mpreg xmas xchange gift for hybridshade
This was written for the mpreg_xmas_xchg
Title: Nature never hurries (except when it does)
Pairing: J2
Warnings: NC-17 for mpreg, graphic birth, a hint of male lactation and sexy times
Summary: It's a shock for Jared to learn that his husband, Jensen, is pregnant. But when Jensen reveals that he might not be human, the whole surprise pregnancy thing takes another meaning entirely.
Word count:9400
Special thanks: To my amazing beta, disneymagics and to my friend obsidianromance for the brainstorm. I was desperatly lacking inspiration, and she helped a lot. Hugs to both of you, girls.
Disclaimer: Lies, all lies.
Dear hybridshade, I hope you'll enjoy this. I wrote one of your prompts and added other likes you pointed out. Happy holidays!
Jensen’s face is dead serious when Jared comes back from work. He doesn’t answer to his enthusiastic -okay, maybe somewhat dorky- “how’s the love of my life”? He just keeps watering the collection of plants that occupy half of their living room.
“Jen?”
“We need to talk,” Jensen states, carefully avoiding his gaze.
They’ve been together for four years and Jensen has never uttered those words, never looked this cold and distant. Jared’s heart starts thundering in his chest. He quickly takes off his vest and boots and sits at the kitchen table, trying not to think anything of Jensen’s words. It’s been a long day. They lost a dog at the shelter despite Jared’s determined efforts to save him. It was brought to them too late. All Jared had wanted to do was to come home and cuddle on the couch with his husband.
“You’re scaring me,” he can’t help but say when Jensen joins him. The other man is pale, his hands are shaking. What if this is not about Jared at all, what if something is wrong with Jensen? Jared suddenly puts together a collection of clues gathered over the last couple of weeks: Jensen had been sleeping more, had been less active. He had been picking at his food more than eating it.
What if he’s sick? What if it’s cancer or something just as bad?
“Jen, talk to me,” he pleads.
“I’m pregnant,” Jensen blurts out.
What?
“What?”
Jared tries to make sense of those three words his husband has just said but he can’t, not even when Jensen produces a pregnancy test showing a little “plus” sign.
“What?” is apparently all he can repeat.
“I don’t know how far along I am… Probably a month.”
“You’re not a carrier,” Jared objects. He feels detached, like he's observing all of this from far away.
“I thought I wasn’t.”
“You… You thought? But there are tests… Didn't you get your Burton-Faber test when you were sixteen? It’s standard procedure.”
“Okay, let’s skip all that and concentrate on the real issue,” Jensen cuts in abruptly. “I am pregnant with your kid and we’re fucked.”
“Why are we fucked? I mean…” Jared swallows, tries to get his head around it. He’s twenty-eight, Jensen is two years younger. They’re settled, they don’t have money issues and they’ve talked about adoption a couple of times.
Jensen is pregnant.
Jared smiles. “We’re going to have a little baby,” he wonders.
Jensen lifts a hand. “Wait. It’s not a good thing.”
“Oh. But I thought you wanted kids.”
“I do. I mean… Jesus, there is no easy way to say this. Can we go into the solarium?”
“Of course we can.”
Jensen’s solarium is the reason they bought the house in the first place. It’s filled with flowers and plants, some of them aren’t even supposed to grow inside, but Jensen has a green thumb. He can do wonders with plants. He works as a research assistant at the University in the botany department. It's his passion. He spends hours at a time in the solarium, taking care of his plants or just lying on the old couch there, bathing in the sun shining through the glass panels.
They sit awkwardly. Jensen caresses a small curly vine coming from a plant nearby. He sighs.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“Sorry for what?”
“I lied to you.”
“Okay…”
“I’m not human.”
Well, that’s it, that’s what makes Jared crack up in a nervous fit of laughter. Why he's laughing, he couldn't say. There is nothing funny to laugh at. Nothing at all.
“Jared, listen to me. I’m a dryad. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but-“
“Stop it,” Jared says, the laughter dying in his throat. “It’s not funny anymore, Jen.”
“Dryad, or green spirit. In Japan we’re called Kodama. I come from the faerie realm, Jay.”
“Jensen.”
“We cross, sometimes. It’s our job, when there is a huge catastrophe, like a forest fire or a sickness spreading through certain trees or plants. I crossed when I was fifteen, but I never went back.”
“Okay.” Jared nods, and he stands up because he feels like he’s about to burst from the amount of bad energy running through him. “Okay, you’re sick, Jensen. There are no such things as fairies or… dyads or-“
“Dryad,” Jensen murmurs in a dull voice.
“Whatever!” Jared shouts. “You need to see a doctor, you…” He points his finger at Jensen, not knowing what to do or say, wishing very hard that this was all a bad dream. Maybe he ate too much. He always has these awful nightmares when he eats too much.
“Jared. Look.”
Jensen is standing up as well. He opens his arms, palms of his hands up and starts humming low in his throat. The smell in the room changes suddenly, reminding Jared of the perfume of the soil during the summer after a heavy rain. Then, a soft shimmering murmur rises up and swells. It’s coming from the plants and flowers, their leaves and petals brushing against one another, trembling, like they’re being caressed by a soft wind.
“You… you can’t be doing this,” Jared says in an uncertain voice.
Jensen nods softly. There is something different in his eyes, like their green color has liquefied and mixed with gold dust and his hair… his hair is moving with the same soft trembling movements.
Then, from both of Jensen’s palms, the skin breaks at the line where the wrist begins and two feeble stems of a clear green color push their way up, like snakes dancing to the sound of a flute.
Jared’s head feels light and he realizes, too late, that he’s breathing way too deep and fast. He tries to sit down, but his legs give out and his vision fills with bright colors. He feels himself falling clumsily to the ground, then, nothing.
::: :::
“I’m sorry,” Jensen repeats in the semi-darkness of their bedroom.
He passes a cold towel across Jared’s face once again, with so much love and affection that Jared can’t be upset anymore. This, this is Jensen, his husband, the man with whom he fell in love at first sight, his companion, who’s always there for him, who’s kind and loving and smart, a little shy, maybe, but he carries with him a quiet strength.
He’s so gorgeous with the shadows dancing on his soft features, his wide green eyes filled with fear and concern.
Jared swallows loudly and sits up. He’s not dizzy anymore. “I fainted like a wuss,” he apologizes.
“Come on, it was my fault. I pushed a little more than I intended.”
Jared can’t help but look at Jensen’s wrists. They’re normal: no growing green things coming out of them anymore.
“You’re a… “
“Dryad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Jensen shrugs. “Because I was scared. Didn’t want to lose you. I kept telling myself that I would wait for the right moment, but time passed and we were so happy together and I… Yeah.”
“Doesn’t change anything about what I feel for you,” Jared murmurs, because it’s true, it’s as simple as that. He can’t help but still feel a little betrayed, though. Right now, he needs answers. He’ll work on this trust issue later. “Tell me.”
“What?”
“Everything. Jensen… you just announced that you come from a parallel universe-“
“It’s not a parallel universe. It’s another realm.”
“Okay, whatever you wanna call it, it’s still huge news, and a huge change from the way I used to consider the world and our… reality.”
“Faery realm, you guys call it. The ones who are close to the truth anyway,” Jensen explains. “There are places where we can travel between our world and yours. We used to help each other, a long, long time ago. Humans knew about magic and fairies, goblins, elves, pixies. You have so many legends and stories about us and yet no one believes in them anymore, and that’s our fault.”
“Why?”
“Because as time passed, my kind… my world… got disinterested in you. We considered your world as wrong. Too many artificial structures, too many waterways polluted or dried out…forests destroyed. But we… back in the Faery realm, we’re like stuck in time. We don’t evolve anymore. We live the same way we did a thousand years ago. It’s boring. Still, some of us have to cross here to help heal nature because there is a balance to be kept. Boring, metaphysical stuff. I volunteered when I was of age. Always been curious about human kind and the tales we heard when we were young.”
“What was it you needed to do?” Jared asks, can’t help but be fascinated by Jensen’s story.
“Me and some other dryads, we had to help a forest heal. There was a fire and everything was ashes and burned stumps. It would never have grown back if we didn’t help. Since it was close to a passageway, it could have affected our world. So I came and fell in love with your world, with humans. There are good and bad things here, but I realized you’re not worse than we are. You are so strong and loud, so alive… I didn’t want to go back.”
“You were the only one to stay?”
Jensen bites his lower lip. “I don’t know. I suppose. I left and never looked back, never missed my realm, the forest where I was born, or my friends. It’s hard to explain. I feel alive here, in a way I never felt alive back there.”
“You must have been lonely at first.”
Jensen smiles. “Never. I was lucky. I told you Donna and Allan adopted me when I was a teenager.”
Jensen’s adoptive parents are wonderful people. They weren't able to have children of their own. According to Jensen, he'd been living on the streets and didn’t remember much from before they brought him into their home. Jared supposes the real story goes differently.
“Do they know where you come from?”
“No. I… I walked out of the forest, as naked as the day I was born, and I walked until I saw a house that felt like a good home. The grass and trees surrounding it were at peace, making me feel the harmony and the tenderness. I huh…” Jensen clears his throat and smiled nervously. “I knocked at their door and ask if they would invite me in. That’s the way things go in my world. Family is very different than it is here.”
“They said yes.”
Jensen nods. “I supposed I must have looked a little miserable. I told them I didn’t remember anything before I found myself walking along their street. I don’t know why they did it, but they became my surrogate family. Like I’ve told you before, I was lucky.”
“You were. You’re sure they never suspected anything?”
“They probably did. But hey, there is a huge difference between thinking that maybe the kid you’ve taken in is different and coming to the conclusion that he’s a green spirit from another world.”
“But are you…you are flesh and blood, right? When I touch you, I really do touch you, it’s not…”
Jensen smiles at this. He pushes on Jared’s shoulders until he’s lying back on the bed and climbs over him, sitting on his legs. “Do I feel real?”
“You do,” Jared groans, molding Jensen’s ass with both hands. “Very real.”
Jensen bends down and kisses him. It’s soft and languorous, warm. Despite all the craziness that has happened in the last couple of hours, nothing has changed, not really.
Jensen feels real as Jared undresses him hastily, his hot breath is real when he presses against Jared, his mouth sucking at the tender skin of his neck. They work in harmony to get Jensen ready. He opens like a flower around Jared’s fingers, moans so pretty, without restraint. Then suddenly, he huffs and settles back over Jared’s naked, sweat-covered body.
“Want me to ride you?”
“God, yes.”
They struggle a little to get Jared’s cock lined up with Jensen’s hole, but then it’s heaven, like every single time they make love. Jensen sits down slowly, hissing, part pain, part pleasure, the pressure so good around Jared’s cock. He smiles, panting. Jensen smiles back, playful and blissed out.
“Love you, you… green dryad spirit or whatever it is you call yourself. Don’t care. Love you so much, Jensen,” Jared babbles, caressing his husband’s back, letting his nails catch lightly in the skin.
“I’m me, I’m just me,” Jensen moans, starting a slow, languid rhythm.
“You can make plants dance,” Jared protests, lifting his hips to meet Jensen’s downward thrusts.
“You’re adorable,” Jensen replies, tilting his head up and pressing his palms on Jared’s chest to get more leverage.
“Seriously…yes, baby… Seriously, that’s why you’re… you literally have green thumbs.”
“Shut up,” Jensen groans, picking up the pace.
Jared shuts up, then, because he always gets off at the sight of Jensen losing control of himself, bouncing up and down on his cock until he loses his rhythm and starts panting faster and faster, face bent down on his chest, features tensing in a beautiful grimace of pleasure.
Waiting until the last minute as usual, Jared grabs Jensen’s cock, angry pink and so hot under his hand. He jerks it quickly, without finesse. Jensen lets out his release with a hoarse cry, his inner walls clamping down on Jared’s shaft in quick succession until Jared can’t hold out any longer and lets himself succumb to his pleasure, each of his nerve endings burning white hot with his orgasm.
