Entry tags:

bandslash, panic! at the disco, wtf27

Anatomy (Part 2 of 2)
Panic! At The Disco; Brendon Urie/Jon Walker, Ryan Ross/Spencer Smith
R; For the wtf27 challenge prompt number 6: mpreg. Yeah, you read it. Herein lies one pregnant boy, one completely fictional affliction, and a lot of crack. For heartscientist, who did it first, but told me it was okay to do it too. The Ryan/Spencer is for her. Beta by the lovely yankeesdtr.

Timeline is thus: this begins at the end of the Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour and proceeds thusly. I’m fucking around with like, time and life and Brendon is hiding out in that cabin, don’t you know? Info from WebMD and my brain, so don’t be harsh if it’s not completely correct.

Read part 1 first.







Brendon hated going to the doctor. He hated sitting in the waiting room, feeling like everyone was looking at him like he was a weirdo. He kept his hood pulled up and his head down because he didn’t want anyone to see his face, and he supposed that that made everything that much weirder. Jon wore a baseball cap pulled down over his face. It was always a relief to be called back to see the doctor, even if it was under the privacy of a fake name.

“How are you feeling today?” the doctor asked as he walked into the examination room, closing the door behind him.

“Like I’m a pregnant boy and everyone thinks I’m a weirdo,” Brendon said. The longer they’d sat out there, the crankier he’d gotten. “Otherwise not bad. Tired. Hungry. Fat. And I have to pee.”

“Well, we’ll get to the ultrasound in just a minute, and you’ll be able to take care of that,” the doctor said, and Jon was snickering. “But first, I’m just going to do a quick checkup, then we’ll get to the ultrasound, all right?”

Brendon nodded, and his stomach was twisted up in knots. He was nervous, he was tired, he wanted this to be over with. Jon reached out and took hold of his hand. The checkup went quickly, it always seemed to, so they could get to the part of the exam that Brendon hated. The ultrasound.

“Okay, we just need to get your pants out of the way,” the doctor said, and there was a scuffle as Jon started laughing and Brendon took a moment to slap out at him, and Jon looked offended as Brendon glared. The doctor was looking at them with raised eyebrows as Brendon finally moved to slide his pants down underneath his swollen belly, unzipping his hoodie, taking it off and handing it to Jon before pulling his shirt up out of the way.

“This is so degrading. I just want you to know,” Brendon said.

“Women have been going through this for years,” the doctor said.

“Yeah, women, of which I am not,” Brendon said, frowning, reaching out for Jon’s hand again. The doctor just squirted the gel onto Brendon’s stomach. Brendon jerked. “Why can’t you like, warm that stuff up a little?”

“Because that would take all of the fun out of it for me,” the doctor said with a bit of a laugh.

“You’re a cruel, cruel man,” Brendon said, but he was smiling. He didn’t dislike the doctor, honestly. He disliked being pregnant.

“If you’ll be quiet, you’ll get to hear your baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor said, and Brendon’s mouth snapped shut faster than Jon had ever seen it before. Jon coughed to cover the laugh.

“Shhh,” Brendon said, looking at Jon with his eyes wide. They were silent for a few minutes as the doctor moved the wand over Brendon’s stomach. At first, all Brendon could really hear was his own heartbeat.

“Is that it?” Jon asked. “The little, quieter one?”

“Yes,” the doctor said.

Brendon lay there for a moment, listening. Then he started crying, again. He pulled his hand out of Jon’s to wipe his face. “I’m really sick of being pregnant,” he said, his voice catching as he spoke.

“It’ll only be a bit longer,” the doctor said. “You’re approximately five months, right now. That’s over halfway, and if you want to know, we can see if your baby is in the right position to let us know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl.”

“I’d really… I’d really like to know,” Brendon said, sniffling a little bit, shifting on the table a bit. Jon reached out and took hold of his hand, before he leaned down and kissed his cheek.

Brendon smiled at him.

***


Ryan and Spencer jumped them the second they got through the door.

“Well?” Spencer said. “What is it? How is it?”

Brendon ignored him and walked past. Ryan was in his way.

“Oh no,” Ryan said, putting his hand out and stopping Brendon with one hand on his chest. “We want to know. No secrets, okay?”

“I have to pee,” Brendon said. “And I will push you out of the way if I have to, Ryan Ross.”

Ryan moved of his own accord. They were all waiting in the living room when Brendon finally came out of the bathroom. He looked at them, and pretended like he was going to turn around and leave, prompting Ryan to yell “HEY!” and make him come back with a smile on his face.

