Fill 1/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 03:17:48 UTC
Sherlock sat next to the bed, resting his hand on John's forehead. There was the barest hint of fringe, now that he'd gone weeks without a haircut, and it was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Sherlock smoothed it back, but John seemed hardly to notice, alternately staring up at the ceiling and screwing his eyes shut.
Sarah crouched by the side of the bed, adjusting the foetal monitor where it was strapped low on his protruding abdomen. She turned on the small speaker and Sherlock's breath caught for a moment as he heard the rapid beat of his child's heart.
"You're doing fine, John," she said. There was another monitor attached a bit higher, keeping track of his contractions, and she adjusted it minutely before standing.
"How much longer" John's voice was thin, higher than usual, the result of strain in his neck. Sherlock slipped a hand under his neck and kneaded the muscles there. John's eyes closed as he groaned, face softening a bit then tensing again as his abdomen tensed too. Sherlock wore no watch but he knew that the contractions had progressed to being about seven minutes apart.
"We're not sure, but John, we know that you and the baby are doing well."
John fixed her with a stare. "If I were a woman, what would you tell me?"
"The same." She turned her stethoscope over in her hands. It wasn't quite the truth and all three of them knew it. John's internal anatomy bore only a passing resemblance to a woman's. "Probably about an hour, or a bit more. Once your perineum starts to bulge, that's when we'll step in."
"Can't you just cut me now?" John sounded desperate, pleading, a tone Sherlock had never heard from him, even at his most exasperated.
"You know we can't. Sherlock, I need to speak to you."
Sherlock stood, reluctantly taking his hand out from beneath John's neck. Sarah waited for him in the corridor, the door open. The thick carpet muffled their steps, and their voices. Mycroft's country home had always been the last word in understated elegance, and now, over the last few months, the last word in security and medical equipment. The other pregnant males had been kept in what had been described as humane comfort in a secure undisclosed government medical centre. Sherlock hand told Mycroft that he'd be damned if that was going to be John's fate-- but it wasn't a threat that he could have carried out. Absconding with John would have meant risking his life and keeping him from the specialists who could help. Mycroft had relented, and every time he and John had taken a careful stroll around the gardens or slept in complete comfort in their canopied bed Sherlock had felt something uncomfortably akin to abject gratitude.
Fill 2/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 03:31:35 UTC
"I'm trying," Sherlock said, annoyed that she couldn't see that, but willing to defer to her medical expertise. "What else should I be doing?"
She shook her head slightly. "Sherlock, just look at him."
"I've done little else in the past twelve hours," Sherlock muttered, but complied. John was lying on his side, soft baggy track bottoms on, his chest bare in the warm room. He was slightly damp, and his fingers twined restlessly in the sheets.
"He's in pain," Sherlock said.
"Look just at his face. Forget the rest." The tone Sarah was taking with him was uncomfortably familiar-- it was the tone he took with John when John wasn't seeing something obvious.
He complied. John's eyes were glassy, fluttering shut as another contraction started. He goraned, worrying his lip in between his teeth. The contraction passed and he opened his eyes, shuddering. Focusing on his face alone, Sherlock realised he didn't look in pain so much as painfully aroused.
"Oh god."
"Exactly. You can go give him some relief. We won't watch. We'll just monitor his heart rate and the baby's heart rate as well."
"Which to my brother might as well be as good as watching," Sherlock muttered.
"Do you care at this point?"
"No." The answer was instantaneous.
"Good. Go. If you see his perineum bulging, call us at once." She walked off down the hall to where the next bedroom was, set up now with monitors and other medical equipment.
Sherlock tried to will his own heart to stop pounding as he walked back to John.
Instead of sitting next to him he laid himself down beside John, curled around his back. He cupped the back of John's head in one hand, and leaned towards him, brushing his lips against John's partially open mouth. He was surprised when both of John's hands came up to grab his head, holding Sherlock close, tongue pressing against his lips. Sherlock deepened the kiss, one hand running over John's chest, then lower. John groaned into Sherlock's mouth as Sherlock traced the swell of John's belly.
John pushed him away. "Get your shirt off. I need to feel you."
Sherlock sat up, undid his shirt buttons and tossed it away, then slid down on his side, pulling John close. He slipped his left arm under John's neck, cradling his head as they kissed again. When Sherlock lifted his head to take a deep breath John spoke.
"Touch my cock. Please."
Sherlock placed his hand on John's bellow below the heart monitor and slipped his hand beneath the loose trousers, shocked to find John's cock was curving up towards his protruding stomach.
"You're hard," he said, wrapping his fingers around the shaft.
Fill 3/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 03:41:33 UTC
In the months of his pregnancy John's erections, when they happened at all, had been softer, more malleable. Sherlock had put that down both to the surge of oestrogen as well as the stress of being a pregnant male under constant scrutiny and hidden from sight-- a sumptuous prison was still a prison-- and over the last month it had been practically quiescent, smaller, and John's bollocks had seemed to shrink as well.
Sherlocke smoothed his thumb over the head of John's cock, collecting th ebead of moisture there. She smeared it over John's shaft, then drew his hand away, bringing his thumb to his mouth. John tasted clean, almost sweet, without the deeper darker male scent Sherlock had grown used to, but still, unmistakably, John.
