pregnancy tests in the garbage, Suguru holds them close to his chest. He breaks out into the most beautiful smile Satoru thinks he’s ever seen, and when he leans forward, tugging gently at Satoru’s shoulder to get him to sit up straight, he can smell the raw, vivid emotion in his scent.
“Satoru,” he breathes. “Baby -”
“No,” Satoru says, stubborn. He shakes his head, trying to move past him to get to his feet. He wants out of here, he wants to get away -
But Suguru doesn’t let him, his grip on Satoru gentle but firm.
“Baby, look,” he says, holding out his hand.
“I don’t want to, I don’t wanna see that -”
“Not even if you’ll like what it says?”
Satoru freezes, the tears in his eyes suddenly spilling over.
Suguru just gently wipes them away with his thumb, relinquishing his grip on Satoru’s arm to put one of the tests in his hand, and when Satoru looks down -
Two lines.
There’s two fucking lines, as bold and clear as they were in the example in the insert.
“You’re pregnant,” Suguru murmurs, tugging him into his arms, cradling his face with his hand. “It’s happening, sweetheart, you’re - we’re gonna have a baby.”
Satoru grabs for the other test, bringing it to his face. Though he’s half-expecting it to be negative, the lines are just as stark on the second stick as they were on the first, and like - a false positive on one test is one thing, but a false positive on two?
Unlikely, he thinks.
It’s very unlikely that both tests are either wrong or defective, which means… he might actually be pregnant, fuck.
Still, it seems too good to be true.
It just seems way too easy after so much fucking heartbreak and indecision, and so he shakily pushes to his feet, feeling a little weak in the knees as he storms out into the living room to grab his coat.
Vaguely, as if from a great distance, he can hear Suguru calling his name. He’s aware that the twins are anxiously looking up at him from where they’re sitting on the couch, their wide eyes flitting from Satoru to Suguru, and he’s all too cognizant of the fact that he probably looks a little unhinged.
But Satoru is a man on a mission, and so he ignores them all as he stuffs his arms into his jacket, his feet into his sneakers.
“Where are you going?” Suguru asks, a little frantic. “What are - baby, what are you doing?”
“I need more tests,” he huffs, sniffling. “I need - two isn’t enough.”
Suguru frowns. “What?”
“Twelve tests, Suguru, I need twelve tests!”
“Twelve?” he asks, incredulous. “How did you - why twelve?”
Satoru makes a frustrated noise, turning around to glare at his mate. “Because twelve is the perfect number,” he snaps. “If one of them fails, but the others are all successful, then I’m at a ninety-one-point-six-seven percent positivity rate; that’s still significant at the p less than 0.1 level, which is kinda weak evidence for a trend, but then I can at least take it to Shoko and ask her to run a blood test -”
Suguru, bless him, looks very, very lost. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Satoru slaps a hand to his forehead, groaning. “Statistics, babe, statistics.”
“I got that much.”
“I need a bigger sample size. Two tests just isn’t enough, I can’t - ” He pauses, huffs out a frustrated breath. “I need twelve of them.”
And like, yeah, that’s simplifying things a bit.
He’s not taking into account the fact that the tests themselves claim to be more than ninety-five percent accurate, or that at this point, seven weeks out from his last heat, the chance of a false positive on a test is pretty low. He’s not really considering the fact that if one test in a box is defective, the other is likely defective as well, and that’s saying nothing of the fact that stores purchase items like that in bulk - one bad set of tests at the pharmacy could mean the entire selection of tests isn’t valid.
But he’s not about to perform a Bayesian analysis when he’s potentially fucking pregnant, what the fuck, and so he just stares at Suguru entreatingly, hoping he understands how important this is to Satoru without having to go into more detail.
He needs him to get it.
And by some miracle, he does.
He understands, not questioning Satoru’s methods as he walks over to cram his feet into his boots. He tugs them up and over his sweatpants, fishing around in the bowl for his keys as he grabs a hoodie off the rack by the door.
“Okay,” he says, easily - as if Satoru’s just suggested going for an evening walk in the park instead of going to buy out the pharmacy’s stock of Clear Blue Digitals. “Yeah, sure, we’ll - we’ll get twelve tests, then.”
Satoru breathes out a shaky breath, grabbing for the hand Suguru offers him.
“From two different stores?” he asks, giving his palm a gentle squeeze.
Suguru squeezes right back, smiling.
“We can go to three, if you want. Hell, we can get one test from each pharmacy in the neighborhood.”
Satoru’s nose scrunches. “I know you’re trying to be sweet, but the likelihood of each local pharmacy getting their pregnancy tests from the same vendor is so high that accounting for anything over three is probably duplicative -”
Suguru just snorts and pushes him out the door.
All twelve tests come back positive.
Every single one of them displays a set of two bold, black lines, and so Satoru tentatively admits that he might, maybe, perhaps be pregnant.
He allows that he might’ve overreacted, just a tad, even as Suguru presses kiss after kiss to his face and neck and - later, once the very disgusted twins have gone to bed and Satoru and Suguru are safely cuddled up in Satoru’s nest - still very flat belly.
“I want Shoko to confirm it, though,” he says, running his hands through Suguru’s hair, watching as Suguru presses his ear to his stomach.
Something about the sight makes him feel so, so warm inside, and even though he knows the baby is barely bigger than a fingernail, that just as there’s no external way to discern he’s pregnant at this point, there’s no way the baby can hear or feel what Suguru is doing, it just -
It just makes him melt, makes him so happy he kinda feels like crying.
But he’s already done that enough for one day, the traces of the very ugly tears he’d shed upon the realization that he was indeed pregnant still lingering on his cheeks. He’s had enough emotional outbursts for one day, thank you very much, and so instead he just smiles, utterly content and at peace.
“Sure,” Suguru agrees, grinning up at him. “Whatever you want.”
“And I want all the extra tests, too, all the extra ultrasounds. The 3D ones that let you see what their little face looks like.”
Suguru hums. “I want that, too.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll make copies. One for every room in the house, one for the shop -”
Satoru barely stifles a giggle. “So your clients can see how much of a sap their tattoo artist is?” he teases.
Suguru chuckles, pressing another kiss to his abdomen. “So my clients can see how much their tattoo artist loves his pup, his mate,” he corrects, and oh -
Satoru puts his hands under his arms, tugging him back up to the pillows so he can kiss him senseless. He eases their mouths together with a desperation that is familiar at this point, his want so big he doesn’t know what to do with it.
But it’s unhurried, for once.
He doesn’t feel the usual, frantic arousal curling up in his belly, nor the hot, heady desire that Suguru’s touch usually elicits within him. Instead, it’s soft, the way that Suguru parts his lips and deepens the kiss more sensual than sexual, and when he raises a hand, thumbing at Satoru’s cheek as he hums into the kiss, Satoru can’t help but begin to purr, so happy the noise just kind of bubbles up and out of him.
Suguru pulls back, presses their foreheads together.
“You’re pregnant,” he murmurs, lips curling up in a slow, lazy smile.
Satoru bites his lip, grins. “I’m pregnant.”
“How’s it feel? How do you feel?”
His hand slides back down Satoru’s side, settles once again on his stomach; it’s like he can’t bear to be parted from Satoru, like he can’t stand to not be touching him.
And Satoru knows this is just the beginning.
He knows that as his pregnancy develops, Suguru is only going to get clingier; his instincts will go into overdrive with the urge to protect, to keep Satoru close, to keep him safe. It had been much the same with Shoko and Nanami, his usually unflappable alpha friends transformed into people he almost didn’t recognize while their mates were pregnant, and while Satoru doesn’t think Suguru’s going to turn into this aggressive, overbearing asshole, he also realizes it’s going to be very, very hard for Suguru to resist those urges.
It’s going to be very, very difficult for him to be away from Satoru for any extended period of time, to see him experience any kind of hardship, and so he tells the truth.
“Oh, I’m terrified,” he admits.
Suguru kisses the side of his lips, his mouth lingering.
“I’m worried that something’s gonna go wrong, that I’ll - that I’ll fuck it up.”
“You won’t,” Suguru insists. “I know you won’t.”
Satoru swallows. “But how? How could you know that?”
He feels the way Suguru smiles, hears the laughter in his voice. “Because I know how much you want this pup, Satoru,” he says. “I know how much you already love them.”
“That doesn’t mean something won’t go wrong.”
“No,” Suguru agrees. “It doesn’t. But it does mean you’ll do everything you can to bring them safely into the world. And I’ll do the same.”
Satoru leans forward, kisses him.
“Yeah?” he murmurs. “You’ll help me? Help them?”
He lays his hand atop Suguru’s, twining their fingers together atop his stomach.
Suguru makes a soft, weak noise into his mouth, the kiss he presses to his lips a little harder, with a little more intent.
“Yeah, baby,” he says. “Promise.”
Satoru’s purrs grow louder still, and when Suguru thinks to drag the flat of his tongue across the seam of Suguru’s lips, deepening the kiss, their movements grow a little more frantic, a bit more heated. Satoru rolls over onto his back, pulling Suguru atop him; he spreads his legs wide, giving Suguru room to slot himself in between -
And Suguru presses him down into the mattress, stripping the clothes from his body and then fucking him soft, and slow, and deep.
He’s so gentle Satoru thinks he could cry.
He is so, so careful to never set his weight too firmly on Satoru as he smoothes the hair back from Satoru’s forehead, as he buries his face in Satoru’s neck and presses his lips to Satoru’s scent gland, sucking hard enough to leave a mark; though it’s been close to a year now since they bonded, it’s still incredibly sensitive, and Satoru can’t help but shudder at the heat that courses through his veins.
He keens, wrapping his arms around Suguru’s shoulders and tossing his head back against the pillows. “I love you,” he pants, hiking a leg up to curl his calf around Suguru’s thigh, pulling him in close. “I love you, I love you, I - fuck, Suguru -”
Suguru groans, scraping his teeth across Satoru’s throat.
“Fuck, baby,” he groans. “You’re so - shit, I’m so happy -”
Satoru twists him away in order to blink up at him, breathing hard. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he breathes, sliding a hand down Satoru’s side. He slips it in between their bodies, lays it over top of his belly even as he continues to fuck into his cunt. “Yeah, I - we made this, Satoru. We made a baby, we -”
“I know,” Satoru rasps. “I…”
Words fail him, for once.
Mostly because of how overwhelming it all is, the sheer magnitude of tonight’s revelations enough to leave him speechless, but also because Suguru’s cock is in his fucking throat, yeah? He’s moving a bit harder now, his hips snapping forward with a little more force - he’s working hard to get to the both of them to completion, and when Satoru snakes his hand down, laying it atop Suguru’s and twining their fingers together, he lets out a joyful, breathless laugh.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he urges, grinning. “Cum for me, cum on my cock - can you do that? Can you cum for me?”
Satoru nods, his thighs already shaking.
Every nerve in his body feels like it is on fire, his chest filled with so much warmth and pleasure and love he could burst.
“I can - I can do it, I can - ”
The noise he makes as Suguru pulls out and thumbs at his clit is inhuman, a little feral. His cunt throbs around nothing as Suguru continues to toy with him, the head of his cock bumping against his folds, and when he ruthlessly shoves it back in a moment later, hard enough to punch the breath from his lungs, he sees stars.
“Fuck, I’m coming. I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m -”
Suguru’s only response is a low, throaty moan, his lips sucking another proprietary mark on Satoru’s neck even as his thumb circles him tighter, tighter, tighter -
The pressure in his belly snaps all at once.
He cums so hard he squirts, making a mess of Suguru and the sheets and the entire fucking bed in the process.
But Suguru doesn’t care.
If anything, it only seems to spur him on, his careful, considerate movements replaced with sharp, staccato thrusts of his hips. He fucks Satoru in earnest, the noises he makes as he buries himself in Satoru’s wet heat again and again muffled by the smack of skin against skin, and when he’s close, when he’s right at the edge -
He pulls out, grabs his cock by the knot rapidly swelling around the base.
Barely two strokes and he’s coming, thrusting his dick against Satoru’s pussy. He smears his cum all over the (thoroughly soaked) thatch of white hair guarding his cunt, and while Satoru thinks that’s a little excessive, maybe a little uncalled for, it’s also fucking hot.
It’s, like, really fucking hot, especially when Suguru just keeps coming.
He cums, and he cums, and he cums, and by the time he’s finally finished, barely catching himself on his hands as he falls forward, Satoru is covered.
He’s fucking filthy, and he peers up at Suguru’s flushed face with a little smirk.
“Wow, Suguru,” he teases.
Suguru flushes. “Shut up.”
“Marking your territory, much?”
“It’s instinct,” he asserts, his eyes glued to Satoru’s belly. He can’t seem to look away from the way his cum is sliding down Satoru’s cunt, his thighs. “I can’t help it.”
Satoru snorts and fondly pats his thigh. “Sure, Jan.”
Then, grimacing at how sticky he feels, he adds, “Why’d you pull out? You didn’t want to cum inside me?”
Suguru hums, thoughtful.
“I mean, I did,” he says slowly, one of his hands creeping down to thumb at Satoru’s hips. “I always do.”
“Not like you can knock me up again,” Satoru offers, grinning.
Suguru huffs out a breath. “I know that. But this…”
He trails off, again lost in thought.
And Satoru gets it, he thinks; he really does. He understands that now that he’s pregnant, Suguru is gonna have a lot more of these… urges, these animalistic drives to both protect Satoru and claim him as his own.
He also knows that Suguru probably doesn’t like it, that he’s likely just as grossed out at the thought of being some kind of overbearing alpha asshole as Satoru is at being treated like he’s suddenly incapable just because he’s carrying their child, and so he doesn’t give him too much grief over it.
Instead, he just looks down at the bed with a sigh, shaking his head as he points out, “We’re gonna have to change the sheets now. And I definitely need to shower.”
Suguru looks up at that, something strangely hurt in his eyes. “Do you have to?”
“What - oh, my god, yes? I do?” Satoru gestures down at his belly.
Suguru rolls his eyes, finally pulling back far enough that Satoru can sit up a bit. “You don’t have to sound so offended.”
“Suguru. Babe.” Satoru playfully shoves him away. “I’m so sticky right now.”
“So?”
Satoru lets his thighs close, presses them together for a moment; then, trying to make his point, he tries to peel them apart.
“My legs are physically sticking together. God, it’s like fucking glue -”
Suguru rolls his eyes at that, helping push his legs further away from each other; there’s virtually no resistance, because Satoru is both exaggerating and not trying all that hard to prove a point, and so when Suguru just quirks an eyebrow and purses his lips, he can’t help but grin.
“Okay, it’s not that bad,” he admits. “But I still really need to go clean up, fuck.”
Suguru sighs. “Fine,” he allows. “You need a shower.”
Satoru shuffles off the edge of the bed, waddling awkwardly towards the bathroom as he tries to keep all of the cum from dripping onto the floor. “If it makes you feel any better, you can scent me when I get out!”
Suguru hums, already stripping the linens off the bed. “It does, actually.”
Satoru smiles and reaches for the tap.
He showers as quickly as he cares, scrubbing himself thoroughly clean. Though he makes sure to wipe all of the sweat and spend from his skin, he skips his usual soaps in favor of grabbing Suguru’s more neutrally scented body wash, and when he hops out, rubbing a towel over his shoulders, his damp hair, he can smell the satisfaction in Suguru’s scent oozing in from the other room.
He’s waiting just on the other side of the door, the freshly remade bed just beyond.
With a soft smile, he pulls Satoru towards him, pressing a kiss to his cheek even as he rubs a palm against his wrist, against his neck. He lets his warm, ashy scent waft over Satoru like a cloud, and when he pulls back to push a pair of pajama bottoms into Satoru’s hands, he’s unsurprised to find they aren’t his own.
Satoru snorts, even as he pulls them up and over his hips.
“You coming to bed?” he asks, grabbing for a sweatshirt.
“In a minute,” Suguru agrees. “I’m just gonna go smoke and clean up first.”
Satoru nods. “Don’t make me wait too long to cuddle,” he advises, pulling back the sheets so he can slip underneath. “I’ll fall asleep.”
“Aw, you won’t wait up for me?”
Barely stifling a yawn with his fist, Satoru shakes his head. “You know I won’t.”
Suguru chuckles and heads for the bathroom. “I’m hurt.”
“Better hurry, then,” Satoru retorts, nuzzling down into his pillow.
It’s an empty threat - Satoru wouldn’t miss cuddling with his mate for the world, even if he were completely exhausted and struggling to keep his eyes open, and both of them know it.
But Suguru’s gracious enough not to call him on it.
He’s smart enough not to say so, and even-tempered enough to find Satoru’s needling more amusing than hurtful, and when he finally comes to bed a few minutes later, curling up behind Satoru and pressing his face to his hair, Satoru lets out a happy little sigh, utterly at peace.
Their first appointment with Shoko goes well.
She confirms he’s pregnant with another round of tests, giving him a once-over for good measure; then, once she’s decided he’s reasonably healthy and done her level best to properly impress upon him the importance of proper nutrition and wellness for the duration of his pregnancy, she guides him and Suguru into a different examination room, one that has an ultrasound machine set up next to the table.
“You’re not gonna see much of anything,” she warns them, motioning for Satoru to lie down as the technician grabs for a pair of gloves and boots up the machine. “The baby’s no bigger than a bean right now.”
Suguru frowns. “Then why do an ultrasound at all?”
“Mostly to check the development of the amniotic sac, make sure everything’s coming along nicely. And it’s not like you won’t see anything - it’ll just be super small, like a little blob on the screen, so… don’t expect a lot of fine details.”
She plops down into the chair at the side of the bed, motioning for Satoru to pull up his shirt. As soon as he does, the technician turns around and squirts a bunch of gel on his stomach, and Satoru can’t help but yelp.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Shoko snorts. “It’s not even cold.”
Satoru huffs out a breath and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest to keep his shirt in place. “No, but I wasn’t expecting to be sauced like a fucking hot dog.”
The technician giggles, asks if he can pull the waist of his pants down a little so she can spread the gel around the right spot. He complies easily enough, even as he sends another dour look in Shoko’s direction, and Suguru eagerly steps forehead to drape an arm around his shoulders, grabbing his hand as he looks at the computer screen the technician’s turned towards them.
“Alright,” she says, pressing the transducer to Satoru’s abdomen. “Let’s have a look.”
Satoru has to remind himself to breathe as she starts to dig around.
He has to remind himself that everything’s okay, that’s nothing wrong when she doesn’t immediately hone in on one particular spot. The baby just isn’t very big at this point; it’s barely any bigger than his thumbnail, and that’s -
Something in his scent must sour, for Suguru leans in, nosing at his cheek. He works one of Satoru’s hands free, clasping it gently within his own; the movement sends a burst of soothing pheromones in his direction, and Satoru, despite himself, feels his nerves settle, his shoulders drooping a bit as he relaxes.
“Hey,” he murmurs, soft. “You good?”
Satoru lets out the breath he was holding, nodding. “Yeah,” he says. “Just nervous.”
Suguru hums. “About what?”
“…I dunno. If the baby’s really there, I guess?”
Shoko, not even bothering to pretend she isn’t eavesdropping, snorts. “You took twelve tests, Satoru,” she deadpans. “Twelve.”
Satoru huffs. “So?”
“So the baby is fucking there,” she retorts. “Just be patient.”
Satoru does his best.
He bites his lips, nods, and endures.
And sure enough, a minute or so later, his efforts pay off when the technician makes a cute, satisfied noise, her hand going still on his stomach. She turns to look at the screen with a bit more scrutiny, and when she’s finally found what she’s looking for -
“There!” she says, grinning.
Satoru’s breath hitches as he glances up at the monitor.
He grips Suguru’s hand so hard he can feel the bones creak, and when the technician moves her hand just a tiny bit to the right, he sees a very small, barely discernible patch of gray in the circular black sac that Satoru assumes is his uterus.
“There’s your baby,” the technician says, raising a hand to point at the screen.
Suguru croons, pleased; it’s almost involuntarily, the way the sound rumbles up and out of his chest, deep enough that Satoru can feel it where he’s pressed against Satoru’s side. Something about the noise calls to Satoru, makes him let out a happy little chirp of his own, and Shoko -
“You two are disgusting,” she says, sighing.
The smile on her face betrays her own happiness, though, and she adds, “Everything looks good, though; based on the size of the fetus, you’re right at about eight weeks. That’ll put your due date sometime in early July.”
Satoru hears her -
But only just barely, too focused on the little human inside of him displayed on the screen. He can barely even breathe, too entranced to so much as think of speaking as she and Suguru settle on a more definitive date.
Because that is a baby.
That is his baby, the one he’s made with Suguru.
It’s what he’s wanted so very badly all these years, the one thing he’d thought he’d never be able to have, and that’s -
“Satoru? Sweetheart?”
Satoru shakes his head, pressing a hand to his mouth.
Because he’s not going to cry in this doctor’s office - he’s not, dammit!
He’s not going to get all emotional and snotty in front of an ultrasound technician who looks young enough to be his fucking daughter, her thick, blonde pigtails unable to hide the smile on her face.
But he is, apparently, because the next thing he knows, he’s sobbing.
The waterworks have come out, and he’s turned into a pathetic, blubbering mess.
And part of that is just the hormones, surely. Part of that is just the fact that he’s already starting to feel a little odd in his body, a little outside of his own control.