“So,” Spencer said, and Brendon got the impression that if he didn’t tell right then, Spencer was going to choke him out, baby or no baby. Brendon eased himself down onto the couch next to Jon and tried to make himself comfortable.

“Well,” Brendon said. “Um, it’s a baby, and Jon and I got to hear it’s heartbeat, and it’s healthy.”

“Yeah, but what is it?” Ryan asked.

“A baby,” Brendon said, as though Ryan was stupid.

“Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t punch you in the face,” Ryan said.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Brendon said.

“Try me, Brendon Urie,” Ryan said.

“It wouldn’t hurt that much,” Jon said, grinning. “He’s little, Brendon, how much weight could he possibly put into throwing a punch?”

“He has bony fingers,” Brendon said.

“Hi, sitting right here,” Ryan said. “What is the gender of the child which is gestating inside your abdomen, Brendon? Please don’t make me deck you.”

“That which traditionally wears blue clothes, Ryan Ross,” Brendon said, leaning comfortably against Jon. Jon slid his arm around Brendon and rested his hand against Brendon’s belly. Brendon grinned.

“What?” said Spencer, at the same time Ryan yelled “a boy?”

Then Spencer said, “You two are sickeningly cute, actually,” and shook his head. “Are you seriously having a boy?”

“That’s what the doctor tells me,” Brendon said.

“Oh man,” Ryan said. “It’ll probably be exactly like you. I mean, seriously exactly like you. All obnoxious and prone to, like, getting pregnant and shit.”

“Did you know that babies can hear inside the womb?” Brendon asked.

“You don’t have a womb,” Spencer said.

“Uh, obviously, I do,” Brendon snapped. “Anyway, did you know they could hear?”

“What does that have to do with you having a boy?” Ryan asked.

“It doesn’t. I’m saying don’t cuss because my baby can hear you, all right?” Brendon said.

“So what was that when you stubbed your toe last night?” Spencer asked.

“Do you two share a brain?” Brendon asked. “Jon, why are you not defending me? And why does Ryan have sex hair?”

Ryan was out of the room before anyone could actually answer.


***


The first time Brendon actually felt the baby move, he had been asleep. He was curled up on his side, hugging a pillow and it had taken him forever to get comfortable because he was used to sleeping on his stomach, and he was startled out of his sleep by a sharp pain.

His first thought was “labor!” Then he realized that the pain was too high to ever be that. It happened again and he raised his hand up, pressing against the offended spot. He groaned as it happened again. He curled up around himself and reached out, shaking Jon lightly.

“What?” Jon asked, rolling over and pressing his face into the pillow.

“Your baby is trying to kill me. It’s kicking me in the fucking ribs, Jon, and it hurts,” Brendon whined. Jon turned his head and smiled sleepily at Brendon.

“It’s your baby, too,” Jon said.

“I’m going to start kicking you in the ribs every time the baby kicks me,” Brendon said.

Jon shifted over and pulled the pillow from between them, wrapping his arms around Brendon and resting his hand against Brendon’s stomach. The baby kicked out at Jon’s hand. Jon kissed Brendon softly.

“Go back to sleep, okay?” he said, and Brendon wasn’t sure that Jon was even awake when he said it.

Brendon tried, at least.


***


Ryan was making breakfast, a massive undertaking that involved a cookbook and a lot of flour, homemade cinnamon rolls to, hopefully, make Brendon feel better about things. Brendon was sitting at the kitchen table with an enormous glass of milk, his hand resting against his belly as he watched Ryan.

“When are you going to start buying things for the baby?” Ryan asked him. Brendon looked up sharply from where he was doing the crossword in the paper someone had left on the table.

“I’m – I told you I was going to put it up for adoption,” Brendon said. Ryan looked at him seriously.

“Please, Brendon,” Ryan said. “Are you going to keep saying that even though you’ve heard the baby, seen the baby, and felt it move and you sit there with your hand on your stomach all the time?”

Brendon moved his hand. “I don’t –“

“You totally do,” Ryan said.

“I don’t… Ryan seriously? What am I going to do with a baby?” Brendon said. “I can’t take care of a baby. Not and do what we do, and… “

“I know that there are plenty of people who would volunteer to take care of the baby,” Ryan said quietly. He turned back to the dough he was trying to put together. “Like Jon’s mom. And I bet … we could hire someone, if we had to. And… I bet when it gets here, your mom… she’ll come around, Brendon.”

“No she won’t,” Brendon said.