They kiss and murmur into each other’s mouths, passionate words and declarations of love that are so much easier to say in the dark when your body is one with your lover. Jared doesn’t really remember falling asleep, just the feel of Jensen’s skin sticking to his and their combined smell mixing, heavy and dizzying, in the air.
::: :::
Jared dreams. He’s walking through the woods behind their house, the sun is shining through the trees, the wind blowing softly, warm and caressing. Turning to look back, he realizes that he was with Jensen and that at some point, his husband has stopped following him. There is a new tree right in the middle of the path. Frowning, Jared calls Jensen’s name and retraces his steps, getting closer to the tree, closer, and it’s not a tree, god, not a normal tree anyway. Jensen is stuck there, feet disappearing into the soil, his arms twisted in a grotesque way. A fine layer of silver bark covers his skin and-
“Fuck Jensen, what happened to you?” Jared slurs, even as he realizes he’s in his room, propped up on his elbows, the sheet tangled around his waist.
“Hey, you okay?” Jensen asks, fumbling on his side of the bed, probably to reach the bedside lamp.
“No, I’m not. I had this weird dream where you were telling me you were pregnant, but it couldn’t work out because you were some kind of green elf and-“
“Dryad, Jared.”
The room is suddenly illuminated by the light, like a bad horror movie scare. Jensen looks at Jared, blinking and yawning at the same time.
“It’s true,” Jared sighs. “The dryad stuff. And everything you told me.”
“Yes, of course it is. Want me to do the… dancing plant thing again?”
“No! Hey, did we…“
They had talked about all those strange things, then they had made love, but what had triggered Jensen’s confession in the first place hadn’t been brought up. “You were saying you were pregnant.”
“Yes, we kind of forgot about it when we…” Jensen waves his hand dismissively.
“We need to talk, Jensen.”
“I know.” Jensen murmurs. “I know.”
::: :::
It’s not even five in the morning but Jared has never felt so awake. He starts the coffeemaker while Jensen takes a shower. When he comes out of the bathroom, he’s dressed and looks as deadly serious as the day before. He refuses the coffee mug Jared offers him.
“Not recommended during pregnancy.”
“What’s the matter, Jensen? I mean, if you don’t want to go through this pregnancy, it’s your body, you’re the one who gets to make the decisions.”
“It’s not supposed to be possible,” Jensen protests. “You don’t get it. I… we dryads, we’re conceived differently than humans.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re born from trees.”
“Oh.”
Jared puts his coffee cup down.
“When a tree feels the need to add a guardian to his meadow or forest, he does it. A dryad is born from the trunk, much like a human baby in appearance. We stay attached to the tree with roots and branches, feeding from its sap. When we’re ready, at about one year old, the tree lets us go and older dryads take care of us.”
“It’s… okay, I can’t picture it, but you… Jensen, you are anatomically similar to me. I mean, I’ve seen every single part of your body,” Jared smiles, hoping to alleviate the tension.
“I know.”
“Do you dryads make love, even if it isn’t to have babies?”
“Of course. It’s pretty similar to what you and I do together. We do this for our pleasure, of course, but it nourishes the forest. It pleasures the trees and plants as well.”
“Wow.”
“So, basically, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be able to have a baby. I felt kind of under the weather for the last month or so and I knew my cycle was messed up. I needed more sun exposure and more nourishment -food- and then I just knew, I wasn’t providing only for me anymore. We… where I come from, we’re much more connected with our spirit, things you guys call the sixth sense or even clear-sighting. For us, it’s normal. So I peed on a freaking stick and sure enough, it came out positive.”
“If you can get pregnant, it surely means that your body is equipped for carrying a baby.”
“A hybrid from different species? I don’t know about precedents, I don’t know anything, Jared. What if this child is attached to me with roots, or will need sap to survive or what if it’s something entirely different than you and me?” Jensen blinks tears from his eyes. “It’s a mess, Jay. I don’t want to get an abortion, I don’t, but what if we go see a doctor and he finds out how different I am? “
“What about your world?” Jared can’t believe he’s actually asking this. “Can’t we cross back? Maybe your people could help.”
“I can’t.” Jensen shakes his head sadly. “Crossing the passageway, it’s something we need to learn for our spirit and body to be able to go through. There are several very difficult meditation exercises we need to repeat regularly to master. And it’s been too long. I've forgotten.”
Jensen is so distressed Jared feels the need to be the voice of reason, even though he has basically just learned that he’s married to a magical creature from another dimension -or realm.
“We need to see an androcologist, Jensen,” he states firmly. “That’s the only reasonable thing to do. We made this child together, which means we must be compatible somehow. You’re here with me, flesh and blood. You’re not so different, Jensen.”
Jensen still shakes his head. “But what if…?”
“Hey.” Jared walks up to him and wraps his arms around Jensen’s slim waist. “We’ll cross that river when we get to it. This baby is half human. I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna look any different than a human embryo on a sonogram… And if it does, or if a doctor finds something strange about you or the baby, we’re not in the X-Files, or Fringe. We’ll have time to come up with a plan before someone declares that you’re not a human being. See? It sounds ridiculous, even coming from me, and I saw sprouts growing from your wrists last night.”
Jensen sighs and presses his forehead against Jared’s. “I’m scared shitless, Jay. I mean… I feel human. I’ve been here for so long. I know my body has adapted somehow, but this…”
“Nature allowed it.” Jared whispers, then kisses Jensen softly on the mouth.
“Hey, since when do you talk like me?” Jensen jokes nervously.
“Since we made a baby together,” Jared answers.
And even though Jared knows that they have reasons to worry, even though his whole universe seems to have changed in a matter of hours, he can’t help but feel excited and thrilled. “Everything will be alright, I’m sure,” he adds.
::: :::
Everything is alright, kind of. It takes two more weeks before they can get an appointment and, by then, Jensen is barely a shadow of himself. Jared doesn’t know if anxiety alone is responsible, or if the pregnancy is already taking a toll on his husband. There is no morning sickness, nothing physically accountable for Jared to latch onto. Jensen eats less and is paler than ever, but this could also be caused by nervousness alone.
The androcologist they see is a woman in her early forties named Alaina Huffman. She’s very reassuring with Jensen since she doesn't know what put him in such a nervous and agitated state. It clearly isn’t the first time she's dealt with nervous parents to be and she seems at ease with it.
Jensen’s androcological exam is the first step. He asks Jared to stay with him and squeezes his hand hard during the whole process, wincing as the doctor checks the uterine canal that splits the anus in two parts. Jared knows, on an purely practical level, that Jensen’s anatomy is similar to his because, well, he’s been in close contact -no pun intended- with this part of his husband’s body on a regular basis. Still, it’s a relief to hear Huffman telling them that the cervix is closed and that “everything looks fine.”
Jensen nods, still tense and quiet. He won’t be reassured until the sonogram is done. He’d joked in the waiting room that if what they saw on the screen looked like a sprout instead of a baby, Jared would have to hold the doctor while Jensen made his escape. Jared had laughed with him, but had started to wonder if maybe Jensen had watched too many science fiction shows.
It’s hard to see anything from the moving shadows that show on the sonogram screen, but then Dr. Huffman freezes the screen and shows them something that does look like a bean -kind of- but she’s smiling at them. “Here is the little one.”
“Oh my god,” Jensen rasps.
“I know, right?” Jared smiles like a freaking idiot. He doesn’t care.
The androcologist takes measurements and informs them step by step that everything seems fine. She estimates the embryo’s age at around eight weeks, which is only two weeks more than Jensen had guessed. Because it's at about the right stage in its development, she decides to try and find the baby’s heartbeat. It takes some effort and Hoffman is quick to assure them that they may not be able to hear it yet, that it wouldn’t mean anything. Still, when the barely audible, rapidly galloping sound finally erupts in the room, Jared realizes he's been holding his breath and takes a shuddering intake of air.
“It’s his heart,” Jensen murmurs, still looking shocked that everything so far is pointing toward a normal human pregnancy. “It’s… it’s his heart,” he repeats in awe, then he bursts out crying, shaking with the force of it. It’s so un-Jensen-like that Jared freezes for a couple of seconds. By then, Jensen is trying to muffle the sobs, both of his hands pressed on his face.
“Hey, it’s okay, we’re good, right?” Jared finally tells him, kissing his temple. “Come on, Jen, everything is fine.”
Dr. Hoffman gives them a moment. As Jensen tries to calm himself down, Jared can actually feel the tension that had accumulated in his husband’s body slowly leaving him. The tears dry quickly. Another minute and Jensen is apologizing, mocking himself. Jared is still relieved to see a new bright light shining in his eyes, a softness relaxing his features. So far, they haven’t let themselves consider the pregnancy seriously. Jensen had wanted to wait until they could really believe it was possible.
Now, the future suddenly unfurls in front of them, still scary as hell but in a much better way.
::: :::
As it turns out, a dryad pregnancy isn’t that different from a human's. Jensen starts to gain weight and his belly swells. He doesn’t suffer from morning sickness and needs more time absorbing UV rays but, for the most part, he looks and acts like any pregnant man or woman. He’s sometimes grumpy and hormonal, more tired than usual and can’t stand some smells and tastes. He adapts well, Jared thinks, which doesn’t surprise him. If Jensen could pass for a human for this long without anyone realizing that he’s actually from the faerie realm, even his husband of four years, he can do the same with a pregnancy.
Luckily, the anxiety that has been plaguing him disappears completely after their first visit to the paternity clinic. Jensen’s blood tests come back okay, even though there are some anomalies according to Dr. Hoffman, some peaks and lows. She doesn’t seem worried, though, and they don’t persist when she adds that everyone has anomalies in their blood work, and it’s only when there is other physical evidence that it can become a problem. The only unusual thing is that Jensen tends to suffer from hypoglycemia since his metabolism is very effective. He has to make sure to eat at regular intervals. “My metabolism is effective because I have some other stuff to metabolize,” Jensen guesses afterward. “Sun and chlorophyll and… you know.”
Jared doesn’t, but if Jensen isn’t worried, he lets it be.
As Jensen’s pregnancy progresses, he develops strange cravings -not of the pickles and ice cream variety, though. One day Jared comes back from work and finds his husband chewing through a bowl of dandelion leaves. “Jen, are you sure it’s….”
“Shut up, I had to have some,” Jensen smiles at him, his teeth tinted green. “My body knows what’s good for me.”
He shoves another leaf into his mouth and chews enthusiastically. “Beshides,” he mumbles. “You guys eat them as well.”
Yes, mix with other leaves in a salad with a nice dressing and maybe cherry tomatoes, Jared almost adds, not with part of the root still attached to them and held in one hand like a bouquet.
“Want shome?” Jensen asks.
“No I’m…uh. Not a fan.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
It turns out to be a regular occurrence. Most of Jensen’s cravings are for green things. He goes from dandelion leaves to parsley, then fresh chives, then rhubarb without any sugar on it. Jensen has never been a meat lover, but he gives it up almost entirely at the beginning of his second trimester. Jared objects that he needs the protein and iron. Jensen’s blood work tells them that his body is getting everything it needs.
The cravings come and go and sometimes Jensen’s way of getting his nutrition is completely out there: two days of devouring oranges can be followed by an all you can eat lettuce buffet -still without dressing- from the iceberg variety to the roman, or a mix with young spinach sprouts, Lucerne and fiddlehead. By then, Jared isn’t surprise anymore. Jensen’s weight gain is following a normal scale, he seems healthy, full of a renewed energy.
They learn that their baby will be a little boy - not that they really care about the sex anyway, but Jared’s father is walking around like a proud grandpa talking about the new Padalecki generation. Jared asks Jensen if there is a name in his native speaking language which he would like to give to their baby. Jensen explains sadly that most people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. When Jared insists, Jensen tries to teach it to him. There are a lot of singing vowels, but nothing Jared can really say out loud without getting the impression he’s doing some Inuit throat singing.
