Schwanger Bits
Bits and pieces from the Schwanger Universe. They have little importance to the full story but Mikaiyawa said she'd be interested in reading them so I posted.
Race You
(Uwe’s house, during Juri and Jan’s month alone together)
Jan raced up the stairs, laughing uncontrollably as Juri ran after him. Juri snagged Jan’s ankle just as he reached the third step, dragging Jan down for a cuddle, both of them laughing too hard for words. Jan let Juri hold onto him for three seconds before he scrambled away, laughing. Juri grinned and picked up his pace but Jan was too fast for him, his shrieking laughter growing that much louder with every step he won over Juri.
But it was all lost when the stairs ended. Jan stood at the top and laughed down at Juri wheezing below him. He leaned forward and caught Juri’s lips, more than a bit amused that with a two and a half step advantage he was actually looking Juri in the eyes.
“Out of shape, fatty?” he teased. Juri grinned crookedly at the insult and grabbed a fistful of Jan’s shirt. He tugged his little lover down, the two of them falling to the landing in a tangle, Juri half laying, half propped against the wall with Jan on top of him. Jan clung to Juri’s shoulder and kissed Juri, the drummer not quite prepared for the way Jan turned that one embrace unbelievably passionate. Juri gasped, his chest stinging with deep pleasure as Jan sucked on his tongue, kissing him so hard that it hurt but Jan couldn’t seem to stop. Juri didn’t want him to and whined softly when Jan did, pulling away and licking his swollen lips as he gazed up at Juri.
“I love you,” Jan said seriously as he traced a finger over the line of stitches between Juri’s hips, his cheek resting against Juri’s heaving chest. Five months of pregnancy had taken a toll on Juri’s body and the normally ripped drummer was carrying more weight than he was used to, making even running around Uwe’s house a bit of strenuous exercise.
Juri smiled, still amazed at how hard his cock was throbbing from Jan’s kiss. It felt like when they had first gotten together, their relationship new and wonderful. Every moment now Jan was at his side with kisses and soft caresses, not a night going by that they didn’t sleep together wrapped around each other. And not a single day was it forced, not a single day did their passion wane. It had changed over the last month, becoming less possessive and more tranquil, but every moment was still infused with an endless affection.
Jan nuzzled Juri’s sternum, his fingers still teasing over the sensitive skin around Juri’s healing incision. Jan had not said anything to Juri about it but time after time he had fingered that incision, tracing over the cut that had saved his lover’s life. He had not cried, Juri hadn’t let him, but that constant, peculiar touch and the changes in Jan’s mood that accompanied it let Juri know how scared Jan had been for him and how grateful he was that Juri was still with him.
“Juri?” Jan asked softly, looking up at him with those beloved sapphire eyes. Juri hummed reassuringly in response, rubbing his cheek against Jan’s blonde scruff. “What are you thinking?”
Juri stopped and cupped Jan’s face in one square hand, kissing him firmly.
“That I love you more than any sane person has a right to,” he murmured, pressing a line of kisses down Jan’s neck. Jan squirmed under Juri’s mouth, wanting to give as good as he got and not able to as Juri grasped the front of his shorts and squeezed. Jan gasped and fell against Juri, whimpering as Juri slipped his hand past the band of Jan’s boxers, eliciting a hard moan as Jan bucked into his touch, riding Juri’s hand as Juri pressed his other hand into the small of Jan’s back, holding his lover against him.
Jan’s lips fluttered against the side of Juri’s neck, and then attached to a spot in the middle, sucking and licking as he tried to pleasure Juri back. Juri growled and stroked Jan’s sack, enjoying Jan’s whimpers and the sudden brush of tongue on his neck. It felt good to have Jan out of control for a few moments; the little man had always been the calculated one in their lovemaking, directing Juri through positions the drummer would never have considered. Besides, a squirming, whimpering Jan glistening with a slight sheen of sweat was more than enough to bring Juri to the edge himself. Juri scraped his short nails over Jan’s member, shifting to give Jan better leverage as he rode down harder on Juri, grinding Juri’s hand between their groins in a delicious way.
Jan gasped, pressing his face under Juri’s chin and whimpered as he exploded over Juri’s hand, protesting when Juri pulled his hand away. Juri shivered as Jan’s heavy breath chilled the sweat on his neck and Jan’s fingers stroked over his deltoids and Jan’s mustache scratched at his collarbone. Juri stilled, waiting for his breathing to slow from his climax. Jan’s soft stroking was nice and calming, and Juri let himself drift off under his lover’s touch, already dozing when Jan curled up in his lap, one hand tracing over Juri’s sutures, his ear resting against Juri’s heart, listening to its steady beating.