Ryan went quiet as he continued putting the cinnamon rolls together, following the book carefully.

“You don’t know that,” Ryan said. “And… I think you should start looking for baby stuff. Set up a nursery.”

“I’m not keeping the baby,” Brendon said.

“You know that, like, Jon has to give permission for that, too, since it’s his baby, right?” Ryan asked.

“Are you serious?” Brendon said.

“Yup. I looked it up on the internet,” Ryan said.

Brendon sank down in the seat, sighing. He rubbed his hand over his belly, making a face as the baby kicked him in the gallbladder or whatever was inside him that the kid was kicking, constantly.

“How am I supposed to take care of a baby?” Brendon said after a moment, and Ryan was cutting a log of cinnamon roll into regular roll-sized pieces. “I mean, am I supposed to… buy a house, buy all kinds of baby stuff, even when I’m going to be on a tour bus almost all the time?”

“It’s a thought,” Ryan said. “I mean, you’ll be here part of the time. And when you’re here you’ll have somewhere to stay with the baby, right?”

“And what about when we’re on tour, Ryan? You can’t take a baby on tour, that’s stupid,” Brendon said.

“Who says you can’t bring him on tour part of the time?” Ryan said. “I’m sure that none of us are going to complain. Except maybe Spencer, but he complains about everything.”

“So what you’re saying is that the only person who isn’t going to complain is Jon,” Brendon said.

“You wouldn’t complain about your own baby,” Ryan said. “I mean, you might think that you will, but it’s your baby, Brendon.”

“I don’t want it. I … Ryan, you don’t understand. I didn’t know I could get pregnant, I didn’t want to have a baby. I didn’t expect for this to happen. It’s not like I’m some stupid girl that just… didn’t take care of things and ended up pregnant. I… I really didn’t know. It’s not the same. I’m not meant to be anyone’s mom.”

“Apparently you were,” Ryan said, arranging the rolls in neat lines in the pan. “I think you should keep it.”

“Would you keep it? If you were me and … you were pregnant?” Brendon asked.

“I…” Ryan said, and trailed off. He wasn’t really sure whether he would or not. He hadn’t ever really thought about it. He supposed that he should, since if Brendon could get pregnant, why not him, and there wasn’t anyone who could really tell him, because there was no way he was calling his mom. “I don’t know.”

“I bet you and Spencer are really careful now, too, aren’t you?” Brendon snapped. Ryan spun around, his eyes wide.

“What?” he asked, now looking like he was a baby deer trapped in a car’s headlights. Brendon noticed that he had a smear of flour across his cheek.

“You and Spencer,” Brendon said. “I’m not stupid, Ryan.”

“All those extra hormones in your body are fucking up your brain,” Ryan said, narrowing his eyes. “Just because you’re pregnant or what the fuck ever, Brendon, that’s no excuse for being an asshole, all right? You don’t get to treat me like that.”

“Then admit it, Ryan, you wouldn’t fucking keep a baby, either,” Brendon snapped.

“Yes I would!” Ryan yelled at him. “If it were my baby, I’d keep it. And even if I didn’t want to keep it, and it was Spencer’s baby, and he wanted me to, I would keep it because he wanted me to and I wouldn’t be so fucking selfish.”

Brendon looked stunned. He hadn’t really expected Ryan to yell at him, and he certainly hadn’t expected Ryan to yell what he had.

“I…” Brendon started.

“Just shut up,” Ryan snapped, and turned back around, snatching up the pan and shoving it into the oven before storming out of the room, leaving Brendon sitting there. He slammed into Jon in the hallway.

“You shouldn’t have yelled at him like that,” Jon said quietly. Ryan just glared at him.

“Then he shouldn’t be so selfish,” Ryan said, and pushed past Jon, going into the bathroom and slamming the door, locking it behind him. Jon shook his head and went into the kitchen.

Brendon was sitting at the kitchen table, his elbows propped up on the table and his face in his hands. He wasn’t crying. Jon slipped into the chair beside him.

“Am I really selfish? Is one of us really selfish, if we want two different things?” Brendon asked. “If you want it and I don’t, and we both insist, which of us is really selfish?”

“I’m not insisting,” Jon said.

“You called me selfish before. Does Spencer think I’m selfish too? Both you and Ryan have said it now. Is Spencer going to tell me I’m selfish now too?”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s going to have to try and get Ryan to come out of the bathroom now where he’s probably crying and writing angsty prose about you,” Jon said. “And I’m just going to tell you I love you and that whatever you do is fine with me.”

“Even though you want to keep the baby,” Brendon said.