“Does it mean something?” He asks.
Jensen smiles, seeming far away, his hand resting on the still modest swell of his belly. “It means… like… the quiet spirit of the Rowan tree. More or less.”
“So, Rowan, maybe?”
“Rowan is a girl's name.”
“No, it’s a boy’s name as well. You know the English character, Mr. Bean. The actor who plays him is Rowan Atkinson.”
“Ugly looking guy?”
“Ah, come on. He’s funny. I like Rowan, Jen. I like the way it forms some sort of rounded sound in my mouth when I say it. And it’s a beautiful name, something that you and our baby can relate too.”
Jensen bites his bottom lip. “I sure would’ve preferred Neveasvireoothua (at least, that’s how Jared hears it.) but Rowan, I could get used to it.”
Something suddenly pops into Jared’s mind. “Hey… Is Jensen your real name?”
“Of course it is. Well, It’s more like… Jeniasanhe but the first time I told Donna and Allan my name, they heard: Jensen. It’s close enough.”
“Jeniasani. It’s-”
“Don’t try to pronounce it, you’ll get a tongue cramp,” Jensen laughs at him.
He lowers his head toward his belly, still smiling. “Rowan, your dad is a dork.”
And that’s it. From then on, when they refer to the baby, they call him Rowan.
::::
Sex during Jensen’s pregnancy is awesome. Jensen is always so willing, so eager. He often has two orgasms during their love making, is vocal and wanton and playful, even more so than usual. He’s not shy about the way his body is changing. He knows damn well how it turns Jared on, caressing his now round belly and softer curves.
He leaks. As soon as he’s aroused, his hole leaks, the scent of the translucent fluids hitting Jared’s nostrils with so much force it’s dizzying. The taste of it isn’t acrid or salty but slightly sugary. It’s addictive. Jared can spend hours rimming Jensen, licking the fluids and sucking on the skin, gathering it with his fingers and hold them out to Jensen for him to suck them dry. Jensen usually comes without Jared even touching his cock, reduced to a panting, moaning mess. Jared can never get enough. When the seventh month of his pregnancy comes, Jensen’s nipples start to leak as well when he’s aroused. It’s not a lot -Jensen’s chest hasn't changed because of the pregnancy, except for a barely noticeable swollen area around the nipples- but it’s the same sugary taste, only stronger, and thicker. Jensen is not sure he wants to breastfeed and their androcologist doubts he’ll produce enough milk to do so but in the meantime, it’s all Jared’s . He teases the dark nipples until a drop of fluid pearls through the reddened tip and then he latches on, sucking out everything he can get, and Jensen lets him, caressing his swollen belly, Jared’s hair, and pleading to come.
It’s fantastic, that’s what it is.
::: :::
Sometimes, everything seems so normal that Jared questions his own sanity. Despite the fact that Jensen enjoys green stuff a little too much, or that his bodily fluids have this sap quality to it, Jared wonders if this whole Dryad thing was nothing but a hallucination. Then he looks outside in their garden where his pregnant husband is tending to his beloved plants and he can see the way the flowers and the leaves around Jensen are shaken by a nonexistent wind. Jensen looks at peace as he concentrates on his task, his eyes the liquid green color they take on only when he thinks he’s alone.
Then Jared believes everything and wonders what their child will look like, how Jensen’s genes will combine with Jared's to produce a unique living being born from two different species.
Jared can’t wait to meet his son.
:::
Toward the end of the eighth month, as Jensen is getting close to his due date, he gets withdrawn and quiet. He’s been home for the last couple of weeks, on paternity leave, now that his pregnancy has really begun to take its toll on him. He’s clumsy and slow, his belly an undeniable weight hard to bear. Jared does everything in his power to make things easier on him. He gives him back massages, takes care of the house, and doesn’t work more than he has too. He makes sure Jensen has little to do and eats well.
Jensen doesn’t complain about his swollen ankles or leg cramps or the fact that he has to pee every other minute. He’s just… quiet, seeming far away, like he's living in his own world. He spends most of his time in his solarium, laying on the deckchair Jared got for him. He sleeps, exposed to the sun, surrounded by his plants and flowers. When night comes, he has trouble remaining still in their bed and often goes back to the solarium then as well. Jared had been worried, but Jensen had reassured him. The proximity of the plants soothes him and the baby as well, and they both need the sun. Jared just rolls with it. By then, the nursery is ready, they have everything they need to welcome Rowan home and even Jensen’s hospital bag waits in the hallway closet. All they can do, basically, is to wait for the due date, which is June 25th, right after the summer solstice. In Jensen's world this is a sign of good luck.
::: :::
On June 21st, Jared is eating his lunch in the staff room, between two claw removal surgeries, when Jensen calls him. Jensen doesn’t usually call, unless there is something serious going on. And, in fact, he’s panting hard at the other end of the line.
“Jensen? Is it… Has the labor begun?”
“I think so, yes. Jensen rasps. “I’m sorry but could you come home?”
Jared is already up, his lunch forgotten on the table. “There's nothing to be sorry for, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Call me back if anything happens, alright?”
“Yeah… Jay?”
“What?”
“Love you.”
Jared smiles. “Love you too.”
Of course, when he gets home, Jensen is in the solarium, walking back and forth with his hand on the small on his back. He stops to smile nervously at him.
“Hey.”
“Hey so…” Jared walks up to him and slides a hand around his thickened waist to rub circles on the small of his back. “You’re having contractions.”
“Yeah… Ten minutes between each and trust me man, this has nothing to do with the false ones.”
“Since when?”
“Huh… It started as soon as I woke up.”
“What? But I was still there when you woke up, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t sure and there was no hurry, Jared.”
“So, basically, you’ve been having contraction for the last five hours and you just called me.”
Jared tries not to sound too upset, but Jensen’s features tense and he lowers his head.
“I was doing well on my own, here. I thought I wouldn’t interrupt you for nothing.”
Jared sighs. “Jensen. It’s not nothing, okay? For the last month, you’ve isolated yourself. You don’t talk to me anymore, you spend all your time here with your plants and now… now…”
“Oh shit,” Jensen interrupts, widening his legs and pushing Jared away.
“What?”
“Contraction. Don’t… Don’t touch me please.”
“Okay. Alright. Take it easy. Deep breaths.”
Jensen nods, eyes scrunched up, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. Jared practically aches to touch him, to relieve some of the pain, but he’s been to enough prenatal classes to know that the person in labor is the one who calls the shots, and the best way a partner can help is by offering support and not questioning the other.
It’s over in less than a minute. Jensen slowly relaxes and looks up at Jared, laughing nervously. “Geez, it’s getting really intense.”
“Okay. I’ll call Dr. Hoffman and then we’ll head to the hospital,” Jared says softly, forgetting to be upset and realizing that this is it, the real thing. In a few hours, he’ll get to hold his son in his arms.
He’s already taking his cell phone out of his pocket when Jensen stops him.
“No!”
“What?”
“I want to stay here a little longer. Please, Jay. I feel good here, I don’t want to go to the hospital just yet.”
“Jen…”
“Hey, please just… It can be hours before the baby’s ready to come and I prefer to be here than stuck on a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of machines. My water hasn't even broken yet.”
The pleading tone is so surprising that Jared gives in almost immediately. True, they probably have several hours ahead of them and if Jensen feels better in his solarium, who’s Jared to contradict him. He nods slowly, and immediately, a huge relieved smile appears on Jensen’s face.
“As soon as the contractions pick up pace, we’re going, though.”
Jensen nods and walks to his deck chair where he sits with difficulty. Jared helps him settle down, lifting his legs and stretching them on the thin foam mattress that covers the metal frame.
“You comfortable?”
“Yeah.” Jensen lifts his stretched t-shirt, exposing his round and tight belly to the sun. “Better,” he adds, sighing.
“Have you eaten anything? Do you want something to drink, a blanket or a pillow? Both?”
“I’ve had some breakfast. I shouldn’t eat anything more, you know, in case they need to do a c-section. Sun is enough for now. Don’t need anything else. Hey, the summer solstice is today. I should’ve known. We dryads are influenced by nature cycles.”
After pacing back and forth for a couple of minutes, Jared drags a chair near Jensen and sits down, trying to relax and focus on his husband instead of worrying about not being at the hospital already. Jensen is silent, eyes closed, looking relaxed and at peace. When the next contraction comes, though, he sits up abruptly, wrapping his arms around his belly, hissing between his teeth.
“You okay?” Jared asks, which seems like a stupid question as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
“Uh-huh,” Jensen nods.
Jared looks at his watch. Ten minutes since the last contraction. Jensen is right. They have plenty of time ahead of them. “You’re doing good, breathe through it, that’s it.”
“Really hurts,” Jensen hisses. “I never thought….”
“It’s okay, baby, I’m here, I’m right here.”
Jensen keeps on breathing and the contraction passes. For the next two hours or so, they continue on like this. The time between each contraction doesn’t shorten and Jensen remains calm and concentrated. For a while, he walks around the solarium because his back hurts less this way. He asks for water, needs to empty his bladder a couple of times, but is eager to come back to his favorite room shortly thereafter. Then, suddenly, as another contraction begins, he stands up abruptly from the couch where he was resting and bends over, moaning. A dark stain blooms inside the thighs of his paternity jeans and keeps on enlarging until it reaches the knees.
“Shit,” he groans.
“Your water broke,” Jared murmurs, almost as shocked as Jensen seems. “Your water broke. Come on, Jen, let’s get you changed and then we’ll head to the hospital.”
At first, Jensen seems cooperative. He’s pale and still looks stupefied, but he follows Jared willingly into the bathroom and lets him help change his soiled pants for a more comfortable pair of sweats. He’s barely got the pants up under Jensen’s belly before his husband pushes him away and crouches down in the narrow space of the bathroom.
“Fuuuuuck, Jay, this isn’t funny anymore.”
“Another one already? Jesus, how can it get from ten minutes to two so suddenly? It’s supposed to be progressive.”
“Get me to the solarium!” Jensen groans, holding on to Jared’s legs.
“What? No! Jen we need to get to the hospital right now.”
Jensen shifts and gets a grip on the counter to lever himself into a sitting position. He’s still panting and his eyes are wild. He points a finger at Jared. “Solarium! I’m not going to the hospital, I need my plants, I need the sun!”
“Jensen. You’re not thinking rationally.”
“Oh, excuse me, but are you a dryad, JARED?” Jensen yells. “I know what I need and if we want our son to be born I need to be near my plants, GOT IT?”
On this, Jensen pushes Jared out of his way and starts walking back to the solarium, his stance unsure, his legs parted so wide he kind of looks like a cowboy. Jared brushes his hair away from his face and curses, going after him.
“Jensen, listen to me. I’m not a doctor, I can’t… what if…? We talked about this and you said you didn’t see any reason why you couldn’t give birth in a hospital.”
“I changed my mind!” Jensen stops in the doorway of the solarium and pales. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Jared, another one, it hurts, hurts so bad.”
Jared wraps his arms around Jensen’s waist before he collapses on the floor. Jensen shoves his head against Jared's chest and moans, his whole body shaking. “You gotta… you gotta trust me on this,” he pants a few seconds later. “The baby and I… That’s what we need. I need help…”
“We’ll get all the help we need at the hospital.”
“Not that kind of help!” Jensen protests angrily. “I know my body, I know what our son needs. You can’t understand.”
“Jensen, I’m not going to put you or Rowan in danger because you-“
“We will be in danger if you take me away from here!” Jensen cuts him off harshly.
“Oh fuck, Jensen, you can’t ask this of me, you can’t.”
Jensen straightens up and walks clumsily the last few steps that still separate him from his deckchair.
