fic: growing a pair
growing a pair
ryan lochte/michael phelps
nc17, 11827 words
warnings for depiction of male pregnancy, curse words, genderswap, mpreg
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBLITY FOR THIS THIS IS ALL aftereighteen's FAULT. sequel to grow a pair
No one talks about the meet in New Orleans.
It’s not like Michael’s ashamed of what happened to him, it’s more like there’s an on-going investigation into Clary’s disappearance and no one wants to go to prison, so the meet in New Orleans gets swept under the rug. Michael takes his medals and hides them at the bottom of a drawer of long socks in Ryan’s dresser where they’ll never be found again and doesn’t spare New Orleans a second thought.
Weeks go by and Michael settles into his regular routine of training and meetings and fucking around with Ryan whenever he can, but then he catches a persistent stomach bug that refuses to go away. Some mornings he’s absolutely fine, and then others he has to scramble out of the pool to avoid throwing up in the water and shutting the facility down for a couple of hours.
It gets worse as the days go by and sometimes the smell of chlorine makes Michael so sick he has to lie on the pool deck just to get his bearings and settle his stomach. Other days Michael gets the weirdest cravings for food like pickles dipped in chocolate that pester him until he gives in and then ends up throwing the weird combinations straight back up.
Bob insists that Michael go to the doctor so he can get his lazy ass back in the pool but Michael shrugs him off. He hadn’t done his best at New Orleans, even before the voodoo incident, and he’s determined to push himself until the bug goes away and he gets back into winning mode.
Bob gets off his back about going to the doctor when Michael's stomach bug seems to go away. He gives Michael a day off so he can rest and Michael ends up going to his mom’s for dinner. She makes him his favorite pasta even though the smell of the pasta cooking makes Michael nauseas.
His mom is giving him a look that says she knows he’s done something stupid but isn’t quite sure what it is. Michael just gives her his best smile.
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were pregnant,” Hilary jokes as Michael struggles to get through his pasta.
“Don’t be ridiculous Hilary,” Debbie says. “Of course Michael isn’t pregnant.”
Michael nods along with his mother but -
He had sex with Ryan. Which, okay, isn’t much of a surprise because they’ve been fucking since Athens. But he had sex with Ryan while he had a vagina and that dickhole didn’t use a condom.
“Oh my god,” Michael whispers.
The women in the house stop to stare at him. “Oh my god,” he repeats and then, “fuck!”
“Michael Fred!” Debbie scolds. “What is wrong with you?!”
“I need to go to Wal-Mart,” Michael says hurriedly. “What’s the best pregnancy test to take?”
“What?” Whitney laughs nervously. “Why would you need to take a pregnancy test?”
“Michael Fred,” his mother hisses, “if you got one of those girls -”
“I’m with Ryan,” Michael groans. “I’m with Ryan that stupid fuck!”
He swindles Hilary into driving him to Wal-Mart and Whitney comes along just for the shits and giggles. When they get to the store Michael grabs as many pregnancy tests as he can and then shoves them into Whitney’s arms before he grabs some more.
“Michael,” Whitney says as they’re checking out. “How many girls have you been screwing around with?”
“I’m with Ryan,” Michael states for the second time that night. “And they’re not for some girl they’re for me.”
Whitney stares at him. The girl at the check-out keeps flicking her eyes from the boxes to them and then back to the boxes. Michael glares her into submission and then runs to the nearest bathroom to piss on as many sticks as possible. He paces back and forth in the bathroom while Whitney and Hilary wait outside and when the first three tests come up positive he takes one more. And then another, and another until Hilary storms into the bathroom and tells him she’s had enough of waiting.
“Seriously Michael,” she says irritably. “What is going on?”
Michael just shoves the pregnancy tests in her face. “Oh,” she breathes. “We need Whitney.”
Whitney laughs.
“Are you being fucking serious!?” She says, looking at all five tests. “You’re pregnant?”
“Don’t say it so loud!” Michael hisses throwing all the tests in the trashcan.
“So,” Hilary says in the car on the way back to Michael’s. “Are you going to tell us how this happened?”
Michael’s lying as far back in the seat as he can while trying not to have a meltdown. “I’m secretly a woman. Mom never told you. I’ve been living as a man this entire time.”
“Seriously Michael,” Whitney says from the backseat. “As excited as I am for you what the fuck is going on?”
Michael sighs deeply. “Brace yourselves.”
He tells them everything that happened in New Orleans in as little detail as possible. Hilary sits quietly as they drive home and Whitney is trying to stifle her laughter. “Seriously?” she says. “You grew a magical vagina because of voodoo and Ryan knocked you up?”
“Apparently,” Michael replies with a bit of sass. Whitney hits the back of his seat with her foot.
“How is the baby supposed to come out of you?” Hilary asks as they pull into his driveway. Michael groans.
In the morning he books a flight to Jacksonville and hops on a plane after shooting Bob a picture of a pregnancy test and making Hilary and Whitney swear they won’t tell their mom. He gets a cab to Ryan’s place in Gainesville when he touches down and storms through the house until he finds Ryan chewing away at some Fruit Loops in the kitchen.
“Mike?” Ryan asks when he spots him.
“Stay right there,” Michael hisses and then storms into the bathroom. He’s kept a pregnancy test in his pocket the whole journey and proceeds to take it. When the blue positive sign comes up he throws it in the trash can.
It dawns on Michael that he is indeed pregnant. The first thought that comes to mind is end Lochte.
"You!" He screams as he reenters the kitchen. Ryan stops chewing on his Fruit Loops to look guilty, which Michael has to remember to investigate later because he hasn't even mentioned anything about being pregnant. He’s sure Ryan isn't smart enough to figure it out on his own, so there's obviously something else Ryan has fucked up.
"Sorry?" Ryan says, shrugging and offering his bowl of cereal like that will qualm Michael's anger.
"You better fucking run," Michael hisses, "because I’m about to fucking choke you.”
"Are your tits back?" Ryan asks, sounding a little too hopeful for Michael's liking. The other man runs his eyes over Michael's chest and when he realizes that the tits aren't there frowns.
"Your fucking devil sperm knocked me up you asshole!" Michael yells. "You and your fucking," he purses his lips to do his best Lochte impersonation, 'Michael, there's no such thing as an ugly vagina' bullshit!"
Ryan blinks at him and then, "does that mean you're going to get your tits back?"
Michael lets out a noise that sounds like a raging bull and Ryan barely manages to dodge the bowl of cereal aimed at his head.
“So,” Ryan says from the safety of the doorway. He’s strategically placed himself there so he can make a quick getaway if Michael decides to throw another object at his head. “We’re gonna have a baby?”
Michael looks up from his computer screen. So far his search of I’m a guy and I’m pregnant help!!!! has wielded no helpful results but he thinks he’s taking the news pretty well, as long as he ignores the fact that he threw a cereal bowl at his boyfriend’s head. “Yes,” he says simply.
Ryan slowly walks into the room, on edge, and then crawls onto the bed. “Like, a real baby?”
“Yes a real baby,” Michael replies and types in how do you know if your baby is the antichrist or not and waits for Google to load.
“Michael,” Ryan hisses when he looks at the screen, fingers tight around his cross. His cross that’s covered in diamonds.
“First of all,” Michael says hotly, “don’t get all religious on me now you’re sleeping with a man, you dick, and secondly this baby was created because of voodoo, remember? What’s not to say that I’m carrying the antichrist.”
“But that’s our baby,” Ryan mumbles. “He’s not devil spawn.”
Michael doesn’t reply. Google doesn’t wield any helpful results and he eventually shuts down his laptop, afraid that Ryan might rub the diamonds off his cross. “Listen,” Michael says. “Maybe it’s not the antichrist, but this is pretty fucked up.”
“I know,” Ryan says and finally leaves the cross alone. “Are we gonna keep it?”
Michael places a hand on his stomach. He’s only had three hours to process the fact that he’s pregnant, but not once in those three hours did he think about getting rid of it. “Do you want to keep it?”
“Yeah,” Ryan replies without any hesitation. “But MP your body’s a temple. Your temple. And if you want to get rid of it I’m fine with that.” Michael can tell that Ryan wouldn’t really be fine with it, not by the way he jumped to the baby’s defense straight away.
“Let’s keep it,” Michael finally says after a few moments because he’s been with Ryan for the better part of a decade, and knowing them this is somehow probably the most legal way they’d get their hands on a baby anyway.
They don’t tell anyone else that Michael’s pregnant, not until Michael actually goes to a doctor.
Michael’s expecting the doctor to laugh in his face when he takes another pregnancy test and shows it to him. Dr Waltz instead just sighs and writes up a list of over the counter prenatal vitamins.
“Are you serious?” Michael asks when the doctor hands him the list.
“I am,” Dr Waltz replies. “Unless you want your child to be sickly you’ll need to take all the vitamins on the list."
“No,” Michael says, “why the fuck aren’t you freaking out about this? I’m a man and I’m pregnant.”
“I’m well aware of that fact Mr Phelps,” Dr Waltz retorts. “You aren’t the first pregnant man I’ve ever met.”
Michael gapes. Dr Waltz adds, “I’m also from New Orleans.”
A week later Michael returns to Dr Waltz’s office with Ryan in tow. Ryan’s really excited to see their baby for the first time and confirm that they’re really having one but Michael’s more worried about devil horns or hooves showing up on the monitor.
The gel Dr Waltz spreads on Michael’s stomach is cold and he holds Ryan’s hand, on the edge between being a total emotional wreck and relative clamness.
“Oh,” Dr Waltz says, quiet for a couple of minutes as he runs the handle over Michael’s stomach. His mouth goes in a thin line as he goes back and forth over the skin and then finally, “you’re having twins.”
“Told you he couldn’t be the antichrist,” Ryan says, grin bright and happy. “You can’t have two antichrists.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Michael says but Dr Waltz just shakes his head and shows them the monitor.
Their babies look like ugly alien bean things. Dr Waltz shows them where their noses are forming, but other than that there’s nothing much to see at eight weeks, except for their little hearts beating. Both are tiny, and they can barely hear them fluttering, but they’re there.
Michael makes a choking noise. He’s not usually a very emotional person, but those are his babies’ heartbeats on the monitor. He was only expecting to see one, but there’s two - two little maybe-demon-spawn baby hearts. So far there’s no horns or hooves but it’s early days yet.
Ryan kisses his forehead. “MP, there’s two.”
“I know,” Michael manages and sniffles. “If you tell anyone I cried I’m going to punch you in the dick.”
Dr Waltz prints out multiple sonograms and Michael places a copy in his wallet, but not before running his fingers over the image a couple of times, still amazed and bewildered about what he’s seeing.
It’s - Michael isn’t sure what to make of everything.
They decide to break the pregnancy news to Ryan’s parents first. Ike begins to cry when they show her the sonogram and Steven has to leave the room. Ryan looks torn, not sure what to make of his parents reactions but Ike takes a sonogram and sticks it under a magnet on her fridge and when Steven finally returns he pats Ryan on the shoulder and tells him congratulations. His siblings respond quite the same way, except Devon and Megan start taking bets on what sex the babies are going to be.
It’s Michael’s mom that turns out to be the problem.
Debbie isn’t exactly upset but she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that her son is pregnant, and pregnant out of wedlock.
“Really?” Michael says when she shakes her head. “That’s your biggest problem?”
“I’m gonna marry him Mrs Phelps,” Ryan says trying to put on his Southern boy charm. “Like when they have teeth and stuff.” Michael’s mom has never been able to resist Ryan, especially not when he smiles at her like a dumb puppy, and that resolution seems to please her because she kisses him on the cheek.
“You better,” she finally says and then gives Michael a hug.
