fic: babydaddy
babydaddy
FOB-mpreg/total crack [R/Slight NC-17].
Author: megyal
A/N:This was Fi's idea. I'm going to ask you to just disregard reality completely. It's cracked out and rambly and disjointed. Also, it's for Shonna and Spencer and Fi. The doctor is really me.
Pete tells Patrick about his little problem during the sixth month of them being friends. This is approximately nine months after he actually meets Patrick, because Patrick tends to be fairly suspicious about everything and Pete simply doesn't appear to be trustworthy.
"What do you mean, it's genetic?" Patrick blinks at him, obviously trying to recall what he had learned in Human Biology. "What? Are you... transsexual? Because I'm okay with that. Yeah, no, I am."
"Hey, that's a big word for such a small mouth," Pete says, trying not to sound snide, because Patrick's mouth isn't that small anyway. Patrick pouts and it looks even fuller. "No, I'm not transsexual. Sexy, but not that sexy."
"What is it, then?" Patrick says, leaning into him as the van slides into a sharp corner, jabbing a round elbow into Pete's side with that sort of self-aware awkwardness that most teenagers seemed to possess. Pete leans back, liking the way the elbow tucks companionably into his side. "Dude, do you have a vagina too?"
"Not a hermaphrodite!" Pete hisses at him, shaking his head at the amused look on Joe's face. Patrick frowns. "Ok, not really."
"Oh. Oh, intersexual, then," Patrick says confidently, the furrows smoothing out in his forehead and Pete rolls his eyes.
"You're such a fucking nerd," Pete informs him and loves him even more for that.
*
"It has to do with Androgen insensitivity, sexual differentiation. Mutations to the gene. I'm a weirdo," he says to Patrick as they set up for a little sound check and looks proud of the condition as he slings on the bass before adjusting the height of the mike. "I take pills. It's not a big deal."
"And if you miss one?" Patrick isn't looking at him; he's nodding at the drummer, counting beats into the first song. Right now, he doesn't have that solid connection with this drummer that he'll have with Andy, where he'll just stand beside the drum kit and mouth some weird drumming code and Andy will get it, but they'll do alright until Pete convinces Andy to roll with them. Pete plucks a deep note.
"I'll get pregnant?" he says and they both laugh.
********
"Dude, sorry, I'm sorry," Patrick says when he bursts in on Pete going down on some other guy and his cheeks bloom. "You should really think of locking the door. This is a studio and--"
"Hey, I'm busy," Pete says, glaring at Patrick until he backs out and shuts the door with excessive force. The glass of the recording booth shakes threateningly in its frame and then goes into an aftershock tremor when Patrick slams the outer door too. There is a long pause and then a faint bang from the door all the way down the hall.
"Looks like he has a temper," the producer says and Pete only smiles, swallowing him back down with a grin, reveling in that peculiar feeling of sheer power when the man groans and grabs onto his head. He licks on the underside of the cock, tonguing over the slight bend and wonders if Patrick bends just so as well, if he moans that loudly when he comes; if he tastes like this dude (only sweeter).
It is only after he swallows and is resting his head upon the guy's trembling thigh that he remembers about his pills.
*
"Damn you and your sleeping pills. Can't you get another prescription to keep near?" Patrick says with bleary annoyance when Pete bursts into his room too late in the night, locates Patrick's suitcase and tears into it. Patrick is still more than a little mad at him, because he had actually dreamt about Pete's mouth stretched wide over that dude when he had flung himself into bed. "The fuck are you going through my stuff for? Do I look like a Rite-Aid to you?"
"I don't like to keep my meds in my own bag, remember?" Pete says tightly. His mouth is set and he doesn't laugh at Patrick's Care-Bear boxers. "And I need the other pills. The one I have to get pre-ordered from some laboratory in Sweden and are made with a part of my soul, apparently."
"Oh yeah. Those," Patrick says and flops back to fall into a deep slumber, because they have a video-shoot tomorrow and he really loves his sleep.
