bandslash: breathing's just a rhythm (kevin jonas/mike carden)
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
(Written for an awesome, persistant anon at anon_lovefest. I’m only a little bit ashamed that this exists. Only a little. Also, it's a little erratic and kind of rough, so if you see any errors, feel free to point them out.)
Breathing’s Just a Rhythm
PG13
3000 words
TAI & Jobros
Kevin Jonas/Mike Carden
Warnings for: MPREG in a universe where mpreg is normal. Holy god.
High School AU: "Word on the street is that you're bearing the fruit of my good friend's loins." William says, draping himself against Kevin’s back, and Kevin considers the logistics of crawling inside of his locker and dying.
Three weeks into dating Mike Carden, Kevin is still afraid that this is all some elaborate prank that will end with him being crowned prom queen and having pig’s blood dumped on him. And Kevin doesn’t have an psychic powers, okay, he couldn’t wreak any terrible havoc. He might just cry.
“So, are we, like, going steady?” he asks, leaning to the side so their shoulders line up, sitting on the bench outside the school doors. Mike had waited for Kevin to finish band practice so they could grab a few minutes together before Kevin had to get home for dinner.
Mike turns his head to look at him for a long moment.
“Yes,” Mike says, rolling his eyes. “Yes, in fact, we are going steady.”
Kevin says, “Oh,” and smiles a little.
Mike says, “Jesus fuck,” and curls their ankles together.
*
“We’re going to have to stop.” Mike says, and Kevin gives him a really, righteous offended look, because he’s actually gotten to a point where kissing doesn’t terrify him. Mike rolls his eyes and tugs at his bottom lip with his teeth before pulling away again. “No, seriously, dude, you have boundaries and shit. And I respect that, but you’re going to have to take that ring off if we keep this up.”
“Oh,” Kevin says, and: “The ring is mostly. . .a guideline,” because he’s pretty sure that Joe should have taken off his ring the moment he entered high school, and he hasn’t actually prayed to anyone in a really long time. Also, he wants this a lot.
“Are you sure, because. . .”
Kevin leans up to kiss him.
“So sure.”
*
After that first time, Kevin starts to have all these urges that he was apparently repressing before, and he wants to grab Mike and push him up against walls and maybe lick him all the time. They end up pulling each other into janitor’s closets and empty classrooms and, when all else fails, they hide together in Kevin’s tree house late at night and lay out on blankets and try not to make any noise when they touch each other.
*
Kevin starts to get sick a lot, and he cries once when he gets in a fight with Joe, and he thinks no way, because there’s no freaking way.
*
He stares down at the pregnancy test that he bought from a judgmental drugstore employee, eye wide. He checks the box again. He looks at the test. He checks the box.
"Holy crap." he whispers. "Holy. . .holy shit."
He glances up to make sure nobody's standing at the bathroom door, waiting to hear him swear so they can tell him something about Jesus that will make him feel guilty, and then he knocks the pregnancy test into the trash can and tries to breathe. Breathing.
He's heard that's supposed to be good for a baby.
*
There a few plans that Kevin could follow right now, other than the one he's currently following, which involves lying prostrate on his bed in the dark and not calling Mike. He had been lying on his stomach on the floor and not calling Mike, but then he was afraid that the tiny, tiny person that is apparently living inside of him might get crushed by his rib cage or something. He doesn't really know how these things work.
He could tell his parents. He could go to a doctor.
Somebody knocks on his door, and he turns on his side and pretends to be asleep when Nick sticks his head inside and tells him that it's time to start Family Game Night.
Kevin loves Family Game Night.
He should probably call Mike.
*
"Mike, I'm pregnant."
The boy's bathroom echoes his words quietly back at him, and his reflection looks him in the eye. He's pretty sure that it's judging him. He's pretty sure this is better than ever looking Mike in the eyes ever again.
"I'm knocked up." he continues. "I'm with child."
"Dude, seriously?"
Brendon's face looms behind his reflection, and Kevin makes an undignified squeaking noise before turning around, bracing his hands on the sink behind him.
"No." he says, shaking his head firmly. “No. Definitely not.”