“Are you really going to marry me?” Michael asks later that night, looking at the sonograms. He won’t admit it but sometimes he gets a little emotional looking at the picture. There are no facial features, but Michael can still make out where their hearts are.
“Jeah,” Ryan replies like it’s not a weird idea at all. “I mean, that’s what you want, right?”
Michael shrugs. He knew a year ago that Ryan was it for him. They’d been together for forever and Michael was sure he wasn’t just with Ryan just to be with him. He was thinking about really settling down with Ryan after London, when he was retired and they didn’t have to worry about being secret or fucking up each other’s careers. After London Michael could retire to Florida and play as much golf as he wanted and still be with Ryan. And then, eventually, someday, they’d go to Baltimore and get married and adopt a kid or two.
“I don’t want us just to get married because we’re having kids,” Michael admits.
Ryan looks hurt. He just nods and goes back to packing his things for his trip back to Florida.
Michael stays in Baltimore for as long as possible, riding out the morning sickness and still training with Bob until he starts to show. It feels like one morning his stomach is flat and then the next there’s a tumor protruding from his lower abdomen.
Ryan convinces him to move down to Florida. “Just for now MP,” he whines into the phone. “After they’re born we can move to Baltimore or wherever you want. I just want you guys here with me.”
Michael’s hormones are out of whack so he eventually agrees. He makes Ryan buy them a really nice and really expensive house first and then he packs his bags, gets his dogs, and makes the long journey down to Florida.
The house is nice and even comes with a fancy pool in the back with a fence around it. Ryan claims it’s for the safety of his niece and nephews. Michael thinks it’s because Ryan’s trying to convince him to permanently move. Michael wants to pretend like the house doesn’t suit his tastes and be a bitch just to be a bitch but Ryan’s so earnest and spends so much time talking to Michael about which room would work best as a nursery that Michael just can’t be pissy.
It’s really sweet to watch Ryan get excited about their future children. He starts calling them the brats while Michael secretly but very lovingly refers to them as his devil-spawn.
Even though Michael can’t officially train he’s content to do lazy laps in the pool until his stomach starts to curl at the smell of chlorine. It really fucking sucks that the one place he really loves he can’t be at for more than ten minutes without wanting to hurl, and it sucks even more that the smell clings to Ryan’s skin even after he showers after practice.
Ryan comes home from practice one day smelling like chlorine and Michael has to forcefully swallow a bite of his pickle sandwich before he spits it out in disgust.
Ryan walks right over to Michael, flip flops banging loudly on the tile floor, and makes a move to touch his belly.
“Don’t touch me,” Michael says with more venom than he means to. Ryan’s hands immediately drop and he looks at Michael with a sheepish kind of curiosity, like he’s not sure what he’s done to make Michael angry but doesn’t want to bring up the fact that he probably hasn’t done anything wrong in the first place.
Michael sighs and takes a deep breath. “You smell like fucking chlorine.”
Ryan gives him the well duh face and Michael says, “I don’t want you to touch me while you smell like chlorine.”
“Okay,” Ryan says quietly and leaves the room.
Michael watches him go, instantly feeling like a piece of shit. It’s really not Ryan’s fault he smells horrible. It’s the fucking chlorine’s fault.
Michael rubs at his stomach and then counts to ten to make himself relax. He finds Ryan in the living room flipping through the thirty different ESPN channels they have and rubbing absent-mindedly at Carter’s head, but Michael can tell that he’s hurt. He settles on the other end of the couch.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You can touch my stomach.”
“If you don’t want me to touch you I’m not going to,” Ryan mumbles and refuses to move his eyes away from the TV. Michael sighs and scoots closer, taking Ryan’s hand and placing it on his stomach. “Say hi to your kids, you know you want to.”
Ryan refuses to budge but then gives in. He rubs his hand over Michael’s belly and then kisses it, muttering a quick hi with a smile. The babies probably can’t hear him but Ryan’s taken to talking to them like they can.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Michael says when Ryan doesn’t move his head away from his stomach, a sign that he’s willing to listen. “The smell of chlorine makes me sick.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan says against his stomach and then, “I’m sorry for sticking my penis in your vagina and knocking you up.”
Michael runs his hands through Ryan’s hair and laughs. His curls are just starting to make their comeback and they’re nice and soft. Michael wonders if their kids are going to have Ryan's golden curls or Michael’s plain, flat, brown hair. He secretly hopes his kids come out looking more like Ryan than like him. “I told you to do it,” he finally says. “Not your fault.”
“I know like, you said you wanted to keep them,” Ryan says, voice hesitant and soft, “but you’re not - you don’t regret, right?”
“No?” Michael says. “What makes you think that?”
Ryan shrugs. “We just didn’t plan this, y’know? And like what if this fucks up your career cause you’re gonna be out for a while? I don’t want you to regret this or hate them.”
Michael honestly hasn't been thinking about his career. He thinks of Bob sometimes and sends him texts about how he's doing but Michael hasn’t put much thought in to it. He shrugs, absent mindedly running his thumb over Ryan’s cheek. “It’s two years away.”
“I know,” Ryan says meekly. “But you won’t be able to race for like a year.”
“I’m fucking Michael Phelps,” Michael says. “I’ll come back and kick everyone’s ass. Including yours.”
Ryan lifts his head and makes a face. “If you weren’t pregnant I’d punch you, dick.”
Michael just grins.
Life soon becomes a mixture of relative easiness and boredom.
The weeks go by, Michael’s stomach grows, and even though he’s only five months along he looks like he’s six.
They go to an appointment with Dr Waltz and discover that they’re having two boys, one who likes to suck on his thumb and the other who likes to kick Michael as much as he can. They’re much bigger now and actually look like real babies, and not like little aliens. They’re healthy and still growing and Michael’s glad not to see any hooves on any of the babies.
They have to enlist Conor’s help for the nursery since Michael can’t see his feet anymore and once he gets down on the floor it’s hard for him to get back up, but they manage to paint the nursery light blue and then Michael leaves it to Ryan and Conor to assemble the furniture.
That proves to be a stupid idea.
Michael’s eating his second bowl of chocolate ice cream when he hears a bang and a crash from the nursery. He closes his eyes and sets down the bowl before he heads to the other side of the house.
He finds the completed crib on its side, Conor spilling out of it. “What the fuck?” Michael asks because that crib was expensive.
“We were testing out the weight,” Ryan says, trying to help Conor lift the crib off his leg.
“But why was Conor in the crib?” Michael asks and would help but it involves a lot of leaning over.
“Because we were testing the weight,” Ryan repeats while Conor finally gets his leg out from under the piece of furniture.
Michael raises an eyebrow. “So you put Conor in the crib?”
“It says to do it in the instructions,” Conor says and hands Michael a folded piece of paper. Michael scans over it, finding the part where it suggests putting several bricks in the crib, not an actual person.
“My crib better not be ruined,” Michael says as the two men lift it back in to place. There’s just the tiniest little knick in it but Michael still turns his nose up.
Conor says, “I’m sorry Mike,” looking like a kicked puppy and Michael just ruffles his hair. He would be angry, but it’s not like their kids are really going to care about what they’re sleeping in.
“Just don’t climb into anything else,” Michael says and leaves the two swimmers alone to assemble the armoire and changing tables.
When they’re done Michael begrudgingly shares his chocolate ice cream as an award. The furniture looks nice; dark brown with white linens and no additional nicks in the wood. Seeing the nursery complete makes everything feel real.
“Maybe you should get some block letters and hang them on the wall,” Conor suggests around his spoon of ice cream. When Ryan stares at him dumbly he adds, “For their names?”
“Oh my god,” he says when Michael and Ryan don’t reply. “You don’t even have names?”
“We haven’t thought about that yet!” Ryan says defensively. “We’ve been worried about other things.”
“Right,” Conor says and leaves the room to presumably go get more ice cream.
When Conor leaves Ryan corners Michael.
“So, like I’ve been thinking,” Ryan says and Michael lifts his eyebrows. Nothing ever ends well when Ryan says he’s been thinking.
Ryan drops his backpack on the counter and rummages through it until he pulls out a piece of paper. “We need to figure out what we’re gonna call our kids cause we can’t keep calling them devil spawn.”
“I only called them devil spawn once,” Michael protests hotly and rubs his stomach where his children are for once not trying to destroy his vital organs with their tiny fists.
Ryan grins and hands the paper over before he runs his hands over Michael’s belly.
Michael looks at the list of baby names in his hand. There’s Jaxon, Parvan, every single form of the name Aiden known to mankind, and Michael thinks the chicken scratch at the bottom says Poseidon.
“You don’t like any of them,” Ryan says, face dropping when Michael doesn’t look impressed.
It’s not that Michael doesn’t like them. Jaxon - spelt the normal way at least - isn’t half bad, but if Michael’s learnt anything over the years of dating a Lochte it’s that the Lochte children can’t be trusted when it comes to naming their own children.
“I like Jaxon,” Michael finally says. Ryan’s frown deepens.
“But you don’t love it,” he says and takes the paper back.
Ryan’s taking his impending fatherhood very seriously and the babies’ names mean a lot to him. Michael’s already agreed that whatever one comes out first can have Steven as a middle name, but he has to put his foot down somewhere when it comes to their first names.
“Why don’t we look up names together?” Michael suggests.
Ryan grins at that and fishes the baby name book Kristin gave him out of his backpack. The edges of the book are worn down and some pages are folded over probably from Kirstin’s own name search, but the book looks friendly enough and not something that would produce bizarre names.
Michael settles down on the couch next to Herman who eyes his growing belly with suspicion before Ryan shoos the dog out of the way. “Uh, there’s another name I like too,” Ryan says, flipping through a couple of pages.
Ryan points to a name and Michael braces himself. “Loren?”
“Jeah,” Ryan says with a grin. “It’s like Lauren but a boy’s name.”
Michael’s surprised. It’s not as bad as Jaxon or Parvan. “People are gonna get it confused with Lauren.”
“We could call him Lo for short,” Ryan suggests and Michael can hear the disappointment in his voice. Ryan tries, he really does, and Michael can be a total dick sometimes, especially now that he’s five months pregnant and constantly irritated - it’s not like Ryan’s suggesting something completely stupid.
“Okay,” Michael says because even if one of their kids has a somewhat sketchy name they can at least save face with the other one. “But which one are we going to call Loren?”
Ryan looks dumbfounded. “Uh, like first one to pop out?”
“They’re not going to pop out,” Michael says. “You do know I don’t have a vagina, right?”
Ryan gets that sad look in his eyes. “I liked your vagina.”
“Yeah, I know,” Michael says and pats his stomach for emphasis.
Coming up with a second name proves to be challenging. Since one of their kids is going to have an odd name Michael’s determined for the second one to have a relatively normal one. Something like William, or Richard, maybe even Matthew, but none of those names seem to fit for a baby born out of voodoo wedlock.
None of the books give Michael any good options either, and neither do the lists online. All of the names seem too normal, even though Michael wants a normal name.
Ryan is no help either. He sticks up his hands and refuses to take any name book when Michael tries to shove them at him. “MP I found one name you have to find the other,” he says.
The name comes to Michael when he’s not thinking about it. He’s stuck on the couch, too lazy and ankles too swollen to get up, when an old episode of Family Guy comes on TV. Michael’s only half paying attention and has no idea where the episode is going, but the episode cuts to some joke about Noah’s Arc and it just hits Michael.
Noah.
Neither of them are remotely religious, despite how much Ryan blings for Jesus, but Noah has a nice ring to it.
“Noah,” Michael says aloud just to hear the way it sounds. Immediately one of the babies kicks him in the bladder.