And then he jumps up and stares. Those pills.
"Wait, wait. Ok, Pete, put down my toothbrush." He clambers out of the bed and kneels beside Pete; they hear a muted sound as Pete discovers two pill-bottles in one of Patrick's Docs. Even before he pulls them out, they both know they're empty.
"So, okay. This is going to be fine, dude. I mean, what could your weird body do if you had sex and then forget to take them?"
"The doctor said something about self-fertilization once," Pete says almost blankly, rolling the bottles between his palms. He gives Patrick a quick glance. "I mean, yeah, but that can't happen. It won't."
Patrick grins.
"Yeah, can't happen. Fallopian tubes, Pete. You sort of need those." And they giggle a little and laugh a lot and Pete keeps rolling the fat yellow bottles against his palms, still kneeling on the floor and pressing his side into Patrick's elbow.
*
When Pete gets morning-sickness, he gets it like a freight-train.
He's sick for nearly a half-hour straight, bitterness barreling up from his stomach and burning past his throat. He kneels against some hotel toilet; it looks clean and he wraps his arms around it, because the toilet was here for him in his darkest hour. He pats the cool side of it with weak affection.
The toilet is his friend.
Patrick rudely interrupts the Toilet Love Fest by shoving the bathroom door open and looking down at Pete with haunted eyes. He isn't wearing his hat and this alone causes Pete to throw up again because the whole world is wrong wrong wrong and will he ever stop because it's been going on for a week now and he would very much like the Lord to take it all away, he will never do a wrong thing in his life, ever again, just Jesus Mary and Joseph not with the hurling anymore and--
"This looks like morning-sickness," Patrick says; the slight thread of panic in his voice identical to the babbling in Pete's mind. "Dude, seriously."
"I might be dying here," Pete informs him before dry-heaving. "On second thought, as my best friend, just kill me."
Patrick says, "I bought you a pregnancy test. To test... stuff."
"Wow." Pete grabs onto his porcelain buddy and keeps on kneeling. "Wow, Patrick, really. I don't even--"
He never gets to finish, because his old pal The Toilet is helping him out again.
*
Patrick goes on a quiet rampage when the test reads positive.
"Oh my god!" He says in a strange whisper-yell, because the walls in this particular hotel are thin. He yanks the pillows off the bed and pile-drives them into the floor. "Jesus!"
"Don't...don't overreact, Patrick," Pete says warily from his supine position on the bed and Patrick's eyes actually bulge in his direction. He opens his hands at Pete, fingers splayed, and stares at him between them, incredulous.
"Sure! No overreaction going on here, because this, this happens four times a minute. You are a dude with child. There is another human being somewhere in you and I am so not having a panic-attack."
"Who says with child nowadays?" Pete muses, striving for levity. Patrick grabs at the ends of his hair and pulls in sheer fury.
"Did you do that on purpose?" Patrick says suddenly, rounding on Pete. "Did you actually, actually know that your body would think, HEY time to procreate WITH MYSELF when I get the right mojo-juices going? Because you are going to be a bad example of a parent. Worse," he intones solemnly, "than Britney."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Patrick, really."
"Yes, because you're an asshole. A slutty asshole that forgot to keep up his meds and didn't tell me that he needed more. A pregnant slutty asshole in a band under a contract. We're in a huge pile of shit. Don't give me any guilt-trip fuckery. What the hell we're going to do, I don't have the first fucking idea."
Patrick rants and stomps around and kicks over two chairs, a tiny ginger hurricane; but Pete is smiling a little because Patrick sounds so awesome when he curses... and he keeps saying we.
*
"It must be something you ate," Andy says in a low voice when Pete climbs onto the bus, his face washed in a cold sweat. "Not being all self-righteous vegan, but that beef, man. Was not looking good."
"I had the beef," Joe says, stretching out full on one ratty sofa. "I don't feel bad, or anything."