“Even though I want to keep the baby,” Jon confirmed.

“Do you really think that we could make it work?” Brendon asked. “I mean. Keeping the baby.”

“I think we could. Ryan thinks we could,” Jon said. “And I bet you that Spencer would say the same thing.”

“I’ll… It kind of hurts, you know? I mean, when it kicks me. But it’s a life, right? It’s… a life that I created,” Brendon said. “And sometimes I just think, you know, maybe I should keep it.”

“You have to do what you need to do,” Jon said.

“I need to think about it,” Brendon said, and got up from the table, walking out of the room and back toward his bedroom. Jon sighed and checked on Ryan’s cinnamon rolls.


***


He was eight months pregnant and felt like he was the size of a house, and that was something he still hadn't even considered purchasing. He sat around a lot, stayed on the couch, hanging out while everyone else worked around him and hated every minute of it when he had to stand on horribly swollen feet to sing. He tried to stay seated as much as humanly possible.

"Have you made the decision yet?" the doctor asked. He had some concerns about the fluid retention, but otherwise he was sure that Brendon was doing fine. Brendon, however, was not so sure that he was fine at all.

("Do you see the size of my ass?" he had asked Ryan that morning. "How am I supposed to function, seriously?"

"It's to balance out your forty pound baby," Ryan said, watching Brendon with a perfectly straight face.

"You're so wrong, Ryan Ross," Brendon said after a moment. "There's at least 50 pounds of baby here."

Ryan laughed as Brendon waddled off.)

"No," Brendon said, making a face. He shifted a little bit, trying to get more comfortable with sitting there, considering his now-enormous stomach. "When do I get to be done with this?"

"Well," the doctor said, looking at Brendon seriously. "You ask that every time you come in here, and every time I tell you the same thing. You're done with this when you make it to the date of your surgery, or you go into labor."

"Can't you do it early?" Brendon whined.

“You ask that every time, too," the doctor said with a little bit of a smile. "And I'll tell you now the same thing I've told you every other time. You have to carry to term if it's at all possible. Now, the issue
at hand is whether you've decided to have the baby up for adoption or not. You really need to make a decision. I'm assuming you still haven't purchased anything for the child?"

"No," Brendon said. He hadn't been able to make himself go and buy anything, and just going to the doctor now made him exhausted, but the baby had lately taken to kicking him in the diaphragm and making it hard to breathe. Brendon was truly suffering, here. "I can't. Even if I wanted to now, he keeps kicking me so much it sucks to even come down here."

"It's really best to make these decisions before the baby arrives. I'm not telling you which to choose, but you sound as though you don't actually want to give it up," the doctor said quietly. Brendon squeezed his eyes shut. It had been a blessed few weeks when his hormones hadn't been so out of whack, but that was gone and his grasp on sanity was currently tenuous at best.

"I don't," Brendon said. "I... he'd been kicking me for so long, and... I want to know if he's going to grow up to look like me or Jon, and I hope it's Jon, I really do, and I want to be there for all of that. Except... I won't be, anyway, because I'll be touring and who's going to take care of him then?"

"That could be something you could figure as you go along, too," the doctor said. "But if you think you're unable to care for the child, I would recommend adoption, definitely."

"I don't know," Brendon said quietly.

"I can set you up an appointment to see a counselor, if you like," the doctor said.

"Yeah, okay," Brendon said.

He skipped the appointment.


***


Brendon didn't make it to the scheduled date of surgery. He almost did. In fact, the doctor was almost positive he would make it. (Brendon got the impression that was something like a medical miracle, and that male pregnancies usually ended in disaster before the due date.

"Mom always said I was special," Brendon said, grinning as they were discussing it.

"I'm sure she meant special-ed," Spencer said, flipping through junk mail that had miraculously shown up at the cabin.

"Oh my God. Jon, hit him," Brendon ordered. Jon looked at Spencer with raised eyebrows and did nothing. “Ouch, Jon. I'm the... father of your child. You could at least defend my honor.")

Brendon didn't make it. He woke up in the middle of the night, pain shooting through his back. Had the baby now decided to kick him in the spine? It fucking hurt. He sat up and took a deep breath. The pain didn't really recede in the slightest.

He hauled himself out of the bed, breathing hard with the pain of it. He realized then that this was labor, that he was finally going to get out of this, but he was going to suffer massively first. He pressed his hand
hard against his back and went down the hall.