He struggles off the couch and waddles into the second bedroom that’s doubling as Ryan’s office. Ryan’s sitting at his desk, glasses on the bridge of his nose as he studies an email.
“Hey,” Michael says to get his attention. “I think I figured out a second name.”
Ryan looks away from the computer. “Jeah?”
“What about Noah?” Michael asks.
“Noah,” Ryan repeats, scrunching his nose and then grinning. “I like it.”
Michael smiles and then has to leave to pee because Noah, or maybe it’s Loren, is pressing on his bladder. Even if his kids never let him go ten minutes without having to piss it’s nice to able to refer to them by actual names and not call them brats.
Michael borrows Dalia for a day and they sit at the dining table painting block letters bright colors to hang over the crib. Dalia is fascinated by Michael’s stomach, and the fact that there’s two babies in there, but she’s taken to referring to Michael as her uncle and to the babies as her cousins and new best friends. It makes Michael feel like he’s a real part of Ryan’s family.
When Michael officially reaches six months and something weeks he feels more like he’s eight and looks it too.
Everything is swollen, his back aches, and he hasn’t seen his feet in weeks. Loren and Noah are growing and lying on each other, constantly kicking and trying to make room for themselves because there simply isn’t enough. Michael feels like he has to take a leak every ten minutes and can never manage to get comfortable. He’s more irritable too; he’s difficult to be around and snaps more often, which causes more friction than usual between him and Ryan. Ryan spends what seems like more time at the pool than at home with Michael which only adds to Michael’s irritation.
On top of that Michael’s vagina comes back.
He’s minding his own business, trying really hard not to go give in and make himself a cup of coffee, when he feels a pain in his lower abdomen. It’s not unusual to feel discomfort in that area because the babies are always moving around and pressing on his organs, but the pain feels unusual and familiar all at the same time.
He sits down and tries to put his feet up. The pain travels to his chest and after a few minutes Michael starts to get worried.
Dr Waltz has repeatedly told him that his pregnancy is high-risk and Michael’s been doing everything he’s been told to do but he’s worried he hasn’t been doing enough. The word miscarriage flashes through his head a couple of times and he curses the fact that Ryan’s out of town doing shit for Speedo.
Michael fumbles for his phone unsure of who to call first. His mom? Ike? Ryan? Probably Dr Waltz.
“Shit,” he curses as he tries searching the house for the damn thing. He hasn’t been using it as much lately and can’t remember where he last had it.
When he gets the bedroom the pain suddenly intensifies and he collapses on his bed, hands immediately going to his stomach. The babies are kicking like they know something’s wrong and Michael’s relieved, just for a few seconds, to feel them kick his bladder because that means they’re still alive.
The pain suddenly stops.
Just like that it stops.
Michael’s not sure what he expects to find.
It occurs to him that if he has miscarried, which seems impossible because Noah (Loren?) is slamming his tiny fist into his bladder, that there probably would be lots of blood but seeing as Michael doesn’t have a vag that seems impossible.
But something does feel different down there and there’s an extra weight on his chest that wasn’t there before. Michael slowly slips his fingers into his sweats and then further, pass the waistband of his boxers. At first he doesn’t feel anything because his stomach is in the way but when Michael finally reaches where his dick is supposed to be it’s gone.
“Fuck!” He yells, feeling the familiar folds of a vagina. The weight on his chest can only mean one thing - tits.
Michael finally finds his phone. The first person he calls isn’t his boyfriend, or his doctor, it’s his teammate Conor fucking Dwyer.
“Dwyer!” Michael roars into the phone when Conor finally picks up. “I’m going to fucking kill you! I don’t fucking care how much Ryan loves you your ass is mine.”
“Mike?” Conor says meekly into the phone. “Mike I don’t know -”
“My pussy is back you fucking piece of shit!” Michael screams. “What the fuck did you do this time?!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Conor protests. “Mike I swear, I haven’t done anything! Clary’s still in his fishbowl.”
Michael takes a few deep breaths. He shouldn’t be yelling; it’s not good for the babies. “Has Nathan done anything?”
“Not that I know of,” Conor says. “I - I’m coming over.”
When Conor arrives Michael’s lying on the couch trying to take deep breaths and not think about how his dick, once again, has turned into a cunt.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says immediately because Conor kind of looks like he wants to cry. Conor’s a tough kid but Michael knows he can be an intimidating dick sometimes. “There’s ice cream in the freezer if you want some.”
Conor helps himself to a bowl and then sits sheepishly on the sofa nearby. “I talked to Nathan,” he says, “and Matt. They returned the books they got to the store. They swear they haven’t been messing around with anything.”
“And you’re sure Clary’s still in his fishbowl?” Michael asks.
Conor nods. “I double-checked right before I left. He’s still swimming around.”
“I thought Ryan told you to stop feeding him?”
Conor flushes. “I felt bad? I already turned the guy into the shittiest sea creature ever. It just didn’t feel right starving him to death.”
Michael sighs. If he could reach he’d ruffle Conor’s hair. Instead he asks him to get Dr Waltz on the phone.
Dr Waltz doesn’t seem as surprised.
“Mr Phelps,” he sighs into the phone, “didn’t the voodoo doctor you went to explain all of this to you?”
Michael glares at the phone. “I didn’t go to a voodoo doctor. One of my teammates fucked her over so she meant to turn him into a woman and not me.”
Dr Waltz clicks his tongue. “That’s not how these things work. Are you sure you didn’t see her yourself? Perhaps your teammate requested the fertility spell on your behalf?”
“My fucking teammate hates me,” Michael says and resists the urge to make Conor dive him to his house so he can drown the little bitch himself.
“Oh my,” Dr Waltz says and then, “don’t be worried, Michael. Regaining your female organs is a natural process when it comes to the fertility treatment. Your body is preparing for the birth - we need to schedule your C-section date, by the way - and once all of the pregnancy hormones have left your body I’m sure your penis shall be returned to you. Is Ryan there with you?”
“No,” Michael hisses, suddenly really pissed off that Ryan actually has a job. “He’s in New York.”
“Perhaps you should call someone to stay with you over night,” Dr Waltz suggests. “Maybe a friend to help you adjust?”
“I’ll stay,” Conor says weakly.
Michael ends the call with Dr Waltz and rolls his eyes up to look at his friend. “I need to piss, help me up.”
When Ryan gets home three days later he immediately notices that something is different.
Michael’s in the nursery folding clothes when he hears the dogs going crazy. Herman comes bounding into the room and then Ryan. He has one of his signature hats on, sweats and a hoodie and he gives Michael a lazy grin before his eyes scan over Michael’s chest.
“Hey,” he says, grin widening, “you got your tits back!”
“You’re not touching them,” Michael says, suddenly irritated. He doesn’t want his tits. He doesn’t want his cunt. He wants them gone.
It feels like a slap in the face. He agreed with Dr Waltz from day one that he was going to have a C-section so there’s no need for his dick to be gone and if his tits think that he’s letting the twins suck off of them then they can gladly fuck off because Michael’s bought enough formula to last at least six months and he plans on using all of it.
Ryan looks at him, face unreadable. “Fine,” he says his own voice having an edge of irritation to it. “You got more clothes?”
“Yeah,” Michael replies shortly, shoving the clothes into the armoire with a little more force than necessary. He was having a pretty alright day but Ryan’s own irritation is annoying him.
“Okay,” Ryan replies and just stands there. “Did you get them everything?”
“Yes,” Michael says through his teeth. “Can’t you see all the clothes I’m folding?”
“I only asked you a fucking question,” Ryan says, voice rough in the way that means he’s angry.
“Don’t curse at me,” Michael snaps, getting to his feet.
Ryan stares, face angry, and then says, “I’m going out.”
“You just got home,” Michael says, following Ryan out of the room as he heads into the kitchen. He grabs his keys off the counter and drops his bag on the floor, barely missing dropping it on Herman.
“I’m obviously not fucking wanted here,” Ryan spits, grabbing his keys. He storms out of the house, leaving Michael alone in the kitchen to stare after him.
Ryan’s gone for three hours.
Michael goes back to angrily folding clothes before his back starts to protest and he gives up. He grabs his laptop and plays online poker until he grows bored and can’t ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head.
They literally fought over nothing which makes Michael even more irritated. He knows it was mostly his fault for being annoyed with Ryan, but if this is how Ryan reacts after a petty fight then how is he going to react if they have a much larger one for an actual reason? It’s a dick move to leave your six month pregnant boyfriend all alone at home just because you’re pissed off about something.
Michael feels abandoned in a way he’s never felt abandoned before. He knows he’s got a bunch of daddy issues and he can’t help but think that Ryan’s not going to come back. That Ryan’s going to leave Michael and his fucking babies and go find someone else to fuck and be with.
When Ryan does come home Michael’s crawling into bed. It’s early, but the twins are bothering him and Michael just wants to lie down and rest his feet. He hears Ryan’s car pull up and then moments later he hears the dogs run across the tiled floor as the front door opens.
He hears Ryan rummaging around in the kitchen and wonders if he’ll come to bed or sleep on the couch but he doesn’t have to wonder for long because the bedroom door opens and then closes.
Ryan undresses in the dark before he crawls into bed but he stays on his side. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to be touched so Michael tries to stay on his side but it’s nearly impossible to get comfortable. He twists and turns as best as he can, but lugging around all the extra weight causes the bed to dip and squeak repeatedly and draws him closer to Ryan.
“Sorry,” he says when he accidentally brushes up against Ryan. Ryan doesn’t reply so Michael gives up on trying to get comfortable and decides that maybe he’ll have better luck on the couch.
He leaves the room and kicks Carter and Stella off the couch before he tries to settle down with a blanket. Lying on his side doesn’t help, and neither does lying on his back. It just feels like all the weight is dropping and he can’t get his arms to lay the way he wants them to.
He closes his eyes and tries to force himself to sleep but the bedroom door opens and then Ryan’s voice is drifting across the room.
“Mike,” Ryan says, voice gruff. “Go back to bed. I’ll asleep out here.”
“I’m not out here because I’m mad at you,” Michael says without thinking. He opens his eyes and looks up at Ryan before he adds, “I couldn’t get comfortable.”
Ryan rubs at his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be out here.”
Michael struggles to get up. “You don’t have to sleep out here.”
“We’re fighting remember?” Ryan says, grabbing the blanket and making as if to lie down.
“I don’t even know what we’re fighting about,” Michael confesses quietly.
Ryan stops messing around with the blanket. He drapes it over the back of the couch and shrugs. “I just… like as soon as I got home you were pissed at me and I haven’t been home to fuck anything up.”
“I know,” Michael admits. “I’ve been a dick lately.”
“That’s an understatement,” Ryan scoffs.
Michael takes a deep breath, trying not to get annoyed. “I’m just so uncomfortable all the time and I just - I’m sorry. I’m not irritated with you I’m just pissed off that my cunt’s back and my tits. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan sighs. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”
When they get back to bed Michael still can’t get comfortable. The babies aren’t moving but his back hurts and his stomach feels uneasy. He keeps shifting positions and waking Ryan up who tries his best to fluff pillows and rub at Michael’s lower back.
“Ryan?” Michael whispers in the middle of the night.
Ryan makes an incoherent noise against the back of his neck.
Michael takes a deep breath and says, “Even when I’m being a total dick and you’re really fucking pissed at me please don’t leave… I was worried you wouldn’t come back.”
Ryan’s arm tightens around Michael’s waist. “I wouldn’t abandon you guys even if you are a giant dick.”
Michael smiles. Sleep comes easier to him after that even if he needs to pee and he can’t feel his ankles.
Michael tries his best to keep his anger in check after that.