Brendon smiles at him. It's kind of disarming. It makes Kevin want to fold himself into Brendon's arms and tell him everything, because apparently Brendon has powers that transcend that of mere man. He shuffles his feet against the sticky tile, looking down.
"I was. Rehearsing.” He frowns. “For a. . . play?"
Brendon is now staring with a lot of intent at his stomach, and Kevin crosses his arms over his chest and tries not to blush. That’s kind of violating. He’s so not looking forward to people groping his stomach once he actually starts to show.
"A play." Brendon nods, sagely, then gets this shiny, excited look on his face, bouncing on his toes. "Oh, hey, hey, can I be the godfather? Mike would say yes."
*
"Word on the street is that you're bearing the fruit of my good friend's loins." William says, draping himself against Kevin’s back, and Kevin considers the logistics of crawling inside of his locker and dying.
"I don't think Brendon counts as the streets." Kevin replies, shutting the door and turning around, starting to panic again. "And you can't tell Mike, because I haven’t told Mike, and I’m pretty sure that I’m supposed to be the one to-"
"Calmly, little Jonas. I wouldn’t dream of it." William pats his head, and that's really not fair, because William is seven feet tall. Kevin is completely normal for his age.
“Then what do you want?”
“Just to procure my status as godfather,” William says, and he smiles in that way that he thinks is charming but ends up mostly suggestive, “as previously won in a card game with your baby daddy.”
Kevin does not really know how he feels about bearing the offspring of someone who would bet something like that and then lose to William Beckett, but that’s probably the least of his concerns, all things considered.
“You’ll have to fight Brendon.” he says.
William looks speculative.
“He’s small,” he says, glancing down the hallway where Brendon is trying to crawl on top of Spencer in what appears to be a mostly nonconsensual piggy-back ride, “but scrappy.”
“Good luck,” Kevin sighs, then goes to find Mike before somebody else finds out, someone who would think it was a good idea to do something like go congratulate Mike on his impending fatherhood.
*
Someone like Pete Wentz, Pete Wentz who is walking towards Mike as Kevin rounds the corner to his locker, wearing this stupid, giant Pete Wentz grin. This is not my life, Kevin thinks, this cannot be my life, and he throws himself down the hallway, scattering freshmen in his wake.
“Mike!” Pete says, all open arms and excited hand motions and gossipy evil, and Kevin skids on his heels to stop next to Mike, grabbing his arm and tugging frantically.
“No time, oh gosh,” he says, and Mike gives him a look that says something along the lines of what are you doing, you crazy little man? but with more affectionate swearing, and he lets himself be pulled into an empty classroom. Kevin locks the door. He considers pushing a bookshelf in front of it, because Pete is enthusiastic and generally not-to-be-denied, but he thinks he’s maybe not supposed to be lifting heavy objects or something.
“If you brought me here to take advantage of me,” Mike says, dryly, “you should know that I have a Spanish test.” He’s standing a little too close to Kevin, so he can smell coffee on his breath, feel his flannel shirt all warm with Mike’s crazy, unnatural body heat.
“If anybody’s going to be taken advantage of anytime soon,” Kevin says, softly, keeping his eyes trained at the loose toes of Mike’s high-tops, “you should probably know something.”
He can actually feel Mike go stiff, and he leans into the touch when he steps forward, presses a hand to Kevin’s shoulder, long fingers barely brushing his neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and he sounds younger than Kevin feels, and wow, he’s not prepared for this. He looks up with wide eyes, and Mike wraps a hand to press warm and a little rough at the base of his neck, comforting.
“I’m. . .” Kevin makes a face. “Okay, Okay. I’m pregnant?”
“Are you asking me? What the fuck, kid, not funny.” Mike lets go of him, and Kevin takes a shaky step back without meaning to, wondering how long it takes for pregnancy to make your hormones get out of wack because he’s a little afraid he’s going to freak out anytime now.
“Yeah, not joking.” he whispers. “Not joking at all.”
“How do you. . .” Mike makes this odd, frustrated noise, walking across the room for a minute before coming back to stand in front of him. “Are you sure?”