"You could eat shit and not feel bad," Andy replies with equanimity, but his eyes are fixed on Pete's face and he's frowning. "Hey, Patrick, what's up." Because Patrick is Pete's keeper.
"So there's this thing about Pete," Patrick starts, sitting at the petite table that they like to say they have breakfast at, when it can't really hold anything larger than a teacup. "His body is....different. Genetically."
"It's mixed-up," Pete puts in helpfully and Patrick gives a long-suffering sigh.
"It's fucked-up, that's what it is," Patrick says darkly and Pete cuts his eyes away in annoyance. He feels warm and uncomfortable; he fans himself with one hand.
"He didn't take some medication and...And did some crazy shit and now he is With Child. Like the Virgin Mary, only not so virginal."
Joe laughs so hard he falls off the couch; even Andy has a tiny smile playing at the edges of his mouth, because really now.
"Pregnant," Pete says with gravity; it's this that stops Andy and Joe cold, because Pete isn't smiling at all. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor and he looks really out of it, the dark smudges that are badges of honour to Pete stark against his skin. "With child. Oh holy night."
"Holy shit," Joe says and Andy looks thoughtful.
"Is it an androgen thing? That explains the girl-jeans affinity."
"That is a statement!" Pete yells and looks mutinous when Patrick manages a chuckle.
*
Over the phone, Will's voice has only the slightest of tremors it and it soothes Pete the same way Patrick's hand is cool against his forehead.
"...and I was thinking that I was the only one like that, Pete, but here you are. Dude, this androgen-shit sucks."
"Yeah, I know," Pete murmurs, trying to burrow closer to Patrick, because he's the best pillow ever made. He's cramped up in Patrick's bunk, Patrick half-lying, half-sitting and Pete is ensconced firmly between his legs, leaning back against that sturdy chest. He can feel Patrick's cheek pressed against the top of his head and he feels like he's floating.
"I...well, I couldn't carry it. Everyone like us is different, you know? Some have the internal machinery to do that shit. And I was seventeen. That was the kicker."
"Um, yeah. Dude, I have a doctor with me all the time now. From UCLA. He's driving behind us, in a Kia. A red one."
This doctor is young and excitable, given to bouts of incoherent yelling when he presses his fingers into the slight mound of Pete's stomach. Patrick spends practically two-thirds of the time staring in confusion at Dr. Leong, even as Pete fends calls from his phone, rescheduling photo-shoots, renegotiating contracts and basically putting life on hold.
And being in the eye of a scientific maelstrom. Presenting Pete Wentz, everybody: Weirdo Extraordinaire.
"This foetus," Dr. Leong had said at one quick check-up, looking as if he wanted to rub his hands together in glee, "is viable. And supported by lots of happy. That is not a medical term, I made it up. This, oh god, I'm going to write a paper on this, because there is no precedent. At all."
"Make sure you put in the intersexual ramifications of Pete's unique physiology. I think we're looking at autogamy here, but I'm not too sure about the chromosome values...not to mention the possibility of DNA mutation," Andy had piped up from behind a magazine and everyone had stared as Dr. Leong charged over to him to babble about the possibility of the child being a clone or a true offspring. Patrick had muttered that the world couldn't deal with another Pete.
"You okay?" Patrick says as Pete thanks Will and hangs up. "You need anything? I think you have to take some vitamins."
Pete feels petulant. "Dude, those vitamins taste like I'm drinking from the River Styx. And they are huge. I think they were meant for horses."
Patrick snickers into his ear, brushing his lips against the warm skin.
"Dude, with your horsy face? You got the right ones."
*
Pete is tired. They are on an undefined break and every other day, Dr. Leong comes into his house with a small herd of doctors, fighting their way though a literal wall of reporters and rabid fans. His mother spends her days knitting things, from caps to blankies to a large assortment of sweaters. In ascending size. She also prepares food for him: last night she had to send Patrick out for codfish. Pete had wanted it on his ice-cream. She had smiled at Pete as he wolfed down the concoction happily, saying that she used to eat bananas and meatballs together, so Pete wasn't so bad.