He counts to fifty when he fees himself getting annoyed and constantly reminds himself that his newfound body is not Ryan’s fault. He even lets Ryan touch his boobs, just once when they’re swollen and actually hurting.
Ryan has to leave for a photo shoot with Ralph Lauren that lasts three days. Michael stays at Ike’s place just so he won’t be alone.
Ike’s got a nursery set up for all the times her grandchildren stay the night and Michael tries not to cry when he sees Noah and Loren’s first sonograms framed on the wall.
It feels like home in Florida with Ryan’s family and Michael makes inquiries into selling his own place in Baltimore but never goes through with it. He misses his own family and wants the twins to grow up surrounded by his sisters and mom but for now Michael’s content with being in Florida. One day they’ll have to figure out where they’re going to spend the rest of their lives, but for now their house in Florida is fine.
When Ryan gets home things are much easier. Michael’s missed him and the twins too because they go wild when Ryan kisses at his stomach in greeting.
“Are you hungry? I’ll make us lunch if you are,” Ryan offers, rubbing his fingers over the places where the babies are kicking.
“Yeah,” Michael answers because he’s always hungry. “I’m craving bananas.”
Ryan grins. “Okay, just let me change.”
Ryan disappears into their bedroom and Michael goes to the bathroom. When he returns he finds the other man in the kitchen. Michael has to stop and grasp the counter when he sees him.
Ryan’s wearing a beanie and a gray shirt with the top buttons undone as he slices bananas. Suddenly Michael’s overcome with the want to fuck him.
They haven’t fucked since Michael found out he was pregnant. There were other more pressing matters like the fact that he was pregnant that made his brain forget he had a dick. After five months Michael couldn’t really see his dick anymore and then it had changed into a cunt and Michael stopped thinking about sex.
But right now he wants to pin Ryan to the nearest flat surface and ride his dick until he can’t feel his pussy anymore.
“Ryan,” Michael growls.
Ryan stops slicing bananas to look up. When he sees Michael his face scrunches up in worry. “You okay MP?” He asks. “Are the brats bothering you again?”
Michael’s across the room in seconds. He uses his stomach to pin Ryan against the island and crushes their lips together. Ryan kisses back with just as much fever, hands resting on Michael’s hips.
“Fuck me,” Michael growls against his lips when they pull apart to breathe.
Ryan’s eyes go wide. “You sure?”
“Do it before I change my mind,” Michael breathes. Ryan pauses and then they’re racing to the bedroom. Ryan chucks off his shirt, losing the beanie along the way, and starts working on his belt when Michael’s overcome with a sudden wave of self-consciousness.
Ryan’s body is still lean and hard, his abs doing that familiar crinkle they do that always makes Michael smile. Michael’s body used to look like that, just less thick, and now it’s covered in fat. His body is now awkward, his stomach protruding from the rest of his body more like a tumor than a belly caused by pregnancy. He’s lost the definition he used to have now that he no longer swims and he’s as big as a beached whale. If he rode Ryan he’d probably crush him.
“Mike?” Ryan asks now fully naked. Michael lets out a moan just looking at him, feeling the familiar ache of arousal between his legs at seeing Ryan’s massive thighs and thick cock.
Michael decides he’ll keep his shirt on. Ryan decides he wants to try and take it off.
“Not fair if I’m naked and you’re not,” he says, kissing at Michael’s neck and inching his shirt up. Michael shakes his head, pulling Ryan’s hands away and pushing him towards the bed.
Ryan’s eyes crinkle in confusion. “I want you naked.”
“I don’t want to be naked,” Michael says, removing his shorts and leaving his underwear on.
“How are we gonna fuck if you aren’t naked?” Ryan asks, pulling Michael into another kiss. His hands are on Michael’s hips but he doesn’t try to take any clothes off.
“Ryan, please,” Michael pleads swallowing thickly. “I’ll take my underwear off when we do it.”
Ryan doesn’t look convinced. He frowns at Michael but relaxes onto the bed, pulling Michael along with him. “Can I touch your tits?” Ryan asks, fingers slipping up under Michael’s shirt.
Michael nods shakily and wobbles a little bit, unsure of what to do with his belly. He can’t balance as well as he used to and he doesn’t want to crawl on top of Ryan and crush him. Instead Ryan takes charge and guides Michael onto his back, settling between his legs.
Michael’s stomach is still in the way and he glares down at his children. He realizes that he can’t see his vag at all and wonders how Ryan’s going to even find it.
Ryan’s fingers slip under his shirt and glide over his belly until they land on one of Michael’s tits. The palm of his hand makes Michael gasp, nipples even more sensitive now. Ryan scrapes his thumb over the nipple and Michael moans, throwing his head back against the pillows. “Please,” he begs, unsure of what he wants.
Ryan kisses him, pulling on Michael’s lower lip with his teeth. “Tell me what you want.”
Michael can’t form the words for what he wants so he just takes Ryan’s hand and places it between his legs.
“I’m gonna take these off, okay?” Ryan murmurs, working Michael’s underwear off his hips. When the underwear is gone Ryan’s fingers return and as they run over his labia Michael gasps, raising his hips. Ryan’s cold thumb comes up to rub circles over his clit and Michael starts to rock with the motion, babbling nonsense because it’s been so long.
“You’re so worked up baby,” Ryan comments, grinning. He spreads Michael’s legs and kisses at his thighs and then his fingers are gone and his tongue is in their place.
“Fuck!” Michael cries, fingers digging into Ryan’s hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeats as Ryan’s fingers come back and work their way in, tongue still working over his clit.
Michael comes with a shout. Ryan’s tongue keeps moving and Michael keens, shaking his head. “Ry, I can’t -” and Ryan pulls his face away. He pulls Michael into a kiss and then his fingers are back on his boobs, touching them through Michael’s shirt.
“Please,” he begs, “Mike baby I wanna see you naked.”
Michael’s self-consciousness comes back. “You don’t want to see me naked.”
“Yes I do,” Ryan protests. “I love your body.”
“You loved it before,” Michael states. “You haven’t seen it now.”
Ryan is always at practice by the time Michael rolls out of bed and if he is home Michael gets changed in the bathroom. Even the one time Michael let Ryan touch his boobs it was through Michael’s shirt.
“So let me see it,” Ryan replies softly. He’s looking at Michael with such earnest and such open honesty that Michael can’t deny him.
“Okay,” Michael says and nods shakily.
Ryan’s the one to take the shirt off. He stares at Michael before he breaks into a grin and just like that he surges forward, kissing Michael so passionately that Michael’s left dumbfounded.
“Phelps,” Ryan breathes. “Not fair you were hiding these tits from me. You know how much I like tits.”
Michael rolls his eyes. He hitches his thigh over Ryan’s, feeling his softening cock and frowning. “You better be able to get that back up Lochte.”
“Anything for you baby,” Ryan growls against his lips, hips moving and cock gliding over Michael’s cunt, causing both of them to gasp. They rock back and forth to get Ryan hard again and when he is he slides into Michael with one hard thrust.
“Sorry,” he says when Michael lets out a groan.
Michael gasps as Ryan pulls out and thrusts back in, says, “Ryan… Ryan please, fuck me hard,” right into Ryan’s ear.
Ryan gasps and then he’s pulling back, rearranging Michael so Michael’s flat on his back with his thighs lying over his hips. He can’t thrust as quick, but they’re deep and Michael’s left with his mouth wide open, gasping and moaning every time Ryan thrusts deep.
It’s good but it’s not enough. Michael tries to reach down and rub at his clit, but he can’t quite reach. “Fuck,” he says, trying to reposition himself but all his wiggling causes Ryan’s cock to slip out.
“I’m too fat for this to work,” Michael bitches and Ryan says, “not fat, pregnant, with my babies,” like it’s some sort of turn on. Michael tries to eye him suspiciously but his stomach is in the way.
“Doggy,” Michael says, debating on whether or not to be a selfish dick or not. He could beg Ryan to get him off again because he’s seventh months pregnant and his needs come first, damn it, but then he’d be too lazy to finish Ryan off or, he could try to get on his knees and make it a whole lot easier on both of them. “Help me get on my knees.”
“You sure?” Ryan questions but he moves out of the way and helps Michael roll over onto his stomach and then get up on his knees. Immediately Michael feels uncomfortable, like all his weight is dropping to the sheets below them, but he’s horny as fuck.
“Just put it back in Lochte,” Michael commands, trying not to let his arms buckle under the weight. He used to be an Olympic swimmer; he can stay up on his knees for the five minutes it’ll take them to get off.
Ryan pushes back in and after that everything is much better. Ryan doesn’t hold back; he fucks Michael like how they used to fuck and not like Michael’s a delicate flower. Ryan holds onto his hips and lies across his back, sucking on Michael’s neck and making him keen.
When Ryan comes Michael curses but he doesn’t get a chance to bitch because Ryan flips him onto his back again, and then he’s sucking on Michael’s cunt and eating his cum out of him, fingers slipping down the cleft of his ass to rub a dry finger over his hole and - oh Michael’s missed that.
“You motherfucker,” Michael curses, “fuck, fuck, I love you, fuck,” and then he comes, Ryan’s finger working into him and his tongue flicking at his clit.
“Love you too,” Ryan says, kissing him and removing his finger. He kisses Michael’s stomach and Michael makes a face, pushing his face away. “Reezy you can’t just eat me out and then kiss my stomach that’s gross.”
“What?” Ryan whines. “You don’t know how much your body turns me on.”
Michael turns his nose up. Ryan continues, “Like I didn’t think you’d want my dick in you ‘cause you’re full of babies and shit but I’ve been jacking off to the thought of your pregnant body for months.”
“Dude,” is all Michael says, “that’s gross.”
“Well fuck you Phelps,” Ryan retorts and goes back to touching Michael’s stomach and trying to sneak a hand up to fondle a boob. “You can’t oppress my sexuality.”
Michael just sighs. He’s tired, and feels a bit gross, some of Ryan’s come oozing out of him, but he lets Ryan touch his boobs and stomach because it’s nice to know that even though he resembles a beached whale Ryan still jacks off to him. “You don’t have to like jack off you know,” Michael ventures. “I might be a bitch all the time but if you’re horny you can come to me and not your hand or like anyone else.”
Ryan stops being a weirdo to sit up and look Michael dead in the eye, face serious. “Do you think I wanna fuck someone else?”
Michael shrugs and looks away. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“Fuck, Mike,” Ryan says, grabbing Michael’s face between his hands. “You’re like it for me, okay? I haven’t fucked anyone else in years and I’m not gonna start now cause I knocked you up. You’re really fucking sexy to me all fat with my babies.”
“I’m not fat you asshole,” Michael scoffs and punches Ryan in the shoulder. Reluctantly he adds, “you’re it for me too.”
“I was being serious when I told Debs I was gonna marry you,” Ryan discloses.
“Are you proposing to me?” Michael asks a little bewildered. “Because I don’t see a ring and I want one. Also you dick you still haven’t fed me.”
Ryan gapes and then huffs. “There’s just no pleasing you sometimes!”
“I know,” Michael says and then kisses Ryan softly. “But you love me.”
Ryan rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer. Michael elbows him in the stomach and eventually Ryan smiles and kisses him back. “Jeah, of course I do.”
They both get dressed and head back into the kitchen where the bananas have started to go bad. Ryan throws them out while Michael frowns, still craving the bananas. He settles on a pickle sandwich instead and Ryan doesn’t even complain about how gross it is as he prepares it.
Before Michael starts to eat and his breath tastes bad he leans over and kisses Ryan’s neck. “Yes,” he says. When Ryan looks at him puzzled Michael adds, “I’ll marry you Ryan Lochte.”