When Kevin doesn’t say anything, shifts on his feet and sniffs a little, he suddenly finds himself with arms wrapped tight around him, and he clings back as soon as Mike starts to whisper against his cheek, little huffs of breath and words, “God, okay, okay, it’s okay.”
*
They tell Mike’s mother the next day, and she laughs hard enough that they both get a little concerned until she gets up and pulls Kevin into a giant hug and says, “Come to me if you ever need anything,” and, “Seriously, only you guys.”
“That. . .went better than I expected.” Mike says, looking over his shoulder as she keeps giggling, until they hear a door shut down the hallway.
“We’ve still got to get past my parents.” Kevin replies, sadly. “There will no laughter there. Only tears. Probably praying.”
“Will your dad try to kill me?” Mike takes his hand and pulls him to his feet, doesn’t let go once he’s standing. Kevin smiles half-heartedly up at him.
“Maybe not?”
*
Afterwards, the whole night is mostly a blur, but it mostly amounted to Kevin hedging, and Mike looking completely terrified, and “Hi, Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend. He plays guitar in a rock band. Why, yes, that is marijuana you smell.”
And after they seem to digest the fact that he likes to do inappropriate things with boys without having any panic attacks or getting out the Bible and trying to pray the gay away, he smiles weakly at them and says, “Oh, it gets worse.”
*
His mother cries, and his father doesn’t look at him, and Kevin maybe considers running away from home before he follows Mike outside, and he frames Kevin’s face in his hands and kisses him once, softly, so his parents could see if they were looking out the front window.
“We’re doing this together,” he says, “okay? No matter what they say.”
After he gets home from school the next day, he finds What To Expect When You’re Expecting and about nineteen books about male pregnancy that his mother had apparently expedited from Amazon sometime last night.
He goes downstairs and hugs her, and she cries again, then tells him that she’s taking him to the doctor for an ultrasound after he tells her that all he’s done is Google ‘babies.’
On the way there, with Nick and Joe in the back, she hands her cellphone to him and tells him to call Mike to meet them there, and he grins at her so hard that his mouth starts to hurt.
*
“You’re going to name it Joe, right?” Joe asks, blinking at Mike when he glances down at him. They’re taking up half of the lobby in the doctor’s office, and Mike is holding Kevin’s hand a little too tight, wearing a collared shirt that was apparently supposed to further the image that he’s not a delinquent.
“They’re not going to name him Joe.” Nick says.
His brothers are taking this surprisingly awesome.
“It’s a classic name,” Joe continues, “you really can’t go wrong.”
“We’ll consider it.” Mike says, gruffly, and Joe beams at him.
*
Kevin’s not prepared for it when the doctor smiles and tells him to look at his baby, and he’s definitely not expecting to feel tears forming when she points out the weird, misshapen blob that is apparently a little Mike-and-him. Mike laughs a little and squeezes his hand, and Kevin turns his head to him and smiles.
“Don’t even front,” he says, “you’re so crying, too.”
When he looks back up, Kevin’s mom is smiling at them, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
They don’t find out the sex. Kevin thinks Mike is secretly old-fashioned.
*
By this point, everyone at school knows that he’s pregnant, so his days mostly consist of girls coming up to coo at his stomach as he starts to really show in the first few months and ask him really invasive questions, and also a lot of William and Brendon having epic staring contests and, on occasion, impromptu a cappella “Bohemian Rhapsody” battles in the middle of the hallway.
Mike gets about twice as protective as before, always wrapping an arm around Kevin’s waist and sprawling fingers out over his stomach, bringing him chocolate because Kevin’s mother has gone crazy on organic food products.
“You’re pretty fantastic,” Kevin says, smiling at Mike over the lunch table, over their laced fingers, and Mike shakes his head and bites his lip around a grin.
He doesn’t look nearly as threatening as he normally does, and Kevin is sort of really in love.
*
Kevin smiles a little when he wakes up to Mike climbing into his window, feet landing softly on his floor. He squirms to the side and opens the blanket for him once he's toed off his boots, leaving his jacket on the floor.