His body, with its strange internal construction, has changed drastically on the outside. First of all, according to Joe, he's lost his girlish figure, but at least his newly-plump cheeks are rosy. His belly is large and round; he has a constant feeling of heartburn pressing up into his throat.
And, damnit, his ankles are so fucking swollen.
"Urgh," he moans at the bottom of the stairs and curses himself for buying a two-story house. He hates these steps, all twenty of them. The door to the guestroom nearby opens and Patrick looks at him curiously, guitar in hand.
"I won't even bother," Pete mutters, waddling past Patrick to perch himself on the bed, so that he can recline against the pillows. Patrick settles into the space beside him and smiles.
"Hey."
"Yes, I know I'm fat," Pete snaps irritably, plucking at the material of his stretchy pants and massive t-shirt. "You don't have to rub it in. I hate this. I want to get this damned thing out and get on with my life."
"Wow. Sorry for greeting you? And dude, you don't know fat. You've been fat for seven months. Try a few years, and then we can talk."
Pete leans back even more; he regrets, so very much, that he can't lie down on his stomach. He closes his eyes and doesn't move when he hears the hollow sound of Patrick placing the acoustic carefully on the ground beside the bed. He inhales deeply when Patrick's hand slips under his shirt and rubs his belly.
"And when this kid comes out, that's just the start," Patrick says in a low voice, hand making circles of comfort into Pete's distended skin. Pete sighs and turns away onto his side and Patrick continues with the soothing movements. "There'll be getting on with lives, yeah, but not just yours. Dude, you're inconsequential now in the whole scheme of things. The baby is the most important."
"All these things I know," Pete murmurs, "So please shut up. Let talky, more rubby. Ah, right there, I can never reach that spot nowadays...wait, I'm not sure if I actually could before--"
"Dude, I can't believe you haven't told the...well, the other dad."
"Hmm? What? Why is there still talking? And if you mean that producer, he's not the other dad. He was just a facilitator. Jumpstarted all the Wentz systems to produce this."
Patrick's hand is pushing out all the stress, smoothing out every bad feeling in his body, melting him.
Patrick's voice is quiet and sudden in the still afternoon air: "I want...I wish I was the other dad. I could be a good dad."
Pete feels boneless enough to say what he's always felt: "Hey. You are the other dad...and you'll be great like burning."
They continue to lie there in content drowsiness until the baby pushes almost experimentally against Patrick's hand, stretching a little foot or an arm; Patrick makes a sound of sheer delight, his fingers pressing delicately back; Pete jumps as the baby kicks with enthusiasm and tells Patrick to stop it.
Patrick does, but only after pulling up Pete's t-shirt and leaning to place a damp kiss right over his bellybutton.
*
Pete is overdue by nearly two weeks and Dr. Leong says, "Hey, dude, time to cut that shit out!"
Patrick glares at him and Dr. Leong looks properly chastened.
*
"God." Pete is extremely nervous and Joe's face is wrenched up to match his. Patrick has gone to the bathroom to be sick. Andy is wearing full surgery gear, down to the gloves and the little shoe-covers; he and Dr. Leong are chuckling in a corner. "Hey, um. Somebody. Get this baby out now."
He wriggles a bit on the hard hospital bed, groaning in a little discomfort and a lot of boredom; suddenly Patrick is right there, breath just a little sour and hair on end. He grasps onto Patrick's hand and squeezes.
"Ok, just. Take care of him," Patrick says with desperation when they wheel Pete into the operating room. "And take care of my kid."
Patrick presses a frighteningly brief kiss to Pete's mouth and then stalks off to snarl at some reporters gathered at the entrance to the hospital, leaving Pete to stare at his bristling back. When a kind nurse asks Pete if that is his friend, Pete says, "God, no. That's my baby-daddy."
*
Patrick wants to call her Naomi. Pete wants to call her Melody Sunshine. When Dr. Leong writes his paper, Naomi Patricia Wentz is called the Miracle of the Century.
fin
FOB-mpreg/total crack [R/Slight NC-17].