“Well, if you wanna leave, leave. I am not going anywhere.”
Jared stares as his husband manages to sit down and stretch out his legs without any help. This is crazy. How can a quiet, reasonable man like Jensen become so irrational, almost hysterical, so suddenly?
Because he’s about to give birth, you moron. He’s scared out of his mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I…. Oh. It’s starting again. I was joking, Jay, don’t leave, please don’t-“ Jensen trails off before bending over his stomach.
Jared is near him in a second. “Of course I won’t leave you, Jensen. Come on, you just keep on breathing, alright?”
Jensen groans and closes his eyes tight. “Breathing don’t do shit.”
“Listen to me. Babe, please listen, okay? I don’t want to pick a fight with you, I really don’t. I just… Giving birth here without any medical assistance…”
“I didn’t think it would turn out this way or I would’ve told you earlier,” Jensen is pleading now, grabbing Jared’s shirt with shaky hands.
“Okay, okay. If you think you need to be here, we’ll stay. Just… promise me you’ll let me call the ambulance if something goes wrong or as soon as the baby’s born.”
“Yes I… oh god, it burns, it burns so much down there.”
“What, you gotta push? Already?”
Jensen tilts his head backward and screams. At that precise moment, the plants of the solarium start trembling and undulating. Two of Jensen’s huge spider plants make a noise that sounds like an hiss, and some of their leaves start stretching, growing, small vines unfold and reach the deck chair. One of the vines wraps itself around Jensen’s left wrist, the other slides and twists through his hair like some kind of vegetal snake.
“Jensen, the plants, they’re…”
Jared is already thinking about running to the kitchen to grab a knife. In a matter of seconds, the situation has gotten completely out of control.
“They’re helping me, don’t worry,” Jensen pants, looking at him. There it is, the so peculiar color of Jensen’s eyes, like the iris has liquefied. He doesn’t seem to realize how shocked Jared is. “I gotta get my sweatpants off, Jay, please.”
“Yeah. Yeah, wait.”
Jared has the impression he’s functioning on auto pilot. He helps Jensen out of his soiled pants and underwear, the thick odor of sugar and chlorophyll filling the air. Jared is pretty sure amniotic fluid isn’t supposed to smell that way.
And then he sees it, Jensen’s belly, almost angrily hard. At first, he thinks the patterns drawn on it are veins sticking out, but veins aren’t that deep shade of green, nor do they unfold in smaller spiral patterns.
“Are you sure you’re-“
“Gotta push, Jay,” Jensen growls, bending forward, grabbing his knees with shaky hands.
The hissing noise of the plants gets louder. Outside, the vines that cover one side of the solarium are pressing against the glass panes. Leaves and dirt hit the windows, like a small storm is developing in their backyard.
“Oh, shit,” Jared mumbles. “Hell, Jensen what am I… Wait, I’ll get some towels and… I don’t know what to do.”
Jensen’s face is beet red from the pushing. He ends it on a long growl and lets himself falls back on the deckchair, eyes closed. “Gonna be alright. You can go.”
Jared is up in an instant. His agitated run through the house feels surreal, like he’s trapped in a dream. He'd read about helping with a delivery in the case of an emergency, but for the life of him all he can remember is that a rubber band or a shoe lace has to be wrapped around the umbilical cord to stop the blood flow.
Everything else is foggy and distant, no matter how hard he tries to remember.
When he runs back into the solarium with a pile of towels, a bottle of water and the shoelace from his left sneaker, Jensen is pushing again, hair plastered against his head, his entire body rigid with the force of it. Not only have some of the other plants suddenly grown sprouts that are trying to reach Jensen, but he himself has somehow produced thin stems from the tips of his fingers. They undulate over his body and grow over his belly, as if to protect it.
“He’s coming, Jay,” Jensen breathes out.
“What can I do, Jensen? I’m afraid to hurt you, tell me what to do.”
“Just stay here. Touch me. I need you to touch me.”
Jared sits at the bottom of the chair between Jensen’s parted legs, caressing one of his calves while settling clean towels between his legs. The trees are howling outside -well, if trees could howl, the sound they’d make would be like this. One vine’s growing, insistent stem finds a narrow space between the glass panes and slides inside. It’s maddening, like nature has suddenly become sentient with the sole purpose of assisting Jensen.
“Gotta… push again,” Jensen warns, looking at Jared.
His eyes are now glowing with a light that Jared can’t even compare to anything he knows, an alien glimmer from another word.
“Okay, do it, I’m here, I got you,” Jared babbles.
He doesn’t feel like he has anything. Still, as his husband bends forward and howls with the push he’s giving, he doesn’t let go, encouraging him and looking between his quivering legs to see if his son is close to being born.
The birth canal is stretching, impossibly tight, and as Jensen’s push comes to a paroxysm, something tries to makes its way out of Jensen’s body, a crumpled, wet patch of skin covered with damp dark curls.
“He’s coming, Jensen!”
“It hurts!” Jensen protests, then lets out a string of musical, foreign words which, given the tone in which he utters them, must be the way fairies swear in their world.
There are plant stems everywhere, some of them sprouting from Jensen’s belly and wrapping themselves around his legs. Jared takes his hand off before he gets caught by a vine. He needs both of his hands.
“I can’t!” Jensen howls, trying to catch his breath.
“You’re almost there, baby.”
“I HATE YOU!” Jensen spits, and another wave of vegetal murmur goes through the solarium.
“No you don’t. Come on, if you need to push, push!”
“Ah, fuck, I want it to be over.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Jensen takes a shuddering breath and clenches his muscles again, pushing with everything he’s got while moaning painfully as their son’s head slides out of his birth canal, little face crumbled in an angry grimace. “Oh god,” Jared pants, almost as short of breath as Jensen. “Oh god, here he is, the head is out, baby.”
Jensen lets out a sob and stretches his hand around to touch the head. When he feels it, he smiles brightly despite the pain tensing his features.
“Okay, let’s do this,” he rasps, pushing once more.
Jared doesn’t even care about the plants undulating around them, the vine now growing inside, the trees shaking and trembling outside. He catches his son’s slimy body between his hands, the shoulders, then the hips, as Rowan’s arms open wide. One last short push and the legs follow, trying to bend toward the small body.
Jared grabs a towel and start rubbing at the baby’s face, provoking a wet grimace, then a small wail as amniotic fluid pours out of his mouth and nose.
“Let me… is he okay?” Jensen pants. “I need to see him, I…”
He’s shaking all over, tears of exhaustion and pain sliding down his cheeks, arms stretched toward Jared and the baby.
Jared doesn’t hesitate. He puts their wailing son into his husband’s arms, supporting them to be sure Jensen has enough strength.
“Oh god, baby, look at you,” Jensen murmurs, pressing the baby against him. “Look at you, you’re perfect.”
“He is. He’s…. Jen, he doesn’t look any different than a human newborn.”
“I know,” Jensen smiles, kissing his son’s round head. “Hey, Rowan, daddy’s here. It sucks, being born, I get it, but it’s over now.”
Jared looks at the umbilical cord attaching Rowan to the placenta, still inside Jensen. It’s of a bluish tint, no different from the images he's seen… Well, except for the very fine green vine entangled in it. Jared wonders what the paramedics and doctor will say, or if they’ll notice it at all. He can’t bring himself to care.
“He’s hungry,” Jensen whispers, dragging his shirt up to present a reddened nipple to Rowan. The baby snuffles and shakes his head, his wet mouth open and searching. He finally latches onto the nipple and starts sucking immediately. Jensen looks at Jared and bursts out laughing. “Already feeding, he’s a glutton just like you.”
“You are amazing,” Jared tells him, bending over his son and husband to kiss them both. “But don’t you ever do this to me again.”
He may have had a small heart attack.
A few minutes later, Jensen pushes the placenta out without any difficulty. It’s crossed with small green vines, just like the umbilical cord. Jared ties the lace around the cord and makes a tight knot. By then, most of the plants around them have stopped moving and hissing. The vines that had stretched to Jensen’s body are slowly unraveling, going back to where they were before. Jensen's own sprouts retract back inside his body. His deflated belly is white, without any trace of vegetal patterns on the skin, and everything has calmed down outside, except for the vine that seems to be stuck through the small opening of the window.
“Jensen, I gotta call the ambulance now, okay?” Jared caresses his husband's damp hair. Jensen simply nods, not turning his head away from his son, still nursing with determination.
Jared makes up something on the fly while calling 9-1-1. Came back from work, found his husband already too far along to take him to the hospital. By the time a 9-1-1 operator answers, the green stem intertwined in the umbilical cord has faded enough to be almost undistinguishable, and the placenta is of a reddish-blue color: no hint of green in it.
That's going to facilitate the whole lying-about-fathering-a-kid-from-another-realm-thing.
::: :::
They make the news, both of them smiling like idiots in the hospital room, Rowan tucked in Jared’s arms. “Express Delivery,” the article is called. Of course, Jared’s mom keeps the newspaper article and frames it.
Rowan is a quiet, happy baby. After the first three days, Jensen’s milk production isn’t enough for him and he switches to bottles and formula without making a fuss. He was weighted at the hospital: seven pounds ten ounces. He’s all chubby and pink, with dark hair -strange, given that both Jared and Jensen have a fairer complex. Under the light, there are aqua highlights to it. Jensen says Jared is imagining things. He knows he isn’t.
Like every newborn, Rowan’s eyes are a dark, murky blue. Even though, as the weeks pass, it’s clear that he has Jensen’s looks, from the large wide eyes to the straight nose and full mouth, he doesn’t seem to have inherited anything from the dryad side except for the highlights in his hair -that maybe don’t exist at all.
Jared asks Jensen one night if it bothers him, the fact that Rowan is basically human. Jensen is giving the baby his last evening bottle, rocking him in the chair they'd placed in the solarium. Even though Jensen is getting back into shape, he still needs the proximity of the plants and flowers he cares for. It energizes him.
By then, Rowan is two months old and so far, despite the constant tiredness and the need to rethink their routine and life habits, having a son has been a terrific adventure.
“You’re a moron,” Jensen whispers. “Why would it bother me? He’s half human, genetically speaking. He’ll never get to cross to the Faerie Realm. Should it bother me that he fits perfectly in this world that I choose for the both of us?”
“But…”
“We’re so much alike, humans and fairies… Well, most of us anyway. We have common roots, you know?”
“Yeah well… I want him to know how extraordinary you are, how different.”
“We’ll tell him, eventually.” Jensen takes the nipple from Rowan’s mouth and gives the empty bottle to Jared. Rowan wines, but, Jensen sits him up, the baby’s stomach pressed against his own, and starts rubbing small circles on his back, which immediately calms him down.
“He’s perfect,” Jared wonders, bending over them to kiss the top of Rowan’s head.
“He is. So stop asking stupid questions.”
::: :::
Rowan is more six months old and he’s growing fast, following the mental and physical development of babies of his age without missing a beat. One afternoon, he wakes up from his nap, giggling and letting out small, enthusiastic shouts.
Jared walks to the nursery and stops on the threshold, his mouth opened wide.
There is a maple leaf dancing in the air over the crib. It must have come from outside. Despite Jared’s efforts to fix it, the window screen keeps falling down.
Of course, there is no wind in the room. Jared takes a couple of steps forward. Between the crib’s bars, he can see his son, lying on his back, his small legs kicking excitedly, a huge toothless smile on his chubby face. Both of his hands are up, like he’s trying to catch the leaf, but each time he lets out a tiny shout or giggle, the leaf spins and rises up, then starts dancing again.
Jared stays there, eyes filled with wonder. His son, half dryad half human, unique in this amazing way. He feels strangely proud, even if really, it has nothing to do with him. He simply lets it sink in, the comforting sensation of finally seeing something that ties Rowan to his dryad half.
He wonders what Jensen would think of giving their extraordinary hybrid son a little hybrid sister.