"Hey." Mike murmurs, kissing the corner of his lips when he crawls in next to him, pressing the length of their bodies together. Kevin wraps his arms around his waist and snuggles closer. Mike smells like cigarette smoke and wet grass, and he's warm.
"My door's locked." he murmurs, around a yawn. “We could. . .I don’t know.”
"You're tired." Mike says. "We're just. . ."
"Snuggling?" Kevin asks. He's pretty delighted.
"Something like that." Mike's hand moves down to press against the rounded swell of his stomach.
“I felt it kick earlier.” Kevin whispers, and Mike laughs softly into his neck.
“Oh yeah?”
*
Six months in, they’ve bought him all new clothes, and William and Brendon have reached a point where they’re three steps away from actually dueling. Spencer takes Kevin arm in the hallway and looks at him with wide, serious eyes.
“Brendon,” he says, fiercely, “is awesome with babies. Babies adore him. And you have to let him be godfather, because he keeps trying to convince me to get him pregnant, and, no offense, but I’m not ready for that.”
“It’s out of my hands!” Kevin says.
Mike and Brendon wander up behind them, and Mike presses a hand to the small of Kevin’s back.
“Don’t you want, like, one of the little yous to be godfather?” he asks, close to his ear, and Kevin looks up at him, horrified.
“I would trust Brendon with him before Joe.” he says, and Brendon smiles at him from where he’s curled up against Spencer’s side, a hand tucked into his back pocket while Spencer nods encouragingly at Kevin, mouthing: please?
*
Seven and a half months in, he wakes up in the middle of the night and feels like someone is stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach. He curls into himself and waits for it to pass, but then it doesn’t. He says, “Oh, god, not cool, baby,” and grabs for the baby monitor that he and Joe have been using as walkie-talkies.
“Joe, hey,” he says, weakly, “I think I’m having a baby.”
“Gnaugh,” Joe says, then: “wait, what, seriously? Shit.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re in mom’s minivan with three individual baby preparation bags, and Mike is waiting outside his house when they stop to pick him up.
“Aren’t you supposed to have another month and a half?” he asks, looking paler than usual, sitting between Nick and Kevin’s dad, Joe’s chin resting on the back of his seat. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t have a vagina.” Kevin says, folded into himself on the seat and trying not to whimper. “You pretty much have to throw out all the rules.”
*
When they take him into surgery, Mike follows and threatens nurses who try to stop him and is also shaking all over.
“Aren’t you supposed to be pacing the lobby, passing out cigars?” Kevin asks, and Mike grins at him.
“I’m not missing this,” he says, keeping up with the stretcher and wiping Kevin’s hair from his forehead when they stop. His fingers are still combing through Kevin’s hair when they give him something that makes everything feel way better and the doctor starts to tell him about the procedure.
*
“Congratulations, boys,” the doctor says, sometime later after the drugs have settled in and Kevin has had his insides all rearranged and Mike almost-but-didn’t pass out. The baby is crying, and Kevin can hardly breathe so he tugs on Mike’s hand lightly.
“We have a baby.” Mike says.
“A boy.” the doctor says. “A healthy boy.”
“We don’t have a name.” Kevin whispers.
“Joe?” Mike murmurs, and it hurts when Kevin laughs. He lays back and blinks up at the lights as they do all the necessary baby things before someone helps him lean up, and they slowly lower him into his arms. He’s just a little squirming thing, all wrinkled and pink and squinting at Kevin, and he can feel his heart do a weird flip up towards his throat.
“Hi,” he says, “hi, baby.”
“He looks like you.” Mike says.
“He looks like an alien,” Kevin says, “but I think he’s scowling at me. He got that from you.”
Mike can’t stop swearing under his breath when Kevin hands the baby up to him, and he cradles him close to his chest like he’s afraid that he’ll drop him, even though Kevin is pretty sure that he won’t.
When the nurse comes to ask the baby’s name, Kevin says: “Joseph” because he can’t think of anything else, and Mike gets down on his knees next to him and kisses his forehead, and the baby keeps his little baby hands in fists while Mike laughs and laughs.