Ryan looks so happy that Michael can’t complain about how he didn’t want mayo on his bread.
part one part two AO3
ryan lochte/michael phelps
nc17, 11827 words
warnings for depiction of male pregnancy, curse words, genderswap, mpreg
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBLITY FOR THIS THIS IS ALL aftereighteen's FAULT. sequel to grow a pair
No one talks about the meet in New Orleans.
It’s not like Michael’s ashamed of what happened to him, it’s more like there’s an on-going investigation into Clary’s disappearance and no one wants to go to prison, so the meet in New Orleans gets swept under the rug. Michael takes his medals and hides them at the bottom of a drawer of long socks in Ryan’s dresser where they’ll never be found again and doesn’t spare New Orleans a second thought.
Weeks go by and Michael settles into his regular routine of training and meetings and fucking around with Ryan whenever he can, but then he catches a persistent stomach bug that refuses to go away. Some mornings he’s absolutely fine, and then others he has to scramble out of the pool to avoid throwing up in the water and shutting the facility down for a couple of hours.
It gets worse as the days go by and sometimes the smell of chlorine makes Michael so sick he has to lie on the pool deck just to get his bearings and settle his stomach. Other days Michael gets the weirdest cravings for food like pickles dipped in chocolate that pester him until he gives in and then ends up throwing the weird combinations straight back up.
Bob insists that Michael go to the doctor so he can get his lazy ass back in the pool but Michael shrugs him off. He hadn’t done his best at New Orleans, even before the voodoo incident, and he’s determined to push himself until the bug goes away and he gets back into winning mode.
Bob gets off his back about going to the doctor when Michael's stomach bug seems to go away. He gives Michael a day off so he can rest and Michael ends up going to his mom’s for dinner. She makes him his favorite pasta even though the smell of the pasta cooking makes Michael nauseas.
His mom is giving him a look that says she knows he’s done something stupid but isn’t quite sure what it is. Michael just gives her his best smile.
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were pregnant,” Hilary jokes as Michael struggles to get through his pasta.
“Don’t be ridiculous Hilary,” Debbie says. “Of course Michael isn’t pregnant.”
Michael nods along with his mother but -
He had sex with Ryan. Which, okay, isn’t much of a surprise because they’ve been fucking since Athens. But he had sex with Ryan while he had a vagina and that dickhole didn’t use a condom.
“Oh my god,” Michael whispers.
The women in the house stop to stare at him. “Oh my god,” he repeats and then, “fuck!”
“Michael Fred!” Debbie scolds. “What is wrong with you?!”
“I need to go to Wal-Mart,” Michael says hurriedly. “What’s the best pregnancy test to take?”
“What?” Whitney laughs nervously. “Why would you need to take a pregnancy test?”
“Michael Fred,” his mother hisses, “if you got one of those girls -”
“I’m with Ryan,” Michael groans. “I’m with Ryan that stupid fuck!”
He swindles Hilary into driving him to Wal-Mart and Whitney comes along just for the shits and giggles. When they get to the store Michael grabs as many pregnancy tests as he can and then shoves them into Whitney’s arms before he grabs some more.
“Michael,” Whitney says as they’re checking out. “How many girls have you been screwing around with?”
“I’m with Ryan,” Michael states for the second time that night. “And they’re not for some girl they’re for me.”
Whitney stares at him. The girl at the check-out keeps flicking her eyes from the boxes to them and then back to the boxes. Michael glares her into submission and then runs to the nearest bathroom to piss on as many sticks as possible. He paces back and forth in the bathroom while Whitney and Hilary wait outside and when the first three tests come up positive he takes one more. And then another, and another until Hilary storms into the bathroom and tells him she’s had enough of waiting.
“Seriously Michael,” she says irritably. “What is going on?”
Michael just shoves the pregnancy tests in her face. “Oh,” she breathes. “We need Whitney.”
Whitney laughs.
“Are you being fucking serious!?” She says, looking at all five tests. “You’re pregnant?”
“Don’t say it so loud!” Michael hisses throwing all the tests in the trashcan.
“So,” Hilary says in the car on the way back to Michael’s. “Are you going to tell us how this happened?”
Michael’s lying as far back in the seat as he can while trying not to have a meltdown. “I’m secretly a woman. Mom never told you. I’ve been living as a man this entire time.”
“Seriously Michael,” Whitney says from the backseat. “As excited as I am for you what the fuck is going on?”
Michael sighs deeply. “Brace yourselves.”
He tells them everything that happened in New Orleans in as little detail as possible. Hilary sits quietly as they drive home and Whitney is trying to stifle her laughter. “Seriously?” she says. “You grew a magical vagina because of voodoo and Ryan knocked you up?”
“Apparently,” Michael replies with a bit of sass. Whitney hits the back of his seat with her foot.
“How is the baby supposed to come out of you?” Hilary asks as they pull into his driveway. Michael groans.
In the morning he books a flight to Jacksonville and hops on a plane after shooting Bob a picture of a pregnancy test and making Hilary and Whitney swear they won’t tell their mom. He gets a cab to Ryan’s place in Gainesville when he touches down and storms through the house until he finds Ryan chewing away at some Fruit Loops in the kitchen.
“Mike?” Ryan asks when he spots him.
“Stay right there,” Michael hisses and then storms into the bathroom. He’s kept a pregnancy test in his pocket the whole journey and proceeds to take it. When the blue positive sign comes up he throws it in the trash can.
It dawns on Michael that he is indeed pregnant. The first thought that comes to mind is end Lochte.
"You!" He screams as he reenters the kitchen. Ryan stops chewing on his Fruit Loops to look guilty, which Michael has to remember to investigate later because he hasn't even mentioned anything about being pregnant. He’s sure Ryan isn't smart enough to figure it out on his own, so there's obviously something else Ryan has fucked up.
"Sorry?" Ryan says, shrugging and offering his bowl of cereal like that will qualm Michael's anger.
"You better fucking run," Michael hisses, "because I’m about to fucking choke you.”
"Are your tits back?" Ryan asks, sounding a little too hopeful for Michael's liking. The other man runs his eyes over Michael's chest and when he realizes that the tits aren't there frowns.
"Your fucking devil sperm knocked me up you asshole!" Michael yells. "You and your fucking," he purses his lips to do his best Lochte impersonation, 'Michael, there's no such thing as an ugly vagina' bullshit!"
Ryan blinks at him and then, "does that mean you're going to get your tits back?"
Michael lets out a noise that sounds like a raging bull and Ryan barely manages to dodge the bowl of cereal aimed at his head.
“So,” Ryan says from the safety of the doorway. He’s strategically placed himself there so he can make a quick getaway if Michael decides to throw another object at his head. “We’re gonna have a baby?”
Michael looks up from his computer screen. So far his search of I’m a guy and I’m pregnant help!!!! has wielded no helpful results but he thinks he’s taking the news pretty well, as long as he ignores the fact that he threw a cereal bowl at his boyfriend’s head. “Yes,” he says simply.
Ryan slowly walks into the room, on edge, and then crawls onto the bed. “Like, a real baby?”
“Yes a real baby,” Michael replies and types in how do you know if your baby is the antichrist or not and waits for Google to load.
“Michael,” Ryan hisses when he looks at the screen, fingers tight around his cross. His cross that’s covered in diamonds.
“First of all,” Michael says hotly, “don’t get all religious on me now you’re sleeping with a man, you dick, and secondly this baby was created because of voodoo, remember? What’s not to say that I’m carrying the antichrist.”
“But that’s our baby,” Ryan mumbles. “He’s not devil spawn.”
Michael doesn’t reply. Google doesn’t wield any helpful results and he eventually shuts down his laptop, afraid that Ryan might rub the diamonds off his cross. “Listen,” Michael says. “Maybe it’s not the antichrist, but this is pretty fucked up.”
“I know,” Ryan says and finally leaves the cross alone. “Are we gonna keep it?”
Michael places a hand on his stomach. He’s only had three hours to process the fact that he’s pregnant, but not once in those three hours did he think about getting rid of it. “Do you want to keep it?”
“Yeah,” Ryan replies without any hesitation. “But MP your body’s a temple. Your temple. And if you want to get rid of it I’m fine with that.” Michael can tell that Ryan wouldn’t really be fine with it, not by the way he jumped to the baby’s defense straight away.
“Let’s keep it,” Michael finally says after a few moments because he’s been with Ryan for the better part of a decade, and knowing them this is somehow probably the most legal way they’d get their hands on a baby anyway.
They don’t tell anyone else that Michael’s pregnant, not until Michael actually goes to a doctor.
Michael’s expecting the doctor to laugh in his face when he takes another pregnancy test and shows it to him. Dr Waltz instead just sighs and writes up a list of over the counter prenatal vitamins.
“Are you serious?” Michael asks when the doctor hands him the list.
“I am,” Dr Waltz replies. “Unless you want your child to be sickly you’ll need to take all the vitamins on the list."
“No,” Michael says, “why the fuck aren’t you freaking out about this? I’m a man and I’m pregnant.”
“I’m well aware of that fact Mr Phelps,” Dr Waltz retorts. “You aren’t the first pregnant man I’ve ever met.”
Michael gapes. Dr Waltz adds, “I’m also from New Orleans.”
A week later Michael returns to Dr Waltz’s office with Ryan in tow. Ryan’s really excited to see their baby for the first time and confirm that they’re really having one but Michael’s more worried about devil horns or hooves showing up on the monitor.
The gel Dr Waltz spreads on Michael’s stomach is cold and he holds Ryan’s hand, on the edge between being a total emotional wreck and relative clamness.
“Oh,” Dr Waltz says, quiet for a couple of minutes as he runs the handle over Michael’s stomach. His mouth goes in a thin line as he goes back and forth over the skin and then finally, “you’re having twins.”
“Told you he couldn’t be the antichrist,” Ryan says, grin bright and happy. “You can’t have two antichrists.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Michael says but Dr Waltz just shakes his head and shows them the monitor.
Their babies look like ugly alien bean things. Dr Waltz shows them where their noses are forming, but other than that there’s nothing much to see at eight weeks, except for their little hearts beating. Both are tiny, and they can barely hear them fluttering, but they’re there.
Michael makes a choking noise. He’s not usually a very emotional person, but those are his babies’ heartbeats on the monitor. He was only expecting to see one, but there’s two - two little maybe-demon-spawn baby hearts. So far there’s no horns or hooves but it’s early days yet.
Ryan kisses his forehead. “MP, there’s two.”
“I know,” Michael manages and sniffles. “If you tell anyone I cried I’m going to punch you in the dick.”
Dr Waltz prints out multiple sonograms and Michael places a copy in his wallet, but not before running his fingers over the image a couple of times, still amazed and bewildered about what he’s seeing.
It’s - Michael isn’t sure what to make of everything.
They decide to break the pregnancy news to Ryan’s parents first. Ike begins to cry when they show her the sonogram and Steven has to leave the room. Ryan looks torn, not sure what to make of his parents reactions but Ike takes a sonogram and sticks it under a magnet on her fridge and when Steven finally returns he pats Ryan on the shoulder and tells him congratulations. His siblings respond quite the same way, except Devon and Megan start taking bets on what sex the babies are going to be.
It’s Michael’s mom that turns out to be the problem.
Debbie isn’t exactly upset but she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that her son is pregnant, and pregnant out of wedlock.
“Really?” Michael says when she shakes her head. “That’s your biggest problem?”
“I’m gonna marry him Mrs Phelps,” Ryan says trying to put on his Southern boy charm. “Like when they have teeth and stuff.” Michael’s mom has never been able to resist Ryan, especially not when he smiles at her like a dumb puppy, and that resolution seems to please her because she kisses him on the cheek.
“You better,” she finally says and then gives Michael a hug.