The Proposal
(After Emelyn’s birth)
Juri stared at Jan as he got down on one knee next to Juri’s chair, his mind blindly racing as the significance of that movement hit him. He tried not to seem too overwhelmingly excited what with the whole of the extravagant restaurant watching them but a wide smile broke on his normally stoic face and Juri let it stay, his cheeks burning from the stretch of his lips.
Jan smiled shakily as he pulled something from his pocket. He took the hand Juri offered him and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in adorable anxiety.
“W-wi-” Jan stuttered, a soft blush covering his face. He looked up at Juri, whispered a quick I’m sorry, and tried again. “Wi-will you marry me?”
Jan twisted Juri’s silver ring off his middle finger where it normally rested, Juri not resisting. Juri watched Jan slide the engagement ring, a tastefully striped white and yellow gold band, onto his finger, his blue eyes wide as he waited for Juri to answer. Juri stared at his hand, at the new ring there, his mind whirling with thoughts.
Jan looked at him nervously, as though he actually expected Juri to refuse. Juri ran his tongue over his upper lip and laughed softly.
“Of course,” he whispered and pulled Jan up to give him a long kiss, the whole restaurant watching the two men kiss. Juri heard the faint clapping of the waiters and the other diners but he was too wrapped up in his fiancé’s- oh, God, his fiancé’s- kiss to listen. He ran his fingers through Jan’s short hair, their noses brushing against each other’s and Jan’s elbows resting on his shoulders, and pulled him closer.
Fucking Family
(Seven years after Wolf’s birth)
Linke rubbed his hands over his face, desperate to hide the fast coming tears from Frank as his lover crouched next to him.
“Christian,” Frank whispered, kissing Linke’s shoulder as he peered at Linke worriedly.
“It’s so fucking stupid,” Linke hiccupped, his shoulders quaking under Frank’s steady hand. “I’m his son, for God’s sakes, Wolf’s his grandson, and he treats us like this? Frank, I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t!”
Frank nodded and wrapped his arms around Linke sideways on top of his lover’s arms. He did not have to ask Linke what had happened. He had seen the returned letters himself, unopened with an angry stamp from the post office, heard the drunken messages on their voice mail about how Linke was a goddamn freak of nature and Wolf was a degenerate devil’s child. Frank remembered well how he had had to teach Wolf to not answer the phone or pick up the mail unless Frank had looked at it first, scared that the seven year old would see or hear something no amount of words or hugs could erase.
A week ago, Wolf’s school pictures had come in and, for reasons Frank had not really understood, Linke had sent two of them out, one to his sister, Wolf’s aunt, and one to his father. Both had been returned, the first with a note that Linke’s sister didn’t live there anymore, the second with Wolf’s face torn out and a note- Er gehört nicht zur Familie, he’s not part of the family. Not even a nicht mehr, just nicht because Wolf had never been part, never would be part, of the Linke family.
Frank could not understand why Chris had sent it at all. Linke’s father had given up on him the second they had broken the news that they were having a child. Chris thought his father hated Wolf but Frank had experienced himself the coolness Linke senior had doled out. Linke’s mother had been kind and gently curious but her husband’s eyes had turned to cold lapis lazuli the second they had walked through the door. They had turned glacial when Frank had covered his lover’s hand with his own and given him a reassuring squeeze.
It had been hell, that first visit, and had only gotten worse as time went on. Edda, Linke’s mother, had been the kindest woman but she had been sickly and had died two weeks after Wolf’s first birthday. Frank had watched her hands shake as she sat down in the wicker patio chair next to the squealing birthday boy. It had scared him but the woman had smiled faintly and waved off his worries, telling him that it was a slight shake and the day was too joyous to bother with such trivial concerns. Frank had nodded absently and had forgotten it as he took his turn playing with Emelyn, Jan helping to wipe the chocolatey drool from her multiple chins. Edda had gotten worse faster than Linke’s father’s moods and then she was gone, the rest of the family falling away soon after.
Frank had helped Linke forget his pain with trips to the country and long nights together in bed, and, for several years, things had been okay. Linke had curled up next to him on the couch to watch movies together tucked into Frank’s side with his knees up to his chest during his low points. Then, inexplicably, on the fifth eve of Edda’s death, things had blown up. ‘Things’ being drunk calls in the middle of the day and weird messages on the band’s webpage, Linke’s father masquerading as a stalker, filling Linke’s inbox with viscerally disturbing words and images of blood and death. Old photos of Linke that Frank had never seen were sent to them with Linke’s face scratched out or his picture cut away so that not even a hand remained, sometimes manipulated to take Linke out crudely.