(Written for an awesome, persistant anon at anon_lovefest. I’m only a little bit ashamed that this exists. Only a little. Also, it's a little erratic and kind of rough, so if you see any errors, feel free to point them out.)
Breathing’s Just a Rhythm
PG13
3000 words
TAI & Jobros
Kevin Jonas/Mike Carden
Warnings for: MPREG in a universe where mpreg is normal. Holy god.
High School AU: "Word on the street is that you're bearing the fruit of my good friend's loins." William says, draping himself against Kevin’s back, and Kevin considers the logistics of crawling inside of his locker and dying.
Three weeks into dating Mike Carden, Kevin is still afraid that this is all some elaborate prank that will end with him being crowned prom queen and having pig’s blood dumped on him. And Kevin doesn’t have an psychic powers, okay, he couldn’t wreak any terrible havoc. He might just cry.
“So, are we, like, going steady?” he asks, leaning to the side so their shoulders line up, sitting on the bench outside the school doors. Mike had waited for Kevin to finish band practice so they could grab a few minutes together before Kevin had to get home for dinner.
Mike turns his head to look at him for a long moment.
“Yes,” Mike says, rolling his eyes. “Yes, in fact, we are going steady.”
Kevin says, “Oh,” and smiles a little.
Mike says, “Jesus fuck,” and curls their ankles together.
*
“We’re going to have to stop.” Mike says, and Kevin gives him a really, righteous offended look, because he’s actually gotten to a point where kissing doesn’t terrify him. Mike rolls his eyes and tugs at his bottom lip with his teeth before pulling away again. “No, seriously, dude, you have boundaries and shit. And I respect that, but you’re going to have to take that ring off if we keep this up.”
“Oh,” Kevin says, and: “The ring is mostly. . .a guideline,” because he’s pretty sure that Joe should have taken off his ring the moment he entered high school, and he hasn’t actually prayed to anyone in a really long time. Also, he wants this a lot.
“Are you sure, because. . .”
Kevin leans up to kiss him.
“So sure.”
*
After that first time, Kevin starts to have all these urges that he was apparently repressing before, and he wants to grab Mike and push him up against walls and maybe lick him all the time. They end up pulling each other into janitor’s closets and empty classrooms and, when all else fails, they hide together in Kevin’s tree house late at night and lay out on blankets and try not to make any noise when they touch each other.
*
Kevin starts to get sick a lot, and he cries once when he gets in a fight with Joe, and he thinks no way, because there’s no freaking way.
*
He stares down at the pregnancy test that he bought from a judgmental drugstore employee, eye wide. He checks the box again. He looks at the test. He checks the box.
"Holy crap." he whispers. "Holy. . .holy shit."
He glances up to make sure nobody's standing at the bathroom door, waiting to hear him swear so they can tell him something about Jesus that will make him feel guilty, and then he knocks the pregnancy test into the trash can and tries to breathe. Breathing.
He's heard that's supposed to be good for a baby.
*
There a few plans that Kevin could follow right now, other than the one he's currently following, which involves lying prostrate on his bed in the dark and not calling Mike. He had been lying on his stomach on the floor and not calling Mike, but then he was afraid that the tiny, tiny person that is apparently living inside of him might get crushed by his rib cage or something. He doesn't really know how these things work.
He could tell his parents. He could go to a doctor.
Somebody knocks on his door, and he turns on his side and pretends to be asleep when Nick sticks his head inside and tells him that it's time to start Family Game Night.
Kevin loves Family Game Night.
He should probably call Mike.
*
"Mike, I'm pregnant."
The boy's bathroom echoes his words quietly back at him, and his reflection looks him in the eye. He's pretty sure that it's judging him. He's pretty sure this is better than ever looking Mike in the eyes ever again.
"I'm knocked up." he continues. "I'm with child."
"Dude, seriously?"
Brendon's face looms behind his reflection, and Kevin makes an undignified squeaking noise before turning around, bracing his hands on the sink behind him.
"No." he says, shaking his head firmly. “No. Definitely not.”