“Are you really going to marry me?” Michael asks later that night, looking at the sonograms. He won’t admit it but sometimes he gets a little emotional looking at the picture. There are no facial features, but Michael can still make out where their hearts are.
“Jeah,” Ryan replies like it’s not a weird idea at all. “I mean, that’s what you want, right?”
Michael shrugs. He knew a year ago that Ryan was it for him. They’d been together for forever and Michael was sure he wasn’t just with Ryan just to be with him. He was thinking about really settling down with Ryan after London, when he was retired and they didn’t have to worry about being secret or fucking up each other’s careers. After London Michael could retire to Florida and play as much golf as he wanted and still be with Ryan. And then, eventually, someday, they’d go to Baltimore and get married and adopt a kid or two.
“I don’t want us just to get married because we’re having kids,” Michael admits.
Ryan looks hurt. He just nods and goes back to packing his things for his trip back to Florida.
Michael stays in Baltimore for as long as possible, riding out the morning sickness and still training with Bob until he starts to show. It feels like one morning his stomach is flat and then the next there’s a tumor protruding from his lower abdomen.
Ryan convinces him to move down to Florida. “Just for now MP,” he whines into the phone. “After they’re born we can move to Baltimore or wherever you want. I just want you guys here with me.”
Michael’s hormones are out of whack so he eventually agrees. He makes Ryan buy them a really nice and really expensive house first and then he packs his bags, gets his dogs, and makes the long journey down to Florida.
The house is nice and even comes with a fancy pool in the back with a fence around it. Ryan claims it’s for the safety of his niece and nephews. Michael thinks it’s because Ryan’s trying to convince him to permanently move. Michael wants to pretend like the house doesn’t suit his tastes and be a bitch just to be a bitch but Ryan’s so earnest and spends so much time talking to Michael about which room would work best as a nursery that Michael just can’t be pissy.
It’s really sweet to watch Ryan get excited about their future children. He starts calling them the brats while Michael secretly but very lovingly refers to them as his devil-spawn.
Even though Michael can’t officially train he’s content to do lazy laps in the pool until his stomach starts to curl at the smell of chlorine. It really fucking sucks that the one place he really loves he can’t be at for more than ten minutes without wanting to hurl, and it sucks even more that the smell clings to Ryan’s skin even after he showers after practice.
Ryan comes home from practice one day smelling like chlorine and Michael has to forcefully swallow a bite of his pickle sandwich before he spits it out in disgust.
Ryan walks right over to Michael, flip flops banging loudly on the tile floor, and makes a move to touch his belly.
“Don’t touch me,” Michael says with more venom than he means to. Ryan’s hands immediately drop and he looks at Michael with a sheepish kind of curiosity, like he’s not sure what he’s done to make Michael angry but doesn’t want to bring up the fact that he probably hasn’t done anything wrong in the first place.
Michael sighs and takes a deep breath. “You smell like fucking chlorine.”
Ryan gives him the well duh face and Michael says, “I don’t want you to touch me while you smell like chlorine.”
“Okay,” Ryan says quietly and leaves the room.
Michael watches him go, instantly feeling like a piece of shit. It’s really not Ryan’s fault he smells horrible. It’s the fucking chlorine’s fault.
Michael rubs at his stomach and then counts to ten to make himself relax. He finds Ryan in the living room flipping through the thirty different ESPN channels they have and rubbing absent-mindedly at Carter’s head, but Michael can tell that he’s hurt. He settles on the other end of the couch.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You can touch my stomach.”
“If you don’t want me to touch you I’m not going to,” Ryan mumbles and refuses to move his eyes away from the TV. Michael sighs and scoots closer, taking Ryan’s hand and placing it on his stomach. “Say hi to your kids, you know you want to.”
Ryan refuses to budge but then gives in. He rubs his hand over Michael’s belly and then kisses it, muttering a quick hi with a smile. The babies probably can’t hear him but Ryan’s taken to talking to them like they can.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Michael says when Ryan doesn’t move his head away from his stomach, a sign that he’s willing to listen. “The smell of chlorine makes me sick.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan says against his stomach and then, “I’m sorry for sticking my penis in your vagina and knocking you up.”
Michael runs his hands through Ryan’s hair and laughs. His curls are just starting to make their comeback and they’re nice and soft. Michael wonders if their kids are going to have Ryan's golden curls or Michael’s plain, flat, brown hair. He secretly hopes his kids come out looking more like Ryan than like him. “I told you to do it,” he finally says. “Not your fault.”
“I know like, you said you wanted to keep them,” Ryan says, voice hesitant and soft, “but you’re not - you don’t regret, right?”
“No?” Michael says. “What makes you think that?”
Ryan shrugs. “We just didn’t plan this, y’know? And like what if this fucks up your career cause you’re gonna be out for a while? I don’t want you to regret this or hate them.”
Michael honestly hasn't been thinking about his career. He thinks of Bob sometimes and sends him texts about how he's doing but Michael hasn’t put much thought in to it. He shrugs, absent mindedly running his thumb over Ryan’s cheek. “It’s two years away.”
“I know,” Ryan says meekly. “But you won’t be able to race for like a year.”
“I’m fucking Michael Phelps,” Michael says. “I’ll come back and kick everyone’s ass. Including yours.”
Ryan lifts his head and makes a face. “If you weren’t pregnant I’d punch you, dick.”
Michael just grins.
Life soon becomes a mixture of relative easiness and boredom.
The weeks go by, Michael’s stomach grows, and even though he’s only five months along he looks like he’s six.
They go to an appointment with Dr Waltz and discover that they’re having two boys, one who likes to suck on his thumb and the other who likes to kick Michael as much as he can. They’re much bigger now and actually look like real babies, and not like little aliens. They’re healthy and still growing and Michael’s glad not to see any hooves on any of the babies.
They have to enlist Conor’s help for the nursery since Michael can’t see his feet anymore and once he gets down on the floor it’s hard for him to get back up, but they manage to paint the nursery light blue and then Michael leaves it to Ryan and Conor to assemble the furniture.
That proves to be a stupid idea.
Michael’s eating his second bowl of chocolate ice cream when he hears a bang and a crash from the nursery. He closes his eyes and sets down the bowl before he heads to the other side of the house.
He finds the completed crib on its side, Conor spilling out of it. “What the fuck?” Michael asks because that crib was expensive.
“We were testing out the weight,” Ryan says, trying to help Conor lift the crib off his leg.
“But why was Conor in the crib?” Michael asks and would help but it involves a lot of leaning over.
“Because we were testing the weight,” Ryan repeats while Conor finally gets his leg out from under the piece of furniture.
Michael raises an eyebrow. “So you put Conor in the crib?”
“It says to do it in the instructions,” Conor says and hands Michael a folded piece of paper. Michael scans over it, finding the part where it suggests putting several bricks in the crib, not an actual person.
“My crib better not be ruined,” Michael says as the two men lift it back in to place. There’s just the tiniest little knick in it but Michael still turns his nose up.
Conor says, “I’m sorry Mike,” looking like a kicked puppy and Michael just ruffles his hair. He would be angry, but it’s not like their kids are really going to care about what they’re sleeping in.
“Just don’t climb into anything else,” Michael says and leaves the two swimmers alone to assemble the armoire and changing tables.
When they’re done Michael begrudgingly shares his chocolate ice cream as an award. The furniture looks nice; dark brown with white linens and no additional nicks in the wood. Seeing the nursery complete makes everything feel real.
“Maybe you should get some block letters and hang them on the wall,” Conor suggests around his spoon of ice cream. When Ryan stares at him dumbly he adds, “For their names?”
“Oh my god,” he says when Michael and Ryan don’t reply. “You don’t even have names?”
“We haven’t thought about that yet!” Ryan says defensively. “We’ve been worried about other things.”
“Right,” Conor says and leaves the room to presumably go get more ice cream.
When Conor leaves Ryan corners Michael.
“So, like I’ve been thinking,” Ryan says and Michael lifts his eyebrows. Nothing ever ends well when Ryan says he’s been thinking.
Ryan drops his backpack on the counter and rummages through it until he pulls out a piece of paper. “We need to figure out what we’re gonna call our kids cause we can’t keep calling them devil spawn.”
“I only called them devil spawn once,” Michael protests hotly and rubs his stomach where his children are for once not trying to destroy his vital organs with their tiny fists.
Ryan grins and hands the paper over before he runs his hands over Michael’s belly.
Michael looks at the list of baby names in his hand. There’s Jaxon, Parvan, every single form of the name Aiden known to mankind, and Michael thinks the chicken scratch at the bottom says Poseidon.
“You don’t like any of them,” Ryan says, face dropping when Michael doesn’t look impressed.
It’s not that Michael doesn’t like them. Jaxon - spelt the normal way at least - isn’t half bad, but if Michael’s learnt anything over the years of dating a Lochte it’s that the Lochte children can’t be trusted when it comes to naming their own children.
“I like Jaxon,” Michael finally says. Ryan’s frown deepens.
“But you don’t love it,” he says and takes the paper back.
Ryan’s taking his impending fatherhood very seriously and the babies’ names mean a lot to him. Michael’s already agreed that whatever one comes out first can have Steven as a middle name, but he has to put his foot down somewhere when it comes to their first names.
“Why don’t we look up names together?” Michael suggests.
Ryan grins at that and fishes the baby name book Kristin gave him out of his backpack. The edges of the book are worn down and some pages are folded over probably from Kirstin’s own name search, but the book looks friendly enough and not something that would produce bizarre names.
Michael settles down on the couch next to Herman who eyes his growing belly with suspicion before Ryan shoos the dog out of the way. “Uh, there’s another name I like too,” Ryan says, flipping through a couple of pages.
Ryan points to a name and Michael braces himself. “Loren?”
“Jeah,” Ryan says with a grin. “It’s like Lauren but a boy’s name.”
Michael’s surprised. It’s not as bad as Jaxon or Parvan. “People are gonna get it confused with Lauren.”
“We could call him Lo for short,” Ryan suggests and Michael can hear the disappointment in his voice. Ryan tries, he really does, and Michael can be a total dick sometimes, especially now that he’s five months pregnant and constantly irritated - it’s not like Ryan’s suggesting something completely stupid.
“Okay,” Michael says because even if one of their kids has a somewhat sketchy name they can at least save face with the other one. “But which one are we going to call Loren?”
Ryan looks dumbfounded. “Uh, like first one to pop out?”
“They’re not going to pop out,” Michael says. “You do know I don’t have a vagina, right?”
Ryan gets that sad look in his eyes. “I liked your vagina.”
“Yeah, I know,” Michael says and pats his stomach for emphasis.
Coming up with a second name proves to be challenging. Since one of their kids is going to have an odd name Michael’s determined for the second one to have a relatively normal one. Something like William, or Richard, maybe even Matthew, but none of those names seem to fit for a baby born out of voodoo wedlock.
None of the books give Michael any good options either, and neither do the lists online. All of the names seem too normal, even though Michael wants a normal name.
Ryan is no help either. He sticks up his hands and refuses to take any name book when Michael tries to shove them at him. “MP I found one name you have to find the other,” he says.
The name comes to Michael when he’s not thinking about it. He’s stuck on the couch, too lazy and ankles too swollen to get up, when an old episode of Family Guy comes on TV. Michael’s only half paying attention and has no idea where the episode is going, but the episode cuts to some joke about Noah’s Arc and it just hits Michael.
Noah.
Neither of them are remotely religious, despite how much Ryan blings for Jesus, but Noah has a nice ring to it.
“Noah,” Michael says aloud just to hear the way it sounds. Immediately one of the babies kicks him in the bladder.