But it’s also the situation, yeah?
Like, it’s one thing to know that he’s pregnant in the abstract. It’s one thing to take a bunch of tests and occasionally feel a little nauseous.
It’s another thing entirely to have tangible, physical proof of it; seeing their pup on the screen like that, in live and living color (metaphorically speaking) is just -
Well, it makes this pregnancy real, in a way that the morning sickness and the chest soreness and the random cravings don’t, and so the emotional magnitude of the situation just kinda hits him all at once and leaves him powerless in its wake.
“Aw, babe,” Suguru breathes, curling over him protectively as the ultrasound technician pulls away, handing over some paper towels so Satoru can wipe the gel from his stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he chokes out. “Nothing is wrong, I just -”
He sputters, shaking his head.
Suguru makes a soothing sort of noise, palming at his cheek. “I know,” he says. “It’s a lot, yeah? Seeing our pup like this?”
Satoru nods, takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“They’re real,” he croaks.
Suguru hums.
“They’re real, this is happening, and I just - I… what the fuck, Suguru -”
Suguru laughs at that, pulling far enough away that he can press a kiss to Satoru’s forehead, to tilt his chin up and look him in the eye.
“Yeah, baby,” he agrees, wiping away Satoru’s tears. “They’re real.”
Despite his best efforts, it takes Satoru another handful of minutes to pull himself together. It takes a little bit of time for him to finally cry himself out; by the time he’s done, Suguru’s cleaned up his stomach, and Shoko and the technician have graciously left the room. It’s just him and Suguru in the examination room, which…
Honestly, it’s probably for the best.
Because he is a mess -
His face feels all red and puffy, and he knows his hair’s probably a wreck from where Suguru’s been running his fingers through it. His stomach still feels a little tacky from the gel, bits of his t-shirt sticking uncomfortably to his skin, and he kinda just wants to go home? He kinda just wants to go and lay down with Suguru in his nest, to take a nap in the hopes that when he wakes back up he won’t feel so emotional, so vulnerable, so raw.
But he supposes it’s not meant to be.
They’d made lunch plans with Shoko after this, and though he’d woken up incredibly nauseous this morning, some combination of morning sickness and nerves working to deeply unsettle his stomach, he finds himself ravenous now, absolutely starving. A cheeseburger sounds fucking divine, and so he irritably scrubs at his face with his hands as he twists around on the table, swinging his legs over the side to dangle off the edge.
“Feeling better?” Suguru asks.
Satoru snorts. “I feel like an idiot,” he admits. “Crying my eyes out in a doctor’s office, like some kid getting a round of shots.” He clicks his tongue, shakes his head. “Man, Shoko is never gonna let me live this down!”
Suguru chuckles, tucking an arm around his waist. “Probably not,” he agrees.
Satoru’s face scrunches up in disgust.
“But I think she gets it better than most, so… she’ll probably be nice about it.”
“…have you met Shoko?”
“A couple times now,” Suguru teases.
Satoru swats at him playfully, even as he pushes up to his feet and grabs his coat.
“Oh, before I forget -”
He turns, giving Suguru a curious look as he twists around, pulling something out of the folder Shoko had given them both as soon as she’d confirmed he was pregnant. It’s stuffed full of print-outs and pamphlets on pregnancy, covering everything from a healthy diet to a timetable of normal fetal development to what to expect when you’re expecting - things Satoru means to read later, once he’s all cozied up in his nest in his warmest pajamas, and he can give them the time and energy they deserve.
He’s not really in the mood to read any of them now, though, and so he shakes his head, tugging his bag up and over his shoulder.
Suguru just smiles, handing over what looks like a - like a polaroid?
Huh.
He hadn’t thought polaroids still even existed, but… then again, he supposes photography is one of the few things he’s never really learned a lot about, so.
Maybe it’s the photo Shoko had taken of him when he’d first walked in.
Maybe it’s something Suguru wants to document, like, how big his belly gets? He knows some people do that, that they make these timelapses of all of the photos in order to document a pregnancy. It’s kind of a cute thought, and so he reaches out a hand, his fingers curling around the edges as he holds it up to inspect.
But it’s not a photo of him, he quickly realizes.
Or, well.
It is, but only kinda, because it’s really a copy of their sonogram, taken at some point during the ultrasound. There’s a little timestamp at the top of the picture, along with his name, age, and sex, and right in the middle of the photograph, smack dab in the center of the image, is their pup.
It’s a little grainy, a bit fuzzy. It’s hard to make out any details.
Satoru still thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and he makes a soft, quiet little noise as he brings it closer to his face.
“The technician gave us a handful of them,” Suguru murmurs, showing off the copy he’s already got tucked into his wallet. “Enough to hand out to our friends, if we want, to our - to our families.”
Satoru blinks at that.
Because he hadn’t considered telling their families anything - he’s not exactly on good terms with his own, after all, and Suguru’s parents are both dead. The only family he has are his sisters, and they’re obviously in on the secret, so -
Telling anyone else hasn’t exactly crossed his mind.
But explaining the situation to Yuuta might be fun.
Inviting him over for dinner, handing over a little photo of their pup… he’d probably choke on his drink, do an honest-to-god spit take as he stared wide-eyed at the two of them. Though things with Toge are (apparently) getting pretty serious, he still gets all red and flustered at the mere mention of anything related to sex and babies, and Satoru’s never been able to resist teasing him.
He’s never been very good at keeping secrets, either, and so he thinks breaking the news to his cousin relatively soon is probably a good idea.
He’s relieved to find Suguru agrees with him, grinning at him as they walk back out into the hall and towards the front desk.
“When do you wanna tell him?”
“Soon,” Satoru replies, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Next week, maybe?”
“Whenever you want,” Suguru agrees.
“We can invite him over for dinner, make a whole thing out of it. But no spilling the beans! I wanna be the one to tell him.”
“Of course.”
Satoru smiles, turning back towards the nurse’s assistant to sign himself out and grab the paperwork she’s provided. He’s just put it neatly inside the folder Suguru’s handed him when Suguru leans in and presses his lips to Satoru’s ear, his voice entirely knowing as he murmurs, “You can tell him how I fucked a baby into you, how I stuffed you so full of cum it couldn’t help but take -”
Satoru yelps, going very, very red as he twists away from Suguru.
“What the fuck,” he laughs, slapping a hand over his face to hide his grin. “Suguru!”
Suguru lifts an indolent eyebrow as he walks past him to grab the door. “Problem?”
“You can’t just say stuff like that,” Satoru asserts.
“Mmm. Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”
Satoru grabs his hand and yanks him out into the cold, maneuvering him away from the door so he can push him back against the wall.
“Oh, that’s the problem,” he says. “I like it too much, and since we can’t do anything about it here…” He leans forward, nipping at Suguru’s nose. “It’s just rude.”
Suguru catches him as he goes to pull away, draws him in for a kiss. He eases their lips together in a way that is just shy of inappropriate for a public street, his hands pawing at Satoru’s ass beneath the hem of his coat -
And Shoko, bless her, is quick to call them out.
“Can you two keep your hands off each other for any extended period of time?”
Satoru jerks away to glance over at her, a little dazed. “Probably.”
“If we had to,” Suguru adds.
She snorts, flicking open the carton of cigarettes in her hands. “Yeah fucking right.”
Then, thinking better of it, she puts them away and huffs, “I should do a study - I want to do a timed trial and everything, to see how long you last.”
Suguru’s eyes narrow. “Are we suggesting we can’t behave in public?”
“I’m telling you, you’re menaces to society. Both of you.”
Satoru looks back to Suguru, who looks neither ashamed nor keen on denying it.
And since Satoru can admit that he doesn’t really care what anyone else thinks of their antics either, he just shrugs, reluctantly pulling his arms free from Suguru’s shoulders to instead grab for his hand.
“If you publish the results, I want royalty payments.”
Shoko blinks. “That’s not how being a subject in a research study works.”
“Well, do I get anything for my time?”
“Sure. I’ll give you a lollipop and a hundred yen coin.”
Satoru huffs, scowling down at her as they start to make their way to lunch. “Wow, Shoko - you’re really selling me on this here.”
“I’m not trying to sell you on anything. I just want to be able to walk outside my practice without seeing you losers sucking face.”
“Can you blame me, though?”
Satoru reaches over to Suguru, pinches his face.
“I mean, look at these widdle cheeks!”
Suguru swats his hand aside.
“Not in public, Satoru, Jesus,” he teases. “Didn’t you hear Shoko?”
“Save it for the baby,” she adds, and that’s -
“Are you two really teaming up on me? For real?”
Shoko and Suguru share a look behind Satoru’s back.
“We would never,” Suguru coos, just as Shoko gives him a deadpan stare and asks, “Why? Is it working?”
Satoru drops Suguru’s hand and stalks forward a few steps, with all the righteous indignation of a wet kitten.
“I hate you both.”
Satoru waits until everyone has finished dessert before he props his head up on his hands and fixes Yuuta with a keen eye from across the table.
“So, Yuuta,” he drawls, grinning, “My firstborn son, heir to the family fortune -”
“Please don’t say that.”
“You’re probably wondering why Suguru and I invited you over dinner.”
Yuuta blinks, the sip of wine he’d just taken still sitting on his tongue.
After a moment, he swallows and sets his glass back on the table - but not before he looks over at Toge, who’s playing with the remnants of his tiramisu with his fork.
Though he looks pretty curious himself, he doesn’t seem to have any answers for Yuuta; he just shrugs, his lilac eyes flicking around the table with interest, and Yuuta -
“Ah, maybe a little,” he admits, with a nervous chuckle. “Did you - did something happen with the shop? Are you opening another location?”
Satoru blinks, taken aback. “What?”
“Oh… well, I’d thought - I thought maybe you had, like, news? Something you wanted to tell me in person? I mean, you usually just text me,” he adds.
“Maybe I wanted to see you,” Satoru retorts.
Yuuta’s eyes go wide. “Ah -”
“Maybe I just wanted to make sure you were still kicking.”
Yuuta wincing, rushing out an apology.
“I’ve been really busy,” he says quickly, scratching at the back of his neck. “This job has a lot of overtime opportunities - and I’m not trying to stay that late every day, but I want to make a good impression? And then on the weekends I’ve been volunteering a lot at the animal shelter with Megumi, and I sometimes help Toge with his streams, and it just - I guess it just really adds up, now that I think about it - ”
Satoru smiles, Yuuta’s flailing as adorable as ever.
“Yuuta,” he says, gently interrupting him.
“…yes?”
“I’m kidding,” Satoru informs him. “I know you’re busy.”
“O-oh. Okay.”
Then, once he’s taken a breath and relaxed a bit, he pouts, frowning up at Satoru even as Toge quietly laughs into his hand.
“Why are you like this?”
Satoru snorts, grinning at him from across the table. “Like what, Yuuta?”
Yuuta blinks, brows furrowed. “Terrible.”
Now it’s Satoru’s turn to pout, turning towards Suguru with an offended squawk when his mate chuckles into his beer.
“He’s not wrong,” Suguru points out, silencing Satoru’s protests with the hand he places on Satoru’s thigh. “And I’m sure he and Toge would both appreciate it if you got that point you’re trying so hard to make.”
Satoru clicks his tongue, shakes his head.
But he sees the logic in Suguru’s words, and he’s getting kinda sleepy, so -
He clears his throat, procures one of the copies of his sonogram from his pocket. He pushes it across the table with little fanfare, watches as Yuuta picks it up.
His eyes go wide, his brows lifting towards his hairline -
“We wanted you to be the first to know,” Satoru says, the words leaving him all in a rush. He’s surprised at how nervous he sounds.
And it’s not like he’s really worried what Yuuta is going to think.
He’s been nothing but happy for Satoru these past couple of years, serving as both the best man in his wedding and his legal witness down at the courthouse when they’d gone in to list their mating on the registry. Though his first meeting with Suguru had been more than a little embarrassing, the two of them get along pretty well, and he’s always known about Satoru’s desire for children of his own.
But at the same time, he… kinda is?
Because Yuuta is one of the only people whose opinion Satoru values, one of the only people Satoru really even likes.
So if he has something to say -
“You’re pregnant.”
Satoru blinks, long and slow.
“I’m pregnant,” he agrees.
“How - how far along are you?”
Toge snorts at that, leaning over to tap the photo; he’s probably pointing at the due date Satoru knows is stamped in the corner, urging Yuuta to utilize some basic math and come up with the solution himself.
But this time, Satoru doesn’t mind doing the work for him.
“Nine weeks,” he chirps.
“I - congratulations.”
Suguru chuckles, the hand at Satoru’s thigh shifting so that it curves protectively around his belly; he presses his palm flat against his stomach, fixing Yuuta with a coy little smirk as he says, “Wow, Yuuta - tell us how you really feel.”
Yuuta flushes, waving a hand as he hastily overcorrects.
“That’s not - I didn’t mean it like that!”
Satoru pats his mate’s cheek. “Don’t be mean, Suguru.”
“I am happy for you guys,” Yuuta continues. “Really, I am - I just… wow. Wow!”
Toge reiterates this with a very large, very emphatic WOW, and Yuuta scowls and kicks him under the table.
“Don’t you start, too,” he warns.
Toge just snickers and bats his eyelashes, reaching for his soda.
“Have you - is everything going alright?”
Satoru shrugs. “I get tired a lot,” he admits. “And I’m hungry, like all of the time. But apart from some weird cravings, I don’t feel all that different yet.”
Yuuta’s head tilts to the side. “Cravings? Like what?”
Tuna mayo on ice cream, Toge guesses.
Satoru makes a face, gags. “Gross.”
Salmon roe in spaghetti.
“That is - I mean, honestly I’d try it.”
“Unfortunately, his cravings have all been very normal so far,” Suguru sighs.
“Unfortunately?” Satoru mutters under his breath.
It earns him a little pinch, Suguru ignoring his yelp of surprise to add, “We actually found out he was pregnant because he chose to eat an apple over cake for dessert one night.”
Yuuta turns back to Satoru, a perplexed look on his face.
“Apples?” he repeats. “Your weird craving was apples?”
Satoru sighs and fixes his cousin with a serious look. “I know,” he says, mournful. “The horror.”
“…you’re a very strange person, Satoru.”
Though he sputters, Satoru doesn’t take too much offense to that. He knows Yuuta’s just teasing him, the tables turned back on him for once. He doesn’t take it to heart, and when the ribbing of his dietary habits fade away into genuine interest in his and Suguru’s plans for the future, he’s more than happy to indulge.
For the most part, there’s not a whole lot to say -
The pregnancy is still so new, after all, so very, very precious. They haven’t really spent a whole lot of time discussing what comes next, not when they’re still so focused on the here and now.
But there’s a few things they do know, and those they’re all too happy to share.
Shoko will be his doctor for the duration, and they definitely want to know the secondary gender when it’s time. They plan to tell everyone else in another month or so, once he’s past the first trimester, and he’ll start cutting back on his work hours once he hits the third. The shop will be in Megumi’s careful hands, assuming he accepts Satoru’s offer to promote him to store manager, which -
Satoru’s… pretty sure he will?
Like, there’s not really a whole lot of extra work associated with the change in title and pay raise; he’d just be in charge of making the schedules and being there to supervise deliveries, Satoru more than capable of handling the rest from the comfort of his living room, but he supposes you never know.
He might not be able to cover the additional shifts, and that’s -
Fuck, he might have to hire someone else.
He might have to bring on some additional help, even if it’s the last fucking thing he wants to deal with while heavily pregnant, just so that Nobara and Yuuji aren’t swamped as well, and why hasn’t he considered this beforehand?
He’s saved from his rapid spiraling when Toge taps at his arm; he quickly signs that he’d be more than happy to help out on the days that he’s not streaming, that since he already knows Megumi and Nobara, he’s sure they’d have no problem getting him up to speed. The offer is as timely as it is kind, and Satoru can’t help but accept.
Just as he can’t really help it when he pulls Yuuta into a fierce hug before he goes to leave, tugging the slightly shorter young man into his arms and pressing his chin to the top of his head. Yuuta protests at first, reiterating that Satoru’s being weird - but he seems to sense that this is important to Satoru, and so after a few moments, he swings an arm around Satoru’s waist and pats his back. He even allows Satoru to scent him, and like -
That’s not something Satoru’s ever really done before, yeah?
It’s not something he’s ever really felt the urge to do, even if he’s been acting as Yuuta’s parental figure for most of his adult life.
But the urge to bomb Yuuta with his own sticky sweet, syrupy pheromones is strong, and though Yuuta stiffens at first, he quickly relaxes into the gesture, even smiling when Satoru lets out a little involuntary chirp of satisfaction.
“Let me know if you guys need anything,” he says as he pulls on his coat. “I, ah - I want to help out, and if there’s anything I can do -”
Suguru smiles. “You’ll be the first to know.”
He waits until they’ve made it through a final round of awkward good-byes before turning to Satoru, a grin pulling at his lips.
“Scenting your cousin, Satoru?”
Satoru flushes. “Shut up.”
“No, no, it’s cute,” he hums, wrapping an arm around Satoru’s waist. “It’s precious -”
Satoru scowls and kicks at his shin. “I’ll show you precious.”
Suguru dances away, laughing. “That was rude.”
“This entire conversation was rude, but you don’t see me complaining.”
Satoru stalks back into the kitchen, getting to work on the dishes. Though there’s not much left for him to do, Suguru having already put away the leftovers, he still wants to put the pans into the sink overnight to soak; he still wants to clear away the table so that he doesn’t have to do it tomorrow morning when it’s crabby and irritable and maybe even nauseous, and so he gets right to it.
Unsurprisingly, Suguru follows him.
He stands at the doorway, leaning against the frame as he watches Satoru clear the table, and though he doesn’t interfere, something about his presence is comforting.
Something about the way he’s just there soothes some of Satoru’s irritation, and by the time he turns around to face him, drying his hands on a dishrag, it’s faded entirely.
“For the record,” Suguru starts. “I wasn’t trying to be patronizing.”
Satoru blinks.
“I actually think it’s…” He pauses, clears his throat. “I think it’s incredible to see your instincts kick in like this.”
Taking a couple steps into the kitchen, he grabs Satoru's hands, twines their fingers together.
“I mean, I always assumed you were gonna be a great parent,” he continues. “You’re so good with Mimi and Nana, and I know Yuuji and Megumi and Nobara really look up to you. Yuuta adores you, even if he doesn’t say it like that. But seeing everything just kinda fall into place?” He pauses to shake his head, the smile that stretches across his lips so, so soft. “It’s amazing, Satoru.”
Satoru swallows, his cheeks turning a little pink.
“You say that like I’ve actually done something,” he protests. “Like I’m making some kind of conscious effort to raise them instead of just - being there.”
“But isn’t that part of what being a good parent is?” Suguru counters. “Listening to your kids, trying to help them when they come to you with problems?”
“…I guess.”
Suguru chuckles at the (somewhat) petulant admission, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek.
“You don’t have to sound so mad about it. I think it’s cool,” he admits, his lips lingering. Satoru doesn’t miss the way his voice deepens, or how his hands rip free of Satoru’s hold to palm his waist. “I like seeing you like this.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asks, breath hitching.
Suguru’s teeth nip at his jaw, his thumb dipping beneath Satoru’s shirt.
“Mmm. It’s really sexy.”
“Sexy,” Satoru laughs. “Being a good parent is sexy?”
“It is when you’re the parent,” he retorts, pulling back just enough that Satoru can see the way he winks, the way those warm, honeyed eyes glitter up at him.
Satoru snorts, even as he feels that old, familiar heat start to coil through his belly.
It sparks in him quick and fierce, and he tosses his arms around Suguru’s shoulders, tugging him in close to give him a real kiss.
“Show me, then,” he challenges. “Show me how sexy you find me, Suguru.”
Suguru just laughs, low and rich, and carts him off to bed.
The rest of his first trimester passes quickly.
The morning sickness is fairly minor, never severe enough to prevent him from sticking to his regular routine. He learns what foods help settle his stomach and what is way too heavy to eat so early in the day, and on the rare occasion where he gets sick anyways, Suguru is there to rub circles into his back and smooth the sweaty hair from his face.
He’s there to pull Satoru back to his feet and press a glass of water into his hands, to help him into the shower and a fresh change of clothes, and that’s -
Well, Satoru kinda likes the attention.
He likes it a lot, even if it means he can no longer eat pastries and doughnuts for breakfast.
Which isn’t to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows - the tenderness in his chest never really goes away, for one thing, every little movement making his tits ache. They haven’t come in yet, won’t until much later in his pregnancy; but since this is his first pup, and he’s a male omega, it will take more time for his body to be able to produce milk. He’ll need every bit of these remaining six months to get ready to feed their baby, and so the soreness is just something he’s gonna have to get used to.
As is the extra weight he’s starting to see settle onto his hips, his ass. Though he knows the whole “eating for two” thing is a myth, that doesn’t stop him from getting absolutely ravenous in the afternoons; he very quickly develops the habit of stashing little snacks all around the shop, of squirreling gummies and granola bars away in every nook and cranny of the house. He never wants to be more than two meters away from a sweet treat, and while Suguru insists he aims for things with some nutritional value, even he can’t stop Satoru from the occasional candy bar.