Brendon smiles at him. It's kind of disarming. It makes Kevin want to fold himself into Brendon's arms and tell him everything, because apparently Brendon has powers that transcend that of mere man. He shuffles his feet against the sticky tile, looking down.
"I was. Rehearsing.” He frowns. “For a. . . play?"
Brendon is now staring with a lot of intent at his stomach, and Kevin crosses his arms over his chest and tries not to blush. That’s kind of violating. He’s so not looking forward to people groping his stomach once he actually starts to show.
"A play." Brendon nods, sagely, then gets this shiny, excited look on his face, bouncing on his toes. "Oh, hey, hey, can I be the godfather? Mike would say yes."
*
"Word on the street is that you're bearing the fruit of my good friend's loins." William says, draping himself against Kevin’s back, and Kevin considers the logistics of crawling inside of his locker and dying.
"I don't think Brendon counts as the streets." Kevin replies, shutting the door and turning around, starting to panic again. "And you can't tell Mike, because I haven’t told Mike, and I’m pretty sure that I’m supposed to be the one to-"
"Calmly, little Jonas. I wouldn’t dream of it." William pats his head, and that's really not fair, because William is seven feet tall. Kevin is completely normal for his age.
“Then what do you want?”
“Just to procure my status as godfather,” William says, and he smiles in that way that he thinks is charming but ends up mostly suggestive, “as previously won in a card game with your baby daddy.”
Kevin does not really know how he feels about bearing the offspring of someone who would bet something like that and then lose to William Beckett, but that’s probably the least of his concerns, all things considered.
“You’ll have to fight Brendon.” he says.
William looks speculative.
“He’s small,” he says, glancing down the hallway where Brendon is trying to crawl on top of Spencer in what appears to be a mostly nonconsensual piggy-back ride, “but scrappy.”
“Good luck,” Kevin sighs, then goes to find Mike before somebody else finds out, someone who would think it was a good idea to do something like go congratulate Mike on his impending fatherhood.
*
Someone like Pete Wentz, Pete Wentz who is walking towards Mike as Kevin rounds the corner to his locker, wearing this stupid, giant Pete Wentz grin. This is not my life, Kevin thinks, this cannot be my life, and he throws himself down the hallway, scattering freshmen in his wake.
“Mike!” Pete says, all open arms and excited hand motions and gossipy evil, and Kevin skids on his heels to stop next to Mike, grabbing his arm and tugging frantically.
“No time, oh gosh,” he says, and Mike gives him a look that says something along the lines of what are you doing, you crazy little man? but with more affectionate swearing, and he lets himself be pulled into an empty classroom. Kevin locks the door. He considers pushing a bookshelf in front of it, because Pete is enthusiastic and generally not-to-be-denied, but he thinks he’s maybe not supposed to be lifting heavy objects or something.
“If you brought me here to take advantage of me,” Mike says, dryly, “you should know that I have a Spanish test.” He’s standing a little too close to Kevin, so he can smell coffee on his breath, feel his flannel shirt all warm with Mike’s crazy, unnatural body heat.
“If anybody’s going to be taken advantage of anytime soon,” Kevin says, softly, keeping his eyes trained at the loose toes of Mike’s high-tops, “you should probably know something.”
He can actually feel Mike go stiff, and he leans into the touch when he steps forward, presses a hand to Kevin’s shoulder, long fingers barely brushing his neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and he sounds younger than Kevin feels, and wow, he’s not prepared for this. He looks up with wide eyes, and Mike wraps a hand to press warm and a little rough at the base of his neck, comforting.
“I’m. . .” Kevin makes a face. “Okay, Okay. I’m pregnant?”
“Are you asking me? What the fuck, kid, not funny.” Mike lets go of him, and Kevin takes a shaky step back without meaning to, wondering how long it takes for pregnancy to make your hormones get out of wack because he’s a little afraid he’s going to freak out anytime now.
“Yeah, not joking.” he whispers. “Not joking at all.”
“How do you. . .” Mike makes this odd, frustrated noise, walking across the room for a minute before coming back to stand in front of him. “Are you sure?”