Fin
--- ---
Title: Nature never hurries (except when it does)
Pairing: J2
Warnings: NC-17 for mpreg, graphic birth, a hint of male lactation and sexy times
Summary: It's a shock for Jared to learn that his husband, Jensen, is pregnant. But when Jensen reveals that he might not be human, the whole surprise pregnancy thing takes another meaning entirely.
Word count:9400
Special thanks: To my amazing beta, disneymagics and to my friend obsidianromance for the brainstorm. I was desperatly lacking inspiration, and she helped a lot. Hugs to both of you, girls.
Disclaimer: Lies, all lies.
Dear hybridshade, I hope you'll enjoy this. I wrote one of your prompts and added other likes you pointed out. Happy holidays!
Jensen’s face is dead serious when Jared comes back from work. He doesn’t answer to his enthusiastic -okay, maybe somewhat dorky- “how’s the love of my life”? He just keeps watering the collection of plants that occupy half of their living room.
“Jen?”
“We need to talk,” Jensen states, carefully avoiding his gaze.
They’ve been together for four years and Jensen has never uttered those words, never looked this cold and distant. Jared’s heart starts thundering in his chest. He quickly takes off his vest and boots and sits at the kitchen table, trying not to think anything of Jensen’s words. It’s been a long day. They lost a dog at the shelter despite Jared’s determined efforts to save him. It was brought to them too late. All Jared had wanted to do was to come home and cuddle on the couch with his husband.
“You’re scaring me,” he can’t help but say when Jensen joins him. The other man is pale, his hands are shaking. What if this is not about Jared at all, what if something is wrong with Jensen? Jared suddenly puts together a collection of clues gathered over the last couple of weeks: Jensen had been sleeping more, had been less active. He had been picking at his food more than eating it.
What if he’s sick? What if it’s cancer or something just as bad?
“Jen, talk to me,” he pleads.
“I’m pregnant,” Jensen blurts out.
What?
“What?”
Jared tries to make sense of those three words his husband has just said but he can’t, not even when Jensen produces a pregnancy test showing a little “plus” sign.
“What?” is apparently all he can repeat.
“I don’t know how far along I am… Probably a month.”
“You’re not a carrier,” Jared objects. He feels detached, like he's observing all of this from far away.
“I thought I wasn’t.”
“You… You thought? But there are tests… Didn't you get your Burton-Faber test when you were sixteen? It’s standard procedure.”
“Okay, let’s skip all that and concentrate on the real issue,” Jensen cuts in abruptly. “I am pregnant with your kid and we’re fucked.”
“Why are we fucked? I mean…” Jared swallows, tries to get his head around it. He’s twenty-eight, Jensen is two years younger. They’re settled, they don’t have money issues and they’ve talked about adoption a couple of times.
Jensen is pregnant.
Jared smiles. “We’re going to have a little baby,” he wonders.
Jensen lifts a hand. “Wait. It’s not a good thing.”
“Oh. But I thought you wanted kids.”
“I do. I mean… Jesus, there is no easy way to say this. Can we go into the solarium?”
“Of course we can.”
Jensen’s solarium is the reason they bought the house in the first place. It’s filled with flowers and plants, some of them aren’t even supposed to grow inside, but Jensen has a green thumb. He can do wonders with plants. He works as a research assistant at the University in the botany department. It's his passion. He spends hours at a time in the solarium, taking care of his plants or just lying on the old couch there, bathing in the sun shining through the glass panels.
They sit awkwardly. Jensen caresses a small curly vine coming from a plant nearby. He sighs.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“Sorry for what?”
“I lied to you.”
“Okay…”
“I’m not human.”
Well, that’s it, that’s what makes Jared crack up in a nervous fit of laughter. Why he's laughing, he couldn't say. There is nothing funny to laugh at. Nothing at all.
“Jared, listen to me. I’m a dryad. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but-“
“Stop it,” Jared says, the laughter dying in his throat. “It’s not funny anymore, Jen.”
“Dryad, or green spirit. In Japan we’re called Kodama. I come from the faerie realm, Jay.”
“Jensen.”
“We cross, sometimes. It’s our job, when there is a huge catastrophe, like a forest fire or a sickness spreading through certain trees or plants. I crossed when I was fifteen, but I never went back.”
“Okay.” Jared nods, and he stands up because he feels like he’s about to burst from the amount of bad energy running through him. “Okay, you’re sick, Jensen. There are no such things as fairies or… dyads or-“
“Dryad,” Jensen murmurs in a dull voice.
“Whatever!” Jared shouts. “You need to see a doctor, you…” He points his finger at Jensen, not knowing what to do or say, wishing very hard that this was all a bad dream. Maybe he ate too much. He always has these awful nightmares when he eats too much.
“Jared. Look.”
Jensen is standing up as well. He opens his arms, palms of his hands up and starts humming low in his throat. The smell in the room changes suddenly, reminding Jared of the perfume of the soil during the summer after a heavy rain. Then, a soft shimmering murmur rises up and swells. It’s coming from the plants and flowers, their leaves and petals brushing against one another, trembling, like they’re being caressed by a soft wind.
“You… you can’t be doing this,” Jared says in an uncertain voice.
Jensen nods softly. There is something different in his eyes, like their green color has liquefied and mixed with gold dust and his hair… his hair is moving with the same soft trembling movements.
Then, from both of Jensen’s palms, the skin breaks at the line where the wrist begins and two feeble stems of a clear green color push their way up, like snakes dancing to the sound of a flute.
Jared’s head feels light and he realizes, too late, that he’s breathing way too deep and fast. He tries to sit down, but his legs give out and his vision fills with bright colors. He feels himself falling clumsily to the ground, then, nothing.
::: :::
“I’m sorry,” Jensen repeats in the semi-darkness of their bedroom.
He passes a cold towel across Jared’s face once again, with so much love and affection that Jared can’t be upset anymore. This, this is Jensen, his husband, the man with whom he fell in love at first sight, his companion, who’s always there for him, who’s kind and loving and smart, a little shy, maybe, but he carries with him a quiet strength.
He’s so gorgeous with the shadows dancing on his soft features, his wide green eyes filled with fear and concern.
Jared swallows loudly and sits up. He’s not dizzy anymore. “I fainted like a wuss,” he apologizes.
“Come on, it was my fault. I pushed a little more than I intended.”
Jared can’t help but look at Jensen’s wrists. They’re normal: no growing green things coming out of them anymore.
“You’re a… “
“Dryad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Jensen shrugs. “Because I was scared. Didn’t want to lose you. I kept telling myself that I would wait for the right moment, but time passed and we were so happy together and I… Yeah.”
“Doesn’t change anything about what I feel for you,” Jared murmurs, because it’s true, it’s as simple as that. He can’t help but still feel a little betrayed, though. Right now, he needs answers. He’ll work on this trust issue later. “Tell me.”
“What?”
“Everything. Jensen… you just announced that you come from a parallel universe-“
“It’s not a parallel universe. It’s another realm.”
“Okay, whatever you wanna call it, it’s still huge news, and a huge change from the way I used to consider the world and our… reality.”
“Faery realm, you guys call it. The ones who are close to the truth anyway,” Jensen explains. “There are places where we can travel between our world and yours. We used to help each other, a long, long time ago. Humans knew about magic and fairies, goblins, elves, pixies. You have so many legends and stories about us and yet no one believes in them anymore, and that’s our fault.”
“Why?”
“Because as time passed, my kind… my world… got disinterested in you. We considered your world as wrong. Too many artificial structures, too many waterways polluted or dried out…forests destroyed. But we… back in the Faery realm, we’re like stuck in time. We don’t evolve anymore. We live the same way we did a thousand years ago. It’s boring. Still, some of us have to cross here to help heal nature because there is a balance to be kept. Boring, metaphysical stuff. I volunteered when I was of age. Always been curious about human kind and the tales we heard when we were young.”
“What was it you needed to do?” Jared asks, can’t help but be fascinated by Jensen’s story.
“Me and some other dryads, we had to help a forest heal. There was a fire and everything was ashes and burned stumps. It would never have grown back if we didn’t help. Since it was close to a passageway, it could have affected our world. So I came and fell in love with your world, with humans. There are good and bad things here, but I realized you’re not worse than we are. You are so strong and loud, so alive… I didn’t want to go back.”
“You were the only one to stay?”
Jensen bites his lower lip. “I don’t know. I suppose. I left and never looked back, never missed my realm, the forest where I was born, or my friends. It’s hard to explain. I feel alive here, in a way I never felt alive back there.”
“You must have been lonely at first.”
Jensen smiles. “Never. I was lucky. I told you Donna and Allan adopted me when I was a teenager.”
Jensen’s adoptive parents are wonderful people. They weren't able to have children of their own. According to Jensen, he'd been living on the streets and didn’t remember much from before they brought him into their home. Jared supposes the real story goes differently.
“Do they know where you come from?”
“No. I… I walked out of the forest, as naked as the day I was born, and I walked until I saw a house that felt like a good home. The grass and trees surrounding it were at peace, making me feel the harmony and the tenderness. I huh…” Jensen clears his throat and smiled nervously. “I knocked at their door and ask if they would invite me in. That’s the way things go in my world. Family is very different than it is here.”
“They said yes.”
Jensen nods. “I supposed I must have looked a little miserable. I told them I didn’t remember anything before I found myself walking along their street. I don’t know why they did it, but they became my surrogate family. Like I’ve told you before, I was lucky.”
“You were. You’re sure they never suspected anything?”
“They probably did. But hey, there is a huge difference between thinking that maybe the kid you’ve taken in is different and coming to the conclusion that he’s a green spirit from another world.”
“But are you…you are flesh and blood, right? When I touch you, I really do touch you, it’s not…”
Jensen smiles at this. He pushes on Jared’s shoulders until he’s lying back on the bed and climbs over him, sitting on his legs. “Do I feel real?”
“You do,” Jared groans, molding Jensen’s ass with both hands. “Very real.”
Jensen bends down and kisses him. It’s soft and languorous, warm. Despite all the craziness that has happened in the last couple of hours, nothing has changed, not really.
Jensen feels real as Jared undresses him hastily, his hot breath is real when he presses against Jared, his mouth sucking at the tender skin of his neck. They work in harmony to get Jensen ready. He opens like a flower around Jared’s fingers, moans so pretty, without restraint. Then suddenly, he huffs and settles back over Jared’s naked, sweat-covered body.
“Want me to ride you?”
“God, yes.”
They struggle a little to get Jared’s cock lined up with Jensen’s hole, but then it’s heaven, like every single time they make love. Jensen sits down slowly, hissing, part pain, part pleasure, the pressure so good around Jared’s cock. He smiles, panting. Jensen smiles back, playful and blissed out.
“Love you, you… green dryad spirit or whatever it is you call yourself. Don’t care. Love you so much, Jensen,” Jared babbles, caressing his husband’s back, letting his nails catch lightly in the skin.
“I’m me, I’m just me,” Jensen moans, starting a slow, languid rhythm.
“You can make plants dance,” Jared protests, lifting his hips to meet Jensen’s downward thrusts.
“You’re adorable,” Jensen replies, tilting his head up and pressing his palms on Jared’s chest to get more leverage.
“Seriously…yes, baby… Seriously, that’s why you’re… you literally have green thumbs.”
“Shut up,” Jensen groans, picking up the pace.
Jared shuts up, then, because he always gets off at the sight of Jensen losing control of himself, bouncing up and down on his cock until he loses his rhythm and starts panting faster and faster, face bent down on his chest, features tensing in a beautiful grimace of pleasure.
Waiting until the last minute as usual, Jared grabs Jensen’s cock, angry pink and so hot under his hand. He jerks it quickly, without finesse. Jensen lets out his release with a hoarse cry, his inner walls clamping down on Jared’s shaft in quick succession until Jared can’t hold out any longer and lets himself succumb to his pleasure, each of his nerve endings burning white hot with his orgasm.