Author: megyal
A/N:This was Fi's idea. I'm going to ask you to just disregard reality completely. It's cracked out and rambly and disjointed. Also, it's for Shonna and Spencer and Fi. The doctor is really me.
Pete tells Patrick about his little problem during the sixth month of them being friends. This is approximately nine months after he actually meets Patrick, because Patrick tends to be fairly suspicious about everything and Pete simply doesn't appear to be trustworthy.
"What do you mean, it's genetic?" Patrick blinks at him, obviously trying to recall what he had learned in Human Biology. "What? Are you... transsexual? Because I'm okay with that. Yeah, no, I am."
"Hey, that's a big word for such a small mouth," Pete says, trying not to sound snide, because Patrick's mouth isn't that small anyway. Patrick pouts and it looks even fuller. "No, I'm not transsexual. Sexy, but not that sexy."
"What is it, then?" Patrick says, leaning into him as the van slides into a sharp corner, jabbing a round elbow into Pete's side with that sort of self-aware awkwardness that most teenagers seemed to possess. Pete leans back, liking the way the elbow tucks companionably into his side. "Dude, do you have a vagina too?"
"Not a hermaphrodite!" Pete hisses at him, shaking his head at the amused look on Joe's face. Patrick frowns. "Ok, not really."
"Oh. Oh, intersexual, then," Patrick says confidently, the furrows smoothing out in his forehead and Pete rolls his eyes.
"You're such a fucking nerd," Pete informs him and loves him even more for that.
*
"It has to do with Androgen insensitivity, sexual differentiation. Mutations to the gene. I'm a weirdo," he says to Patrick as they set up for a little sound check and looks proud of the condition as he slings on the bass before adjusting the height of the mike. "I take pills. It's not a big deal."
"And if you miss one?" Patrick isn't looking at him; he's nodding at the drummer, counting beats into the first song. Right now, he doesn't have that solid connection with this drummer that he'll have with Andy, where he'll just stand beside the drum kit and mouth some weird drumming code and Andy will get it, but they'll do alright until Pete convinces Andy to roll with them. Pete plucks a deep note.
"I'll get pregnant?" he says and they both laugh.
********
"Dude, sorry, I'm sorry," Patrick says when he bursts in on Pete going down on some other guy and his cheeks bloom. "You should really think of locking the door. This is a studio and--"
"Hey, I'm busy," Pete says, glaring at Patrick until he backs out and shuts the door with excessive force. The glass of the recording booth shakes threateningly in its frame and then goes into an aftershock tremor when Patrick slams the outer door too. There is a long pause and then a faint bang from the door all the way down the hall.
"Looks like he has a temper," the producer says and Pete only smiles, swallowing him back down with a grin, reveling in that peculiar feeling of sheer power when the man groans and grabs onto his head. He licks on the underside of the cock, tonguing over the slight bend and wonders if Patrick bends just so as well, if he moans that loudly when he comes; if he tastes like this dude (only sweeter).
It is only after he swallows and is resting his head upon the guy's trembling thigh that he remembers about his pills.
*
"Damn you and your sleeping pills. Can't you get another prescription to keep near?" Patrick says with bleary annoyance when Pete bursts into his room too late in the night, locates Patrick's suitcase and tears into it. Patrick is still more than a little mad at him, because he had actually dreamt about Pete's mouth stretched wide over that dude when he had flung himself into bed. "The fuck are you going through my stuff for? Do I look like a Rite-Aid to you?"
"I don't like to keep my meds in my own bag, remember?" Pete says tightly. His mouth is set and he doesn't laugh at Patrick's Care-Bear boxers. "And I need the other pills. The one I have to get pre-ordered from some laboratory in Sweden and are made with a part of my soul, apparently."
"Oh yeah. Those," Patrick says and flops back to fall into a deep slumber, because they have a video-shoot tomorrow and he really loves his sleep.