"Jon?" he called out. "Jon?" He pushed the door open and went over to the bed. "Jon, I need you to take me to the hospital." He reached out and shook Jon hard. "Jon. Hospital. Now. God, why do you have to sleep like -- oh fuck."

Jon finally forced his eyes open to see Brendon standing there with his eyes crushed shut and his face contorted. "What's wrong?" he asked sleepily.

"I need you to take me to the hospital. Right now," Brendon said.

"Oh shit," Jon said, and Brendon had never seen him motivated out of bed that quickly before in the entire time they'd known each other. "Okay. Just. You go down to the car and I'm going to wake up Spencer and Ryan and grab your bag and we'll go, okay?" Jon said.

Brendon nodded with gritted teeth and started out of the room. Jon jumped up and dressed as quickly as possible, sliding on jeans and a t-shirt of questionable cleanliness (it looked clean, anyway, and
that was good enough for Jon) and his flip flops before all but running down the hall, slamming open the door to Ryan's room.

"Get up," Jon yelled, flipping on the lights.

"Fuck you," Ryan groaned, pulling his blankets up over his head.

"I'm taking Brendon to the hospital," Jon said. "So if you want to be there when the baby's born, then you better get up."

"Is it really being born if they're cutting him open?" Ryan asked, tossing his blankets back.

Jon stood there for a moment. "Bring Brendon's bag when you come," Jon said, before turning and running down the hallway and out to the car, where Brendon was waiting, sitting hunched over in the front seat, almost in tears.

Jon broke the speed limit on the way to the hospital.


***


“No!” Brendon was yelling. “No, I can’t do this. Please don’t—“

The anesthesiologist pressed his lips into a thin line and frowned at Brendon. Brendon was shaking his head and he was almost bent double with the pain of, well, labor.

“Just lay on your side and if you let me do this it won’t hurt anymore,” the anesthesiologist said. “And then they can take the baby, and this will all be over.”

“I don’t want them to cut me open,” Brendon said, and he was looking at Jon.

“Please hold him still,” said the anesthesiologist.

“Jon, don’t let them cut me open,” Brendon begged. “Please? Please don’t let them cut me open. I don’t want a scar. I don’t want this baby. Make it all go away. Please.”

“I can’t, Bren, you have to do this,” Jon said. “If you don’t do it, your baby will die. Our baby will die.” Jon was kneeling down, both of Brendon’s hands in his. “You’ll die.”

“Just curl your body up, around the baby. You’ll feel a sharp pinch, and then you’ll start to go numb and we can get you into surgery,” the anesthesiologist said.

“I can’t do this. I don’t want a baby, I don’t wan—ow, fuck I hate this I want to go home I don’t want a baby.” Brendon was in tears. Freaking out. Jon didn’t know what to do because he’d never been with anyone who was in labor before, and he’d certainly never been around Brendon when he was in this much pain. Jon knew that he was terrified.

Jon let go of one of Brendon’s hands and petted his hair gently. “Just take a deep breath and you won’t be feeling anything in a few minutes and then we’ll have a baby in just a few more, and you won’t ever have to go through this again,” Jon said. He just kept stroking Brendon’s hair, trying to get Brendon to relax.

Brendon just whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut and tears trickling out. The anesthesiologist pulled the needle out.

“They’ll get him into surgery in just a few minutes,” he told Jon. “You’re going to have to clean up so that you can go into the operating room with him.”

“Don’t leave me!” Brendon yelled, digging his fingers into Jon’s arm. “Jon, you can’t leave me.”

“They won’t let me go into surgery with you if I don’t put that little gown on,” Jon said quietly.

“Is there someone else who can stay with him while you’re getting ready?” the anesthesiologist asked. Jon nodded.

“Bren, I’m going to get Ryan, okay? He’ll stay with you until they take you in,” Jon said. “And I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“Okay,” Brendon said, and he let go of Jon’s hands as the other boy went out of the room. Brendon just lay there, curled up on his side. He could still feel his muscles contracting, but it was starting to not hurt as much.

Ryan came in less than a minute later. “Hey,” he said, walking over to Brendon and touching the other boy’s shoulder lightly. “Hey, Jon said you’re going numb.”

“Thank god,” Brendon said. “I don’t want to do this.”

Ryan started stroking Brendon’s hair the same as Jon had. “You have to, though. They’ll take the baby out by the time the anesthetic wears off, so you won’t have contractions anymore,” Ryan said quietly. He kept his voice low and it was more soothing than Jon’s. Possibly due, in part, to the fact that Ryan was freaking out a lot less than Jon was. It wasn’t his baby, after all. “Then you’ll have a baby, and I’m sure it will be absolutely beautiful. And it’ll probably have a lot of hair.”