Just as he can’t stop himself from clinging to Satoru, from physically draping himself over his mate whenever they’re in the same room together. He always seems to have a hand on Satoru’s waist, or pressed against his belly, very, very appreciative of this softer, slightly curvier version of him that’s developing, and when it’s just the two of them -
“Like that,” he pants, running a hand through Suguru’s hair. “Just like - just like that.”
From where he’s kneeling between Satoru’s legs, Suguru groans, licking at his folds, curling his tongue into his cunt even as he strokes his cock in his free hand, rutting up into his fist.
“Good?” he breathes.
Satoru nods, bucking his hips up a little harder. “So good,” he agrees.
Suguru makes a happy little sound at that, like he’s pleased to be satisfying his mate.
He presses in a bit harder in response, nosing at Satoru’s clit as Satoru slowly starts to shake around him, his breath coming in great, heaving gasps.
He’s close.
He’s so close he can taste it, god, each stroke of Suguru’s tongue inching him closer and closer to tipping over the edge.
But it’s not enough.
It’s not quite enough, even now, and so he makes a frustrated noise, tugging his lower lip between his teeth as he asks, “Bite my clit?”
Suguru makes a surprised noise, pulling back a little to peer up at him. “Bite it?”
Satoru whines and pulls him back in, insistent.
“I don’t know, it’s what sounds good,” he snaps, relaxing his grip a bit when Suguru obediently starts scraping his teeth over Satoru’s clit, the pressure just enough to have him whining. “Blame it on the hormones.”
Suguru huffs out a laugh, the sensation making Satoru jerk -
But then Suguru covers his teeth with his lips and sucks, accompanying the movement with a sharp thrust of his fingers into his cunt.
Satoru cums with a cry, unable to stop the way his body curls up and over Suguru’s head, pulling him in close. He grips at him hard enough to sting, every muscle in his body locked into place as his cunt gushes and flutters against Suguru’s lips, the wave of pleasure that rushes over him almost too much -
Only almost, though, because Suguru knows how to work him through it.
Suguru knows exactly how to hold him, licking at Satoru with soft, broad strokes of his tongue until he stops grinding against his face.
Then, and only then, does he relent, pulling back far enough to kiss at Satoru’s thighs, to clean up more of the mess he’s made with his mouth. He treats him so, so gently, the hand that’s not grabbing at Satoru’s knee splayed wide across his stomach, and when Satoru feels like he can breathe again -
He sucks down a gasp of air, toppling backwards onto the sheets.
Suguru follows him up, bracketing his hips with his legs as he leans over the bed and presses kiss after kiss to Satoru’s face.
“Not a bad way to start the day,” he murmurs, grinning.
Satoru hums, thoroughly fucked out.
“You want another?”
His hand traces a lazy path through Satoru’s folds, teasing. His thumb slides all around Satoru’s entrance, the tip of one finger pressing in just deep enough that he can really feel it, and while Satoru would normally be all about that, would be all too willing to spread his legs and pull Suguru down on top of him, or maybe to push him down and straddle his thighs, today he’s feeling satiated.
He feels utterly at peace, and also kinda sleepy, and so he shakes his head, barely hiding his yawn as he looks up at Suguru.
“Tired. Wanna nap,” he says instead.
Suguru chuckles, drawing his hand away to wipe it clean on his pants. “You just woke up ten minutes ago,” he points out.
“So?” Satoru demands.
“So, you didn’t even get out of bed before you demanded that I eat you out,” Suguru replies, and like -
Sure.
He’s got a point.
But it seems kind of rude to call him out like that, and so Satoru just wiggles back down into the blankets, pulling them around his body until he’s nice and cocooned.
“Give me a break,” he huffs. “I’m literally growing a person right now.”
Suguru’s expression softens, his eyes flicking down to the slight swell of Satoru’s stomach. It’s still hardly even noticeable, the curve of it just barely poking up out of the blanket - but he puts a reverent hand on it just the same, the sound he makes so pleased that Satoru can’t help but preen.
He pets at it for a moment, his movements slow and languid -
And then he’s pulling back, giving Satoru one last kiss before he sits back on his haunches, tugging his messy bun free in order to put it to rights.
“Alright then,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”
Satoru chirps, nestling down into his pillows. “I will.”
“I’ll be in the other room, okay? I have to start setting things up.”
Shit.
Satoru had forgotten about that - had forgotten that today is the day they’d invited all of their friends over for lunch, that now that they were a week or so out of the first trimester, they felt his pregnancy was safe enough to tell everyone about it.
Not that they were worried something was going to go wrong -
Shoko’s been quick to assure him that all of his bloodwork has been perfectly normal so far, that he’s showing every sign of a happy, healthy pregnancy. He doesn’t really have a whole lot of risk factors, and so there’s no reason to suspect that he’s going to have any complications.
But Satoru is older than most first-time parents, and he knows that most miscarriages occur within the first ten weeks, so…
Satoru had wanted to keep it quiet at first.
He’d wanted to get past that initial period, and so they’d waited until he was safely fourteen weeks along (give or take) before proclaiming the news.
“Do you need my help?” he asks, a little reluctant.
Suguru smiles, smoothing the hair back from his face. “No, baby,” he murmurs. “I’ve got this - you go back to sleep, and I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours. That should be enough time, yeah? To shower and get dressed?”
Satoru nods.
“Just rest, then,” Suguru says, and after making sure Satoru is comfortable, that the curtains are drawn tight and he’s all curled up and warm in his nest, he pads out into the hall, letting the door slide shut behind him.
Satoru gives a happy little sigh, curling up on his side.
His hand instinctively comes down to cup his belly, to curve around the area protectively, and though he knows it’s still too early to feel anything moving around in there, he likes to think the baby knows he’s here.
He likes to think they can sense his presence, that they know how cherished and wanted and loved they are, even now, and so with a soft, sleepy smile, he goes back to sleep.
True to his word, Suguru wakes him up just before noon.
He helps him into the shower, sets a fresh change of clothes and a (wheat bran, gross) muffin on the counter for his very late breakfast, and then heads back out into the living room to put the final touches on lunch.
Satoru showers quickly, toweling off and drying his hair in less than ten minutes. He practically inhales the muffin, only just remembering to peel off the wrapper before he shoves it in his mouth, and then brushes his teeth and spritzes himself with a little bit of pheromone-neutralizing spray. Though he’s not trying to get rid of his scent entirely, he knows it’s gotten extra potent as his pregnancy has advanced, and he wants to at least get the opportunity to tell his friends the news before they guess it.
He’d prefer some semblance of surprise, thanks very much.
In order to do that, though, he needs to actually be at the party, and so with one final check of his appearance in the mirror, he makes for the kitchen.
Suguru has his hands full, moving platters of little finger foods from the refrigerator to the kitchen island; he’s already set the drinks out on the counter, and there’s a stack of plates and a pile of cutlery on the table.
Satoru waits until his hands are empty before he comes up behind him, pressing a little kiss to the side of his neck.
“Hi,” he murmurs, swiping a piece of candied fruit from a tray.
Suguru swats his hand away. “Try some of the fresh fruit, Satoru,” he chastises. “It’s over there, by the sandwiches.”
Satoru pouts, giving his throat a little nip. “I don’t want real fruit,” he huffs.
“Not even an apple?”
Caught, Satoru hesitates.
Because that little craving has never really gone away, has it? He’s still hankering for apples, wants them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner some days, and while there’s definitely worse foods to want in such abundance, he doesn’t really care for how much Suguru teases him about it.
“I bought the sweet ones you like, the honeycrisps?”
Fuck.
Satoru’s unable to resist.
With another grumpy little noise, he peels himself off Suguru’s back, obediently walking over to the bowl of fresh fruit and grabbing an apple out of the pile.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he asserts, halfway through his first bite.
Suguru beams. “Of course not.”
“I’m still gonna eat a shit ton of candied plums.”
“If you want.”
Satoru takes another chomp out of the apple, the juice dripping down his lips. “And you better have bought the peach rings I wanted,” he says, grabbing for a napkin.
Suguru hums, glancing down at his phone. “Mmm. I must’ve forgotten.”
“What?!” Satoru whines, making an exaggerated, overly pitiful face. “But Suguru -”
“Too much sugar, and you’ll develop gestational diabetes.”
“So?”
“So, Shoko and I would very much prefer it if you didn't?”
Satoru rolls his eyes, huffs out a disgusted noise. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters.
Then, thinking of something, he tilts his head to the side, curious. “Hey, do you think Shoko told Utahime I’m pregnant?”
Suguru shrugs just as someone knocks at the door. He pushes off the counter to answer it, tossing a disinterested, “I don’t know,” over his shoulder as he walks.
“I mean, she probably has,” Satoru continues. “Couples tell each other everything, and I can’t say I wouldn’t tell you if I were her. I don’t think I’d even try to hide it. But doesn’t that, like, violate patient confidentiality and all?”
“Do you feel like your confidentiality has been violated?”
The apple now thoroughly demolished, Satoru chucks it in the bin, licking the leftover juice from his fingers. “No,” he laughs. “It’s just Utahime.”
“Then it’s kind of a moot point, isn’t it?”
Satoru snorts. “I guess. I was just curious.”
“Ask her yourself, then,” Suguru suggests, grabbing for the doorknob. “They’re always the first ones here -”
And sure enough, the door swings open to reveal Shoko and Utahime, the former looking only slightly less bored than usual and the latter holding a bunch of pretty pink and white flowers she’d obviously picked up from the vendor down the street.
“Here,” she says, thrusting them into Satoru’s hands. “These are for you.”
Satoru scrabbles to catch them, just barely avoiding dumping them all to the floor.
“Flowers?” he demands, perplexed. “You bought me flowers?”
She shrugs, already toeing off her shoes and hanging up her coat. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she replies. “You didn’t exactly tell us what we’re doing here.”
Satoru’s eyes flick over to Shoko, who simply shrugs and steps into the house.
He supposes that answers that question.
But then he turns back to Utahime, bringing the bouquet a little closer to his face and inhaling down the soft, sweet scent of the blooms.
“Did you think I was sick or something? Are these condolence flowers?”
“That’s not - they’re just flowers,” she snaps, letting Suguru guide her deeper into the living room, taking the drinks he offers without hesitation. “It’s not that deep.”
Satoru hums, looks down at the mess of lilies and daisies and carnations.
“Well, they’re very pretty,” he says.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sure they were the best you could find in the florist’s discount bin.”
Utahime glares up from the sofa. “Eat shit and die, Satoru.”
Delighted, Satoru laughs, heading into the kitchen to find a vase.
He finds one stashed in a cabinet under the sink, filling it with water before cutting the tie on the flowers, adjusting the length of the stems, and artfully arranging them inside. He places them on the other side of the food, far enough away that no stray petals or pollen can fall into any of the dishes, and then takes a step back, appreciative.
They are really pretty flowers, after all.
But there’s a party to be had, and Suguru’s already ushering in both Choso and Yuki and Nanami and Haibara, who’d both arrived while Satoru was busy in the kitchen.
He pads back out into the living room just in time for Yuki to throw an arm around his shoulders and draw him in for a hug, her delighted cries a little shrill.
Satoru pats her back, grinning at Suguru over her shoulder.
“Kind of an enthusiastic welcome, huh?” he teases.
“Shut up,” she huffs. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“Aw, c’mon, Yuki. You just saw me last week!”
“Yeah, but that was different. You were just swinging by to bring Suguru lunch, and -”
She pauses then, takes a step back.
She fixes Satoru with a stern sort of look, her nostrils flaring as her eyes narrow. It’s a little bit disconcerting, and were Satoru not feeling utterly safe and warm and protected in his own home, he might’ve felt a little uneasy. As it is, he just glances at Suguru, trying to see if this sudden, odd behavior has an explanation.
But it doesn’t last long.
Yuki’s frown lasts only a minute before her entire face brightens, an excited squeal pushing its way past her lips as she claps her hands together.
“Oh, my god,” she gushes.
“Yuki -”
“Oh, my god, you’re - this is why you invited us over today,” she guesses. “This is what you wanted to tell us.”
Satoru sighs, already smiling.
So much for the element of surprise.
“Yeah. Kinda,” he admits.
Her brown eyes flick down to his stomach, which Satoru is trying very, very hard not to be totally obvious about hiding behind his hand. They dart back up just as quickly, and she presses her palm to her cheek as she steps away.
“Oh, my god,” she says again. “Tell me everything. Tell us everything, before I blab like a total bitch, fuck -”
“Blab? Blab about what?” Utahime asks, perplexed.
“Is something happening?” Haibara adds. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no!” Satoru says quickly, waving his hands. “Nothing’s wrong!”
“We’re just waiting until everyone gets here before we get into the specifics,” Suguru says, coming up to stand at Satoru’s shoulder. He wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him backwards into his chest - it’s as much for support as it is to keep him from giving away the secret, and Satoru presses a grateful kiss to his cheek. “Satoru’s employees are on their way; they should be here any minute now.”
Shoko’s brows raise. “You invited the kids?” she asks.
“Should I not have?” Satoru throws back.
“I guess it’s your call,” she allows, shrugging. “Just - kinda gives it away, doesn’t it? What you want to discuss with the group?”
Nanami doesn’t miss the implication, his eyes narrowing. “You two are being awfully cagey,” he accuses. Turning to Satoru, he adds, “Are you sick, Gojo? Ill?”
Satoru lets out an indignant squawk. “What?”
“You do kinda look tired,” Haibara helpfully adds. “Have you been getting enough sleep? Is the store doing alright?”
Satoru rather thinks he’s been sleeping too much, the afternoon naps he’s started taking in his office always leaving him feeling a little guilty.
But he can’t say that, not without making his friends even more concerned that they apparently already are, so he just pouts and crosses his arms over his chest, ignoring the way the movement makes his fucking nipples ache.
“Man, you guys are a tough crowd,” he laughs. “I don’t look that bad, do I?”
“You don’t look bad at all,” Suguru hums, kissing his neck. “You’re pretty.”
Satoru purrs in delight. “How pretty?”
Suguru kisses him again. “The prettiest.”
“Aaaaaaaand I need a beer,” Shoko announces, pushing up off the couch to pad into the kitchen. Nanami is quick on her heels, pressing his fingers into his temples, and though Utahime’s already got a drink, she makes sure to take a long, healthy swig of it as she glares at the two of them from across the room.
“I don’t know how you two stand it,” she huffs to Choso and Yuki, who drop down into a couple of chairs and reach for some snacks. “Don’t you work with him?”
Choso shrugs. “It’s not so bad,” he says.
“Yeah, Satoru only comes into the shop a few times a week, and he mostly sticks to Suguru’s room, so… whatever they do in there, we don’t have to see it.”
Utahime grimaces. “Ew.”
Yuki laughs, slapping her thigh. “Aw, shit, I didn’t mean it like that!”
Choso snorts. “Yes, you did.”
“Okay, I did, but like - they really don’t do that. I mean, there was that one time I caught them in the middle of a very enthusiastic scenting session -”
“That was platonic!” Suguru shouts from where he’s gone to answer the knock at the front door.
“And they did get kinda hot and heavy after Suguru tattooed that tramp stamp on him a couple months ago -”
Nanami chokes on his drink right as he comes back into the living room, spitting what looks and smells like straight vodka all over his shirt.
“But other than that, they’re been super chill!”
Utahime sets her drink aside, handing Nanami some napkins. “I regret saying anything.”
Haibara, who hasn’t moved from his seat on the couch, looks up at Satoru.
“You have a tattoo?” he asks, intrigued.
Satoru nods, leaning against the edge of the counter. “Um, yeah. Just the one, though. I don’t really plan to get any others.”
“What is it? Did you guys get something together? Something commemorative?”
“Yuki just said it was a tramp stamp,” Shoko points out.
Haibara, bless him, blinks. “So?”
“So, you definitely don’t want to know what it looks like,” Nanami asserts.
Satoru pouts. “That’s not very nice,” he says.
“I don’t care.”
“It’s a very pretty tattoo! Here, Haibara, look -”
Satoru pulls out his phone, thumbs over to the photo Suguru had taken of it just after it was done - only to have Nanami physically shove the phone out of his hands, right before he pounds the remnants of his vodka and forcefully stalks off for a refill.
“Kento!” Haibara chastises, laughing. “Come on!”
“Do not look at that phone, Yuu - not unless you want the image of Gojo’s backside permanently ingrained in your memory.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Satoru says.
“It is,” Utahime and Shoko say in unison.
Satoru huffs. “Excuse you both. I have a very cute backside.”
Shoko cackles. “You have a pancake ass.”
“I - I do not, oh my god -”
Nobara, who has just waltzed into the living room, Megumi and Yuuji hot on her heels, snorts and crosses her arms over her chest. “You have the flattest ass I have ever seen in my life,” she asserts.
Satoru gapes, even as Megumi cringes and Yuuji gasps.
“Like seriously, dude - do some squats.”
“Why are you looking?” Satoru finally manages to choke out.
“I’m not,” she retorts. “But you also have no concept of how to bend over like a normal human being, so it’s kinda out there.”
“It’s out there?”
“Oh, it’s out there,” Megumi agrees, wincing.
Satoru turns towards Yuuji, hoping that at least one of his teammates will have his back. But alas, even his eternal ray of sunshine has a sheepish look on his face, puffing his cheeks out as he scratches at the back of his neck.
Suguru, who’s watched all of this go down in silence, takes pity on him.
“For what it’s worth, I like your pancake ass.”
Satoru throws a dishrag at his head.
It hits him square in the face, and the whole room bursts out into laughter.
Satoru can’t help but laugh right along with them, even if it’s partially at his expense, and when Suguru sidles up to him and wraps an arm around his waist, squeezing gently at his hip, all is forgiven. He drags the both of them to the two remaining chairs in the room, plopping down into the one on the right while Suguru takes the left - their hands stay linked the entire time, and though everyone else is still kinda recovering, making little plates of food and heading to the kitchen for drinks, it’s hard to miss the way their scents are kinda all over the place.
It’s that, Satoru thinks, that gives it away.
Just as Yuki had gotten a whiff of his pheromones when she’d leaned in for a hug, the rest of the room is quickly blanketed in their combined, cozy scent.
By the time Satoru thinks to pull it back, to try and tamp down the almost sickly sweet scent of peaches and cream, bleeding straight through his scent patches, everyone has gone still. They’ve all gone absolutely silent -
All except Shoko, of course, who already knows the secret.
She just continues eating,
Utahime twists towards her mate with an accusatory look, her jaw dropping.
“Shoko. Babe.”
Shoko grunts and plucks a little sandwich from her plate. “Yeah?”
“Did you know about this?”
“Of course I knew. I’m his doctor.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
Shoko shrugs. “It wasn’t my place.”
Utahime shakes her head and pushes to her feet. She looks both a little pissed off and like she kinda wants to cry, and that’s -
That doesn’t seem like a good sign, shit.
Satoru swallows, watching as she crosses the room in three quick strides; he looks on in silence as she walks right up to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and -
Oh.
She’s hugging him.
She’s scenting him, in that way that omegas sometimes scent other omegas in the same friend group, in the same pack. She lets her pheromones wash all over him, honey and lavender and sweet, sweet musk, and when she finally lets him go, when she pulls back enough that she can cradle his face in her hands and tilt his head up -
“You’re pregnant,” she says, tears in her eyes, her voice soft.
Satoru nods, unable to keep himself from smiling. “Yeah. Kinda.”
The heaviness of the moment shatters, Utahime letting out a fond snort as she rolls her eyes. “Don’t think that’s how that works, Gojo,” she says.
He opens his mouth to give a smart retort -
But everyone else has leapt to their feet, all of them crowding around to give him their congratulations. Haibara and Nobara perform the same little ritual as Utahime, letting their own hazy pheromones blanket him as they press in close; Choso’s the only omega who thinks to actually ask if he minds, and for that, Satoru’s grateful.
And it’s not like he’s complaining.
He’d been very aware that something like this was bound to happen, that after ten years of desperately wanting to have a pup of his own, after listening to all of his complaints and his pain and his longing, his friends would no doubt be overjoyed to learn that he was finally pregnant. He knows they’re probably completely unable to stop themselves from getting a little protective over him.
But it’s still kind of a lot, and when Yuki and Nanami start plucking people off him to give him some space to breathe, he heaves out a sigh of relief.
“How far along are you?” Yuuji asks, stars in his eyes.
“Fourteen weeks,” Satoru admits.
Utahime’s brows raise, her mouth parting in surprise. “What, really?”
“Yeah, why'd you wait so long to tell us?” Nobara demands.
“Oh, come on,” Satoru protests. “I’m not even showing yet!”
This is the wrong thing to say.
Because as soon as the words leave his mouth, he’s bombarded with a bunch of requests to stand up and turn to the side, to show off his stomach.
He does, of course - if there’s one thing Satoru’s never shied away from, it’s having an audience pay him attention, and so he quickly stands and grabs his shirt, pulling it as tight as it will go around his torso.
But there’s still nothing to really see, nothing more than the tiniest little curve poking out over the waistband of his jeans - which he points out, several times, as he plops back down into his chair and grabs for the plate of food he’d been inhaling.
“Well, you’ll start to show soon,” Utahime says, waving a hand.
“Yeah, I popped at five months with both Hana and Daisuke,” Haibara pops up.
“One day you’ll just wake up and - boom! - there’s a baby in there.”
Satoru snorts, cramming half the cupcake he’s stolen from Suguru’s plate into his mouth in one go. “Pretty sure there’s already a baby in there,” he points out.