And then he jumps up and stares. Those pills.
"Wait, wait. Ok, Pete, put down my toothbrush." He clambers out of the bed and kneels beside Pete; they hear a muted sound as Pete discovers two pill-bottles in one of Patrick's Docs. Even before he pulls them out, they both know they're empty.
"So, okay. This is going to be fine, dude. I mean, what could your weird body do if you had sex and then forget to take them?"
"The doctor said something about self-fertilization once," Pete says almost blankly, rolling the bottles between his palms. He gives Patrick a quick glance. "I mean, yeah, but that can't happen. It won't."
Patrick grins.
"Yeah, can't happen. Fallopian tubes, Pete. You sort of need those." And they giggle a little and laugh a lot and Pete keeps rolling the fat yellow bottles against his palms, still kneeling on the floor and pressing his side into Patrick's elbow.
*
When Pete gets morning-sickness, he gets it like a freight-train.
He's sick for nearly a half-hour straight, bitterness barreling up from his stomach and burning past his throat. He kneels against some hotel toilet; it looks clean and he wraps his arms around it, because the toilet was here for him in his darkest hour. He pats the cool side of it with weak affection.
The toilet is his friend.
Patrick rudely interrupts the Toilet Love Fest by shoving the bathroom door open and looking down at Pete with haunted eyes. He isn't wearing his hat and this alone causes Pete to throw up again because the whole world is wrong wrong wrong and will he ever stop because it's been going on for a week now and he would very much like the Lord to take it all away, he will never do a wrong thing in his life, ever again, just Jesus Mary and Joseph not with the hurling anymore and--
"This looks like morning-sickness," Patrick says; the slight thread of panic in his voice identical to the babbling in Pete's mind. "Dude, seriously."
"I might be dying here," Pete informs him before dry-heaving. "On second thought, as my best friend, just kill me."
Patrick says, "I bought you a pregnancy test. To test... stuff."
"Wow." Pete grabs onto his porcelain buddy and keeps on kneeling. "Wow, Patrick, really. I don't even--"
He never gets to finish, because his old pal The Toilet is helping him out again.
*
Patrick goes on a quiet rampage when the test reads positive.
"Oh my god!" He says in a strange whisper-yell, because the walls in this particular hotel are thin. He yanks the pillows off the bed and pile-drives them into the floor. "Jesus!"
"Don't...don't overreact, Patrick," Pete says warily from his supine position on the bed and Patrick's eyes actually bulge in his direction. He opens his hands at Pete, fingers splayed, and stares at him between them, incredulous.
"Sure! No overreaction going on here, because this, this happens four times a minute. You are a dude with child. There is another human being somewhere in you and I am so not having a panic-attack."
"Who says with child nowadays?" Pete muses, striving for levity. Patrick grabs at the ends of his hair and pulls in sheer fury.
"Did you do that on purpose?" Patrick says suddenly, rounding on Pete. "Did you actually, actually know that your body would think, HEY time to procreate WITH MYSELF when I get the right mojo-juices going? Because you are going to be a bad example of a parent. Worse," he intones solemnly, "than Britney."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Patrick, really."
"Yes, because you're an asshole. A slutty asshole that forgot to keep up his meds and didn't tell me that he needed more. A pregnant slutty asshole in a band under a contract. We're in a huge pile of shit. Don't give me any guilt-trip fuckery. What the hell we're going to do, I don't have the first fucking idea."
Patrick rants and stomps around and kicks over two chairs, a tiny ginger hurricane; but Pete is smiling a little because Patrick sounds so awesome when he curses... and he keeps saying we.
*
"It must be something you ate," Andy says in a low voice when Pete climbs onto the bus, his face washed in a cold sweat. "Not being all self-righteous vegan, but that beef, man. Was not looking good."
"I had the beef," Joe says, stretching out full on one ratty sofa. "I don't feel bad, or anything."
"You could eat shit and not feel bad," Andy replies with equanimity, but his eyes are fixed on Pete's face and he's frowning. "Hey, Patrick, what's up." Because Patrick is Pete's keeper.