When Kevin doesn’t say anything, shifts on his feet and sniffs a little, he suddenly finds himself with arms wrapped tight around him, and he clings back as soon as Mike starts to whisper against his cheek, little huffs of breath and words, “God, okay, okay, it’s okay.”
*
They tell Mike’s mother the next day, and she laughs hard enough that they both get a little concerned until she gets up and pulls Kevin into a giant hug and says, “Come to me if you ever need anything,” and, “Seriously, only you guys.”
“That. . .went better than I expected.” Mike says, looking over his shoulder as she keeps giggling, until they hear a door shut down the hallway.
“We’ve still got to get past my parents.” Kevin replies, sadly. “There will no laughter there. Only tears. Probably praying.”
“Will your dad try to kill me?” Mike takes his hand and pulls him to his feet, doesn’t let go once he’s standing. Kevin smiles half-heartedly up at him.
“Maybe not?”
*
Afterwards, the whole night is mostly a blur, but it mostly amounted to Kevin hedging, and Mike looking completely terrified, and “Hi, Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend. He plays guitar in a rock band. Why, yes, that is marijuana you smell.”
And after they seem to digest the fact that he likes to do inappropriate things with boys without having any panic attacks or getting out the Bible and trying to pray the gay away, he smiles weakly at them and says, “Oh, it gets worse.”
*
His mother cries, and his father doesn’t look at him, and Kevin maybe considers running away from home before he follows Mike outside, and he frames Kevin’s face in his hands and kisses him once, softly, so his parents could see if they were looking out the front window.
“We’re doing this together,” he says, “okay? No matter what they say.”
After he gets home from school the next day, he finds What To Expect When You’re Expecting and about nineteen books about male pregnancy that his mother had apparently expedited from Amazon sometime last night.
He goes downstairs and hugs her, and she cries again, then tells him that she’s taking him to the doctor for an ultrasound after he tells her that all he’s done is Google ‘babies.’
On the way there, with Nick and Joe in the back, she hands her cellphone to him and tells him to call Mike to meet them there, and he grins at her so hard that his mouth starts to hurt.
*
“You’re going to name it Joe, right?” Joe asks, blinking at Mike when he glances down at him. They’re taking up half of the lobby in the doctor’s office, and Mike is holding Kevin’s hand a little too tight, wearing a collared shirt that was apparently supposed to further the image that he’s not a delinquent.
“They’re not going to name him Joe.” Nick says.
His brothers are taking this surprisingly awesome.
“It’s a classic name,” Joe continues, “you really can’t go wrong.”
“We’ll consider it.” Mike says, gruffly, and Joe beams at him.
*
Kevin’s not prepared for it when the doctor smiles and tells him to look at his baby, and he’s definitely not expecting to feel tears forming when she points out the weird, misshapen blob that is apparently a little Mike-and-him. Mike laughs a little and squeezes his hand, and Kevin turns his head to him and smiles.
“Don’t even front,” he says, “you’re so crying, too.”
When he looks back up, Kevin’s mom is smiling at them, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
They don’t find out the sex. Kevin thinks Mike is secretly old-fashioned.
*
By this point, everyone at school knows that he’s pregnant, so his days mostly consist of girls coming up to coo at his stomach as he starts to really show in the first few months and ask him really invasive questions, and also a lot of William and Brendon having epic staring contests and, on occasion, impromptu a cappella “Bohemian Rhapsody” battles in the middle of the hallway.
Mike gets about twice as protective as before, always wrapping an arm around Kevin’s waist and sprawling fingers out over his stomach, bringing him chocolate because Kevin’s mother has gone crazy on organic food products.
“You’re pretty fantastic,” Kevin says, smiling at Mike over the lunch table, over their laced fingers, and Mike shakes his head and bites his lip around a grin.
He doesn’t look nearly as threatening as he normally does, and Kevin is sort of really in love.
*
Kevin smiles a little when he wakes up to Mike climbing into his window, feet landing softly on his floor. He squirms to the side and opens the blanket for him once he's toed off his boots, leaving his jacket on the floor.