“Have you felt them move yet?” Yuki interjects. “Have you felt them kick?”
It’s Shoko who replies, shaking her head with a quiet sigh. “Too early for that.”
“Well, how about a name? You picked one?”
“Seriously?”
Yuki huffs, smacking Choso playfully on the chest. “You never know!” she says. “Besides, babe, don’t pretend you don’t have your names already locked and loaded. As soon as we knock you up, our kid’s futures are set.”
Choso huffs at that, crossing his arms over his chest -
But he also doesn’t deny it, and so Suguru grins at him, waggling a finger at his friends as he grabs the rest of the cupcake from Satoru’s hands.
“Something you want to tell us?” he asks.
Yuki giggles, grabbing her mate’s hands. “Nah, not yet,” she says.
“Soon, though,” Choso adds, and like -
That’s adorable, Satoru thinks. It really is.
He can already imagine Yuki and Choso’s kids, one with her size and stature but Choso’s quiet, soft-spoken bearing - or maybe one that takes after Choso physically, but with Yuki’s bright, larger-than-life smile, her mercurial temper.
It makes him wonder what his and Suguru’s pup will be like, which of them they’ll take after the most.
Privately, he hopes it’s Suguru.
Because Suguru has always been so very kind and patient with him, yeah? He’s always been sweet and caring and calm. Though he’s not without his faults, he is (without a doubt) the best thing that’s ever happened to Satoru, and like -
It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the pup took after Satoru instead.
Objectively, he’s a pretty awesome person.
…but Suguru is something else entirely, his warmth and compassion and sincerity enough to take Satoru’s breath away every time. Every time he thinks he’s hit the limits of the alpha’s patience with him, or run up against the boundaries of his love, he’s proven wrong; every time he thinks he’s pushed too hard, Suguru pushes right back, insistent in his belief that nothing Satoru could do would ever diminish his affection. He is certain, earnest, sure -
And that’s what Satoru hopes this child inherits.
That’s what he hopes he and Suguru can nurture, he thinks.
Because it’s a big task, yeah? Raising a kid?
Like, you can do everything right and have them still end up a fucking serial killer, and while Satoru doesn’t think that’s gonna happen, while he understands that the odds of that happening without some messed up series of misfortunate events also coming to pass is… pretty fucking low, he supposes you never really know.
But he thinks they’re up to the task.
Though he’s terrified at the mere thought of fucking it all up, he still thinks they’ll do a pretty good job, if only because he knows how very much they’ll love them, and -
“Oh, my god.”
Satoru blinks and looks up.
Everyone else has gone silent again, he finds; they’re all watching him, their expressions ranging from starry-eyed to fondly exasperated, and like -
Has he done something? Does he have something on his face?
He scowls, grabbing for a napkin to wipe at his cheeks. But when he brings it back, it’s free of frosting and crumbs and anything else he might’ve gotten stuck to his face, and so he looks over at Suguru, perplexed.
It’s Utahime who ultimately has mercy on him.
She huffs out a laugh as she flicks open her phone, thumbing over to some picture she’s taken before she shoves it under his nose.
“Here,” she says. “And don’t even bother trying to delete it - I already uploaded it to the group chat.”
Satoru doesn’t know why she’d say that.
He would never do something as lame as deleting an ugly photo of himself, not once in a million years, because he is both incapable of looking bad and has no shame.
Except -
The photo is anything but terrible.
It’s not blurry, he’s not making an embarrassing face. The lighting is pretty good, and he’s perfectly centered in the frame.
Instead of looking at the camera, he’s just kind of staring off into space, his hand absently stroking his belly as his lips stretch into a soft smile, and like -
It’s cute.
It’s really cute, even as Utahime continues to grin at him like she’s finally found something to hold over his head, and so Satoru just hands the phone back with a delighted noise and pulls out his own to download the photo. He then demands that Suguru download it as well, that he set it as his lock screen so that he has full-time access to his two favorite people in the entire world -
And Suguru snorts at that, he does.
But he also does as Satoru asks, because he is both a good mate and down real fucking bad, cooing appropriately at how pretty Satoru looks in his baby blue button down with his freshly tousled hair; he presses a kiss to his temple as he lays his phone down on the table beside him, and when Satoru takes the opportunity to steal back the rest of his cupcake and stuff it in his face, he doesn’t even bother to complain.
Utahime is not impressed.
“Seriously?” she demands. “That’s it?”
Satoru grins around a mouthful of frosting. “That’s it.”
Utahime makes a disgusted noise, dropping back down into her seat.
“You two suck,” she announces, crossing her arms over her chest as she pouts. “I can’t even embarrass you two properly, like - what the fuck.”
Suguru tilts his head to the side.
“Why would you want to embarrass us, Utahime?” he asks, grinning.
“Yeah,” Satoru pipes up. “That’s, like - super rude.”
“I didn’t -”
“It’s almost like you don’t want me to be happy, which - is that what the flowers were for? Were you, like, trying to lure me into a false sense of security?”
Satoru clicks his tongue, grinning.
“How mean, Utahime - trying to humiliate me at my own party. I kinda feel like I should be offended.”
“You should definitely be offended,” Suguru agrees.
“Oh, I am incensed!”
Utahime scowls. “You both suck,” she spits.
Satoru winks and pats his stomach. “I very obviously do not.”
The enraged noise she makes then is kinda concerning.
It’s also really fucking funny, and Satoru throws his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs with the rest of the group as Shoko pats her mate consolingly on the back and hands her a cupcake.
“It’s not very big.”
Shoko cackles, crunching down on the lollipop in her mouth. “That’s what she said.”
From where he stands in front of the dressing room mirror, Satoru glares at her, unable to help the way his entire expression pinches.
“Hilarious,” he snaps. “You’re so funny.”
Shoko hums. “I try.”
Then, a little more seriously, she adds, “You’re only four and a half months along, Satoru - how big do you want it to be?”
Satoru stares at his belly in the mirror, eyes what feels like the smallest second trimester baby bump he’s ever seen. Though it’s definitely more pronounced than it had been, it’s still not very not noticeable. It’s still pretty easy for him to hide, especially when he’s wearing the loose, baggy shirts he’s always preferred.
Hell, he’s had food babies bigger than this actual, very real baby, and that’s -
Like, should he be concerned?
Are they not big enough, are they not growing?
Maybe he should be eating more.
Maybe he needs to start eating his body weight in fruits and grains and raw, cruciferous vegetables, the way that some mammals do, and oh fuck, does that mean he’s gonna actually have to follow Suguru’s gross protein smoothie routine?
But no, that can’t be it.
Shoko’s been perfectly happy with the amount of weight he’s been gaining, satisfied with all his numbers. Though he’s voiced a few worries to Shoko multiple times now, she assures him it’s perfectly normal.
“First time parents don’t always ‘pop’ the way that they do with second or third pregnancies,” she’d told him, just the other week when he’d gone in for a routine check-up. “And on top of that, you’re tall and lean - a pregnancy on you is going to look very different than on someone who’s petite.”
Which, okay.
Satoru gets that.
He’d struggled as a kid to put on both weight and muscle mass, even after years of sports conditioning and exercise. His long limbs and tall frame have meant that he’s always looked thinner than he actually is, and so he supposes it isn’t exactly surprising that all he’s got to show for being knocked up so far is a cute little pooch.
But he… kinda wishes it were bigger?
He snorts at that. Because what a weird thing to want, yeah? He’s still got five months to go, after all, with most of the baby’s growth yet to come; he’s sure by the time it’s all said and done, he’ll be dying to have his body back to its normal state.
But he wants to feel pregnant, yeah?
Because this could very well be the only pup he’ll ever have; though he supposes he and Suguru had conceived pretty quickly, all things considered, he’s already pushing forty. His heats are going to start slowing down soon, and that’s saying nothing of the fact that he’d want to give himself at least a couple of years with their first pup before even thinking of trying for another.
And so he wants to experience everything with this pregnancy - just in case.
He wants to have a cute pregnant belly that Suguru plays with and kisses and whispers absolutely disgustingly sweet little words to at night; he wants the people he sees out in public to coo at him and smile and ask him when he’s due.
And like, sure, those things are already happening.
Suguru literally cannot keep his hands off him. He’s always got a hand pressed to Satoru’s belly, whenever they’re within arm’s reach of each other, and the change in his scent alone is enough to clue most people into the fact that he’s expecting.
He’s not missing out on anything.
He’s not, like, having a bad time.
Especially since the morning sickness faded away at the end of his first trimester, the only negative symptoms he’s experienced so far are occasional acid reflux and being excessively horny all the time, which - Suguru’s more than happy to help him out there. He is all too fucking willing to pull Satoru down onto his cock and let him ride him until he’s seeing stars; he has yet to complain when Satoru wakes him up in the middle of the night and whines and humps his leg until he cums.
He just -
“Satoru?”
He looks up, just in time to see Shoko putting some t-shirts in their little shopping basket. It’s already stacked full of nursing bras and compression socks and a belly band, all the things that Satoru knows (hopes) he’ll eventually need; though he doesn’t really have any use for them yet, Shoko had said it was better to be prepared, to get as much stuff bought and ready as he could while he still had the energy to go out in public, and Suguru had encouraged him to get out of the house.
He’d encouraged Satoru to spend time with someone other than his mate, even as every instinct in him told him to just hole up in his nest, and like -
He isn’t wrong, Satoru thinks.
He does need this.
He just wishes he felt a little more pregnant doing it, fuck.
“Kinda random, and I’m not sure when’s the best time to do this, but… since I’ve got your attention, I wanted to give you something.”
Satoru perks up, curious. “Like a present?”
Shoko takes a deep breath, comes around the other side of the shopping cart to pluck the overalls from his hands and toss them in the basket.
“Utahime and Haibara and Nanami were talking the other day - when you and Suguru were busy with the twins, that lunch date you couldn’t make.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t let this go to you head -”
“Oh, I definitely am.”
“- but we got to talking about you and Suguru, how you’re gonna be such good parents.”
Satoru blinks, taken aback. “You think so?”
Shoko shoots him a strange look. “Of course we do,” she says. “I mean, you’ve already had a ton of practice with our kids; you’ve always been there for us when we needed a break, or wanted time to decompress.”
Satoru laughs, dismissive. “Oh, c’mon, that doesn’t count.”
“Why wouldn’t it count?”
“Because I just -” He pauses, waves a hand. “I dunno. You’re acting like watching over Shizuka and Mitsuki is a chore when they’re literally the best behaved kids I’ve ever seen. Hana and Daisuke, too, like - I’m pretty sure they came out of Haibara’s womb with gray hair. They definitely popped out knowing how to do their taxes.”
She snorts. “I’m telling Nanami you said that.”
“The point is, your kids are great, Shoko,” he continues, ignoring that little threat. “It’s never been a chore to watch them. It’s easy.”
Then, grinning, he adds, “Besides. Not like you all wouldn’t do the same for me.”
Shoko’s expression pinches.
“But that’s just it,” she says. “We never have done the same for you, because you’ve never asked us to. We’ve never been there to help you out.”
Satoru opens his mouth, ready to protest -
Because that is… patently false.
Like, sure, he’s never needed Shoko or Nanami to babysit - but they’ve been there for him in other ways. They’ve seen him at his worst, helped him through the lowest, darkest periods of his life and never once complained. They’ve been there to hold his hands and rub his back and talk him down from whatever metaphorical ledge he’s found himself on, and he definitely doesn’t take it for granted.
But when he tries to point that out, Shoko just shakes her head, entirely stubborn, and says, “Which is why we want to do something for you guys - before the baby’s born, before you’re too pregnant to travel.”
Satoru pauses, blinks.
“So… we pooled some money to get you guys tickets to a resort in Okinawa.”
Shoko pulls an envelope from her pocket then, presses it into his hands; she completely ignores all of Satoru’s protests, and when he tries to give it back, she easily dances away, grinning.
“Look, they’re not for a couple months, and everything is already paid for - the food, the amenities, transportation to and from the beach.”
Grabbing another handful of oversized pregnancy t-shirts, she gleefully tosses them into the cart, along with a package of what looks like cloth diapers.
“So, unless you want us to lose all that money… you should just take it.”
Satoru scowls at her in a vain attempt to ignore the way his throat is starting to close up with emotion, the way he can feel tears pricking at his eyes.
“Threatening me, Shoko? Really?” he demands, his voice thick.
She shrugs. “If that’s what it takes.”
“What about our jobs? We can’t just drop everything and go on a surprise vacation!”
“What, you think the shop’s gonna burn down in your absence?”
He huffs. “I mean, it might -”
“Just think of it as a practice run for when you go on parental leave, then. A trial run for Megumi and the others.”
That’s -
Fuck, that’s a good idea, actually.
It would give Megumi the chance to get used to managing the shop before Satoru has a newborn on their hands, letting him get a feel for how to run things when the stakes are still relatively low, and if anything does happen, well.
Satoru will only be one short phone call away.
But it’s still rude of Shoko to just presume like that, her little shit-eating grin really ticking him off, and so he just crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.
“Okay, fine. My store will be fine.”
“It will.”
“But what about Suguru?” he asks, sly. “He has clients, you know - clients he books pretty far out in advance.”
“He does,” Shoko agrees. “Which is why I already cleared it with him and made sure he knows not to schedule anyone that week.”
Satoru freezes. “What?”
She snickers at that, digging an elbow into his arm.
“Don’t act so surprised,” she teases.
“I’m not surprised,” he says quickly. “I just -”
“Didn’t think we’d care enough to check?”
Satoru sniffs and looks away, absolutely infuriated at how his lips start to wobble.
“Didn’t think my friends would be in cahoots with my husband and go behind my back like this,” he corrects, even as his face flushes a brilliant red and a warmth that has absolutely nothing to do with the ambient temperature in the room washes over him.
“Well, we did, so.” She lifts her arms and gives a very weak rendition of jazz hands. “Surprise.”
Overcome, Satoru promptly bursts into tears.
With a soft, knowing sigh, Shoko more or less lets him collapse onto her shoulders; she lets him press his face to her hair and slings an arm around his waist for support as the full weight of what she’s offering really sinks in.
Because it’s not like he and Suguru haven’t discussed doing something like this, yeah?
One last trip before the baby arrives, just the two of them.
Though he despises the term, a babymoon.
But they’ve never really gotten past the planning stage.
They’ve never really given it too much thought, because they both have jobs to worry about, and the twins to look after, and - a thousand and one other things they need to do before Satoru gives birth. There is still just so much that they need to get done.
And so he’s just assumed that a vacation wasn’t really in the cards, even as he can acknowledge that it might be really fucking nice to get away from it all for a bit.
It might be… exactly what they need to prepare for having a kid.
And Shoko and the rest of his friends know it well, dammit, either because they understand what it’s like to be his position, or they know Satoru, and that’s -
“I hate you,” he sobs.
“I know,” she says, passing him a tissue.
“Making me cry in the middle of the mall, what the fuck -”
She pats him on the back, rubs her hands in gentle circles up and down his spine as he bawls like a baby in the parenting section, and when Satoru’s tears finally run dry, when he stops sniffling and wipes his face and pulls himself back together, she has the decency not to tease him.
Instead, she just hands over what looks like an itinerary, a very neatly itemized schedule that he assumes she had no hand in putting together.
“Feel free to ignore this,” she says. “But Nanami wanted you and Suguru to have some kind of plan going into your trip, so…”
Satoru snorts, gives the page a brief once-over.
“Painting by number?” he asks.
Shoko shrugs. “Doesn’t sound that bad.”
“At eight in the morning?”
“…yeah, fuck that.”
“The couples massage sounds nice, though. And I won’t say no to snorkeling.”
“Swimming should feel really good for you,” she agrees. “The buoyancy will help alleviate some of the stress your stomach will put your back.”
His lips pursed, Satoru throws his hands wide and glances down.
“What stomach?” he demands.
Shoko just sighs and shakes her head, fond.
“Give it time, Satoru. Give it time.”
“Okay, so - don’t freak out.”
Satoru goes cold.
His heart rate spikes, all of the air physically squeezed from his lungs as he lurches up to a seated position; his pheromones sour so quickly with distress that Suguru growls, twisting towards Shoko with something of a scowl on his face as he tries to placate Satoru, and Shoko -
“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters. “I said don’t freak out.”
Satoru gapes at that.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “You’re performing an ultrasound, staring at a monitor I can’t see, when you suddenly tell me not to freak out - and this is my fault?”
“Yes, actually, because you’re doing the one thing I told you not to do.”
Satoru throws a wadded up receipt at her; it’s the only thing he can think to use as a weapon, still stuffed in his pocket from where Suguru had taken him to lunch earlier.
It bounces harmlessly off her shoulder, earning him no more than a peeved look, and Shoko huffs out a laugh as she asks, “That make you feel better?”
“Kinda, yeah,” he admits. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong,” she insists.
Then, with a sigh, she turns the monitor towards him, pointing at the screen as she adds, “I just - think that I missed something on your first ultrasound.”
Satoru’s gaze darts up to the monitor, looking for what’s caught Shoko’s attention. Though he’s not a doctor, and doesn’t really know what to look for when it comes to fetal abnormalities, he likes to think he has a pretty good idea of what their baby should look like at this point; he’s studied up on it, you see, has devoured all of the baby books and articles that he’s bought or read online. He knows, to very exact specifications, how big their pup should be, what size vegetable they should resemble at each stage of the process.
At twenty weeks, they should be roughly the size of a banana - or maybe if they’re all hunched up, a bell pepper, and so that’s what Satoru’s prepared to see.
What he’s not prepared for is the sight of two vaguely fruit-shaped objects curled up against one another in his uterus. Instead of only the one pup, he sees -
Two sacs.
Two babies.
Satoru feels a little faint. “Is that -”
“Congratulations,” Shoko says, her voice very flat. “You’re having twins.”
Suguru’s hand on his shoulder tightens, the grin that stretches across his lips so big it nearly splits his face in two. “Really?” he asks, breathless.
Shoko nods. “The second fetus must have been hiding on your initial ultrasound - hidden behind the first one, I’m guessing. It can happen at that stage. But it’s impossible to miss now,” she replies, tapping on the screen. “They’re in separate amniotic sacs and everything.”
“Does that mean they’re fraternal?”
“Depends. Twins can have separate sacs and still end up identical - but do you see this here?” She taps her finger against the top of the image, waiting for Suguru and Satoru to both nod before she adds, “That’s the chorion, the outermost layer of the placenta; in your case, we have two separate membranes, meaning that each fetus has its own source of nutrients from the parent.”
“Is that… good?”
“Very good,” Shoko confirms. “It’s the healthiest, lowest risk option for a twin pregnancy - and it confirms they are fraternal, yes. This was two eggs being fertilized at the same time, not a case where the initially fertilized egg split into two fetuses.”
Satoru, who has been very quiet up until this point, just trying to take it all in without bursting into happy, obnoxious tears, pokes Suguru hard in the ribs.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“Nice job, asshole. You knocked me up twice.”
Suguru’s irritation fades away into a smug little smirk as he preens, his pheromones spiking in pure, primal satisfaction as his eyes flick down to Satoru’s stomach.
“Yeah, I did,” he hums.
Then, when Satoru just crosses his arms over his chest and makes a very unimpressed noise, he spreads his hands wide, placating.
“It’s not like we didn’t know this could happen,” he says. “I mean, the girls are twins, and I think one of my dad’s parents was too. It does run in families, right?”
“Right,” Shoko says. “And even if they didn’t, it’s not that uncommon. One in every two hundred and fifty pregnancies, or so.”
“Is it… do you not want twins?”
Suguru’s voice has gone a little hesitant, his eyes a little guarded. The look on his face is carefully neutral, like he’s uncertain about Satoru’s answer, and like -
Satoru can’t think of anything more ridiculous.
He, quite literally, cannot fathom being upset at the idea of two babies over one - because he really wants a big family, yeah? Like, he wants an entire little troupe of mini Satoru’s and Suguru’s running around, his own personal horde of minions, and while he’s got nothing against being pregnant, has in fact had a pretty damn good experience so far, having two at the same time?
Well.
That’s just a good fucking deal, and so he quickly hastens to reassure Suguru, shaking his head as he grabs for his mate’s hands.
“Are you kidding me?” he asks, squeezing his palm. “Babe. Come on.”
“Well, you don’t seem very excited -”
Satoru laughs at that, unable to resist pressing a fond kiss to his cheek.
“Suguru. Seriously, I’m so fucking excited,” he counters. “Like, I was already over the moon thinking we were gonna have one pup, but two?”
He shakes his head again, laughing.
“I just - needed a little time to process.”
Something in his expression must be convincing - because after just a short while, Suguru’s face relaxes, and he gives Satoru’s fingers a little squeeze in return.
“Right,” he murmurs.
“Like, we’re gonna need two of everything. Two cribs, two car seats, two high chairs… they can probably share the diapers and the bottles, but I absolutely draw the line at shared clothing. A kid needs their own wardrobe, and - oh, shit!”
Thinking of something, Satoru turns back to Shoko, who looks to be doing her absolute best to completely ignore them.
“Can we find out the secondary gender?”
“Genders,” Suguru corrects.
Satoru bats his hand away, leaning forward for a closer look at the monitor. “Tell me everything,” he says to Shoko. “Give it to me straight!”
With a snort, Shoko stands and forces him back into the proper position.