"So there's this thing about Pete," Patrick starts, sitting at the petite table that they like to say they have breakfast at, when it can't really hold anything larger than a teacup. "His body is....different. Genetically."
"It's mixed-up," Pete puts in helpfully and Patrick gives a long-suffering sigh.
"It's fucked-up, that's what it is," Patrick says darkly and Pete cuts his eyes away in annoyance. He feels warm and uncomfortable; he fans himself with one hand.
"He didn't take some medication and...And did some crazy shit and now he is With Child. Like the Virgin Mary, only not so virginal."
Joe laughs so hard he falls off the couch; even Andy has a tiny smile playing at the edges of his mouth, because really now.
"Pregnant," Pete says with gravity; it's this that stops Andy and Joe cold, because Pete isn't smiling at all. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor and he looks really out of it, the dark smudges that are badges of honour to Pete stark against his skin. "With child. Oh holy night."
"Holy shit," Joe says and Andy looks thoughtful.
"Is it an androgen thing? That explains the girl-jeans affinity."
"That is a statement!" Pete yells and looks mutinous when Patrick manages a chuckle.
*
Over the phone, Will's voice has only the slightest of tremors it and it soothes Pete the same way Patrick's hand is cool against his forehead.
"...and I was thinking that I was the only one like that, Pete, but here you are. Dude, this androgen-shit sucks."
"Yeah, I know," Pete murmurs, trying to burrow closer to Patrick, because he's the best pillow ever made. He's cramped up in Patrick's bunk, Patrick half-lying, half-sitting and Pete is ensconced firmly between his legs, leaning back against that sturdy chest. He can feel Patrick's cheek pressed against the top of his head and he feels like he's floating.
"I...well, I couldn't carry it. Everyone like us is different, you know? Some have the internal machinery to do that shit. And I was seventeen. That was the kicker."
"Um, yeah. Dude, I have a doctor with me all the time now. From UCLA. He's driving behind us, in a Kia. A red one."
This doctor is young and excitable, given to bouts of incoherent yelling when he presses his fingers into the slight mound of Pete's stomach. Patrick spends practically two-thirds of the time staring in confusion at Dr. Leong, even as Pete fends calls from his phone, rescheduling photo-shoots, renegotiating contracts and basically putting life on hold.
And being in the eye of a scientific maelstrom. Presenting Pete Wentz, everybody: Weirdo Extraordinaire.
"This foetus," Dr. Leong had said at one quick check-up, looking as if he wanted to rub his hands together in glee, "is viable. And supported by lots of happy. That is not a medical term, I made it up. This, oh god, I'm going to write a paper on this, because there is no precedent. At all."
"Make sure you put in the intersexual ramifications of Pete's unique physiology. I think we're looking at autogamy here, but I'm not too sure about the chromosome values...not to mention the possibility of DNA mutation," Andy had piped up from behind a magazine and everyone had stared as Dr. Leong charged over to him to babble about the possibility of the child being a clone or a true offspring. Patrick had muttered that the world couldn't deal with another Pete.
"You okay?" Patrick says as Pete thanks Will and hangs up. "You need anything? I think you have to take some vitamins."
Pete feels petulant. "Dude, those vitamins taste like I'm drinking from the River Styx. And they are huge. I think they were meant for horses."
Patrick snickers into his ear, brushing his lips against the warm skin.
"Dude, with your horsy face? You got the right ones."
*
Pete is tired. They are on an undefined break and every other day, Dr. Leong comes into his house with a small herd of doctors, fighting their way though a literal wall of reporters and rabid fans. His mother spends her days knitting things, from caps to blankies to a large assortment of sweaters. In ascending size. She also prepares food for him: last night she had to send Patrick out for codfish. Pete had wanted it on his ice-cream. She had smiled at Pete as he wolfed down the concoction happily, saying that she used to eat bananas and meatballs together, so Pete wasn't so bad.