“Frank,” Linke croaked out. Frank stirred and tightened his arms around Linke protectively. “Frank, why does he do this? What did I do wrong? What mistake did I make to make him hate Wolf and me?”
Frank did not know what to say.
“We can block his number from the phone, Chris, and his emails, too. We don’t have to let him get to you-”
“It’s not about us,” Linke spat. “It’s about Wolf. There’s nothing wrong with him, Frank, the doctors told us that. He’s like any other kid, just with two fathers.”
“I know,” Frank said, brushing Linke’s bangs from his face. He smiled at Linke and kissed him. “But your father’s set in his ways. He’s not there for you, I am. So ignore his hateful words; he’s not going to change.”
Linke sniffed and leaned into Frank, taking comfort in his lover’s presence.
“I love you, Chris. Do you love me?” Frank asked, kissing Linke again when he nodded and took in an unsteady breath. “Then that’s all you need to know. Forget your dad.”
“It’s not that easy,” Linke muttered, though he smiled the tiniest bit.
“It will be, if you give it time. He’ll have to stop sometime. There’s only so much shit he can think up to bother you with.”
“Mmm.”
Frank shoved Linke playfully, arousing a bigger smile.
“Mmm? Try yes,” he laughed, earning a shove back. Linke laid his head on Frank’s shoulder and sighed contently as Frank kissed his mouth and tweaked his ear, making Linke forget, if only for a minute, his troubles.
Doubts
(Immediately after Uncomfortable Realizations)
“Are you serious?” Jan asked, amazed that they were having this conversation. He leaned against the bathroom counter, looking down at Juri sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking distraught. “You think I’d rather you’d hurt me and shoved me away? We’re fucking married, Juri, you don’t have to even ask that I love you. I wear a goddamn ring telling the whole world that you’re mine.”
“I don’t know what I think, Jan! We’ve never had any ups or downs so maybe-”
“Maybe what? Juri,” Jan said, grasping Juri’s chin and forcing his husband to look up at him. “I love you and not a gram less than Franky loves Linke. But I wouldn’t be as stupid as Franky. I’d sure as hell leave you if you told me to, I’m not that foolishly stubborn. But, Juri, it’s never come anywhere close to that.”
Juri frowned and tried to look away, his brows creased in a way that worried Jan. Juri had never been very good at physically showing his emotions and Jan could tell something was seriously bothering him.
“I. Love. You,” Jan repeated determinedly, searching Juri’s eyes as though they would tell him why his husband was acting so bizarrely. “And you have been the most loving, the most steadfast, the most amazing husband anyone could want. I wouldn’t want our lives to be any different than they are. Frank stayed with Linke because he loved him but they also had a child together and you can’t forget that. Wolf probably kept them together longer than even Frank would have stayed otherwise. You’ve never given me reason to want to leave you, Juri. You understand?”
Juri nodded but Jan wasn’t sure he truly did. Something was cutting at Juri’s heart and Jan wanted to know what.
Silence crept between them.
“Would you have asked me to marry you if I hadn’t gotten pregnant?” Juri asked finally, dejectedly. Jan’s heart stopped beating. His mouth fell open and he stared at Juri in shocked amazement.
“Yes, Juri, God, yes, I would have,” Jan blurted out too quickly as he knelt next to his husband, one hand on Juri’s broad shoulder. “Maybe not when I did but I would have, eventually. Juri,” he said, grabbing Juri’s chin and turning Juri towards him. The pain in Juri’s eyes nearly killed Jan dead there. “Juri, I was in love with you before you got pregnant and I was in love with you after we lost Benjamin. I wanted to spend my life with you no matter what and there’s nothing I regret about us, nothing.”
Juri nodded, biting his lip, and Jan couldn’t stand it anymore. He dragged Juri to his feet and hugged him tightly, burying his face in Juri’s strong chest, almost crying when Juri’s arms squeezed around him. Jan felt Juri relax slowly as he thought over Jan’s words.
Jan reached up, tangling his hands in Juri’s soft blonde hair, and stood on his toes to lay a firm kiss to Juri’s lips. Juri opened his mouth and the kiss deepened, filled with the familiarity of a long relationship. Jan took in a soft breath of surprise when he felt and tasted a warm, salty tear falling from Juri’s cheek. Jan closed his eyes and tightened his arms around Juri, rubbing his nose against Juri’s reassuringly. He tried not to join Juri in his tears but after the first few fell, Jan couldn’t help it, the tears came of their accord. He hugged Juri, not sure who was clinging to whom but it did not matter: Juri loved him and Juri knew Jan loved him back. They had made their life together and the past was the past, whatever had brought them to this point in their lives was to be treasured and no one else’s life could change their love for one another.