"Hey." Mike murmurs, kissing the corner of his lips when he crawls in next to him, pressing the length of their bodies together. Kevin wraps his arms around his waist and snuggles closer. Mike smells like cigarette smoke and wet grass, and he's warm.
"My door's locked." he murmurs, around a yawn. “We could. . .I don’t know.”
"You're tired." Mike says. "We're just. . ."
"Snuggling?" Kevin asks. He's pretty delighted.
"Something like that." Mike's hand moves down to press against the rounded swell of his stomach.
“I felt it kick earlier.” Kevin whispers, and Mike laughs softly into his neck.
“Oh yeah?”
*
Six months in, they’ve bought him all new clothes, and William and Brendon have reached a point where they’re three steps away from actually dueling. Spencer takes Kevin arm in the hallway and looks at him with wide, serious eyes.
“Brendon,” he says, fiercely, “is awesome with babies. Babies adore him. And you have to let him be godfather, because he keeps trying to convince me to get him pregnant, and, no offense, but I’m not ready for that.”
“It’s out of my hands!” Kevin says.
Mike and Brendon wander up behind them, and Mike presses a hand to the small of Kevin’s back.
“Don’t you want, like, one of the little yous to be godfather?” he asks, close to his ear, and Kevin looks up at him, horrified.
“I would trust Brendon with him before Joe.” he says, and Brendon smiles at him from where he’s curled up against Spencer’s side, a hand tucked into his back pocket while Spencer nods encouragingly at Kevin, mouthing: please?
*
Seven and a half months in, he wakes up in the middle of the night and feels like someone is stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach. He curls into himself and waits for it to pass, but then it doesn’t. He says, “Oh, god, not cool, baby,” and grabs for the baby monitor that he and Joe have been using as walkie-talkies.
“Joe, hey,” he says, weakly, “I think I’m having a baby.”
“Gnaugh,” Joe says, then: “wait, what, seriously? Shit.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re in mom’s minivan with three individual baby preparation bags, and Mike is waiting outside his house when they stop to pick him up.
“Aren’t you supposed to have another month and a half?” he asks, looking paler than usual, sitting between Nick and Kevin’s dad, Joe’s chin resting on the back of his seat. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t have a vagina.” Kevin says, folded into himself on the seat and trying not to whimper. “You pretty much have to throw out all the rules.”
*
When they take him into surgery, Mike follows and threatens nurses who try to stop him and is also shaking all over.
“Aren’t you supposed to be pacing the lobby, passing out cigars?” Kevin asks, and Mike grins at him.
“I’m not missing this,” he says, keeping up with the stretcher and wiping Kevin’s hair from his forehead when they stop. His fingers are still combing through Kevin’s hair when they give him something that makes everything feel way better and the doctor starts to tell him about the procedure.
*
“Congratulations, boys,” the doctor says, sometime later after the drugs have settled in and Kevin has had his insides all rearranged and Mike almost-but-didn’t pass out. The baby is crying, and Kevin can hardly breathe so he tugs on Mike’s hand lightly.
“We have a baby.” Mike says.
“A boy.” the doctor says. “A healthy boy.”
“We don’t have a name.” Kevin whispers.
“Joe?” Mike murmurs, and it hurts when Kevin laughs. He lays back and blinks up at the lights as they do all the necessary baby things before someone helps him lean up, and they slowly lower him into his arms. He’s just a little squirming thing, all wrinkled and pink and squinting at Kevin, and he can feel his heart do a weird flip up towards his throat.
“Hi,” he says, “hi, baby.”
“He looks like you.” Mike says.
“He looks like an alien,” Kevin says, “but I think he’s scowling at me. He got that from you.”
Mike can’t stop swearing under his breath when Kevin hands the baby up to him, and he cradles him close to his chest like he’s afraid that he’ll drop him, even though Kevin is pretty sure that he won’t.
When the nurse comes to ask the baby’s name, Kevin says: “Joseph” because he can’t think of anything else, and Mike gets down on his knees next to him and kisses his forehead, and the baby keeps his little baby hands in fists while Mike laughs and laughs.