“I can’t see anything with you hunched up like a shrimp,” she points out.
Rolling his eyes, Satoru sits back. “Fine. I’ll recline.”
“Your life is so hard.”
“The hardest,” he agrees.
Shoko decides to ignore that last bit. Tugging the monitor forwards a bit and grabbing for his medical files, the results of his latest round of bloodwork neatly laid on top by her assistant, she points to the baby on the right and says, “This one looks like either a beta or an omega.”
Beside him, Suguru inhales sharply.
Satoru looks over at him just in time to see him swallow, his eyes the size of dinner plates as he stares at the screen. His hand has somehow found its way back into Satoru’s grasp, his grip almost painfully tight as he clutches at Satoru’s fingers.
“An omega,” he murmurs. “Or a beta, that's - Satoru. Baby.”
Shoko gags.
“It could be an omega,” she corrects. “Just looking at an ultrasound is never gonna be one hundred percent accurate at this stage. But - I’m not seeing any of the genital structures that would indicate it’s an alpha, and they’re positioned at a pretty good angle for us to be able to determine that, so… I’m pretty sure it's one of the two.”
Suguru makes another small, strangled sound, and Satoru can’t help but smile as he turns back to Shoko. “And the other?”
Shoko huffs, putting a hand on her hip. “Honestly? No fucking clue.”
Satoru chokes out a laugh. “What?”
“Yeah, can’t tell. Baby’s legs are closed, because it has a modicum of shame.”
With a grin, she plops back down into her chair and adds, “That must be the one that takes after Suguru.”
“Oh, bite me,” Satoru snaps.
“Is there really no way to know for sure?” Suguru interjects.
Shoko blinks, bemused.
“Not like I can ask them to show me,” she points out.
Suguru rolls his eyes. “Right, but you can’t like - I don’t know, make them move?”
“How,” she asks, her voice very flat, “How would I make them move?”
“…very carefully?”
Satoru winces. He can just imagine it now - Shoko pushing at his stomach in some vain attempt to make the baby roll over. While he likes to think that he and Shoko are pretty close friends, her access and oversight of all of his less than flattering medical records something that’s never come between them, he absolutely refuses to have her touching his stomach for any longer than is strictly necessary, and so he just looks up at her, imploring her to see reason.
“Please don’t make them move.”
Luckily, Shoko seems to agree with him.
She doesn’t even dignify Suguru’s question with a response, pulling the gloves from her hands as the ultrasound technician starts to pack up the machine.
“Everything else is looking really good, Satoru,” she says instead. “Anatomy looks perfect, size looks great… the last half of your pregnancy’s gonna be a bit harder, but you’re carrying really well, and all of your vitals are right where I want them, so.”
She pauses, smiling, and hands over a folder with the latest batch of sonograms.
“I’ll see you back here in a month.”
Suguru makes a grumpy face at being so thoroughly cut out of the conversation, even as he dutifully wipes up the gel from Satoru’s stomach. He tugs down his t-shirt as Shoko and the technician leave the room, offering Satoru a hand up and off the table, which - he doesn’t need, obviously, since he’s still just five months along. He’s still perfectly capable of moving around on his own.
But Satoru appreciates it nonetheless, especially when Suguru’s hands come around to circle his waist, his thumbs resting easily on the gentle swell of his stomach.
“Twins,” he murmurs, a soft smile spreading across his lips. “I can’t believe it.”
Satoru snorts, threading a hand through his hair.
“Believe it,” he teases. “It’s your fault.”
Suguru hums, leaning forward to press a kiss to his belly, to press his cheek to Satoru’s shirt - scenting him, he realizes, as subtly as he can.
The sight of it makes something in Satoru ache, the joy he feels near overwhelming.
He can’t help but chirp, letting his hand trail down Suguru’s cheek to duck under his chin; he tucks it under it jaw, tilting his face up and back -
Only to laugh when he sees how absolutely dopey his mate looks, how absolutely radiant with happiness.
“Gee,” he grins. “And I thought I was supposed to be the glowing one.”
Suguru snorts, squeezing at his hips.
“You are,” he asserts. “You’re - so fucking beautiful, Satoru, so amazing.”
Satoru flicks him in the forehead, even as he preens at the praise.
“Loser,” he scoffs. “Now, c’mon, let’s get out of here. I want ice cream.”
Suguru sighs and reluctantly releases him from his hold, pushing up to his feet.
“You had ice cream back at the restaurant,” he points out.
“So?”
“You don’t need two desserts, Satoru.”
Satoru puts a hand to his belly, letting his lower lip jut out into a pout.
“I don’t,” he agrees. “But they do.”
“Satoru -”
“You don’t want to deprive your children, do you?”
Suguru rolls his eyes as they make for the exit, wrapping an arm around his waist. “I can’t believe you’re going to weaponize that against me,” he huffs.
Satoru grins, knowing he’s won when Suguru pulls out his phone and opens up his map app, looking for the nearest ice cream parlor.
“I can’t believe you’d think I’d do otherwise,” he retorts.
Suguru sighs as they push out the door, his gaze entirely fond.
“Yeah, that one’s on me.”
Then, thinking of something, he blanches.
“Wait, does this mean there’s gonna be three of you ganging up on me?”
Satoru cackles, nudges him in the side. “Five, if you count Mimi and Nana.”
“Fuck,” Suguru swears. “Fuck.”
He wipes a hand over his face, a little resigned - but mostly, he just looks incredibly happy, and so Satoru just snuggles in closer and drags him down the street a little more quickly, intent on getting that ice cream.
“Nii-chan, pass me that knife?”
Satoru obliges, glancing over at Nanako as he hands over the paring knife he’d been using to skin the potatoes for the curry they’re making.
“You know how to use it?” he teases.
Nanako huffs, elbowing him in the side. “Please,” she snaps. “Mimiko and I have been making our own lunches since middle school.”
“Careful,” he sing-songs, sticking his tongue out. “It’s sharp -”
She jabs at him a little harder, and Satoru yelps, dancing away.
“Hitting a pregnant man, Nana-chan? How could you!”
Nanako rolls her eyes, even as a smile tugs at her lips. “I think you’ll survive.”
“I don’t think so,” Satoru disagrees. Putting a dramatic hand to his forehead, he leans over against the counter, letting out the biggest sigh he can muster. “I will never emotionally recover from this grievous attack against my person -”
“Oh, my god,” Nanako groans, slicing the top off a carrot and chucking it at his face. It smacks into Satoru’s cheek with a wet thump, momentarily stunning him into silence. “Do you hear yourself? What the fuck does nii-chan see in you, anyways?”
“Hey. Language.”
Nanako gives him a look, the one that suggests she’s about as receptive to discipline as she is to the thought of chopping off all of her hair and dying her eyebrows green.
It makes Satoru laugh, even as he puts his hands up, placating.
“I have to at least try, yeah?” he says. “Suguru would kill me if I didn’t.”
Nanako snorts, picking up a handful of neatly chopped carrots to toss them in with the potatoes. “No, he wouldn’t,” she replies.
Satoru smiles, feeling very, very warm at the thought.
“He wouldn’t,” he agrees.
Nanako makes a disgusted noise. “Ugh, you two are gross.”
“We are not -”
“You’re literally the grossest couple to ever couple. How do people even stand you?”
“People love us, thank you very much,” Satoru snaps. “We are an adorable pair!”
“Uh-huh.”
“The cutest, even. We should get an award!”
“You should get some fucking help -”
She breaks off mid-sentence as Satoru lets out a sudden gasp, one of his hands flying down to his belly; her brown eyes go wide with first surprise and then dismay, the knife clattering down into the sink as she gapes at him.
“What is it?” she demands. “What’s wrong?”
Satoru shakes his head, concentrating.
He can’t talk right now, can’t form the words - because something had rippled across his abdomen, some gentle sensation that he’s not felt before. Less than a kick, but definitely more than just (another) fucking round of gas, it had felt kinda bubbly, all soft and fluttery and soft, and that’s -
Is that one of the babies? Are they moving around?
His breath catches as he presses at his abdomen a little harder, trying to see if he can feel it again. It’s the first time he’s ever noticed something like this - but he is right at five and a half months now, and Shoko had said he’d probably start to feel the baby moving soon.
She’d mentioned that he’d probably start to feel like there was a goldfish swimming around in his belly, and so he makes an odd, strangled noise as he claps his other hand to his mouth, overcome.
“What’s wrong, nii-chan? Is it one of the babies, is it -”
He swallows, weak. His mouth works furiously as he tries to come up with something to say; it’s only when Nanako dries her shaking hands and reaches for her phone that he finally shakes his head and finds his courage.
“Nana-chan,” he chokes out. “I think - I think I felt one of them move.”
Nanako’s startled intake of breath is grounding, as is the smile that breaks out across her face. “Shut up,” she says.
Perplexed, Satoru shuts up.
“Shut up, you did not,” she says again, and like -
Satoru actually thinks she wants him to say something? Like, he’s not sure, because that’s literally the exact opposite of what she’s saying, but… context clues, and all.
Deductive reasoning.
“I think I did,” he offers, looking down as the fluttering sensation in his stomach returns. It’s stronger this time, probably because he’s pressing down on his stomach and really looking for it, but maybe also because it’s getting into the swing of things?
Like, maybe they’re having fun moving around in there?
The thought makes him smile; it also makes him feel like crying, and so he reaches his other hand out, wrapping his fingers around Nanako’s wrist.
“Do you want to feel?” he asks, a little hesitant -
But only because he knows some people aren’t into that, that some people are grossed out by the very thought of pregnancy. He’d never want to make the twins feel uncomfortable, even as they’ve expressed every sort of happiness imaginable for him and Suguru, and so he has to ask.
He has to give her the choice to say no.
Nanako doesn’t, though.
Instead, she eagerly steps forward, letting Satoru guide her palm to where his is lying against his stomach. He replaces his fingers with hers, tells her to press a little more firmly so she can really feel what’s happening - and when she lets out a soft, startled sound, her mouth falling open in surprise, he knows that she’s felt it, that she’s sensed the same little fluttering as him.
Her expression is awed, reverent.
It’s incredibly similar to the one Suguru wears whenever he so much as looks at Satoru these days, and Satoru can’t help but wonder if it’s genetic.
“Wow, they’re really moving,” she finally says, giggling.
“Right?!” Satoru asks.
“What are they doing in there, jazzercise?”
Satoru snorts, tossing an arm over Nanako’s shoulders. “You are way too young to know what jazzercise is,” he points out.
“Shut up,” she huffs. “I can read.”
“Jazzercise? The world at your fingertips and you’re reading about jazzercise?”
There’s a polite clearing of a throat, the soft plop of a bag being set down on the counter. Satoru and Nanako both look up just in time to see Suguru putting his things down, glancing between the two of them with a smile on his face.
“Do I want to know what you two are talking about?”
“Nii-chan!” Nanako says excitedly. “Come here, quick!”
It’s only then that Suguru seems to notice how Nanako has her hand on Satoru’s belly. His eyes go almost comically wide, his lips parting -
“Don’t just stand there,” Satoru teases, laughing. “Come feel your kid.”
Suguru makes an odd, choking noise, stumbling across the kitchen in half a second. He steps up to Satoru’s other side, his hand trembling as he presses it to his stomach. Though the fluttering has calmed down a bit, Satoru can still feel it every now and then, and after a few moments -
“Holy shit.”
Satoru snickers, even as Suguru’s pheromones go completely haywire.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Fuck.”
“That’s - are they kicking?”
Satoru shakes his head. “Nah, don’t think so,” he says. “Just - moving around a bit. But you can feel it, yeah? You can feel them moving?”
Suguru nods. “I can,” he says. “I can feel it, I…”
Satoru presses the back of his hand to his mouth as Suguru falls to his knees, as he leans into Satoru’s hip and presses his face to Satoru’s stomach. Though Nanako makes a disgusted noise at this blatant show of affection, she slings an arm around her brother’s shoulders, the other wrapped tight around Satoru’s waist. They all kind of huddle there in some strange little cuddle puddle, and when Mimiko finally comes to find them a few minutes later, wondering perhaps why dinner still isn’t ready, she catches on rather quickly.
Suguru pulls her into the group, helps her press her fingers to Satoru’s belly. He guides her to the right spot, smiling at the soft, delighted noise that she makes -
“Can you feel them?” he asks his sister. “Can you feel them moving around?”
Mimiko stares at him, wide-eyed.
Then, turning to glance up at Satoru, she asks, “Does it hurt?”
“Nah,” Satoru says, ruffling her hair. “‘Course not. And even if it did, it’d be worth it, yeah? Knowing that they’re in there, all happy and shit?”
Suguru pinches him, cocking an eyebrow up at his mate.
“Language,” he warns, lips pursed. He looks completely serious, very insistent -
And it lasts for all of two seconds before all four of them burst out laughing, collapsing down onto the floor in a pile of giggles.
Satoru laughs until his cheeks ache, until tears are leaking from his eyes, and Suguru is no better; they laugh until Nanako gets annoyed with them, until Mimiko clears her throat and sits back on her knees, helping her sister to her feet and then going over to the stove to resume cutting up the vegetables that Satoru’s forsaken.
Only then does Suguru turn towards him, smoothing his hand across Satoru’s stomach. He rubs his thumb across the fabric of his shirt, soothing -
“Need a hand up?” he asks, something in his gaze so, so soft.
Satoru smiles, and takes the arm he offers.
“Yeah,” he says. “We do.”
“Oh, my god.”
“There?”
Satoru groans, his head tilting back against the pillows as Suguru grinds the heel of his hand into one of his very swollen feet.
“There,” he agrees, wincing as the pleasure-pain rolls through him strong enough to have him writhing, sucking down a pained inhale as Suguru really starts to knead at his tender insoles. “Fuck.”
Suguru chuckles, digs his fingers in a little harder when Satoru outright moans.
“Didn’t know feet were a thing for you,” he teases.
Satoru glares at him over the swell of his belly, the foot that’s not in Suguru’s palm striking out to kick him in the shoulder.
Suguru just laughs and takes the hit, continuing to diligently massage away Satoru’s aches and pains.
“How bad is it today?” he asks.
Satoru sighs, propping himself up on his elbows.
“Six,” he replies. “Maybe seven. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but… Nobara had to leave early, and there was no one else to work the floor, so.”
Suguru hums, his thumb snaking up around the outside of his foot to press at his ankle. “I hate that you have to be on your feet all day,” he says.
Satoru snorts. “I mean, I could sit. But none of the stools out front have backs, and that’s just as bad as standing these days.”
“You can’t sit at your desk? Or roll your office chair out front?”
“Mmm. Can’t reach the counter. It’s too low.”
Suguru sighs and shakes his head. “This just looks so uncomfortable,” he murmurs, taking a moment to study Satoru’s rounded, very swollen ankles. “You’re only seven months in, and you can barely walk when you get home from work.”
Satoru grins, winking up at Suguru. “Good thing I have such a strong, considerate mate to massage my feet and carry me everywhere, then.”
Suguru laughs, leaning forward to press his lips to first his instep, then his ankle.
“Your wish is my command,” he says, pushing Satoru’s legs a little wider so he can settle himself in between them. “Need anything else before I go make dinner?”
“Nah. I’m good. Just -”
Satoru stretches his arms out, making grabby hands at his mate.
“Kiss, please.”
Suguru smiles. “You don’t have to ask for that.”
“I’m not asking,” Satoru shoots back.
“No?” Suguru laughs.
“No.”
Suguru leans over him, brushing the hair back from his forehead. “You said please,” he points out. “That generally indicates a request.”
“Only because you always tease me about being a brat,” Satoru retorts.
“Someone has to,” Suguru agrees, nodding. “Otherwise your head would get too big, and honestly?” He leans in, nipping at Satoru’s lip. “It’s big enough as it is.”
Satoru gasps in mock indignation, holding Suguru close when he makes to pull away.
“Rude,” he hisses, scowling up at his mate. “So rude, Suguru -”
Suguru hums, kisses him. “You can take it.”
“I am your poor, pregnant mate - and this is how you treat me?”
Suguru pulls back just enough to trail his lips down the line of Satoru’s jaw, nosing at the mating bite on his neck, the sensitive spot at the base of his ear. “Are you complaining?” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the slightly raised line of scar tissue he finds there, the physical imprint of his teeth forever marked on Satoru’s skin.
Satoru shudders, clutches at the breadth of his shoulders a little harder.
“I guess not,” he huffs.
“Good,” Suguru grins. He presses one more lingering kiss to Satoru’s neck before he pushes up onto his hands and knees, staring down at Satoru with so much love and affection in his eyes Satoru thinks he might combust. “Otherwise, I might feel bad.”
Satoru snorts, shoves at his shoulder. “You would not, asshole,” he snaps.
Then, because the movement’s jostled his (very sensitive) chest, he groans, biting at his lip as he waits for the lance of pain to go away.
Understandably, Suguru frowns.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Satoru huffs, pouts. “It’s nothing,” he mutters.
Suguru’s gaze turns a little admonishing.
“Baby,” he warns, unimpressed.
Still, Satoru persists, pushing himself up into a seated position and leaning back against the headboard. Though it’s a simple movement, it takes a bit more effort than he’d have liked - because true to everyone’s reassurances, he’d finally popped right around six months. His belly had gotten so big, so fast, that he still hasn’t gotten quite used to the size of it, and the seventh month hasn’t been any kinder so far.
He feels enormous, probably because he’s carrying twins.
He feels heavy and bulky and (honestly?) kind of gross - like, whoever had painted this picture of pregnancy as the most magical time in a person’s life is a bald-faced fucking liar, because this is anything but.
He’s hot all the time, and sweaty; he wants to just stand under the lukewarm spray of the shower forever, letting the cool water sluice away the dirt and grime that seems to stick to his skin like a film in the late spring heat - only he can’t, because then his fucking back starts to hurt, and while the obvious alternative is to just take a bath, to soak away all his aches and pains, he can’t even enjoy that properly anymore because Suguru never lets him turn up the temperature as high as he’d like.
It’s maddening.
It’s awful, and worse -
His milk is finally starting to come in.
His tits are starting to grow and swell, big enough now that he needs the support of a sports bra most days, and while they’re not, like, in the way of anything, they also kind of are, just by virtue of existing, which -
Suguru knows this, obviously.
He knows, because he’s absolutely obsessed with them.
Whenever Satoru takes his shirt off, he stares, his hands coming up of their own volition to knead and paw at his chest. His gaze is hungry as he watches Satoru stuff himself into his bras, and on the few occasions where Satoru’s asked him to try and massage the pain away, to soothe some of the ache with his hands -
Well.
Let’s just say Suguru is very, very into relieving some of the pressure.
With his fingers, yeah, but also his mouth, all too happy to lean down and take Satoru’s aching nipples into his mouth, sucking on them hard enough to draw milk.
And like, objectively, Satoru doesn’t mind.
He’s not exactly bothered when Suguru buries his head into his chest, pushes his tits together, and squeezes, groaning loud enough at the taste of him on his tongue that Satoru fucking throbs. It makes his cunt fucking drip, just as the way Suguru palms at his thickening hips and grips at his (somewhat thicker) ass has him aching for some kind of release, for some kind of friction between his legs.
It always has him fucking writhing, leaning into the touch even as he tries to pull away, and Suguru -
He is relentless.
He is dogged, not stopping until Satoru’s nipples are pink and puffy and swollen, until he’s sucked all the milk from his tits and then licked up the slick from his cunt - and again, Satoru doesn’t mind. He enjoys himself immensely whenever Suguru gets in one of these moods, whenever he gets a good look at Satoru’s chest and decides he needs to help Satoru out, it’s just -
Well, it’s kind of embarrassing.
It’s kind of mortifying how much he really fucking likes it, and while he’s not the type of person to deny himself anything, especially when it comes to what he likes in bed, he’d like to survive this pregnancy with some of his dignity intact, yeah?
Like, fuck, but there’s only so much teasing he can take.
He’s already resigned himself to the fact that he can no longer roll over without help, and that he sometimes needs Suguru’s assistance to put on his fucking socks.
He needs Suguru in order to button up his (extended waist) pants, to strap on his belly band and alleviate some of the strain on his back, and while he draws the line at asking his mate to fucking wipe his ass for him, fuck, it’s getting hard to do that, too.
It’s getting hard for him to do anything without Suguru’s help, and so even though his chest hurts so fucking bad, like, all the fucking time, he doesn’t want to bother Suguru too much. He doesn’t want to bring it up, even when his tits start to fucking leak, when he has to run (metaphorically speaking, of course) from his office to the staff bathroom in the shop so he can hastily press towels to his chest and mop up the milk - just as he doesn’t really want to say anything now, even as he can smell the way his scent is starting to deepen with arousal, and see the way Suguru’s nostrils flare.
“Baby,” he repeats, his voice dropping down another half an octave. “Tell me.”
“It’s not -” Satoru breaks off with a gasp as he presses his legs together, the hot squeeze of his cunt as Suguru runs a hand up his bare calf leaving him breathless.
Suguru raises an eyebrow and repeats the motion, watching as Satoru tugs his lower lip between his teeth. “No?” he asks.
Satoru shakes his head, stubborn.
“I can just leave, then? Go start cooking?”
He makes to get off the bed with a soft sigh, a smile already tugging at his lips as he pushes to his feet -
But Satoru catches him fast, refuses to let him get too far.