They kiss and murmur into each other’s mouths, passionate words and declarations of love that are so much easier to say in the dark when your body is one with your lover. Jared doesn’t really remember falling asleep, just the feel of Jensen’s skin sticking to his and their combined smell mixing, heavy and dizzying, in the air.
::: :::
Jared dreams. He’s walking through the woods behind their house, the sun is shining through the trees, the wind blowing softly, warm and caressing. Turning to look back, he realizes that he was with Jensen and that at some point, his husband has stopped following him. There is a new tree right in the middle of the path. Frowning, Jared calls Jensen’s name and retraces his steps, getting closer to the tree, closer, and it’s not a tree, god, not a normal tree anyway. Jensen is stuck there, feet disappearing into the soil, his arms twisted in a grotesque way. A fine layer of silver bark covers his skin and-
“Fuck Jensen, what happened to you?” Jared slurs, even as he realizes he’s in his room, propped up on his elbows, the sheet tangled around his waist.
“Hey, you okay?” Jensen asks, fumbling on his side of the bed, probably to reach the bedside lamp.
“No, I’m not. I had this weird dream where you were telling me you were pregnant, but it couldn’t work out because you were some kind of green elf and-“
“Dryad, Jared.”
The room is suddenly illuminated by the light, like a bad horror movie scare. Jensen looks at Jared, blinking and yawning at the same time.
“It’s true,” Jared sighs. “The dryad stuff. And everything you told me.”
“Yes, of course it is. Want me to do the… dancing plant thing again?”
“No! Hey, did we…“
They had talked about all those strange things, then they had made love, but what had triggered Jensen’s confession in the first place hadn’t been brought up. “You were saying you were pregnant.”
“Yes, we kind of forgot about it when we…” Jensen waves his hand dismissively.
“We need to talk, Jensen.”
“I know.” Jensen murmurs. “I know.”
::: :::
It’s not even five in the morning but Jared has never felt so awake. He starts the coffeemaker while Jensen takes a shower. When he comes out of the bathroom, he’s dressed and looks as deadly serious as the day before. He refuses the coffee mug Jared offers him.
“Not recommended during pregnancy.”
“What’s the matter, Jensen? I mean, if you don’t want to go through this pregnancy, it’s your body, you’re the one who gets to make the decisions.”
“It’s not supposed to be possible,” Jensen protests. “You don’t get it. I… we dryads, we’re conceived differently than humans.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re born from trees.”
“Oh.”
Jared puts his coffee cup down.
“When a tree feels the need to add a guardian to his meadow or forest, he does it. A dryad is born from the trunk, much like a human baby in appearance. We stay attached to the tree with roots and branches, feeding from its sap. When we’re ready, at about one year old, the tree lets us go and older dryads take care of us.”
“It’s… okay, I can’t picture it, but you… Jensen, you are anatomically similar to me. I mean, I’ve seen every single part of your body,” Jared smiles, hoping to alleviate the tension.
“I know.”
“Do you dryads make love, even if it isn’t to have babies?”
“Of course. It’s pretty similar to what you and I do together. We do this for our pleasure, of course, but it nourishes the forest. It pleasures the trees and plants as well.”
“Wow.”
“So, basically, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be able to have a baby. I felt kind of under the weather for the last month or so and I knew my cycle was messed up. I needed more sun exposure and more nourishment -food- and then I just knew, I wasn’t providing only for me anymore. We… where I come from, we’re much more connected with our spirit, things you guys call the sixth sense or even clear-sighting. For us, it’s normal. So I peed on a freaking stick and sure enough, it came out positive.”
“If you can get pregnant, it surely means that your body is equipped for carrying a baby.”
“A hybrid from different species? I don’t know about precedents, I don’t know anything, Jared. What if this child is attached to me with roots, or will need sap to survive or what if it’s something entirely different than you and me?” Jensen blinks tears from his eyes. “It’s a mess, Jay. I don’t want to get an abortion, I don’t, but what if we go see a doctor and he finds out how different I am? “
“What about your world?” Jared can’t believe he’s actually asking this. “Can’t we cross back? Maybe your people could help.”
“I can’t.” Jensen shakes his head sadly. “Crossing the passageway, it’s something we need to learn for our spirit and body to be able to go through. There are several very difficult meditation exercises we need to repeat regularly to master. And it’s been too long. I've forgotten.”
Jensen is so distressed Jared feels the need to be the voice of reason, even though he has basically just learned that he’s married to a magical creature from another dimension -or realm.
“We need to see an androcologist, Jensen,” he states firmly. “That’s the only reasonable thing to do. We made this child together, which means we must be compatible somehow. You’re here with me, flesh and blood. You’re not so different, Jensen.”
Jensen still shakes his head. “But what if…?”
“Hey.” Jared walks up to him and wraps his arms around Jensen’s slim waist. “We’ll cross that river when we get to it. This baby is half human. I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna look any different than a human embryo on a sonogram… And if it does, or if a doctor finds something strange about you or the baby, we’re not in the X-Files, or Fringe. We’ll have time to come up with a plan before someone declares that you’re not a human being. See? It sounds ridiculous, even coming from me, and I saw sprouts growing from your wrists last night.”
Jensen sighs and presses his forehead against Jared’s. “I’m scared shitless, Jay. I mean… I feel human. I’ve been here for so long. I know my body has adapted somehow, but this…”
“Nature allowed it.” Jared whispers, then kisses Jensen softly on the mouth.
“Hey, since when do you talk like me?” Jensen jokes nervously.
“Since we made a baby together,” Jared answers.
And even though Jared knows that they have reasons to worry, even though his whole universe seems to have changed in a matter of hours, he can’t help but feel excited and thrilled. “Everything will be alright, I’m sure,” he adds.
::: :::
Everything is alright, kind of. It takes two more weeks before they can get an appointment and, by then, Jensen is barely a shadow of himself. Jared doesn’t know if anxiety alone is responsible, or if the pregnancy is already taking a toll on his husband. There is no morning sickness, nothing physically accountable for Jared to latch onto. Jensen eats less and is paler than ever, but this could also be caused by nervousness alone.
The androcologist they see is a woman in her early forties named Alaina Huffman. She’s very reassuring with Jensen since she doesn't know what put him in such a nervous and agitated state. It clearly isn’t the first time she's dealt with nervous parents to be and she seems at ease with it.
Jensen’s androcological exam is the first step. He asks Jared to stay with him and squeezes his hand hard during the whole process, wincing as the doctor checks the uterine canal that splits the anus in two parts. Jared knows, on an purely practical level, that Jensen’s anatomy is similar to his because, well, he’s been in close contact -no pun intended- with this part of his husband’s body on a regular basis. Still, it’s a relief to hear Huffman telling them that the cervix is closed and that “everything looks fine.”
Jensen nods, still tense and quiet. He won’t be reassured until the sonogram is done. He’d joked in the waiting room that if what they saw on the screen looked like a sprout instead of a baby, Jared would have to hold the doctor while Jensen made his escape. Jared had laughed with him, but had started to wonder if maybe Jensen had watched too many science fiction shows.
It’s hard to see anything from the moving shadows that show on the sonogram screen, but then Dr. Huffman freezes the screen and shows them something that does look like a bean -kind of- but she’s smiling at them. “Here is the little one.”
“Oh my god,” Jensen rasps.
“I know, right?” Jared smiles like a freaking idiot. He doesn’t care.
The androcologist takes measurements and informs them step by step that everything seems fine. She estimates the embryo’s age at around eight weeks, which is only two weeks more than Jensen had guessed. Because it's at about the right stage in its development, she decides to try and find the baby’s heartbeat. It takes some effort and Hoffman is quick to assure them that they may not be able to hear it yet, that it wouldn’t mean anything. Still, when the barely audible, rapidly galloping sound finally erupts in the room, Jared realizes he's been holding his breath and takes a shuddering intake of air.
“It’s his heart,” Jensen murmurs, still looking shocked that everything so far is pointing toward a normal human pregnancy. “It’s… it’s his heart,” he repeats in awe, then he bursts out crying, shaking with the force of it. It’s so un-Jensen-like that Jared freezes for a couple of seconds. By then, Jensen is trying to muffle the sobs, both of his hands pressed on his face.
“Hey, it’s okay, we’re good, right?” Jared finally tells him, kissing his temple. “Come on, Jen, everything is fine.”
Dr. Hoffman gives them a moment. As Jensen tries to calm himself down, Jared can actually feel the tension that had accumulated in his husband’s body slowly leaving him. The tears dry quickly. Another minute and Jensen is apologizing, mocking himself. Jared is still relieved to see a new bright light shining in his eyes, a softness relaxing his features. So far, they haven’t let themselves consider the pregnancy seriously. Jensen had wanted to wait until they could really believe it was possible.
Now, the future suddenly unfurls in front of them, still scary as hell but in a much better way.
::: :::
As it turns out, a dryad pregnancy isn’t that different from a human's. Jensen starts to gain weight and his belly swells. He doesn’t suffer from morning sickness and needs more time absorbing UV rays but, for the most part, he looks and acts like any pregnant man or woman. He’s sometimes grumpy and hormonal, more tired than usual and can’t stand some smells and tastes. He adapts well, Jared thinks, which doesn’t surprise him. If Jensen could pass for a human for this long without anyone realizing that he’s actually from the faerie realm, even his husband of four years, he can do the same with a pregnancy.
Luckily, the anxiety that has been plaguing him disappears completely after their first visit to the paternity clinic. Jensen’s blood tests come back okay, even though there are some anomalies according to Dr. Hoffman, some peaks and lows. She doesn’t seem worried, though, and they don’t persist when she adds that everyone has anomalies in their blood work, and it’s only when there is other physical evidence that it can become a problem. The only unusual thing is that Jensen tends to suffer from hypoglycemia since his metabolism is very effective. He has to make sure to eat at regular intervals. “My metabolism is effective because I have some other stuff to metabolize,” Jensen guesses afterward. “Sun and chlorophyll and… you know.”
Jared doesn’t, but if Jensen isn’t worried, he lets it be.
As Jensen’s pregnancy progresses, he develops strange cravings -not of the pickles and ice cream variety, though. One day Jared comes back from work and finds his husband chewing through a bowl of dandelion leaves. “Jen, are you sure it’s….”
“Shut up, I had to have some,” Jensen smiles at him, his teeth tinted green. “My body knows what’s good for me.”
He shoves another leaf into his mouth and chews enthusiastically. “Beshides,” he mumbles. “You guys eat them as well.”
Yes, mix with other leaves in a salad with a nice dressing and maybe cherry tomatoes, Jared almost adds, not with part of the root still attached to them and held in one hand like a bouquet.
“Want shome?” Jensen asks.
“No I’m…uh. Not a fan.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
It turns out to be a regular occurrence. Most of Jensen’s cravings are for green things. He goes from dandelion leaves to parsley, then fresh chives, then rhubarb without any sugar on it. Jensen has never been a meat lover, but he gives it up almost entirely at the beginning of his second trimester. Jared objects that he needs the protein and iron. Jensen’s blood work tells them that his body is getting everything it needs.
The cravings come and go and sometimes Jensen’s way of getting his nutrition is completely out there: two days of devouring oranges can be followed by an all you can eat lettuce buffet -still without dressing- from the iceberg variety to the roman, or a mix with young spinach sprouts, Lucerne and fiddlehead. By then, Jared isn’t surprise anymore. Jensen’s weight gain is following a normal scale, he seems healthy, full of a renewed energy.
They learn that their baby will be a little boy - not that they really care about the sex anyway, but Jared’s father is walking around like a proud grandpa talking about the new Padalecki generation. Jared asks Jensen if there is a name in his native speaking language which he would like to give to their baby. Jensen explains sadly that most people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. When Jared insists, Jensen tries to teach it to him. There are a lot of singing vowels, but nothing Jared can really say out loud without getting the impression he’s doing some Inuit throat singing.