Remembered Desires Realized
(About two years after Uncomfortable Realizations)
Frank, rifling through the boxes at the back of his closet, came across a small box no one else in the house had ever seen. He smiled wryly and sat back on his calves geisha-style, holding the sides of the box as he stared down at it, daring himself to open it.
Long moments passed as he stared at it, tracing his fingertips over the weathered grain of the wood, the slight coating of dust on the top, and the splinters of scraped wood along the bottom. He unlatched the top and swung it back on its hinge, staring at the contents inside. A few scraps of paper with Chris’ beautiful, tight handwriting, a medal from Wolf’s first soccer game, two photos from Chris’ pregnancy, one of them laughing, the other of Chris making a face while Frank kissed his cheek, and a small, black velvet box.
Frank swallowed, a painful lump forming in his throat. He pulled the black box out. It was small, barely half the size of his palm, but he knew full well how important that tiny box was. At least, he knew how important its contents were.
He opened the black box, setting the wooden one on the floor next to him. Frank blinked rapidly to clear the fast-forming, uncontrollable tears as he looked at the plain gold band resting inside.
Years had passed, so many years, since he had bought that ring. Wolf had been almost three and a half the day Frank had selected it after pouring through the selections for hours. Frank had been so sure Chris would say yes. Their life then had been so good then, so happy and wonderful. They hadn’t fought except over the most absurd things and Wolf had been the happiest little boy. But things had conspired against them, if mental disease and psychotic family issues could be considered such, and their lives and love had turned brittle and painful.
The ring had stayed hidden ever since, excepting the rare times Frank would pull it out when he was especially upset when Chris missed a meeting or did not come home for the night. Then, he had taken it out to stare at its golden gleam, wondering about what could have been.
Frank had never proposed to Linke, not once in their now nineteen years together. He had wanted to, every frustrating day, even if it meant a rejection because even a rejection was better than blind musing.
Frank heard his lover’s familiar tread on the stairs. He shoved the wooden box back into the closet, forgetting that the ring box was still on his lap. Linke’s feet moved closer and Frank sprang up, tucking the black box into his pocket before sitting on the bed guiltily. Linke moved over to him, smirking, and kissed Frank fondly before sitting next to him.
“What’s wrong?” Linke asked, running his hand over Frank’s hair before cupping the back of Frank’s head and kissing him more deeply. Frank sighed and kissed him back, Linke submitting to him and allowing him in.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Frank whispered as Linke pulled back to give him a worried glance. Linke smirked and grabbed at Frank’s pocket, laughing softly when Frank fidgeted away.
“That tickles,” Frank gasped when Linke hauled him halfway into his lap, ruthlessly tickling his ribs. Frank shrieked and fell against Linke, giving his lover the opportunity to pull the box from his pocket. Frank’s eyes widened fearfully as he watched Linke study the black box. He forgot how to breathe when Linke opened it, the gold band gleaming up at them both.
“It’s-” Frank began but Linke cut him off.
“I know what it is, Frank. It’s the reason you have it that I don’t know.”
Linke looked at him and Frank felt his face blanch. He moved to take the ring box from Linke but Linke held it away, frowning at him.
“Why, Frank?” Linke asked, gazing at Frank without blinking. Frank shook his head.
“I bought it a long time ago and never returned it. It’s nothing, Chris.”
Linke’s frown deepened.
“It’s not nothing. It’s an engagement ring,” he said. “That you never bothered to return. When did you buy it?”
Frank swallowed, his face devoid of blood.
“Fifteen years ago,” he muttered finally. Linke nodded.
“Were you ever planning to ask me?” Linke asked quietly, his eyes seeming to reach down into Frank’s soul.
“Didn’t want you to say no,” Frank said, his voice lower than a whisper. Linke leaned over and kissed him softly.
“I’d never have said no, Frank,” Linke murmured in Frank’s ear.
Frank shivered and whispered:
“Marry me?”
Two words that made Linke chuckle quietly and take the ring out of the box, handing it to Frank to slide onto his left ring finger. Frank’s eyes, those familiar, much-loved eyes, met his and Linke whispered one word back, one word that would change both of their lives forever.
“Yes.”