“…my chest hurts.”
Suguru puts a knee back on the bed, one of his hands coming up to rest on Satoru’s shoulder. “And?” he asks. “What do you want me to do about that?”
Satoru huffs, his lower lip jutting out into a pout. “Seriously?”
Suguru shrugs, grinning. “I mean, I asked you what was wrong, and you didn’t say anything,” he replies. “So, you tell me, Satoru - what do you want me to do here?”
“You know what.”
“Mmm. I do,” he agrees, the hand on Satoru’s shoulder curling into the collar of his shirt, sliding down to palm one of his pecs. Though it’s not quite swollen enough to fill his palm, it gives nicely beneath his fingers, and Satoru makes a small, desperate noise as his head tilts back to thwack against the headboard, as he feels a few droplets of milk leak through the thin fabric of his shirt. “But I want to hear you say it.”
“Fuck,” Satoru breathes, squeezing his thighs together again. “Fuck, Suguru.”
Suguru thumbs at his nipple, watches as the damp spot on his shirt darkens and grows. The noise that rumbles up and out of his chest is low, rich, and when he flicks his gaze up to Satoru’s face, his eyes are dark with want.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he asks.
Satoru musters up the sternest glare he can. “Help me make it not hurt.”
Suguru rewards him with another squeeze, his thumb passing over his nipple with a little more force. The movement draws a rough, low groan from Satoru’s throat, and he fears his resistance crumbles rather pathetically as he looks up at Suguru.
Luckily, Suguru takes pity on him.
“Satoru,” he murmurs. “Take off your shirt.”
The timbre of his voice has Satoru shivering, even as he reaches for his collar and gingerly pulls the shirt over his head.
Since he’s home for the night, he isn’t wearing a bra - he’d taken it off as soon as he’d gotten home, had banished it to some forgotten corner of the room. His tits bounce with the sudden freedom, drawing another pained grunt from his lips.
But Suguru is there in an instant, sliding between Satoru’s thighs as he cups his chest with his hands. He palms each breast with just the right amount of pressure, his thumbs working at Satoru’s nipples as he kneads the swollen buds into stiff peaks; he has Satoru panting in no time, milk dripping from his tits in hot, wet spurts, and when he leans forward to catch the tip of one with his mouth -
“Oh, my god,” Satoru moans, arching forward.
He presses up and into the rough, wet heat of Suguru’s tongue, mewling as he laps at him like a cat, and when Suguru’s scent deepens, when it flares hot and bright, wafting over Satoru like a cloud, he keens.
He fists a hand in Suguru’s hair and pulls, keeping him perfectly in place as he continues to suck the milk from his chest.
There’s not much.
Though he’s been steadily leaking for what feels like weeks now, it’s never very much at a time, and this is no different. But having Suguru’s hands on him feels amazing, the way he massages at his tits just the right side of too much.
It makes him so fucking wet, has his underwear sticking to his thighs in no time, and when Suguru pulls back, flicking his tongue over first one nipple and then the other one last time, cleaning up the last of his milk -
“Pants off,” Satoru breathes, his hands scrabbling down his sides to push his shorts up and over his hips. “Now.”
Suguru just barely gets out of the way of his flailing feet in time, working his own pants down with ruthless efficiency; he bullies his way back between Satoru’s thighs as soon as the obstacle is gone, tugging him down onto his back and then helping him onto his side. As soon as Satoru has a pillow shoved under his belly for support, Suguru grasps him by the hips; he lifts his legs, splays him open as he nudges his cock against his dripping folds - but he only teases him for a moment, both of them close enough to the edge that he wastes no time fucking into Satoru’s cunt.
The noise Satoru makes is harsh, guttural.
His moan echoes off the walls, as does each smack of Suguru’s hips against his ass; the noise his cock makes as he drives it deep into Satoru’s heat is obscene, as is the arch of Satoru’s back. It puts his body on full, prominent display, his tits bouncing with each thrust. He feels overstimulated, raw, taken -
But Suguru keeps groaning into his neck, his fingers digging deep into the plush of Satoru’s thigh; his scent is so heavy with arousal that Satoru nearly chokes on it, his own pheromones burning bright and sweet in response.
“Please,” he begs his mate, no longer certain what he’s really asking for.
But Suguru seems to know what he needs, the hand at his thigh sliding up and under his belly to rub at his clit; his fingers move against him in hot, tight circles, winding him tighter and tighter and tighter -
“God, Satoru,” Suguru breathes, nipping at his ear.
He replaces the hand he has on Satoru’s clit with his own fingers so he can run his hand up over Satoru’s waist, over the curve of his hip.
“You look so good like this,” he groans.
Satoru lets his head fall back against Suguru’s shoulder, bares his neck. It gives him full access to Satoru’s scent gland, and Suguru obediently trails his lips over the bite mark, traces his tongue along the scar tissue.
“So pretty and round, heavy with my pup -”
Satoru’s entire core clenches with want, even as he grips at Suguru’s arm. “Our pup,” he snaps, his movements going frantic. “Our pups, both of them -”
“So good for me,” Suguru croons. “So good, you made me two babies -”
Satoru nods, panting. “I did. I did, I - fuck - I did so fucking good -”
“Wanna just - keep you pregnant forever.”
“Fuck,” Satoru whimpers.
“Keep you just like this, so pretty, so soft -”
“Please.”
Suguru mouths at his jaw, his hand coming up to cup Satoru’s chest. He squeezes down right as he thrusts his cock in deep, another little trickle of milk spilling over the palm of his hand, and Satoru fucking shatters.
He cums with a startled cry, his entire body going rigid; the orgasm barrels into him with all the force of a freight train, his vision tunneling a little at the edges.
Distantly, he hears Suguru curse.
He feels his movements quicken as he fucks Satoru through the aftershocks, and just when the pleasure starts to border on pain, when his backside starts to sting from how hard Suguru’s thrusting into him, he fucks into Satoru one, two, three more times and then goes still, moaning his name into his neck as he cums.
It takes them a moment to disentangle.
It takes more than a moment for Satoru to sloppily push himself up into a seated position, way too out of breath for someone in pretty good physical condition.
Somehow, he manages, Suguru padding around the other side of the bed to help tug him up to his feet and then help him waddle into the bathroom. Together, they manage to clean themselves up, and after Suguru scents him, rubbing his wrists against Satoru’s neck, thighs, and stomach in a series of now thoroughly practiced motions, he heads back into the bedroom to grab them a fresh change of clothes.
There’s no bra, Satoru sees.
Just another pair of loose shorts that he can push beneath his stomach, a t-shirt that’s dark enough to hide any lingering stains if he leaks again. He quickly tugs them on, not missing the way Suguru tugs his lip between his teeth and stares at his tits.
“Hey,” he says, snapping his fingers.
Suguru glances up at him, blinks at him long and slow.
“My face is up here, you horndog.”
Suguru just blinks again, the bastard, and goes back to staring at his chest.
“Can you blame me?” he asks. “They’re so…”
“Annoying?” Satoru guesses. “Leaky? Gross?”
“Big,” Suguru supplies, reaching out to palm him through the fabric.
Satoru moves to swat his hand away, vexed, only for him to bring it right back up a moment later, and like -
Objectively, it’s pleasant.
Now that the milk’s been expressed and they’ve fucked, it’s not really all that arousing; instead, Suguru’s hands on him just feel nice, and so he leans back against the counter and lets his mate fondle him to his heart’s content.
He lets him knead at his tits until the twist of a nipple has him flinching away with a scowl, and only then does Suguru relent.
Only then does he step back, hands dropping down to his sides as he glances back up at Satoru, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I love you,” he breathes.
Satoru snorts, fond.
“Are you talking to me? Or should I let the three of you have the room -”
He breaks off with a startled noise as Suguru pulls him into a kiss, easing their lips together firmly enough to leave no room for doubt as to the object of his affections.
He kisses Satoru breathless, steals the air from his lungs and all thoughts of retreating from his mind, and when he finally pulls back, cradling Satoru’s head in the palms of his hands, it takes Satoru a moment to get his bearings.
It takes him a second to remember what he was doing, or where he was, and like -
“You, Satoru,” Suguru murmurs, smiling. “I love you.”
Satoru groans and kisses him again, pressing forward as far into his arms as his stomach will allow.
“The tits are nice too, though.”
Satoru cackles, even as he pushes Suguru away.
“Yeah,” he agrees, grinning. “They kinda are.“
They’re in Okinawa before they turn to the daunting task of names.
Which, sure, puts them a little behind schedule -
In eight more weeks they’ll be the proud parents of two happy, healthy, squalling pups, and it would be nice if they had someone to call them other than Thing 1 and Thing 2 when they bring them home from the hospital.
But naming someone is a big responsibility, yeah?
Like, these kids are going to have to live with their choices for at least the first decade of their lives; they’ll have to somehow survive preschool playgrounds and primary school bullies with these names, and so he wants to make sure they get it right.
He wants to make sure that he and Suguru pick something good, and so he’s mapped it all out. He has scoured all the websites, he’s done his fucking research.
He has an excel workbook five tabs deep with potential names, each and every possible meaning of the kanji used to spell them listed out cell by cell, and now that Suguru doesn’t have any excuse not to sit next to him and watch his hands move blindingly fast over the keyboard of his laptop -
Well, they’re going to get this settled.
They’re going to fucking do this. They are not leaving this resort without knowing what they’re going to write on those fucking birth certificates.
They just -
“No. Absolutely not.”
“But Suguru!”
“I am not naming my kid after a fucking Digimon character.”
- don’t always see eye to eye on what is and isn’t an appropriate name for their children, fuck.
Satoru pouts, crossing his arms over his chest; the movement jostles the already precarious position his computer has on his rapidly diminishing lap, and he shoots Suguru a withering look as he sets it to rights.
“Fuck you, Kari is a great name,” he huffs.
“It’s basic as shit -”
“You’re basic as shit. And it’s not like it was my first choice! But we already have a Mimi, and we don’t know whether the other baby is a boy or a girl, so.”
Suguru pinches at the bridge of his nose.
“The issue isn’t the names themselves,” he says.
“No? You could’ve fooled me -”
“The issue is that that you want to name our children after a kid’s show that hasn’t been on air in twenty fucking years. That’s like - wanting to name your kid Ash Ketchum, for fuck’s sake.”
Satoru rolls his eyes. “First of all, that’s just his English name. His name in the original Japanese version is Satoshi, which, frankly, you should fucking know. It’s a perfectly decent, wonderful name. And second, Pokémon? Jesus, Suguru - have some standards.”
Suguru snorts, unoffended. “My bad.”
“But also, what is so bad about naming our kids after beloved childhood characters? Like, what is so fucking wrong with that?”
“It’s unoriginal,” Suguru says immediately. “It’s tacky.”
Satoru gasps. “You take that back!”
“You don’t think so? Okay, then - let’s just name them Sakura if they're a girl, then.”
“I - no.”
“Kasumi? Mai? Usagi?”
Satoru grows more and more horrified with each suggestion - because yeah, he loves all of those shows, and had watched them all religiously as a child. But none of the names quite fit; none of them really hit him with that sense of correctness, that sense that what they’re doing is right.
And if Suguru thinks they are, then they’ve got real problems on their hands.
“We are not naming our daughter after a Naruto character.”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s -”
Satoru snaps his mouth shut, just a little too late on the uptake. He’s missed the trap he’s walked right into, either because it’s almost midnight or because the majority of his blood flow is being directed towards his uterus and not his brain, and that’s -
Well, it’s a little insulting.
It’s also really aggravating, and so he glares at Suguru as his mate clicks his tongue, his scent spiking in victory.
“You agree, then,” he says. “It’s tacky.”
“It’s… ugh, fine. Fine! I will cross off all anime character names from the list.”
“Video games, too.”
“You don’t want to name our beloved daughter after Tifa Lockhart?”
Suguru squints at him. “I thought the whole point of this exercise was to make sure they don’t get mad fun of in school.”
Satoru rolls his eyes and deletes another handful of cells from the spreadsheet.
“You know, you could at least try to be helpful,” he snaps.
“Babe,” Suguru laughs, reaching for him.
“It’s not like you’ve made any contributions here,” he huffs. “Like, feel free to speak up at any time!”
“Well, what other names do you have in mind?”
Satoru clicks furiously on his trackpad, pulling up the list of names he has left. He waves a hand at the screen once he’s navigated to the right cell, shoving the laptop towards his mate.
“Here,” he says. “Any of these sound good?”
Suguru hums as he peruses the list, moving a little more slowly than Satoru would like. He looks over each name with care and consideration, pausing every now and then to put a little asterisk next to certain cells - his favorites, Satoru wonders? Or are those the ones that he doesn’t like?
It’s hard to say, his expression otherwise carefully neutral, and after about ten minutes, Satoru can’t take the suspense anymore.
He sighs, twisting towards Suguru as much as his stomach will allow.
“Pick something,” he huffs. “Anything, I don’t care at this point.”
“You care,” Suguru disagrees, not looking up from the computer screen. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to create this monstrosity.”
Satoru flushes. “I needed to keep track of everything somehow.”
“And you did a very, very thorough job,” Suguru croons, grinning at him as he pats his thigh. “But don’t you think this is a little… excessive?”
“Excessive,” Satoru repeats.
“I mean, do you even like all of these names?”
“Excessive -”
“Or did you just write down everything you could think of?”
Satoru snaps his mouth shut, unable to deny the accusation - and since he doesn’t like being so easily sussed out, he turns his head to the side, pouting.
“Satoru,” Suguru murmurs. “Sweetheart.”
“What?”
“You’ll know when we find the right name,” he insists, setting the computer aside to tug Satoru into his lap. “We’ll know.”
Satoru shakes his head, barks out an unamused laugh even as he tucks himself into Suguru’s side, noses into the side of his face.
“Will I?” he retorts. “Because I’m sure as shit at a loss.”
Suguru hums, adjusts them so it’s a little more comfortable.
“Like, it’d be easier if we had someone to name them after, you know? If there was someone that we cared about, someone we wanted to memorialize. But I’m not close to any of my family like that, and neither are you. I just -”
He sighs, bumping their foreheads together.
“Nothing is good enough.”
Suguru nods, as if he understands - but he doesn’t say anything as he gives Satoru the time to piece together his thoughts. Instead, he just sits there, running a comforting hand up his side and over the curve of his waist.
It’s just what Satoru needs to settle his frazzled nerves, and once he feels a bit less frustrated, he lets Suguru get him ready for bed.
He lets him help him undress, lets him tuck into the mountains pillows and blankets they’ve amassed into a makeshift nest on the luxurious resort bed. He brings him a glass of water and a small tray of fruit for a late night snack, and when he makes to turn onto his side, hiking a leg up into one of the few sleeping positions that remains comfortable for him, he’s quick to stuff a couple more pillows under his belly.
“Comfy?” he asks, pressing a kiss to Satoru’s temple.
Satoru nods, snuggles down a little farther into the blankets. “Comfy.”
Suguru chuckles. “Good.”
Settling in behind him, he flips the switch for the lights before he slings an arm over Satoru’s waist, a hand over his stomach. He strokes over the smooth skin of his waist even as he noses at the back of his neck, and that’s -
It’s not sexual.
It’s just intimate, and Satoru finds himself drifting off to sleep, rubbing his feet against the cool sheets in slow, tiny circles as his breathing slows.
When he wakes, it’s not yet morning.
The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon, streamers of pink and gold stretching across the cool blue waters; Satoru watches them slowly lengthen through the gap in the curtains, watches as the sun burns off the clouds and the island comes to life around the resort. He watches as the trees sway in the gentle breeze wafting off the ocean, listens to the cries of the birds as they start scrounging for food.
It’s beautiful, peaceful.
He thinks he could stay here forever, wrapped up in this happy little bubble with Suguru - just the two of them, them and their pups, utterly content.
He could lay here and watch the sun rise over the sea every morning, and never grow tired of it.
But he would probably grow tired of this position, his back already a bit damp from how tightly Suguru is pressed behind him, and so Satoru stretches out a little, smiling when one of the babies kicks him in the ribs - punishment for moving, maybe, or perhaps just letting him know that they’re awake.
Either way, it drives a soft grunt from his lips, and he presses the heel of his palm to his diaphragm, breathing in deep until the ache subsides.
It doesn’t last long; it never does, whichever baby he’d jostled awake going right back to sleep as Satoru settles back down into the blankets.
Is it the smaller one, he wonders? Are they fussy one?
But maybe they're not just being fussy.
Maybe they're just responding to his own bliss, so overjoyed at his own happiness that they can’t help but lash out with their feet, and that’s -
Oh.
Oh.
Satoru makes a surprised noise at this sudden revelation, a potential name for their first child coming to him so suddenly that it takes him entirely by surprise. He only thinks to clap a hand over his mouth at the very last second so that he doesn’t wake his mate.
But he must have been louder than he thought.
Either that, or Suguru wasn’t truly asleep, because he makes a soft, inquisitive noise, the hand at Satoru’s waist tightening.
“S’toru,” he slurs, not quite awake. “What time is it?”
Satoru twists around in his arms, palms one of Suguru’s cheeks with his hand. He watches, rapt, as Suguru blinks one and then two eyes open, his gaze warm and golden in the early morning light. He smiles as he bumps their noses together, the kiss he presses to Satoru’s cheek accompanied with a gentle stroke of his thumb across the rasp along his undercut, the short hairs on the nape of his neck.
His touch makes Satoru shudder, makes him press in a little closer.
“Early,” he finally says.
Suguru hums. “Can we still make that eight o’clock painting class on the beach?”
“…it’s not that early.”
Suguru laughs at that, rolling onto his back; he tugs Satoru with him, eases him up and into his lap even as he tucks his legs up behind him, gives him something to lean back against. The motion has Satoru palming his chest for balance, squirming around until he’s settled; it makes the loose, oversized sleep shirt he’s wearing slip off one his shoulders, pushes it up around his hips to expose the top of his thighs, the hot, wet heat between his legs.
Immediately, Suguru’s hands are on his waist, holding him steady.
His palms are warm where they press against his skin, and gentle as he slides his thumbs across the jut of his hips; though the bones are mostly hidden beneath the extra weight he’s put on, he still knows just how to find them, petting at them as he stares up at Satoru, captivated by whatever he sees.
Again, the touch isn’t really sexual.
It’s just appreciative, loving, as is the way that stares up at Satoru, the way his lips curve up into another smile.
It makes Satoru want to bite him.
It makes him want to lean down and lick into his mouth, which -
Probably isn’t very advisable, considering how pregnant he is. He’s neither that desperate nor all that flexible, and so he just puts his hands atop Suguru’s, giving his torso a gentle squeeze with his thighs as he announces, “I thought of a name.”
Suguru makes a surprised noise. “You did?”
He nods, biting his lip.
Suguru splays a hand across his lower back, rubs gently at his spine.
“Tell me,” he murmurs.
“Sachiko, if it's a girl.”
Understanding flashes across Suguru’s face as Satoru explains the kanji he had in mind, the characters detailing out the exact meaning of the name.
He hums, knowing, and says, “Mmm. Happiness. Bliss.”
“Do you like it?”
“Seems appropriate,” he muses. “Fitting.”
“We could call her Sachi, maybe, or Chiko,” Satoru suggests. “Whatever she likes better, I guess, whatever fits.”
Suguru nods. “I like it. And the other pup? Or if it's a boy?”
…shit.
Satoru had almost forgotten about the other baby.
His shoulders slump in defeat; he lets out a wry laugh as he shakes his head, and Suguru chuckles right along with him.
“Why did you do this to me?” he teases, grinning up at Suguru through his bangs. “Two babies makes everything harder, you know.”
Suguru’s scent deepens, gets a little cocky. “I’m just that good.”
Satoru snorts, pinching at his shoulder.
“Uh-huh. Because you had so much control over it.”
“Maybe I did,” Suguru retorts.
He shifts then, letting his legs fall flat as he pushes up into a seated position. His hands at Satoru’s back keep him steady, and once he’s situated himself against the headboard, he pulls Satoru forward a bit, tugs him as close as he can.
“Maybe I knew exactly what I was doing when I fucked those pups into you.”
Satoru groans, even as his body flushes his heat. “Or maybe you’re just fucking lucky,” he shoots back, squirming around a bit on Suguru’s lap.
Suguru laughs, one of his hands coming up to pull at Satoru’s jaw, to hold him in place as he leans in and presses a kiss to his mouth.
He eases their lips together - slowly, at first, and then with a bit more pressure, nipping at Satoru’s mouth as he deepens the kiss.
Satoru can’t help but melt into him, opening up for him with such little resistance that it has Suguru’s chest rumbling in pure, alpha satisfaction; he licks into Satoru’s mouth like he wants to own him, the slant of his lips entirely possessive.
It leaves Satoru feeling weak, heat pooling between his thighs, and when Suguru finally pulls away, it’s not far.
He retreats only as much as he needs to in order to help Satoru clamber up and onto his cock, to hold himself steady as Satoru slowly sinks down.
God, it’s so good.
It’s so good, each and every time, Suguru’s cock never failing to fill him up, and somehow, the pregnancy’s made him even more sensitive; it’s made him so damn needy, the ache between his legs making him so desperate for it that he barely even lets himself adjust before he starts rolling his hips, before he starts fucking himself on Suguru’s cock.
It’s hard work.