“Does it mean something?” He asks.
Jensen smiles, seeming far away, his hand resting on the still modest swell of his belly. “It means… like… the quiet spirit of the Rowan tree. More or less.”
“So, Rowan, maybe?”
“Rowan is a girl's name.”
“No, it’s a boy’s name as well. You know the English character, Mr. Bean. The actor who plays him is Rowan Atkinson.”
“Ugly looking guy?”
“Ah, come on. He’s funny. I like Rowan, Jen. I like the way it forms some sort of rounded sound in my mouth when I say it. And it’s a beautiful name, something that you and our baby can relate too.”
Jensen bites his bottom lip. “I sure would’ve preferred Neveasvireoothua (at least, that’s how Jared hears it.) but Rowan, I could get used to it.”
Something suddenly pops into Jared’s mind. “Hey… Is Jensen your real name?”
“Of course it is. Well, It’s more like… Jeniasanhe but the first time I told Donna and Allan my name, they heard: Jensen. It’s close enough.”
“Jeniasani. It’s-”
“Don’t try to pronounce it, you’ll get a tongue cramp,” Jensen laughs at him.
He lowers his head toward his belly, still smiling. “Rowan, your dad is a dork.”
And that’s it. From then on, when they refer to the baby, they call him Rowan.
::::
Sex during Jensen’s pregnancy is awesome. Jensen is always so willing, so eager. He often has two orgasms during their love making, is vocal and wanton and playful, even more so than usual. He’s not shy about the way his body is changing. He knows damn well how it turns Jared on, caressing his now round belly and softer curves.
He leaks. As soon as he’s aroused, his hole leaks, the scent of the translucent fluids hitting Jared’s nostrils with so much force it’s dizzying. The taste of it isn’t acrid or salty but slightly sugary. It’s addictive. Jared can spend hours rimming Jensen, licking the fluids and sucking on the skin, gathering it with his fingers and hold them out to Jensen for him to suck them dry. Jensen usually comes without Jared even touching his cock, reduced to a panting, moaning mess. Jared can never get enough. When the seventh month of his pregnancy comes, Jensen’s nipples start to leak as well when he’s aroused. It’s not a lot -Jensen’s chest hasn't changed because of the pregnancy, except for a barely noticeable swollen area around the nipples- but it’s the same sugary taste, only stronger, and thicker. Jensen is not sure he wants to breastfeed and their androcologist doubts he’ll produce enough milk to do so but in the meantime, it’s all Jared’s . He teases the dark nipples until a drop of fluid pearls through the reddened tip and then he latches on, sucking out everything he can get, and Jensen lets him, caressing his swollen belly, Jared’s hair, and pleading to come.
It’s fantastic, that’s what it is.
::: :::
Sometimes, everything seems so normal that Jared questions his own sanity. Despite the fact that Jensen enjoys green stuff a little too much, or that his bodily fluids have this sap quality to it, Jared wonders if this whole Dryad thing was nothing but a hallucination. Then he looks outside in their garden where his pregnant husband is tending to his beloved plants and he can see the way the flowers and the leaves around Jensen are shaken by a nonexistent wind. Jensen looks at peace as he concentrates on his task, his eyes the liquid green color they take on only when he thinks he’s alone.
Then Jared believes everything and wonders what their child will look like, how Jensen’s genes will combine with Jared's to produce a unique living being born from two different species.
Jared can’t wait to meet his son.
:::
Toward the end of the eighth month, as Jensen is getting close to his due date, he gets withdrawn and quiet. He’s been home for the last couple of weeks, on paternity leave, now that his pregnancy has really begun to take its toll on him. He’s clumsy and slow, his belly an undeniable weight hard to bear. Jared does everything in his power to make things easier on him. He gives him back massages, takes care of the house, and doesn’t work more than he has too. He makes sure Jensen has little to do and eats well.
Jensen doesn’t complain about his swollen ankles or leg cramps or the fact that he has to pee every other minute. He’s just… quiet, seeming far away, like he's living in his own world. He spends most of his time in his solarium, laying on the deckchair Jared got for him. He sleeps, exposed to the sun, surrounded by his plants and flowers. When night comes, he has trouble remaining still in their bed and often goes back to the solarium then as well. Jared had been worried, but Jensen had reassured him. The proximity of the plants soothes him and the baby as well, and they both need the sun. Jared just rolls with it. By then, the nursery is ready, they have everything they need to welcome Rowan home and even Jensen’s hospital bag waits in the hallway closet. All they can do, basically, is to wait for the due date, which is June 25th, right after the summer solstice. In Jensen's world this is a sign of good luck.
::: :::
On June 21st, Jared is eating his lunch in the staff room, between two claw removal surgeries, when Jensen calls him. Jensen doesn’t usually call, unless there is something serious going on. And, in fact, he’s panting hard at the other end of the line.
“Jensen? Is it… Has the labor begun?”
“I think so, yes. Jensen rasps. “I’m sorry but could you come home?”
Jared is already up, his lunch forgotten on the table. “There's nothing to be sorry for, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Call me back if anything happens, alright?”
“Yeah… Jay?”
“What?”
“Love you.”
Jared smiles. “Love you too.”
Of course, when he gets home, Jensen is in the solarium, walking back and forth with his hand on the small on his back. He stops to smile nervously at him.
“Hey.”
“Hey so…” Jared walks up to him and slides a hand around his thickened waist to rub circles on the small of his back. “You’re having contractions.”
“Yeah… Ten minutes between each and trust me man, this has nothing to do with the false ones.”
“Since when?”
“Huh… It started as soon as I woke up.”
“What? But I was still there when you woke up, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t sure and there was no hurry, Jared.”
“So, basically, you’ve been having contraction for the last five hours and you just called me.”
Jared tries not to sound too upset, but Jensen’s features tense and he lowers his head.
“I was doing well on my own, here. I thought I wouldn’t interrupt you for nothing.”
Jared sighs. “Jensen. It’s not nothing, okay? For the last month, you’ve isolated yourself. You don’t talk to me anymore, you spend all your time here with your plants and now… now…”
“Oh shit,” Jensen interrupts, widening his legs and pushing Jared away.
“What?”
“Contraction. Don’t… Don’t touch me please.”
“Okay. Alright. Take it easy. Deep breaths.”
Jensen nods, eyes scrunched up, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. Jared practically aches to touch him, to relieve some of the pain, but he’s been to enough prenatal classes to know that the person in labor is the one who calls the shots, and the best way a partner can help is by offering support and not questioning the other.
It’s over in less than a minute. Jensen slowly relaxes and looks up at Jared, laughing nervously. “Geez, it’s getting really intense.”
“Okay. I’ll call Dr. Hoffman and then we’ll head to the hospital,” Jared says softly, forgetting to be upset and realizing that this is it, the real thing. In a few hours, he’ll get to hold his son in his arms.
He’s already taking his cell phone out of his pocket when Jensen stops him.
“No!”
“What?”
“I want to stay here a little longer. Please, Jay. I feel good here, I don’t want to go to the hospital just yet.”
“Jen…”
“Hey, please just… It can be hours before the baby’s ready to come and I prefer to be here than stuck on a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of machines. My water hasn't even broken yet.”
The pleading tone is so surprising that Jared gives in almost immediately. True, they probably have several hours ahead of them and if Jensen feels better in his solarium, who’s Jared to contradict him. He nods slowly, and immediately, a huge relieved smile appears on Jensen’s face.
“As soon as the contractions pick up pace, we’re going, though.”
Jensen nods and walks to his deck chair where he sits with difficulty. Jared helps him settle down, lifting his legs and stretching them on the thin foam mattress that covers the metal frame.
“You comfortable?”
“Yeah.” Jensen lifts his stretched t-shirt, exposing his round and tight belly to the sun. “Better,” he adds, sighing.
“Have you eaten anything? Do you want something to drink, a blanket or a pillow? Both?”
“I’ve had some breakfast. I shouldn’t eat anything more, you know, in case they need to do a c-section. Sun is enough for now. Don’t need anything else. Hey, the summer solstice is today. I should’ve known. We dryads are influenced by nature cycles.”
After pacing back and forth for a couple of minutes, Jared drags a chair near Jensen and sits down, trying to relax and focus on his husband instead of worrying about not being at the hospital already. Jensen is silent, eyes closed, looking relaxed and at peace. When the next contraction comes, though, he sits up abruptly, wrapping his arms around his belly, hissing between his teeth.
“You okay?” Jared asks, which seems like a stupid question as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
“Uh-huh,” Jensen nods.
Jared looks at his watch. Ten minutes since the last contraction. Jensen is right. They have plenty of time ahead of them. “You’re doing good, breathe through it, that’s it.”
“Really hurts,” Jensen hisses. “I never thought….”
“It’s okay, baby, I’m here, I’m right here.”
Jensen keeps on breathing and the contraction passes. For the next two hours or so, they continue on like this. The time between each contraction doesn’t shorten and Jensen remains calm and concentrated. For a while, he walks around the solarium because his back hurts less this way. He asks for water, needs to empty his bladder a couple of times, but is eager to come back to his favorite room shortly thereafter. Then, suddenly, as another contraction begins, he stands up abruptly from the couch where he was resting and bends over, moaning. A dark stain blooms inside the thighs of his paternity jeans and keeps on enlarging until it reaches the knees.
“Shit,” he groans.
“Your water broke,” Jared murmurs, almost as shocked as Jensen seems. “Your water broke. Come on, Jen, let’s get you changed and then we’ll head to the hospital.”
At first, Jensen seems cooperative. He’s pale and still looks stupefied, but he follows Jared willingly into the bathroom and lets him help change his soiled pants for a more comfortable pair of sweats. He’s barely got the pants up under Jensen’s belly before his husband pushes him away and crouches down in the narrow space of the bathroom.
“Fuuuuuck, Jay, this isn’t funny anymore.”
“Another one already? Jesus, how can it get from ten minutes to two so suddenly? It’s supposed to be progressive.”
“Get me to the solarium!” Jensen groans, holding on to Jared’s legs.
“What? No! Jen we need to get to the hospital right now.”
Jensen shifts and gets a grip on the counter to lever himself into a sitting position. He’s still panting and his eyes are wild. He points a finger at Jared. “Solarium! I’m not going to the hospital, I need my plants, I need the sun!”
“Jensen. You’re not thinking rationally.”
“Oh, excuse me, but are you a dryad, JARED?” Jensen yells. “I know what I need and if we want our son to be born I need to be near my plants, GOT IT?”
On this, Jensen pushes Jared out of his way and starts walking back to the solarium, his stance unsure, his legs parted so wide he kind of looks like a cowboy. Jared brushes his hair away from his face and curses, going after him.
“Jensen, listen to me. I’m not a doctor, I can’t… what if…? We talked about this and you said you didn’t see any reason why you couldn’t give birth in a hospital.”
“I changed my mind!” Jensen stops in the doorway of the solarium and pales. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Jared, another one, it hurts, hurts so bad.”
Jared wraps his arms around Jensen’s waist before he collapses on the floor. Jensen shoves his head against Jared's chest and moans, his whole body shaking. “You gotta… you gotta trust me on this,” he pants a few seconds later. “The baby and I… That’s what we need. I need help…”
“We’ll get all the help we need at the hospital.”
“Not that kind of help!” Jensen protests angrily. “I know my body, I know what our son needs. You can’t understand.”
“Jensen, I’m not going to put you or Rowan in danger because you-“
“We will be in danger if you take me away from here!” Jensen cuts him off harshly.
“Oh fuck, Jensen, you can’t ask this of me, you can’t.”
Jensen straightens up and walks clumsily the last few steps that still separate him from his deckchair.