“Yeah?” Brendon said, starting to calm down just a little. Not much, because in the back of his mind, he knew that he was about to be sliced open.

“Yup,” Ryan said. “Lots of hair, and it will be tiny and perfect and beautiful.”

“You believe that?” Brendon asked. Ryan turned and looked as a pair of nurses came in.

“I believe that,” Ryan said, smiling a little bit. He walked out into the hall with them as they wheeled Brendon out of the room and out to surgery. He walked back to the waiting room and sank into the seat next to Spencer.

“Is he freaked out?” Spencer asked.

“He’s in tears, Spence. It’s really kind of sad,” Ryan said.

“Bet he practices safe sex from now on,” Spencer said.

“Spence! I feel sorry for him,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, because he’s being pathetic. You won’t feel sorry for him later. You’ll be glad that it’s not you,” Spencer said logically.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Ryan said, then sighed.


***


The doctor kept up a running commentary while he cut into Brendon. Jon couldn’t watch, and Brendon was lying there staring straight up at the ceiling with a little blue cap over his hair and an oxygen tube in his nose. It was surreal, and it was scary. Jon held onto Brendon’s hand while he stood there, stroking his thumb across the back of Brendon’s hand, occasionally reaching up his other hand to wipe away the tears that kept sliding out of the corners of Brendon’s eyes.

“I want this to be over,” Brendon kept saying, over and over. Jon couldn’t remember ever having seen Brendon this upset, completely distraught. “I don’t want this.”

“It’s almost over,” Jon said, looking over. He could see what the doctors were doing, and he could even see part of the baby. “It’s almost over, okay?”

“Okay,” Brendon said with a shaky breath. There was a loud squawk from the baby as it left its warm, happy little world kicking Brendon from the inside. Jon watched with fascination as the doctor cleaned out the baby’s mouth and nose and it settled into screaming.

“Do you want to cut the cord?” he realized the doctor was saying, and he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t already been asked a couple of times. Jon nodded his head, and they handed him a weird looking pair of scissors. Jon clipped it, watching with fascination as blood went everywhere. The doctor held up the baby so that Brendon could see. “You have a perfect baby boy,” he said, and Brendon nodded his head, closing his eyes.

Jon handed the scissors back as the doctor wiped the baby off a bit, wrapping the towel around it. “Here he is,” the doctor said, carrying him over and placing him in Brendon’s arms.

“Oh God,” Brendon whispered. “Jon he’s tiny. What if I break him? I don’t want to break him.” The baby stopped screaming so much, like he knew that the person who was holding him was his father. Or his mother. Or whatever Brendon was to this poor baby.

“You won’t break him. He’ll be tough like me and hard headed like you,” Jon said, grinning, reaching out and touching the baby’s tiny little hand. Brendon laughed a little hysterically, holding onto the baby as tightly as he dared. Jon turned slightly and watched as they put Brendon back together.


***


“Which one do you think is Brendon’s?” Ryan asked. He and Spencer were crowded in front of one of the windows that looked into the nursery. There were two babies that had just been brought in, and the nurses were cleaning them up.

“The one that’s screaming, probably,” Spencer said, and they moved around so that they could get a better look. One of the babies was screaming his lungs out, and the other one was squirming to get away from the nurses attending to him.

“Yeah, probably. He has a lot of hair,” Ryan said. They were quiet, watching the nurses washing the babies, doing footprints and drawing blood. One of the babies was dressed in a little outfit that its parents must have provided for it.

“Ryan,” Spencer said quietly. “What do you think’s going to happen to Brendon’s baby? I mean, he doesn’t want to keep it, right? That’s what he and Jon have been fighting about.”

“We fought about it one day, too,” Ryan said quietly. “He told me back when he first found out he was pregnant… I asked him what he hoped it was, and he told me he didn’t care because he was going to put it up for adoption. But I also know that he made an appointment with a counselor and skipped it.”

“So what do you think he’s going to do?” Spencer asked. “I mean, he hasn’t bought anything! It doesn’t even – Ryan, we should really go and get it something to wear.”

“Him,” Ryan said. “It’s a boy.” He turned away from the window. “Come on.”


***


Brendon was half asleep, drugged up against the pain from the incision, lying in the hospital bed. Jon was sitting beside him, slumped down in the chair, texting with Ryan, who wouldn’t tell him where he and Spencer had gone. Jon was starting to get annoyed with them.