His body, with its strange internal construction, has changed drastically on the outside. First of all, according to Joe, he's lost his girlish figure, but at least his newly-plump cheeks are rosy. His belly is large and round; he has a constant feeling of heartburn pressing up into his throat.
And, damnit, his ankles are so fucking swollen.
"Urgh," he moans at the bottom of the stairs and curses himself for buying a two-story house. He hates these steps, all twenty of them. The door to the guestroom nearby opens and Patrick looks at him curiously, guitar in hand.
"I won't even bother," Pete mutters, waddling past Patrick to perch himself on the bed, so that he can recline against the pillows. Patrick settles into the space beside him and smiles.
"Hey."
"Yes, I know I'm fat," Pete snaps irritably, plucking at the material of his stretchy pants and massive t-shirt. "You don't have to rub it in. I hate this. I want to get this damned thing out and get on with my life."
"Wow. Sorry for greeting you? And dude, you don't know fat. You've been fat for seven months. Try a few years, and then we can talk."
Pete leans back even more; he regrets, so very much, that he can't lie down on his stomach. He closes his eyes and doesn't move when he hears the hollow sound of Patrick placing the acoustic carefully on the ground beside the bed. He inhales deeply when Patrick's hand slips under his shirt and rubs his belly.
"And when this kid comes out, that's just the start," Patrick says in a low voice, hand making circles of comfort into Pete's distended skin. Pete sighs and turns away onto his side and Patrick continues with the soothing movements. "There'll be getting on with lives, yeah, but not just yours. Dude, you're inconsequential now in the whole scheme of things. The baby is the most important."
"All these things I know," Pete murmurs, "So please shut up. Let talky, more rubby. Ah, right there, I can never reach that spot nowadays...wait, I'm not sure if I actually could before--"
"Dude, I can't believe you haven't told the...well, the other dad."
"Hmm? What? Why is there still talking? And if you mean that producer, he's not the other dad. He was just a facilitator. Jumpstarted all the Wentz systems to produce this."
Patrick's hand is pushing out all the stress, smoothing out every bad feeling in his body, melting him.
Patrick's voice is quiet and sudden in the still afternoon air: "I want...I wish I was the other dad. I could be a good dad."
Pete feels boneless enough to say what he's always felt: "Hey. You are the other dad...and you'll be great like burning."
They continue to lie there in content drowsiness until the baby pushes almost experimentally against Patrick's hand, stretching a little foot or an arm; Patrick makes a sound of sheer delight, his fingers pressing delicately back; Pete jumps as the baby kicks with enthusiasm and tells Patrick to stop it.
Patrick does, but only after pulling up Pete's t-shirt and leaning to place a damp kiss right over his bellybutton.
*
Pete is overdue by nearly two weeks and Dr. Leong says, "Hey, dude, time to cut that shit out!"
Patrick glares at him and Dr. Leong looks properly chastened.
*
"God." Pete is extremely nervous and Joe's face is wrenched up to match his. Patrick has gone to the bathroom to be sick. Andy is wearing full surgery gear, down to the gloves and the little shoe-covers; he and Dr. Leong are chuckling in a corner. "Hey, um. Somebody. Get this baby out now."
He wriggles a bit on the hard hospital bed, groaning in a little discomfort and a lot of boredom; suddenly Patrick is right there, breath just a little sour and hair on end. He grasps onto Patrick's hand and squeezes.
"Ok, just. Take care of him," Patrick says with desperation when they wheel Pete into the operating room. "And take care of my kid."
Patrick presses a frighteningly brief kiss to Pete's mouth and then stalks off to snarl at some reporters gathered at the entrance to the hospital, leaving Pete to stare at his bristling back. When a kind nurse asks Pete if that is his friend, Pete says, "God, no. That's my baby-daddy."
*
Patrick wants to call her Naomi. Pete wants to call her Melody Sunshine. When Dr. Leong writes his paper, Naomi Patricia Wentz is called the Miracle of the Century.
fin