“Well, if you wanna leave, leave. I am not going anywhere.”
Jared stares as his husband manages to sit down and stretch out his legs without any help. This is crazy. How can a quiet, reasonable man like Jensen become so irrational, almost hysterical, so suddenly?
Because he’s about to give birth, you moron. He’s scared out of his mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I…. Oh. It’s starting again. I was joking, Jay, don’t leave, please don’t-“ Jensen trails off before bending over his stomach.
Jared is near him in a second. “Of course I won’t leave you, Jensen. Come on, you just keep on breathing, alright?”
Jensen groans and closes his eyes tight. “Breathing don’t do shit.”
“Listen to me. Babe, please listen, okay? I don’t want to pick a fight with you, I really don’t. I just… Giving birth here without any medical assistance…”
“I didn’t think it would turn out this way or I would’ve told you earlier,” Jensen is pleading now, grabbing Jared’s shirt with shaky hands.
“Okay, okay. If you think you need to be here, we’ll stay. Just… promise me you’ll let me call the ambulance if something goes wrong or as soon as the baby’s born.”
“Yes I… oh god, it burns, it burns so much down there.”
“What, you gotta push? Already?”
Jensen tilts his head backward and screams. At that precise moment, the plants of the solarium start trembling and undulating. Two of Jensen’s huge spider plants make a noise that sounds like an hiss, and some of their leaves start stretching, growing, small vines unfold and reach the deck chair. One of the vines wraps itself around Jensen’s left wrist, the other slides and twists through his hair like some kind of vegetal snake.
“Jensen, the plants, they’re…”
Jared is already thinking about running to the kitchen to grab a knife. In a matter of seconds, the situation has gotten completely out of control.
“They’re helping me, don’t worry,” Jensen pants, looking at him. There it is, the so peculiar color of Jensen’s eyes, like the iris has liquefied. He doesn’t seem to realize how shocked Jared is. “I gotta get my sweatpants off, Jay, please.”
“Yeah. Yeah, wait.”
Jared has the impression he’s functioning on auto pilot. He helps Jensen out of his soiled pants and underwear, the thick odor of sugar and chlorophyll filling the air. Jared is pretty sure amniotic fluid isn’t supposed to smell that way.
And then he sees it, Jensen’s belly, almost angrily hard. At first, he thinks the patterns drawn on it are veins sticking out, but veins aren’t that deep shade of green, nor do they unfold in smaller spiral patterns.
“Are you sure you’re-“
“Gotta push, Jay,” Jensen growls, bending forward, grabbing his knees with shaky hands.
The hissing noise of the plants gets louder. Outside, the vines that cover one side of the solarium are pressing against the glass panes. Leaves and dirt hit the windows, like a small storm is developing in their backyard.
“Oh, shit,” Jared mumbles. “Hell, Jensen what am I… Wait, I’ll get some towels and… I don’t know what to do.”
Jensen’s face is beet red from the pushing. He ends it on a long growl and lets himself falls back on the deckchair, eyes closed. “Gonna be alright. You can go.”
Jared is up in an instant. His agitated run through the house feels surreal, like he’s trapped in a dream. He'd read about helping with a delivery in the case of an emergency, but for the life of him all he can remember is that a rubber band or a shoe lace has to be wrapped around the umbilical cord to stop the blood flow.
Everything else is foggy and distant, no matter how hard he tries to remember.
When he runs back into the solarium with a pile of towels, a bottle of water and the shoelace from his left sneaker, Jensen is pushing again, hair plastered against his head, his entire body rigid with the force of it. Not only have some of the other plants suddenly grown sprouts that are trying to reach Jensen, but he himself has somehow produced thin stems from the tips of his fingers. They undulate over his body and grow over his belly, as if to protect it.
“He’s coming, Jay,” Jensen breathes out.
“What can I do, Jensen? I’m afraid to hurt you, tell me what to do.”
“Just stay here. Touch me. I need you to touch me.”
Jared sits at the bottom of the chair between Jensen’s parted legs, caressing one of his calves while settling clean towels between his legs. The trees are howling outside -well, if trees could howl, the sound they’d make would be like this. One vine’s growing, insistent stem finds a narrow space between the glass panes and slides inside. It’s maddening, like nature has suddenly become sentient with the sole purpose of assisting Jensen.
“Gotta… push again,” Jensen warns, looking at Jared.
His eyes are now glowing with a light that Jared can’t even compare to anything he knows, an alien glimmer from another word.
“Okay, do it, I’m here, I got you,” Jared babbles.
He doesn’t feel like he has anything. Still, as his husband bends forward and howls with the push he’s giving, he doesn’t let go, encouraging him and looking between his quivering legs to see if his son is close to being born.
The birth canal is stretching, impossibly tight, and as Jensen’s push comes to a paroxysm, something tries to makes its way out of Jensen’s body, a crumpled, wet patch of skin covered with damp dark curls.
“He’s coming, Jensen!”
“It hurts!” Jensen protests, then lets out a string of musical, foreign words which, given the tone in which he utters them, must be the way fairies swear in their world.
There are plant stems everywhere, some of them sprouting from Jensen’s belly and wrapping themselves around his legs. Jared takes his hand off before he gets caught by a vine. He needs both of his hands.
“I can’t!” Jensen howls, trying to catch his breath.
“You’re almost there, baby.”
“I HATE YOU!” Jensen spits, and another wave of vegetal murmur goes through the solarium.
“No you don’t. Come on, if you need to push, push!”
“Ah, fuck, I want it to be over.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Jensen takes a shuddering breath and clenches his muscles again, pushing with everything he’s got while moaning painfully as their son’s head slides out of his birth canal, little face crumbled in an angry grimace. “Oh god,” Jared pants, almost as short of breath as Jensen. “Oh god, here he is, the head is out, baby.”
Jensen lets out a sob and stretches his hand around to touch the head. When he feels it, he smiles brightly despite the pain tensing his features.
“Okay, let’s do this,” he rasps, pushing once more.
Jared doesn’t even care about the plants undulating around them, the vine now growing inside, the trees shaking and trembling outside. He catches his son’s slimy body between his hands, the shoulders, then the hips, as Rowan’s arms open wide. One last short push and the legs follow, trying to bend toward the small body.
Jared grabs a towel and start rubbing at the baby’s face, provoking a wet grimace, then a small wail as amniotic fluid pours out of his mouth and nose.
“Let me… is he okay?” Jensen pants. “I need to see him, I…”
He’s shaking all over, tears of exhaustion and pain sliding down his cheeks, arms stretched toward Jared and the baby.
Jared doesn’t hesitate. He puts their wailing son into his husband’s arms, supporting them to be sure Jensen has enough strength.
“Oh god, baby, look at you,” Jensen murmurs, pressing the baby against him. “Look at you, you’re perfect.”
“He is. He’s…. Jen, he doesn’t look any different than a human newborn.”
“I know,” Jensen smiles, kissing his son’s round head. “Hey, Rowan, daddy’s here. It sucks, being born, I get it, but it’s over now.”
Jared looks at the umbilical cord attaching Rowan to the placenta, still inside Jensen. It’s of a bluish tint, no different from the images he's seen… Well, except for the very fine green vine entangled in it. Jared wonders what the paramedics and doctor will say, or if they’ll notice it at all. He can’t bring himself to care.
“He’s hungry,” Jensen whispers, dragging his shirt up to present a reddened nipple to Rowan. The baby snuffles and shakes his head, his wet mouth open and searching. He finally latches onto the nipple and starts sucking immediately. Jensen looks at Jared and bursts out laughing. “Already feeding, he’s a glutton just like you.”
“You are amazing,” Jared tells him, bending over his son and husband to kiss them both. “But don’t you ever do this to me again.”
He may have had a small heart attack.
A few minutes later, Jensen pushes the placenta out without any difficulty. It’s crossed with small green vines, just like the umbilical cord. Jared ties the lace around the cord and makes a tight knot. By then, most of the plants around them have stopped moving and hissing. The vines that had stretched to Jensen’s body are slowly unraveling, going back to where they were before. Jensen's own sprouts retract back inside his body. His deflated belly is white, without any trace of vegetal patterns on the skin, and everything has calmed down outside, except for the vine that seems to be stuck through the small opening of the window.
“Jensen, I gotta call the ambulance now, okay?” Jared caresses his husband's damp hair. Jensen simply nods, not turning his head away from his son, still nursing with determination.
Jared makes up something on the fly while calling 9-1-1. Came back from work, found his husband already too far along to take him to the hospital. By the time a 9-1-1 operator answers, the green stem intertwined in the umbilical cord has faded enough to be almost undistinguishable, and the placenta is of a reddish-blue color: no hint of green in it.
That's going to facilitate the whole lying-about-fathering-a-kid-from-another-realm-thing.
::: :::
They make the news, both of them smiling like idiots in the hospital room, Rowan tucked in Jared’s arms. “Express Delivery,” the article is called. Of course, Jared’s mom keeps the newspaper article and frames it.
Rowan is a quiet, happy baby. After the first three days, Jensen’s milk production isn’t enough for him and he switches to bottles and formula without making a fuss. He was weighted at the hospital: seven pounds ten ounces. He’s all chubby and pink, with dark hair -strange, given that both Jared and Jensen have a fairer complex. Under the light, there are aqua highlights to it. Jensen says Jared is imagining things. He knows he isn’t.
Like every newborn, Rowan’s eyes are a dark, murky blue. Even though, as the weeks pass, it’s clear that he has Jensen’s looks, from the large wide eyes to the straight nose and full mouth, he doesn’t seem to have inherited anything from the dryad side except for the highlights in his hair -that maybe don’t exist at all.
Jared asks Jensen one night if it bothers him, the fact that Rowan is basically human. Jensen is giving the baby his last evening bottle, rocking him in the chair they'd placed in the solarium. Even though Jensen is getting back into shape, he still needs the proximity of the plants and flowers he cares for. It energizes him.
By then, Rowan is two months old and so far, despite the constant tiredness and the need to rethink their routine and life habits, having a son has been a terrific adventure.
“You’re a moron,” Jensen whispers. “Why would it bother me? He’s half human, genetically speaking. He’ll never get to cross to the Faerie Realm. Should it bother me that he fits perfectly in this world that I choose for the both of us?”
“But…”
“We’re so much alike, humans and fairies… Well, most of us anyway. We have common roots, you know?”
“Yeah well… I want him to know how extraordinary you are, how different.”
“We’ll tell him, eventually.” Jensen takes the nipple from Rowan’s mouth and gives the empty bottle to Jared. Rowan wines, but, Jensen sits him up, the baby’s stomach pressed against his own, and starts rubbing small circles on his back, which immediately calms him down.
“He’s perfect,” Jared wonders, bending over them to kiss the top of Rowan’s head.
“He is. So stop asking stupid questions.”
::: :::
Rowan is more six months old and he’s growing fast, following the mental and physical development of babies of his age without missing a beat. One afternoon, he wakes up from his nap, giggling and letting out small, enthusiastic shouts.
Jared walks to the nursery and stops on the threshold, his mouth opened wide.
There is a maple leaf dancing in the air over the crib. It must have come from outside. Despite Jared’s efforts to fix it, the window screen keeps falling down.
Of course, there is no wind in the room. Jared takes a couple of steps forward. Between the crib’s bars, he can see his son, lying on his back, his small legs kicking excitedly, a huge toothless smile on his chubby face. Both of his hands are up, like he’s trying to catch the leaf, but each time he lets out a tiny shout or giggle, the leaf spins and rises up, then starts dancing again.
Jared stays there, eyes filled with wonder. His son, half dryad half human, unique in this amazing way. He feels strangely proud, even if really, it has nothing to do with him. He simply lets it sink in, the comforting sensation of finally seeing something that ties Rowan to his dryad half.
He wonders what Jensen would think of giving their extraordinary hybrid son a little hybrid sister.
Fin
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