He struggles off the couch and waddles into the second bedroom that’s doubling as Ryan’s office. Ryan’s sitting at his desk, glasses on the bridge of his nose as he studies an email.
“Hey,” Michael says to get his attention. “I think I figured out a second name.”
Ryan looks away from the computer. “Jeah?”
“What about Noah?” Michael asks.
“Noah,” Ryan repeats, scrunching his nose and then grinning. “I like it.”
Michael smiles and then has to leave to pee because Noah, or maybe it’s Loren, is pressing on his bladder. Even if his kids never let him go ten minutes without having to piss it’s nice to able to refer to them by actual names and not call them brats.
Michael borrows Dalia for a day and they sit at the dining table painting block letters bright colors to hang over the crib. Dalia is fascinated by Michael’s stomach, and the fact that there’s two babies in there, but she’s taken to referring to Michael as her uncle and to the babies as her cousins and new best friends. It makes Michael feel like he’s a real part of Ryan’s family.
When Michael officially reaches six months and something weeks he feels more like he’s eight and looks it too.
Everything is swollen, his back aches, and he hasn’t seen his feet in weeks. Loren and Noah are growing and lying on each other, constantly kicking and trying to make room for themselves because there simply isn’t enough. Michael feels like he has to take a leak every ten minutes and can never manage to get comfortable. He’s more irritable too; he’s difficult to be around and snaps more often, which causes more friction than usual between him and Ryan. Ryan spends what seems like more time at the pool than at home with Michael which only adds to Michael’s irritation.
On top of that Michael’s vagina comes back.
He’s minding his own business, trying really hard not to go give in and make himself a cup of coffee, when he feels a pain in his lower abdomen. It’s not unusual to feel discomfort in that area because the babies are always moving around and pressing on his organs, but the pain feels unusual and familiar all at the same time.
He sits down and tries to put his feet up. The pain travels to his chest and after a few minutes Michael starts to get worried.
Dr Waltz has repeatedly told him that his pregnancy is high-risk and Michael’s been doing everything he’s been told to do but he’s worried he hasn’t been doing enough. The word miscarriage flashes through his head a couple of times and he curses the fact that Ryan’s out of town doing shit for Speedo.
Michael fumbles for his phone unsure of who to call first. His mom? Ike? Ryan? Probably Dr Waltz.
“Shit,” he curses as he tries searching the house for the damn thing. He hasn’t been using it as much lately and can’t remember where he last had it.
When he gets the bedroom the pain suddenly intensifies and he collapses on his bed, hands immediately going to his stomach. The babies are kicking like they know something’s wrong and Michael’s relieved, just for a few seconds, to feel them kick his bladder because that means they’re still alive.
The pain suddenly stops.
Just like that it stops.
Michael’s not sure what he expects to find.
It occurs to him that if he has miscarried, which seems impossible because Noah (Loren?) is slamming his tiny fist into his bladder, that there probably would be lots of blood but seeing as Michael doesn’t have a vag that seems impossible.
But something does feel different down there and there’s an extra weight on his chest that wasn’t there before. Michael slowly slips his fingers into his sweats and then further, pass the waistband of his boxers. At first he doesn’t feel anything because his stomach is in the way but when Michael finally reaches where his dick is supposed to be it’s gone.
“Fuck!” He yells, feeling the familiar folds of a vagina. The weight on his chest can only mean one thing - tits.
Michael finally finds his phone. The first person he calls isn’t his boyfriend, or his doctor, it’s his teammate Conor fucking Dwyer.
“Dwyer!” Michael roars into the phone when Conor finally picks up. “I’m going to fucking kill you! I don’t fucking care how much Ryan loves you your ass is mine.”
“Mike?” Conor says meekly into the phone. “Mike I don’t know -”
“My pussy is back you fucking piece of shit!” Michael screams. “What the fuck did you do this time?!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Conor protests. “Mike I swear, I haven’t done anything! Clary’s still in his fishbowl.”
Michael takes a few deep breaths. He shouldn’t be yelling; it’s not good for the babies. “Has Nathan done anything?”
“Not that I know of,” Conor says. “I - I’m coming over.”
When Conor arrives Michael’s lying on the couch trying to take deep breaths and not think about how his dick, once again, has turned into a cunt.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says immediately because Conor kind of looks like he wants to cry. Conor’s a tough kid but Michael knows he can be an intimidating dick sometimes. “There’s ice cream in the freezer if you want some.”
Conor helps himself to a bowl and then sits sheepishly on the sofa nearby. “I talked to Nathan,” he says, “and Matt. They returned the books they got to the store. They swear they haven’t been messing around with anything.”
“And you’re sure Clary’s still in his fishbowl?” Michael asks.
Conor nods. “I double-checked right before I left. He’s still swimming around.”
“I thought Ryan told you to stop feeding him?”
Conor flushes. “I felt bad? I already turned the guy into the shittiest sea creature ever. It just didn’t feel right starving him to death.”
Michael sighs. If he could reach he’d ruffle Conor’s hair. Instead he asks him to get Dr Waltz on the phone.
Dr Waltz doesn’t seem as surprised.
“Mr Phelps,” he sighs into the phone, “didn’t the voodoo doctor you went to explain all of this to you?”
Michael glares at the phone. “I didn’t go to a voodoo doctor. One of my teammates fucked her over so she meant to turn him into a woman and not me.”
Dr Waltz clicks his tongue. “That’s not how these things work. Are you sure you didn’t see her yourself? Perhaps your teammate requested the fertility spell on your behalf?”
“My fucking teammate hates me,” Michael says and resists the urge to make Conor dive him to his house so he can drown the little bitch himself.
“Oh my,” Dr Waltz says and then, “don’t be worried, Michael. Regaining your female organs is a natural process when it comes to the fertility treatment. Your body is preparing for the birth - we need to schedule your C-section date, by the way - and once all of the pregnancy hormones have left your body I’m sure your penis shall be returned to you. Is Ryan there with you?”
“No,” Michael hisses, suddenly really pissed off that Ryan actually has a job. “He’s in New York.”
“Perhaps you should call someone to stay with you over night,” Dr Waltz suggests. “Maybe a friend to help you adjust?”
“I’ll stay,” Conor says weakly.
Michael ends the call with Dr Waltz and rolls his eyes up to look at his friend. “I need to piss, help me up.”
When Ryan gets home three days later he immediately notices that something is different.
Michael’s in the nursery folding clothes when he hears the dogs going crazy. Herman comes bounding into the room and then Ryan. He has one of his signature hats on, sweats and a hoodie and he gives Michael a lazy grin before his eyes scan over Michael’s chest.
“Hey,” he says, grin widening, “you got your tits back!”
“You’re not touching them,” Michael says, suddenly irritated. He doesn’t want his tits. He doesn’t want his cunt. He wants them gone.
It feels like a slap in the face. He agreed with Dr Waltz from day one that he was going to have a C-section so there’s no need for his dick to be gone and if his tits think that he’s letting the twins suck off of them then they can gladly fuck off because Michael’s bought enough formula to last at least six months and he plans on using all of it.
Ryan looks at him, face unreadable. “Fine,” he says his own voice having an edge of irritation to it. “You got more clothes?”
“Yeah,” Michael replies shortly, shoving the clothes into the armoire with a little more force than necessary. He was having a pretty alright day but Ryan’s own irritation is annoying him.
“Okay,” Ryan replies and just stands there. “Did you get them everything?”
“Yes,” Michael says through his teeth. “Can’t you see all the clothes I’m folding?”
“I only asked you a fucking question,” Ryan says, voice rough in the way that means he’s angry.
“Don’t curse at me,” Michael snaps, getting to his feet.
Ryan stares, face angry, and then says, “I’m going out.”
“You just got home,” Michael says, following Ryan out of the room as he heads into the kitchen. He grabs his keys off the counter and drops his bag on the floor, barely missing dropping it on Herman.
“I’m obviously not fucking wanted here,” Ryan spits, grabbing his keys. He storms out of the house, leaving Michael alone in the kitchen to stare after him.
Ryan’s gone for three hours.
Michael goes back to angrily folding clothes before his back starts to protest and he gives up. He grabs his laptop and plays online poker until he grows bored and can’t ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head.
They literally fought over nothing which makes Michael even more irritated. He knows it was mostly his fault for being annoyed with Ryan, but if this is how Ryan reacts after a petty fight then how is he going to react if they have a much larger one for an actual reason? It’s a dick move to leave your six month pregnant boyfriend all alone at home just because you’re pissed off about something.
Michael feels abandoned in a way he’s never felt abandoned before. He knows he’s got a bunch of daddy issues and he can’t help but think that Ryan’s not going to come back. That Ryan’s going to leave Michael and his fucking babies and go find someone else to fuck and be with.
When Ryan does come home Michael’s crawling into bed. It’s early, but the twins are bothering him and Michael just wants to lie down and rest his feet. He hears Ryan’s car pull up and then moments later he hears the dogs run across the tiled floor as the front door opens.
He hears Ryan rummaging around in the kitchen and wonders if he’ll come to bed or sleep on the couch but he doesn’t have to wonder for long because the bedroom door opens and then closes.
Ryan undresses in the dark before he crawls into bed but he stays on his side. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to be touched so Michael tries to stay on his side but it’s nearly impossible to get comfortable. He twists and turns as best as he can, but lugging around all the extra weight causes the bed to dip and squeak repeatedly and draws him closer to Ryan.
“Sorry,” he says when he accidentally brushes up against Ryan. Ryan doesn’t reply so Michael gives up on trying to get comfortable and decides that maybe he’ll have better luck on the couch.
He leaves the room and kicks Carter and Stella off the couch before he tries to settle down with a blanket. Lying on his side doesn’t help, and neither does lying on his back. It just feels like all the weight is dropping and he can’t get his arms to lay the way he wants them to.
He closes his eyes and tries to force himself to sleep but the bedroom door opens and then Ryan’s voice is drifting across the room.
“Mike,” Ryan says, voice gruff. “Go back to bed. I’ll asleep out here.”
“I’m not out here because I’m mad at you,” Michael says without thinking. He opens his eyes and looks up at Ryan before he adds, “I couldn’t get comfortable.”
Ryan rubs at his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be out here.”
Michael struggles to get up. “You don’t have to sleep out here.”
“We’re fighting remember?” Ryan says, grabbing the blanket and making as if to lie down.
“I don’t even know what we’re fighting about,” Michael confesses quietly.
Ryan stops messing around with the blanket. He drapes it over the back of the couch and shrugs. “I just… like as soon as I got home you were pissed at me and I haven’t been home to fuck anything up.”
“I know,” Michael admits. “I’ve been a dick lately.”
“That’s an understatement,” Ryan scoffs.
Michael takes a deep breath, trying not to get annoyed. “I’m just so uncomfortable all the time and I just - I’m sorry. I’m not irritated with you I’m just pissed off that my cunt’s back and my tits. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan sighs. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”
When they get back to bed Michael still can’t get comfortable. The babies aren’t moving but his back hurts and his stomach feels uneasy. He keeps shifting positions and waking Ryan up who tries his best to fluff pillows and rub at Michael’s lower back.
“Ryan?” Michael whispers in the middle of the night.
Ryan makes an incoherent noise against the back of his neck.
Michael takes a deep breath and says, “Even when I’m being a total dick and you’re really fucking pissed at me please don’t leave… I was worried you wouldn’t come back.”
Ryan’s arm tightens around Michael’s waist. “I wouldn’t abandon you guys even if you are a giant dick.”
Michael smiles. Sleep comes easier to him after that even if he needs to pee and he can’t feel his ankles.
Michael tries his best to keep his anger in check after that.
He counts to fifty when he fees himself getting annoyed and constantly reminds himself that his newfound body is not Ryan’s fault. He even lets Ryan touch his boobs, just once when they’re swollen and actually hurting.