They came barging in ten minutes later, carrying huge shopping bags. “We got you stuff,” Ryan announced happily. Brendon opened his eyes, looking at them, even though his eyes were a little unfocused. He smiled a little bit. He liked presents.

Ryan and Spencer walked over to the bed, and Ryan upended his bag over Brendon’s legs. “I know that you didn’t buy any stuff for the baby, so we went and we got you stuff.” There was a pile of little outfits, blue and green and yellow and Brendon even managed a smile.

“I guess he needs stuff,” Brendon told them tiredly, his eyes drifting back shut.

“Is he okay?” Ryan asked, frowning, tilting his head to the side as he quickly folded the little outfits up. Jon thought it was funny how it was always obvious when someone had worked in retail, even if it was a long time ago, if you watched them folding clothes.

“He’s just out of it,” Jon said. “They gave him something so he wouldn’t be in a lot of pain. Plus, I think he just needs some sleep. Might as well get it now, because he’s not going to get it later, after he gets home with the baby.”

“Is he keeping it?” Spencer asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I think so,” Jon said. They all looked up when a nurse came in, wheeling the little crib that the baby was lying in.

“Oh good, visitors!” she said brightly. “Oh and you brought baby clothes! How lovely.” She smiled at all three of the boys crowded around the bed. “Oh,” she said when she saw Brendon. “I didn’t realize he was sleeping. I thought he might want to feed the baby – have you come up with a name yet?”

“I don’t think he’s thought about it,” Jon said. He sat up and shook Brendon’s shoulder gently.

“’M sleepin’,” Brendon murmured.

“The nurse wants you to feed the baby,” Jon said.

“Oh.” Brendon shifted a little bit, moving up against the bed, wincing slightly. He looked back and forth between Ryan and Spencer, then smiled. “Thank you,” he told them. The nurse came over and placed the baby into Brendon’s arms, all wrapped up in a blanket. Brendon touched the tiny boy’s cheek softly as the nurse came back with a bottle for him, then headed back out of the room.

Brendon poked the bottle into the baby’s mouth and, well, that worked out. He was pleased with himself about the whole thing, actually. The baby wasn’t even weird looking or anything like that.

The baby squirmed around a little bit, sucking at the bottle. Brendon looked over at Jon. “Did you know the whole time that once I saw him I wouldn’t want to give him up?” he asked quietly.

“I… I was hoping,” Jon said. “You still can, if you want to.”

“No,” Brendon said. “No, I want to make this work.”

“Okay,” Jon said.

“And Jon?” Brendon said.

“What?” Jon asked, reaching out and touching the baby’s feet through the blanket. He scrunched up his legs, trying to get his feet away from Jon’s fingers.

“We should name him Jacob, right?” Brendon asked. “I mean, that’s your name. His middle name can be … I don’t know.”

“Brendon?” Jon said.

“Yeah, that,” Brendon said, nodding sleepily. It moved his whole body, moving the bottle away from the baby’s mouth. The baby – Jacob, apparently – made an unhappy little noise. Brendon pouted at the baby, then said, “sorry.”

“You’re going to be a great mommy,” Ryan said, and then laughed.

“I’d flip you off right now,” Brendon said, “but I have to hold my baby.”

“See? Fantastic mommy,” Ryan said, shoving the clothes back into the bag.

Brendon just smiled a little bit, shifting the bottle against the baby’s mouth.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “That’s fine.”


EPILOGUE


“What the hell am I supposed to know about painting rooms?” Ryan demanded, looking at Jon, Spencer, and Brendon with his hands on his hips.

“You’re the artist,” Jon said, shrugging.

“I’m a writer,” Ryan said, frowning. “Writing and painting are not the same thing, you guys.”

“I’m pretty sure that you just dip the brush in and start putting it on the walls, actually,” Spencer said. “I mean, you guys are making it way harder than it has to be.”

“You have to like. Put tape up so it doesn’t get on the ceiling and the baseboard and stuff,” Jon said, frowning a little bit. They’d even bought the tape to do it with. “First. And then you mix the paint, and then you start painting.”

Jacob made a sleepy little noise, fisting his hand up in Brendon’s t-shirt. Brendon raised his eyebrows when three heads turned toward him. “What?” he asked.

“Does he need something? Changed? Burped?” Ryan asked anxiously.

“He’s sleeping,” Brendon said. “Sometimes he makes noises when he’s sleeping.”

“Well, that obviously means he’s yours. He’ll talk in his sleep when he gets older, I’m sure,” Spencer said.