Though Satoru’s always been in pretty good physical condition, he’s so top-heavy now; his center of balance is all wrong, and he can’t be too reckless.
He has to be cautious, never moving too quickly or with too much force lest he hurt himself or the pups, and that’s -
He whines, frustrated.
“Babe,” Satoru pants, slinging his arms around his mate’s shoulders. “I can’t -”
Suguru’s hands land on his waist, pushing up his shirt.
“You can,” he breathes, thrusting up as Satoru eases down. “You can do it, sweetheart - just look at yourself.”
Satoru lets his head fall back, glances over at the mirror positioned directly across the room from the bed; the sight of the two of them moving together nearly takes his breath away, the resounding smack of their bodies meeting obscene.
He’s flushed pink, his blue eyes hazy and flushed.
He looks positively debauched, so full, so round -
And Suguru is looking up at him with such open adoration that he can’t help but moan, rolling his hips a little more desperately as his hand creeps between his thighs.
He rubs at his clit so hard it almost hurts, and when he cums, it’s with a noise so soft, so wanton, that it’s more of a sob than a whine. He goes rigid in Suguru’s lap, his cunt fluttering around Suguru’s cock as he thrusts it in deep. He cannot think, cannot breathe -
And when he starts to topple over to the side, when he throws a hand out to catch himself on the mattress, Suguru holds him fast.
He catches Satoru, snapping his hips up into Satoru’s hot, wet heat.
Each thrust of his hips punches the breath from his lungs, drives another little fucked-out noise from his lips; he fucks Satoru through one orgasm and right into another, and only then does he let himself come.
He groans as he spills himself inside Satoru, his hips stuttering.
He breathes out a sound that Satoru thinks must be his name, the timbre of it something like a prayer. It makes Satoru’s toes curl in the sheets, even as he desperately tries to catch his breath, and when Suguru eases him down beside him, when he helps Satoru up and off his cock and places him tenderly in the sheets, he grins, lazy.
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” he teases, winking.
Satoru scoffs, kissing his cheek. “Cocky.”
“Am I wrong?”
“…no.”
Suguru laughs at that, even as Satoru bops him in the nose with a pillow. They end up missing both the painting class and the mid-morning snorkeling lessons in the ensuing scuffle, not bothering to get out of bed until just before lunch
But Satoru doesn’t mind.
He wouldn’t miss these happy, intimate little moments for the world, and Suguru?
Well, Satoru thinks, watching as Suguru sinks to his knees and helps him tug on his sandals.
He fears his mate is down just as bad.
The last few weeks of Satoru’s pregnancy go slowly.
Though it seems like there’s still an impossibly high number of things on their to-do list, Satoru finds himself with almost too much time on his hands. He wakes up early, goes to sleep late; he can only nap for one or two hours at a time, too uncomfortable to do more than merely doze off, and while Satoru’s never really needed all that much sleep, perfectly capable of getting by on just a few short hours of rest, now he kinda wishes that he could.
He wishes he could knock the fuck out and spend the rest of the days until the pups are born lazing about on the couch, or in his nest, but alas - he’s restless.
He’s frenzied, flitting from one chore to the next as quickly as he can as he tries to get everything ready.
The biggest chore, obviously, is the nursery.
He and Suguru finally clean out his office one Saturday, splitting the furnishings between the living room and their bedroom in order to make space. Suguru paints the walls a soft, buttery yellow that afternoon while Satoru’s out with Shoko, assembling the cribs and the diaper changing station while he’s at it, and when Satoru comes back, stuffed to the brim with as much dessert as Shoko had let him order, he’s quick to use the burst of energy the sugar gives him to settle into nesting mode.
He tugs out all the blankets and plushes he’s been given, arranging them just so in each of the little bassinets; he folds up the precious little onesies and delicately tucks them into the drawers of the dresser they’d gotten from the shop down the road, stacks the changing table with diapers and baby powder and wet wipes. He makes sure each and every last thing they’ve bought is in its proper place, from the baby rattles and pacifiers to the tiny little sneakers he’d insisted on buying for each pup, not resting until he’s got everything exactly how he wants it -
And then he adjusts it all the next day, moving everything just slightly to the left.
He primps and he fusses and he fidgets until Suguru physically removes him from the room, ignoring his angry, half-hearted hissing as he pulls him back into the living room and down onto his lap, and like -
Sure, he’s being a little ridiculous here.
Satoru can admit that much.
It doesn’t matter whether the blue onesies are next to the green, whether he’s got the socks organized by size or style. It’s not as important that the trash can stands a solid half a meter away from the changing table so much as that it exists at all, and yet -
It does?
Like, he wants the nursery to be good for the babies.
He wants it to be perfect, and he tries to explain this to Suguru without sounding silly.
He sits back on his knees one day, his very pregnant belly gently trapped between them as Suguru massages his aching back, and tries to explain away his instincts.
Luckily, Suguru gets it.
He understands, because his own urges have also been going haywire during these last few weeks. It’s become increasingly difficult for him to let Satoru out of his sight, to let him out of his reach; the need to have a hand on him at all times is almost overwhelming, he admits, the amount of scenting he’s done in the past twenty-four hours alone entirely excessive, and when Satoru starts getting pre-labor contractions, when he winces and puts a hand on his stomach to ward off the pain -
Well, Suguru panics.
He’s got Shoko on the phone before Satoru can so much as blink, and even after she explains to him that this is very normal, that this is just the body’s way of preparing his body for when he eventually goes into labor, he doesn’t look convinced. He doesn’t look at all satisfied or happy that Satoru kinda, sorta just has to deal with the random aches and pains for the remainder of his pregnancy.
In fact, it makes him very grumpy, his scent taking on a distinctly bitter note that has Satoru swatting his shoulder with whatever he happens to have in his hand at the time.
Because he’s the one who’s actually dealing with the pain, yeah? He’s the one who has to actually have the babies, who has to give birth.
And like, on some level, Satoru gets it.
No one wants to see their mate hurting.
But this is a good kind of pain, something his body needs to do; it’s one of those little signs that means they’re getting close to the end now, and so Satoru doesn’t mind.
What’s a little discomfort when the reward is two healthy, beautiful pups?
Or, at least -
He assumes they’ll be beautiful.
Mostly because he and Suguru are both a solid four and a half stars out of five, maybe more, but also because how could they not be?
How could anything he and Suguru have created together not be beautiful?
Shoko has warned him not to look too closely at the babies until after the doctors have cut the umbilical cords and cleaned them up a bit, that all pups come out of the womb looking like something straight out of a horror movie, but Satoru knows he won’t feel that way.
He knows that he'll fall in love as soon as he sees them.
Like, he’s half in love with them already, in love with the way they kick and move around in his belly, with the way they sometimes respond to his or Suguru’s voice.
He already feels so strongly for these two pups, and not just because they’re his.
But because they’re Suguru’s, because they’re theirs, some perfect little combination of the two of them born out of a love he didn’t think he’d ever get to have.
He just -
Needs to actually have them, fuck.
As he gets closer and closer to his due date, it gets harder and harder to wait. His restlessness only increases, complete with headaches and dark circles under his eyes; he finds himself irritable all of the time, stuck in some kind of awful late-term pregnancy purgatory. He snaps at Suguru and the twins for the slightest of faults, bursts into tears over the dumbest of arguments, and though he later apologizes, never wanting them to think they’re doing anything wrong by fussing over him or having them think he’s taken the petty insults to heart, it’s all just so grating.
It’s so fucking aggravating, and so (maybe against Shoko’s advice) he finds himself doing whatever he can to try and jolt himself into labor.
He waddles endlessly around the house.
He bounces up and down on the stupid stability ball Utahime had bought him.
(It’s actually been very helpful at relieving some of the pressure on his hips, but -
Satoru would actually rather die than tell her that, so.)
He eats spicy food, and does his pregnancy yoga, and stands for as long as his swollen fucking ankles can take it.
Unfortunately, nothing really works. The kimchi he makes Suguru buy just gives him the shits and all the bouncing makes him kinda nauseous, and after coming home from the tattoo shop one day to find Satoru curled up in as much of a ball as his stomach will allow on the bathroom floor, Suguru practically begs him to give it up.
“You’re almost there, baby,” he pleads, after picking Satoru up and carting him off to bed, where he tucks Satoru into their nest and wraps him up in his arms. “You’re so close to your due date, so just - try and relax, yeah? For me?”
Satoru had shaken his head, so frustrated he was nearly in tears.
“They’re not coming out,” he’d said. “They’re not - what if they’re stuck, Suguru?”
Suguru had just laughed at that, pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“That’s not how that works, Satoru,” he’d replied, and like -
Yeah, Satoru knows that.
He knows how biological feedback loops work, knows that eventually his body will start pumping out enough oxytocin that he goes into labor.
Just as he knows that if he for some reason doesn’t, Shoko will pump him full of pitocin and force him into labor anyways, so -
It’s all kinda moot.
That doesn’t stop him from being upset in the moment, though, from being grumpy and uncomfortable and so, so fucking done with it all.
And like, he knows he maybe shouldn’t complain.
Because all things considered, this has been an easy pregnancy. He’s been so incredibly happy throughout, ecstatic at the thought of bringing these new lives into the world, and he hasn’t really had too many side effects.
But he wants to be able to see his feet again.
He wants to be able to go ten minutes without feeling like he has to piss, wants to stuff his face with the biggest, most extravagant plate of sushi money can buy.
He also wants to be able to fucking watch when Suguru eats him out, and it’s that, ironically, that finally does the trick.
It’s sex that finally pushes him into labor.
Suguru’s got him splayed out on the bed one morning, completely naked save for the compression socks neither of them had bothered to remove. He’s got two fingers in Satoru’s cunt and his other hand on Satoru’s tits, fingering him open as he flicks and twists at his nipples when he feels a sudden wetness between his thighs, a sudden gush of fluids that has absolutely nothing to do with how fucking turned on he is.
At first, Satoru thinks he’s pissed himself.
Because he’s come close to it a couple of times, yeah?
There’s been a handful of moments where Suguru’s only just barely crawled off him in time for him to make it to the bathroom with his dignity intact, and considering how fucking much he pisses these days -
Oh, god.
He’s done it, he’s - he’s actually fucking wet himself, he’s pissed all over Suguru’s hand. His eyes go wide with embarrassment, Suguru going still above him as he glances down at the damp spot slowly expanding on their sheets.
He slaps a hand over his mouth, mortified.
But then he actually stops and thinks about it for a second.
He stops to really take stock of what he’s feeling, surprised to find his bladder’s still… pretty full? Like, he can still feel that annoying little sensation prickling at the back of his mind, and also between his legs, that tingling little urge telling him to go and relieve himself, which -
If he’d pissed himself, he wouldn’t be feeling that.
He’d have, at least, five or so minutes of fucking freedom from his biological urges, and since he’s not aroused enough for that to have been squirt -
“Oh, my god,” he croaks.
Suguru, bless him, looks utterly bewildered. “What?”
“We have to go,” Satoru adds, pushing ineffectually at Suguru’s shoulders. “We have to - get off me, help me up.”
“You don’t want to finish?”
Satoru has to snort out a laugh at that.
Because, God, this man - this beautiful, silly, dumb man, who’s so intent on his pleasure and making Satoru feel good that he doesn’t even understand what’s happening.
What is Satoru going to do with him?
“Suguru, babe,” he finally manages to say, struggling up into a seated position as he reaches for his hastily discarded sleep shirt. “I know you’re really horny and still half asleep, because I am, too. But I need you to keep up with me here. I need you to stay with me -”
“Is something wrong?”
“- because I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”
Suguru blinks, long and slow.
Then, like he’s in a trance, he looks down at his hand, his fingers still covered in Satoru’s slick. When he glances back up, his expression is completely helpless, like he can’t quite comprehend what Satoru’s telling him, and that’s -
Fuck, he’s gonna have to spell it out for him, isn’t he?
With a sigh, he grabs Suguru’s hand - the clean one, obviously, the one that isn’t covered in enough bodily fluids to warrant a good wash.
“I am going to go into labor very soon,” he says. “So, you need to get off me and help me clean up so that we can get to the hospital, yeah?”
It seems to hit Suguru all at once.
His eyes go wide, and he swallows, hard; he makes a noise that is half-excitement, half-concern as he runs a hand through his hair and jolts off the bed.
“I… fuck, okay,” he breathes. “I can do that, I - fuck, I fucked you into labor?”
Satoru snorts, grimacing down at the wet stain on the sheets. “I mean, I don’t think that’s really how it works, but… yeah, kinda.”
“Shit.”
It’s like a fucking call to arms.
Suguru runs into the bathroom and takes what is perhaps the quickest shower of his life, tying his damp hair up into a knot at the back of his head in lieu of taking the time to dry it. While Satoru sponges himself off with a damp washcloth, too tired for a true shower, he brushes his teeth and swipes on some deodorant, and after making sure Satoru’s not going to give birth on the fucking toilet, he pads down the hall and wakes the girls from their slumber, instructing them to get their to-go bags ready even as he calls Yuuta and practically demands to know where he is.
Satoru can hear his cousin’s panicked protests through the phone; he can hear the way he bumps into something and spills breakables all over the floor, because Suguru has him on speaker.
He spits out instructions as he grabs the baby bags they have stashed in the closet, growing more and more agitated by the minute, and Satoru can’t help but snicker as he pulls on the pair of underwear Suguru had left him on the sick, the comfy sweats that he’d planned to wear to the hospital.
“Give him a break, babe,” he advises, emerging from the bathroom and plopping down into a chair. The motion has one of the babies kicking angrily at his belly, and he presses a hand to his belly with a wince. “Not like we gave him any warning.”
Suguru scowls and zips up the bag. “You’re going into labor,” he huffs.
“Yeah, eventually.”
“You’re going into labor and Yuuta isn’t here -”
“Is he on his way?”
“…yes.”
“Are he and Toge already doing us a fucking solid by watching the girls while we’re at the hospital?”
Suguru grimaces. “I guess.”
“Then chill the fuck out.”
Suguru huffs, shoots him a dirty look.
But eventually, he just lets out this resigned little sigh, tossing the bags over his shoulders as he comes over to where Satoru’s sitting. He puts a hand on his cheek, his fingers smoothing the messy hair back from his forehead - it’s a bit longer than Satoru normally likes, his last haircut so long ago he can’t even remember it.
Like so many other things, though, any kind of self-care he’d once practiced had kind of fallen by the wayside these past few months in favor of comfort; he can’t recall the last time he thought to trim his nails, instead of just picking at them when they got too long, and his skincare routine has gone to shit. His elbows are dry and his heels are cracked, and now his hair’s almost long enough in the back to brush his shoulders.
Naturally, Suguru tells him he’s beautiful - he tells him he’s glowing, that he’s never looked better, that he’s so, so insanely attracted to him he can’t stand it.
Naturally, he’s full of shit, because Satoru does, in fact, own a mirror.
Pregnancy has turned him into a hot fucking mess, and while Satoru knows it’s only temporary, he’s also under no illusions here.
He is absolutely, one hundred percent not the hot, sexy MILF near you, and he’s not ashamed to admit it.
Just as he’s not ashamed to take Suguru’s hands and let himself be gently pulled up and out of the chair, to accept his arm as he slowly waddles out of the bedroom and down the hall towards the living room so they can wait for Yuuta to get here.
The twins are ready to go, he sees.
Though they’re still half-asleep, each has a little backpack sitting at their feet, stuffed to the brim with enough clothing and toiletries to last them the next couple of days. They’ve already pulled their shoes on over their socks, the sneakers not mixing well with their bright pink and purple fuzzy pajama pants, and Suguru’s quick to pull out his wallet and give them each a handful of yen notes.
Nanako rolls her eyes at the lecture he starts to give, making room on the couch for Satoru to drop down between her and Mimiko.
“C’mon, nii-chan,” she groans, stashing the money in one of her backpack’s endless pockets. “We’re fifteen, not eight.”
Mimiko nods in agreement, curling a hand around Satoru’s arm and tucking in close. Nanako does much the same on his other side, both twins hanging off his arms like they’re afraid he’s going to run away, and though it isn’t necessarily comfortable, Satoru finds himself sinking back into their embrace just the same.
He relaxes, letting them scent him with their weak, not fully developed pheromones, and when Mimiko lays her head on his shoulder, he’s quick to return the gesture.
“Are you scared?” she murmurs, shy.
“Scared?”
“I’ve heard it hurts a lot.”
Satoru nods, glancing down at his stomach. “Yeah, it does,” he agrees. “It’s not a lot of fun, and it sometimes takes a long time. But I’m not scared.”
“Not even a little?”
Satoru grins. “Nah. Not even a little.”
“What if they have to do a C-section?” Nanako pipes up. “Don’t they have to, like, cut you open for that? And aren’t you awake when they do it?”
“Well, yeah, you’re awake -”
“That’s so fucking metal.”
Suguru sighs. “Nanako.”
“- but they also give you really, really good drugs, so you don’t feel shit!”
Suguru stares at him, bemused. “Why do I even bother?”
“Who knows?” Satoru grins, right as both twins look him dead in the eye and assert that it’s “Because you’re fucking dumb.” It’s enough to have all of them laughing, and once they’ve all calmed down, Suguru finally gets to go over logistics.
Yuuta and Toge will pick the twins up while Suguru drives Satoru to the hospital; they’ll stay with Satoru’s cousin for the duration of his labor, making sure to be on their best behavior, with Suguru providing updates as often as he can. Once the babies are actually born, and assuming that there’s no complications, Yuuta will bring them to the hospital, and from there -
“Well, we’ll play it by ear,” he says, nodding to himself.
“We don’t know how long they’re actually gonna keep me in the hospital,” Satoru admits. “Like, Shoko said I could only be there a couple days, if everything goes well and they don’t have to split me open -”
“Gross.”
“Metal.”
“- but if there’s any problems, they’re gonna want to keep me for a bit longer.”
He meets Suguru’s eyes over the tops of the girls’ heads, sees the way that he swallows. He sees the way Suguru’s grip on their bags goes a little taut, and it makes something within him ache.
Though neither of them are necessarily expecting anything to go wrong, they have discussed it, if only to prepare themselves for that particular eventuality.
It never gets any easier to contemplate -
Something unthinkable happening, something terrible.
And so he tries very hard not to, pushing those thoughts to the side and doing his best to reassure himself that he is in very good hands here, that Shoko and her team of nurses and specialists won’t let anything happen to him.
He and Suguru are going to bring home two beautiful pups in a couple of days.
They are going to bring them home, and raise them, and love them, and that’s that.
That’s it!
He refuses to think about anything else, not until it’s actually happening - because a positive outlook helps with something like labor, yeah? Keeping a good attitude is important, and so that’s what he’s going to do.
Luckily, they don’t have long to wallow.
Just as Suguru opens his mouth to speak, Yuuta knocks on the door. He steps inside the house just as Satoru pushes to his feet, and then things go very fast.
Yuuta ushers the girls down the sidewalk and into his car, Toge chuckling into the cowl of his sweater at how Nanako balks each and every step of the way. He ends up having to practically bribe her into the backseat, promising her that they’ll stop and get something to eat along the way, and once he’s secured her loyalty, he shoots Satoru an exasperated look.
Satoru just smiles and waves as Suguru helps him into the passenger seat of their own car, twin car seats already strapped into the back.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket to take a picture as they start to drive away, and when Suguru clicks his tongue at him, fondly shaking his head as he pulls out into traffic, Satoru just grins.
“Come on, babe,” he teases. “We gotta document this!”
“You want to document Nanako giving your cousin an aneurysm?”
Satoru bats his eyelashes. “It’ll look so pretty next to the picture of a baby being forcibly expelled from my vagina.”
Suguru pretends to gag, even as he fights back a grin.
“Hey, do you know a lot of people shit themselves when they give birth?”
“What the fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s like a whole thing.”
“Do you want a picture of that, too? For posterity?”
Satoru’s eyes narrows. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Suguru laughs, sends him a fond look as they sit at a red light.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Then, once they’re moving again and Satoru’s back to feeling charitable, he asks, “Have you texted Shoko yet?”
Satoru blinks. “Huh. I knew I’d forgotten something.”
Dragging his phone back out, he flicks over to his messages, pulls up the last conversation he’d had with Shoko; a few days old now, they’d been discussing his birth plan, rehashing everything he and Suguru had planned. Though most of it’s pretty standard stuff for an obstetrician, and he’s not even really in labor yet, he figures it’s still a good idea to let her know things are starting to move, and so he quickly types out a message, pleased at how chill and very not nervous he sounds.
< Satoru - 8:37 > yo, suguru’s fingers broke my water this morning so
< Satoru - 8:38 > babies incoming?
Her reply is almost instant.
< Shoko - 8:39 > what the fuck
Satoru looks up, frowning. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Suguru shoots him a sharp look. “What?”
< Shoko - 8:39 > have you started having contractions yet
< Shoko - 8:39 > are you on the way to the hospital
Satoru snaps a pic of Suguru’s concerned expression, sends it off.
< Satoru - 8:40 > on our way
< Satoru - 8:40 > no contractions just yet
< Shoko - 8:41 > good. let me know when you get to the hospital, then. I’ll have someone come down with a chair
Satoru relays this to Suguru easily enough, and when they pull up to the hospital parking lot a few minutes later, he texts Shoko. He’s plucked from the car and situated in a wheelchair in a matter of seconds, a tall beta wheeling him down the hall to check in at the nurse’s station as Suguru grabs their bags from the trunk.