Ryan has to leave for a photo shoot with Ralph Lauren that lasts three days. Michael stays at Ike’s place just so he won’t be alone.
Ike’s got a nursery set up for all the times her grandchildren stay the night and Michael tries not to cry when he sees Noah and Loren’s first sonograms framed on the wall.
It feels like home in Florida with Ryan’s family and Michael makes inquiries into selling his own place in Baltimore but never goes through with it. He misses his own family and wants the twins to grow up surrounded by his sisters and mom but for now Michael’s content with being in Florida. One day they’ll have to figure out where they’re going to spend the rest of their lives, but for now their house in Florida is fine.
When Ryan gets home things are much easier. Michael’s missed him and the twins too because they go wild when Ryan kisses at his stomach in greeting.
“Are you hungry? I’ll make us lunch if you are,” Ryan offers, rubbing his fingers over the places where the babies are kicking.
“Yeah,” Michael answers because he’s always hungry. “I’m craving bananas.”
Ryan grins. “Okay, just let me change.”
Ryan disappears into their bedroom and Michael goes to the bathroom. When he returns he finds the other man in the kitchen. Michael has to stop and grasp the counter when he sees him.
Ryan’s wearing a beanie and a gray shirt with the top buttons undone as he slices bananas. Suddenly Michael’s overcome with the want to fuck him.
They haven’t fucked since Michael found out he was pregnant. There were other more pressing matters like the fact that he was pregnant that made his brain forget he had a dick. After five months Michael couldn’t really see his dick anymore and then it had changed into a cunt and Michael stopped thinking about sex.
But right now he wants to pin Ryan to the nearest flat surface and ride his dick until he can’t feel his pussy anymore.
“Ryan,” Michael growls.
Ryan stops slicing bananas to look up. When he sees Michael his face scrunches up in worry. “You okay MP?” He asks. “Are the brats bothering you again?”
Michael’s across the room in seconds. He uses his stomach to pin Ryan against the island and crushes their lips together. Ryan kisses back with just as much fever, hands resting on Michael’s hips.
“Fuck me,” Michael growls against his lips when they pull apart to breathe.
Ryan’s eyes go wide. “You sure?”
“Do it before I change my mind,” Michael breathes. Ryan pauses and then they’re racing to the bedroom. Ryan chucks off his shirt, losing the beanie along the way, and starts working on his belt when Michael’s overcome with a sudden wave of self-consciousness.
Ryan’s body is still lean and hard, his abs doing that familiar crinkle they do that always makes Michael smile. Michael’s body used to look like that, just less thick, and now it’s covered in fat. His body is now awkward, his stomach protruding from the rest of his body more like a tumor than a belly caused by pregnancy. He’s lost the definition he used to have now that he no longer swims and he’s as big as a beached whale. If he rode Ryan he’d probably crush him.
“Mike?” Ryan asks now fully naked. Michael lets out a moan just looking at him, feeling the familiar ache of arousal between his legs at seeing Ryan’s massive thighs and thick cock.
Michael decides he’ll keep his shirt on. Ryan decides he wants to try and take it off.
“Not fair if I’m naked and you’re not,” he says, kissing at Michael’s neck and inching his shirt up. Michael shakes his head, pulling Ryan’s hands away and pushing him towards the bed.
Ryan’s eyes crinkle in confusion. “I want you naked.”
“I don’t want to be naked,” Michael says, removing his shorts and leaving his underwear on.
“How are we gonna fuck if you aren’t naked?” Ryan asks, pulling Michael into another kiss. His hands are on Michael’s hips but he doesn’t try to take any clothes off.
“Ryan, please,” Michael pleads swallowing thickly. “I’ll take my underwear off when we do it.”
Ryan doesn’t look convinced. He frowns at Michael but relaxes onto the bed, pulling Michael along with him. “Can I touch your tits?” Ryan asks, fingers slipping up under Michael’s shirt.
Michael nods shakily and wobbles a little bit, unsure of what to do with his belly. He can’t balance as well as he used to and he doesn’t want to crawl on top of Ryan and crush him. Instead Ryan takes charge and guides Michael onto his back, settling between his legs.
Michael’s stomach is still in the way and he glares down at his children. He realizes that he can’t see his vag at all and wonders how Ryan’s going to even find it.
Ryan’s fingers slip under his shirt and glide over his belly until they land on one of Michael’s tits. The palm of his hand makes Michael gasp, nipples even more sensitive now. Ryan scrapes his thumb over the nipple and Michael moans, throwing his head back against the pillows. “Please,” he begs, unsure of what he wants.
Ryan kisses him, pulling on Michael’s lower lip with his teeth. “Tell me what you want.”
Michael can’t form the words for what he wants so he just takes Ryan’s hand and places it between his legs.
“I’m gonna take these off, okay?” Ryan murmurs, working Michael’s underwear off his hips. When the underwear is gone Ryan’s fingers return and as they run over his labia Michael gasps, raising his hips. Ryan’s cold thumb comes up to rub circles over his clit and Michael starts to rock with the motion, babbling nonsense because it’s been so long.
“You’re so worked up baby,” Ryan comments, grinning. He spreads Michael’s legs and kisses at his thighs and then his fingers are gone and his tongue is in their place.
“Fuck!” Michael cries, fingers digging into Ryan’s hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeats as Ryan’s fingers come back and work their way in, tongue still working over his clit.
Michael comes with a shout. Ryan’s tongue keeps moving and Michael keens, shaking his head. “Ry, I can’t -” and Ryan pulls his face away. He pulls Michael into a kiss and then his fingers are back on his boobs, touching them through Michael’s shirt.
“Please,” he begs, “Mike baby I wanna see you naked.”
Michael’s self-consciousness comes back. “You don’t want to see me naked.”
“Yes I do,” Ryan protests. “I love your body.”
“You loved it before,” Michael states. “You haven’t seen it now.”
Ryan is always at practice by the time Michael rolls out of bed and if he is home Michael gets changed in the bathroom. Even the one time Michael let Ryan touch his boobs it was through Michael’s shirt.
“So let me see it,” Ryan replies softly. He’s looking at Michael with such earnest and such open honesty that Michael can’t deny him.
“Okay,” Michael says and nods shakily.
Ryan’s the one to take the shirt off. He stares at Michael before he breaks into a grin and just like that he surges forward, kissing Michael so passionately that Michael’s left dumbfounded.
“Phelps,” Ryan breathes. “Not fair you were hiding these tits from me. You know how much I like tits.”
Michael rolls his eyes. He hitches his thigh over Ryan’s, feeling his softening cock and frowning. “You better be able to get that back up Lochte.”
“Anything for you baby,” Ryan growls against his lips, hips moving and cock gliding over Michael’s cunt, causing both of them to gasp. They rock back and forth to get Ryan hard again and when he is he slides into Michael with one hard thrust.
“Sorry,” he says when Michael lets out a groan.
Michael gasps as Ryan pulls out and thrusts back in, says, “Ryan… Ryan please, fuck me hard,” right into Ryan’s ear.
Ryan gasps and then he’s pulling back, rearranging Michael so Michael’s flat on his back with his thighs lying over his hips. He can’t thrust as quick, but they’re deep and Michael’s left with his mouth wide open, gasping and moaning every time Ryan thrusts deep.
It’s good but it’s not enough. Michael tries to reach down and rub at his clit, but he can’t quite reach. “Fuck,” he says, trying to reposition himself but all his wiggling causes Ryan’s cock to slip out.
“I’m too fat for this to work,” Michael bitches and Ryan says, “not fat, pregnant, with my babies,” like it’s some sort of turn on. Michael tries to eye him suspiciously but his stomach is in the way.
“Doggy,” Michael says, debating on whether or not to be a selfish dick or not. He could beg Ryan to get him off again because he’s seventh months pregnant and his needs come first, damn it, but then he’d be too lazy to finish Ryan off or, he could try to get on his knees and make it a whole lot easier on both of them. “Help me get on my knees.”
“You sure?” Ryan questions but he moves out of the way and helps Michael roll over onto his stomach and then get up on his knees. Immediately Michael feels uncomfortable, like all his weight is dropping to the sheets below them, but he’s horny as fuck.
“Just put it back in Lochte,” Michael commands, trying not to let his arms buckle under the weight. He used to be an Olympic swimmer; he can stay up on his knees for the five minutes it’ll take them to get off.
Ryan pushes back in and after that everything is much better. Ryan doesn’t hold back; he fucks Michael like how they used to fuck and not like Michael’s a delicate flower. Ryan holds onto his hips and lies across his back, sucking on Michael’s neck and making him keen.
When Ryan comes Michael curses but he doesn’t get a chance to bitch because Ryan flips him onto his back again, and then he’s sucking on Michael’s cunt and eating his cum out of him, fingers slipping down the cleft of his ass to rub a dry finger over his hole and - oh Michael’s missed that.
“You motherfucker,” Michael curses, “fuck, fuck, I love you, fuck,” and then he comes, Ryan’s finger working into him and his tongue flicking at his clit.
“Love you too,” Ryan says, kissing him and removing his finger. He kisses Michael’s stomach and Michael makes a face, pushing his face away. “Reezy you can’t just eat me out and then kiss my stomach that’s gross.”
“What?” Ryan whines. “You don’t know how much your body turns me on.”
Michael turns his nose up. Ryan continues, “Like I didn’t think you’d want my dick in you ‘cause you’re full of babies and shit but I’ve been jacking off to the thought of your pregnant body for months.”
“Dude,” is all Michael says, “that’s gross.”
“Well fuck you Phelps,” Ryan retorts and goes back to touching Michael’s stomach and trying to sneak a hand up to fondle a boob. “You can’t oppress my sexuality.”
Michael just sighs. He’s tired, and feels a bit gross, some of Ryan’s come oozing out of him, but he lets Ryan touch his boobs and stomach because it’s nice to know that even though he resembles a beached whale Ryan still jacks off to him. “You don’t have to like jack off you know,” Michael ventures. “I might be a bitch all the time but if you’re horny you can come to me and not your hand or like anyone else.”
Ryan stops being a weirdo to sit up and look Michael dead in the eye, face serious. “Do you think I wanna fuck someone else?”
Michael shrugs and looks away. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“Fuck, Mike,” Ryan says, grabbing Michael’s face between his hands. “You’re like it for me, okay? I haven’t fucked anyone else in years and I’m not gonna start now cause I knocked you up. You’re really fucking sexy to me all fat with my babies.”
“I’m not fat you asshole,” Michael scoffs and punches Ryan in the shoulder. Reluctantly he adds, “you’re it for me too.”
“I was being serious when I told Debs I was gonna marry you,” Ryan discloses.
“Are you proposing to me?” Michael asks a little bewildered. “Because I don’t see a ring and I want one. Also you dick you still haven’t fed me.”
Ryan gapes and then huffs. “There’s just no pleasing you sometimes!”
“I know,” Michael says and then kisses Ryan softly. “But you love me.”
Ryan rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer. Michael elbows him in the stomach and eventually Ryan smiles and kisses him back. “Jeah, of course I do.”
They both get dressed and head back into the kitchen where the bananas have started to go bad. Ryan throws them out while Michael frowns, still craving the bananas. He settles on a pickle sandwich instead and Ryan doesn’t even complain about how gross it is as he prepares it.
Before Michael starts to eat and his breath tastes bad he leans over and kisses Ryan’s neck. “Yes,” he says. When Ryan looks at him puzzled Michael adds, “I’ll marry you Ryan Lochte.”
Ryan looks so happy that Michael can’t complain about how he didn’t want mayo on his bread.
part one part two AO3