“Aren’t you guys meant to be like, painting?” Brendon asked. “I can take care of my own baby. And I do not talk in my sleep.”

“You do. It’s cute,” Jon said brightly, kissed Brendon on his forehead, and pushed him out of the room. “Go on. He doesn’t need to breathe the fumes.”

Brendon smiled and walked back down the hallway.

He’d finally decided that he’d have to buy a house. It was pretty big, one story, two bedrooms plus the one that they were converting into a nursery for the baby. The house was still kind of bare, just basic necessities because Brendon really should’ve done this before he’d had the baby. But there was a bed, there were places for the other guys to sleep, and there was a couch and a TV to watch and food in the cabinets and the refrigerator. There weren’t really any dishes but Brendon thought that they could just eat off plastic cutlery for a while.

They’d bought a few things for the baby, mostly Spencer and Ryan, who’d brought in all those clothes and had similarly gone and bought toys and blankets. Jon had disappeared one afternoon and returned with a million bottles and diapers. It was impressive, actually.

Brendon hadn’t done much of anything except take care of the baby. He was learning quickly, even though there had been a few frantic calls to Jon’s mother, then to Spencer’s. Brendon had even called his own mother once, but hung up the moment he’d heard her voice on the other end of the line. He couldn’t do it.

He wandered down the hall, back to his own bedroom, prying his son loose from his t-shirt and laying him down in the bassinet. He touched Jacob’s cheek, then lay down on the bed. He was still sore from the surgery, too. He sighed softly.

“What am I going to do?” he whispered to the baby. “You’re too perfect to give up, but I can’t take you on tour with me.”

The baby made a tiny noise in his sleep. Brendon sighed, and closed his eyes, dozing off almost instantly.


***


“Dad.” A beat. “Dad.” A beat. “Dad. Dad. Dad.”

“What?” Brendon finally asked, looking up from the guitar he was tuning at a little face with dark hair and dark eyes looking up at him.

“Dad,” Jacob said. He was three, and he was, as Jon had told Brendon on several occasions, just as much of an attention whore as the father who gave him birth. “I love you!” he said brightly, grinning and showing Brendon every tiny little tooth in his mouth. Brendon laughed and put the guitar aside, reaching down to gather his baby up into his arms.

The last three years had been interesting to say the least. First it had been Brendon hiding out because of the pregnancy, and then it had been a series of outlandish lies to hide the truth about how Jacob had been born. The best story they’d been able to come up with was that Brendon had made a mistake, gotten a girl pregnant, and she’d stuck him with the baby. It was an easy lie, and it covered over everything nicely.

Unless people happened to see Jon and Brendon together with the baby, and then, well, it was a little harder to cover up with a lie. Jacob had Brendon’s mouth and chin, but he had Jon’s nose and eyes.

“I love you, too,” Brendon said, kissing Jacob’s cheek lightly. He squirmed around and got down onto the floor, charging back into the bunk area. Brendon leaned forward to watch him dive into Ryan’s bunk, causing Ryan to yelp.

“Jacob!” he heard the protest clearly. “You can’t do that. How many times do I have to tell you you can’t just jump in the middle of me? It hurts!”

Brendon couldn’t hear the response, but he was sure that Jacob had said something similar to “at least once more.” Jon had taught him that the first time Ryan had said some variation of “how many times…” It amused Jon to no end.

Brendon picked up the guitar and went back to tuning it. Jon came back onto the bus just as he was finishing up. “Hey,” he said. “Where’s your brat?”

“Squishing Ryan in the bunks,” Brendon said.

“I need him,” Jon said.

“Good luck getting him out,” Brendon said.

Jon made a face and walked down the hallway to the bunks. From the ensuing chaos, Brendon gathered that Jacob was, in fact, not willing to go anywhere with his father. He was struggling in Jon’s arms as he returned to the lounge.

“Daddy!” Jacob yelled. “Ryan was telling me a story! Make Jon put me down!”

“He obviously needs you for something,” Brendon said, looking at Jacob seriously and not helping him at all. This made Jacob struggle harder against Jon’s grip. But three years of playing father to Jacob had made Jon able to just hold on. Eventually Jacob gave up and went limp, looking at Brendon woefully.

“He’s exactly like you. He’s giving you pout-face right now isn’t he?” Jon asked.

“Yeah,” Brendon said, grinning. Jacob frowned at him, his whole face scrunching up.

“We’ll be back,” Jon said, and headed out the door, Jacob dangling from his arms.

Brendon just grinned and finished tuning the guitar.