After filling out the necessary paperwork, and having Suguru sign the forms that give the hospital permission to remove him from the room if necessary, if his alpha instincts prove too violent in a dangerous situation, they’re ushered up several more floors and down the hall to the obstetrics unit. They’re given a cute little room with a window overlooking a nice, green courtyard, and Satoru is given what is perhaps the ugliest dressing gown alive.
“I need to examine you,” Shoko says, sucking down a mouthful of coffee.
Satoru blinks, even as he shucks off his shirt and pants and dons the gown. “I’m not in labor yet,” he protests.
“I know.”
“I’m not having any contractions.”
“So you’ve said.”
“…then why do you want to examine me?”
Shoko sighs and hands Suguru her coffee. “Just get on the bed, Satoru.”
Satoru huffs, rolls his eyes -
But he hops up into the hospital bed and puts his feet in the stirrups nonetheless, offering only token protests as Shoko has a nurse take his pulse, his blood pressure, as she examines first his stomach and then his cervix.
“You’re only a couple centimeters dilated,” she observes, pulling the gown back down over his thighs. “Which is normal, considering you’re at term. And you still haven’t felt any contractions?”
“Just the same small ones I’ve been having,” he admits.
She nods, snapping off her gloves and throwing them in the bin. “Good. Let me know when they start coming at regular intervals. Time them, if you can.”
Reaching out to take her coffee back, she squints down at the cup.
“Did you drink my fucking latte?”
Suguru at least has the grace to look a little guilty, offering up a small smile as he shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Sorry. Let me buy you another?”
Shoko snorts, tosses the cup out. “You better.”
“Want anything Satoru?”
Satoru shakes his head, already busy arranging the hospital blankets in a sad facsimile of a nest. He tucks the scratchy white fabric in around himself as best as he can, happy to take the extra pillows the nurse offers to grab him from the cabinet, and though he’s not exactly cozy by the time Suguru gets back to the room, he’s at least fairly comfortable.
And that’s kind of important, yeah?
Because he’s gonna be here for a while. He’s not even really in labor yet, Shoko’s examination of him more perfunctory than anything; as normal as he feels now, he’s aware that things are going to get a lot, lot worse before they get better -
But that’s kind of how things have to go, and so he beckons Suguru over to his side, making way on the bed, so his mate can slide in beside him.
Suguru presses a bag of chips into his hands, sipping at his coffee.
“I told you not to get me anything,” Satoru protests, even as he rips the bag open and starts shoveling salt-and-seaweed flavored crisps into his mouth.
Suguru snorts. “Do you want me to take them back?”
Satoru crunches down on another mouthful. “You haven’t let me eat chips in weeks.”
“Is that a no?”
“It’s a no fucking way,” Satoru says, quite happily.
Suguru laughs, fond.
Then, taking a long, slow glance around the room, he adds, “I suppose this is a nice enough room. You’re comfortable, yeah?”
Satoru shrugs. “Comfortable as a hospital room can get, I guess.”
“Do you need anything?”
Satoru licks at his fingers, cleans them off. “Just you,” he says.
Suguru’s expression softens at that. “You have me,” he murmurs, putting a hand on Satoru’s belly, stroking across the starchy fabric of his gown. “All three of you do.”
“I should hope so,” Satoru replies. “Considering this is all your fault.”
“You keep saying that, like you weren’t a willing and able participant.”
“Oh, I was willing. More than, even,” he amends, crumpling up the empty bag and chucking it towards the bin. It lands halfway across the room instead, and he lets out an aggravated little huff, clicking his tongue. “One hundred percent enthusiastic consent on my part. Ten out of ten, would do again.”
Suguru stands and moves to pick up the trash. “Then you’re having second thoughts, is that it?” he asks. “Buyer’s remorse?”
Satoru brings his knees to his chest - as much as he can, given the situation. “No second thoughts,” he says, smiling. “I just… I want them to be here, yeah? Like, I’m ready to be done with all of - this.”
He waves his hands, motioning at his gigantic stomach.
“I want them to be here, now.”
Suguru rejoins him at his side, tucking him into his shoulder. “Me too,” he admits, smiling. “I’m ready to meet our pups.”
“Yeah?”
“So ready,” Suguru reiterates.
Then, his expression going a little stern, he adds, “But they’ll get here when they get here, yeah? Like, you can’t rush this kinda thing.”
Satoru scoffs. “I know that.”
“Do you?”
“…yes.”
Suguru smiles and takes another sip of his coffee before gently shaking his leg. “Then relax, yeah?”
Satoru huffs, crosses his arms over his chest. It’s quite a role reversal from earlier this morning, when Satoru had been the one trying get Suguru to stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
He doesn’t much care for it.
“Fine,” he sulks. “Fine. I’ll behave.”
Suguru hums.
“I’ll be on my very best behavior for the nurses. The ideal patient.”
He snickers, grinning at Satoru over the rim of his cup. “Yeah. I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Satoru makes an affronted noise, shoving him up and off the bed as he resettles back into the blankets, glaring at him with as much indignation as he can muster.
“Then keep your eyes open, asshole.”
Fourteen hours later, Satoru’s not feeling so fine.
“What the fuck,” he wheezes, twisting his face into the pillows as another contraction ripples across his abdomen. “What the fuck, Suguru -”
Suguru dabs at his forehead with a cool washcloth, palming his cheek.
“Shhh,” he murmurs, not protesting when Satoru grips at his other hand hard enough to make the bones creak. “Just breathe, baby, breathe -”
“I can’t breathe,” Satoru chokes out, gritting his teeth as he glares up at Suguru.
“Satoru -”
“Because there is a baby shoving their feet into my solar plexus in an attempt to jackknife out my birth canal!”
Just as suddenly the contraction had hit him, it fades.
Satoru collapses back down into the sheets, his laugh a little unhinged; he lets Suguru mop up the sweat from his face while he tries to catch his breath, and when he retreats, walking back over to the sink to wring it out, he moans up at the ceiling.
“How far apart was that?” he asks. “How long since the last one?”
“Four minutes?” Suguru guesses. “A little over?”
Satoru nods, shifting around in a desperate bid to find a more comfortable position - because that sounds about right. Though he’s not really capable of counting at this point, needing every bit of the moments between his contractions to regain a little mental clarity, he can tell the intervals are getting shorter and shorter.
He can tell that he’s edging closer and closer to the time when he’ll actually need to start pushing, and that’s -
“Fuck,” he gasps, choking back a sob as another wave hits him.
“Another?” Suguru asks sharply.
“Another,” Satoru bites out.
“That was only three and a half minutes.”
Satoru laughs again, though the sound quickly transforms into a moan. “Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed -”
Suguru nearly trips in his haste to get back to Satoru’s side, sliding the washcloth across Satoru’s soaked hairline as he gives him his hand to grip, his shoulder to bury his face in. He supports him as best as he can until the muscles finally relax, and then he’s fishing around in the sheets for the call button, pressing down on the receiver until the device lights up red.
“I’m calling Shoko,” he says.
“She said -”
“She said to call her when your contractions were under four minutes apart,” Suguru interjects, wiping a hand over his face.
Satoru can see the beginnings of strain showing in his face - the tenseness of his jaw, the vein throbbing at his temple. Though he’s been nothing but helpful so far, trying as best as he can to suppress any of those alpha instincts urging him to prowl around the room and snap at every nurse that occasionally walks in the door to check on him, he’s starting to look almost as weary as Satoru feels.
They’ve been at this for hours now, after all, Satoru’s contractions having finally started up sometime around noon.
It’s exhausting.
It’s infuriating, because all Satoru can do is endure, and all Suguru can do is watch.
Of all the things he’d been expecting during labor, it’s the boredom he finds the most surprising. Because he can deal with the pain, yeah?
Like, it sucks, don’t get him wrong -
But he’d been under no illusions that labor was going to be all sunshine and rainbows, the cold, hard reality of the process drilled into him by Shoko and Utahime, by every nurse and ultrasound technician he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting; hell, even Haibara had taken him out to lunch one day a couple months ago and tried to warn him how much it would suck. For someone who still struggles to use basic curse words in everyday conversation, he’d described the whole ordeal in excruciatingly realistic detail, holding nothing back as he’d recalled both of the times he’d been in labor, the episiotomy he’d unfortunately needed after Daisuke.
Which, frankly, Satoru could have done without.
He does not want to think about vaginal tearing, not while he is currently trying to shove a watermelon sized being out through said vagina, and -
“Okay, yeah,” he croaks. “Call Shoko.”
It takes less than five minutes for her to get there.
Less than that for her to pull on a pair of gloves, to sit down on a stool between his thighs and shine a flashlight up his ass.
“Oh, good,” she says, humming. “You’re right at ten centimeters.”
Satoru nearly cries in relief. “I can start pushing?”
“You can start pushing,” she confirms. “Suguru, help him up.”
“Up?”
“Into more of a seated position, brace him with your shoulders.”
As Suguru hastens to obey, Shoko has another nurse do the same on his other side; a flood of assistants trickle in the door, helping her get ready to deliver the babies and him into the proper position; his feet are pushed into the stirrups as Shoko dons her own gown, as she tucks her hair up and back into a cap. His hospital gown is pushed up to his knees, every concern about modesty he might have once had gone out in the window in the face of finally getting this over and done with, and by the time the next contraction hits, Satoru’s being told to push.
He’s being commanded to bear down, Suguru murmuring in his ear and pressing his lips to his temple as he lets out a string of expletives that makes even Shoko’s eyebrows lift.
“What’s the matter?” she teases, waiting until he’s gasping for breath before she looks up from between his thighs. “Does that tickle?”
Satoru grabs a handful of the ice chips one of the nurses had thought to bring him, flicks one into her face before he shoves the rest down the front of his gown, anything to get some relief.
Shoko just cackles into her mask, reminding him to push again when another contraction hits him.
“You know, some people say that labor is the most meaningful experience in a person’s life,” she says. “Right up there with enlightenment, transcendence.”
“Some people,” Satoru grits out, “are idiots.”
She snorts. “Not feeling it?”
Satoru rather thinks he’s feeling too much - kinda like he’s doing the splits on a crate of dynamite, or maybe jumping over a very big fire on a night where his underwear have gone suspiciously rogue.
But that’s neither here nor there, he supposes, and so he tries to make the best of it.
He tries his best to just focus on pushing, on completing the task that his body’s set before him and delivering these babies.
It’s not easy.
Everything in him is telling him to give up, to flop over and curl up into a ball on his side; though he very much wants to hold his pups in his arms, desperate to finally see them, touch them, it feels like a bit of an insurmountable obstacle.
Much like how the last few kilometers of a foot race are the hardest to endure, the last thirty or so minutes of active labor proves the most difficult to bear.
He’s sobbing, laughing, screaming -
He can’t tell which is which anymore, and Suguru’s not doing much better. He looks about two seconds away from going entirely berserk, only just barely holding himself back from yelling at the aggravatingly optimistic nurses, from demanding that Shoko tell him, once again, whether or not she can see anything.
Though he’s still doing better than Satoru, his patience is hanging on by a thread; an alpha forced to watch their mate enduring this kind of pain is hard to witness, their protective instincts often going haywire. It’s why hospitals make them sign waivers whenever their mates go into labor, why they’re not allowed anywhere near an operating room without giving consent to be sedated if they start showing signs of getting too hostile.
Satoru thinks Suguru’s still got those urges mostly under control -
But it’s a near thing, and when Shoko finally sees the first baby start to crown, when she looks up at them and announces, “Okay, there’s the head,” the noise he makes is strangled.
It’s weak, desperate.
And Suguru, still doing his best to be supportive, gives an excited croon, nosing at his cheek even as he leans forward to try and see what Shoko does.
“You’re so close, sweetheart,” he says. “You’re so -”
“Big push,” Shoko demands. “Keep breathing, Satoru.”
“- you’re doing so good, baby, so good -”
Satoru’s throat is hoarse from screaming.
His voice is nearly gone, and so instead of yelling, he just laughs; he laughs, even as tears stream down his cheeks and his body writhes, intent on doing this one thing, on fulfilling this one task -
Still, it takes a while.
It takes several more minutes before Shoko tells him that the head is out, that she has a hold of the baby, and after one final, tremendous push -
“That’s it, Satoru,” Shoko says, right before a tiny, shrill cry breaks the air.
Satoru flops backwards with a sob, gasping for breath as he watches Shoko hand off the squalling newborn to a nurse; he watches through teary eyes as Suguru’s allowed to cut the umbilical cord, as the nurses wipe the pup off, prick their finger for the first blood test, and help clear the fluid from their lungs.
They’re so tiny. Shorter than his forearm, probably, weighing maybe three kilograms.
There’s no hair that he can see; they’re still all wrinkly and pink, their features no more discernible than any other baby’s. He thinks he’d be very hard-pressed to pick out this pup from any other in a hospital nursery line-up, and yet they’re so -
“Perfect,” he breathes, broken.
Suguru glances back at him, looking kind of like he’s gonna cry.
Then he’s staring down at the pup again, the little bundle the nurses have pressed into his arms. “It’s a girl,” he says, choking up. “It’s - the omega, Satoru, she's a girl.”
Satoru holds out his arms, tears streaming down his face.
“Please,” he begs. “Suguru.”
His mate walks over to the bed like he’s in a trance, gingerly settling back down beside Satoru. Though he hands over the pup easily enough, he keeps his arm wrapped around Satoru’s waist, hooking his chin over his shoulder. He lets a cloud of his happy, fiercely proud pheromones waft over them both, and when the pup opens her eyes, when she blearily blinks up at them -
“Oh,” he breathes, rapt. “She has your eyes.”
Suguru laughs, knocking their heads together. “She has your nose.”
Satoru nods, his own chuckle a little watery. “It’s a good nose.”
“It’s a beautiful nose,” Suguru agrees, humming. “The best, even.”
Satoru snorts as he stares down at their daughter, utterly incapable of looking away, even for a moment. “Now you’re just mocking me,” he says, trailing a finger down her tiny little cheek. Her skin is soft, plush; though the hospital does a very good job of keeping the rooms clear of pheromones, industrial strength air purifiers pumping out scent neutralizing chemicals every five minutes, they can’t hide the way she smells of them, of home, and that’s -
Another contraction ripples across his abdomen, then, a stark reminder that he has another baby to deliver.
Satoru barely stifles a groan as he looks down at Shoko, still sitting between his legs.
“Again?” he moans.
She nods, knowing. “Again.”
Suguru takes their daughter back to the nurses, who insist that they still need to take her measurements, need to make sure everything else looks alright. Though he’s a little reluctant to give her up, he finds his way back to Satoru’s side easily enough, gripping at his shoulders as he’s once again instructed to push. He once again offers as much support as he can -
And somehow, the second pup is easier.
It’s faster, even when Suguru has to step aside to give the nurses the name, when he has to help them fill out all of the correct information for her birth certificate.
Satoru’s barely been pushing for ten minutes when Shoko announces that she can see the head crowning, and after another couple of contractions, another few moments of terrible, awful pain, he’s rewarded with another shrill, thin cry.
It’s thinner than the first, weaker.
“Is that - are they alright?” he pants.
“Wonderful,” Shoko says, handing the second baby off to the nurse. “Bigger than the girl, but only half as loud - oh, and it’s a boy, by the way. A male alpha.”
Satoru’s breath hitches. “A… a boy?”
“Mmhmm.”
He meets Suguru’s eyes over her head, watches helplessly as he’s handed another small, crying bundle of a baby. This pup has a soft tuft of white hair adorning their head already, plastered wetly to their soft, pink skin. He’s fussy, waving his tiny little arms in the air as Suguru tries desperately to console him, and Satoru -
“I don’t have a name for a boy,” he says, swallowing.
Shoko snorts, waving at one of the nurses to hold up a light so she can inspect Satoru for tears, so she can coach the nurses through helping him deliver the afterbirth.
“You’d best come up with one, then,” she mutters.
Satoru splutters. “Just like that?”
“Mmm. Just like that.”
Luckily, things don’t happen quite that fast.
After he delivers the placentas, and the nurses help him out of the stirrups and back into a more reclined position, once they clean him up a little and give him some water, he’s given both pups and a crash-course in how to nurse. The staff help him put little baby Sachiko to one breast and the boy to the other, and though it’s not pleasant, not by any stretch of the imagination (who would have thought that Suguru was the gentle one, for fucks sake) there is something incredibly satisfying about the whole thing.
It’s entirely fulfilling to watch both pups drink their fill, to watch them yawn and gurgle and blink up at the both of them after their midnight dinner.
They’re beautiful.
Satoru doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything quite so lovely, and he’s definitely never been a part of something so precious, so dear.
He can’t stop looking at them, even when they finally fall asleep in his arms; he can’t stop scenting them, running his fingers over their heads and letting their tiny little hands curl over his own.
Though the love he feels for Suguru is larger than life, incandescent, he knows that the adoration he has for these two little pups is already stronger than anything he’s ever felt before, impossible to quantify.
He would do anything for them, everything -
Though he does find it a little difficult to give them up.
“You need to rest,” Suguru admonishes, plucking first Sachiko from his arms and then the boy. He places each of them in their tiny little nurseries, gives each of them one final scenting before he dims the lights and turns back to Satoru. “You need sleep.”
“‘m not tired,” Satoru protests, yawning into his fist.
Suguru hums, helps him tug his gown back up and over his chest.
“Oh, yeah?” he teases.
“I am a crackling ball of energy,” Satoru retorts, even as Suguru gently shifts him to the side of the bed, crawls up beside him.
Suguru puts a hand to the back of his neck, carding his fingers through his hair.
“I’m sure,” he murmurs.
Satoru twists into him, lets his eyelids droop -
Because while he’s not really sleepy, while he definitely hadn’t lied to Suguru, he is - fuck, he’s exhausted, a bone-deep sort of weariness settling over him even as he struggles to take his eyes off the little cribs, to let the pups out of his sight for even a moment.
And it’s not that he thinks something is gonna happen.
They’re in a private hospital room, for fuck’s sake, and Suguru is right here with him.
They’re safe, an entire wing’s worth of doctors and nurses just on the other side of the door, and Shoko had said both pups were perfectly healthy; there is absolutely no cause for concern, and yet -
“I’m afraid that if I close my eyes they won’t be here when I wake up,” he admits.
Suguru makes a soft, knowing sound, twisting to face Satoru.
“I know,” he says,
“They’re so small,” Satoru continues. “They’re so -”
Suguru shushes him with a kiss, easing their mouths together slowly, carefully. His thumb pets so, so gently over Satoru’s cheekbones, and when he pulls back, his smile is kind.
“I always thought it was weird when people said they took one look at their kids and fell in love,” he confesses. “Like, really? One look? They don’t even look like real people until they’re a couple months old, but… I get it now, I think. I understand.”
Satoru nods.
“I know what they mean, because, honestly? Same.”
“Same,” he breathes.
This time, he doesn’t protest when his eyelids droop. He doesn’t argue when Suguru tugs the blankets up and tucks them both in, or when he presses Satoru’s face into his neck. He lets himself be wrapped up tight in his mate’s arms, lets him whisper all sorts of soft, encouraging little praises in his ear as his mind goes all hazy and warm.
“You did so good, sweetheart,” he breathes, something in his voice breaking. “You did so - fuck, I’m so happy.”
“Yeah?” Satoru murmurs, pleased. “You are?”
“So fucking happy, I - oh shit.”
Satoru frowns, pulled from his daze by the surprise in Suguru’s voice.
“What?” he demands, instantly worrying that something is wrong, that something’s up. “What is it, are the pups -”
Suguru laughs, quiets him with another kiss. “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” he says, palming Satoru’s cheek. “I just - I thought of a name for the boy.”
Satoru blinks. “You did?”
“Yeah, like - we picked ‘Sachiko’ because it means happy, yeah? Bliss?”
“…right.”
“And if having twins is double the pups, double the happy -”
Satoru snorts. “Double the happy?” he repeats. “What are you, five?”
“Sakito,” Suguru says, ignoring him.
Oh.
“I mean, it’s not quite the same thing, the characters are a little different, but -”
Oh.
“- it kinda fits, yeah?” Suguru shifts against him, tucking a careful hand under his chin. “Like, it took you a while to get here, and it wasn’t easy. I hate that you had to spend so much time alone, that you ever thought you weren’t wanted, that you’d never get to have this. But look where you are now, yeah?
“Look at these pups. Look at this life, fuck.”
He smiles, a little bashful.
“I don’t really believe in fairy tale happy endings, but this is still pretty fucking great, isn’t it?”
Satoru kinda feels like he might cry.
If he wasn’t so completely and totally exhausted, utterly spent after ten plus hours of labor and delivering two perfect babies, he’d probably be a snotty, blubbering mess, the pregnancy hormones wreaking havoc on his street cred on last time.
As it is, he just nods, delighted at the way Suguru’s entire face lights up with joy, the pleasant little noise that rumbles up and out of chest.
He laughs into Suguru’s mouth when he leans forward to kiss him, tucks a hand into his hair and smoothes his thumb over his cheek.
He’s purring.
He’s content.
He feels so fucking happy he thinks he might actually, spontaneously burst, so completely and totally in love with his mate, with their perfect little family, his own happily ever after -
And that, he thinks, is a beautiful thing.