He rearranged himself so his left arm was under John's shoulders, reaching around just enough for his long fingers to tease at his nipple. john shuddered when Sherlock pinched, testing. He hadn't grown breasts, but his chest was softer, nipples puffier and more sensitive. Sherlock slid his other hand up and down John's shaft while alternated between kisisng his mouth-- glorious pressure of tongue against tongue, John's mouth almost in a frenzy against his, John's lips sealing against his and stealing Sherlock's very breath at times-- to kissing and licking at his closer nipple.
John gasped as Sherlock let his hair trail over John's chest before taking a warm, soft, delightful mouthful of nipple and surrounding areola into his mouth, tugging with his lips and tongue even as his hand tugged on John's cock.
Fill 4/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 03:50:38 UTC
John's gasps of pleasure turned to high pitched whimpers then deeper grunts and pants as a contraction gripped him, the swell of his stomach pressing hard against Sherlock's body where he was draped around him.
Sherlock tightened his arm around John's shoulders, feeling his back arch.
"It's ok, I've got you. I've got you John." In his hand John's cock pulsed, hot throb of blood beneath the skin fading as the contraction loosened.
"They're getting stronger," John said, his eyes fixed on some middle distance. "I wish I could explain what it was like. Pressure, like I'm being squeezed hard from the outside, and everything is concentrated down to my cock, and balls, and the space behind my balls. It just throbs. It's not quite an ache. It's intense."
"Does it hurt?" Sherlock felt lost in a description of something he had no reference for.
John laughed. "Oh, it hurts. But it's nothing like getting shot." He gently thrust his hips, reminding Sherlock that he still had John's cock in his hand. "This helps."
Sherlock kept his face turned in to the crook of John's neck as they settled back down, in the uneasy space between contractions. He breathed in John's scent, listened to his breath. In the last few weeks they'd not been this close for long, John's discomfort and the anxiety that both of them had felt keeping them to less intimate postures. Even though the next contraction loomed Sherlock found himself slipping into a peaceful languor in the warm room, John's cock a familiar weight in his hand.
Fill 5/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 03:59:48 UTC
John shifted so he was lying more on his back as Sherlock slid away from him, his left arm warm and damp from being beneath John's back for so long. He slid down the bed, pulling John's trousers all the way off and tossing them to the floor.
Sherlock laid his hands over the curve of John's belly, spreading his fingers, pressing down over the straps of the two monitors. The baby inside had been an endless source of inquiry and wonder- kicking at random, in response to the violin, and even in response to his voice. Now, with John's body so tightened up, labouring, there was no overt kicking, only a sense of movement within.
Sherlock kissed the head of John's cock, (he'd learned that intimate gestures were appreciated in moments like these, even though the fact of intimacy was obvious) then ran his tongue around the crown before sliding down and taking John in to the root.
John's hands grasped the backs of Sherlock's hands as he cried out. His contraction tightened his belly and only served to force his cock further into Sherlock's mouth, not quite to the point of gagging. Sherlock held on, feeling John's cock pulsate in his mouth without release for the duration of the contraction. Finally it abated and John loosened his hands.
"Fuck, I need," he stuttered out, at a loss for how to ask for what he needed.
Fill 6/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 04:33:58 UTC
Sherlock took his mouth away and looked around the room. On a table near the bed there were already some supplies laid out for the birth, including s stainless steel bowl full of mineral oil. He reached for it and glanced at John.
"Yes."
He dipped his fingers in the oil, brought his fingers to the cleft of John's arse, slipped effortlessly towards his opening. John groaned low in his throat when Sherlocked pressed into him. Sherlock returned his mouth to John's cock, sucking hard as he worked his way in deeper, a heavy pressure over his finger that normally was not there.
Despite all the other changes that had taken place in his body, John's prostate was still intact, a smooth firm bulge under the pad of Sherlock's finger and he pressed down, tracing down the sulcus as he always did.
As Sherlock massaged his prostate John's cock hardened and lengthened within his mouth, John's hands grabbing at Sherlock's hair as he writhed on the bed, a staccato whimper punctuating his every breath.
Tears formed at the corners of Sherlock's eyes as John's cock bumped into his throat, and as John became tighter, the shifting mass inside him crushing against Sherlock's finger, pressing him even closer to John's prostate. His whimper became a sustained scream as he came, cock pulsating as he filled Sherlock's mouth with come.
Sherlock pulled himself away, swallowing, flexing his hand carefully-- not broken, only bruised. John's cock was soft, but he was still moaning, head tossing back and forth on the bed. He touched John's belly-- there had been an obvious shift, the curve much lower now.
"John?"
"The pressure, oh my god, the pressure."
Sherlock sat back, ready to run to the next room, to get Sarah, but she was already opening the door, leading in two other doctors in white coats.
"We're here John," she said, her voice kind, but loud enough to cut through John's own moans. "You're going to meet your baby soon."
"Fucking end it, I can't take this." John's eyes were screwed shut again, his hands and arms flailing. Sherlock grabbed his hands, held on, just to give him a sense of being connected to something.
"Soon." Sara guided Sherlock to sit behind John, supporting his torso, then turned John to lie on his side. "Sherlock, can you hold his leg up?"
Sherlock nodded, hooked his forearm under John's knee, holding him open so that the doctors had a clear view of his perineum. By leaning forward and craning his neck Sherlock could see that it was indeed bulging. He looked away as one of the doctors used paper tape to secure John's penis and scrotum to the front of his pelvis, leaving his perineum as open as it could possibly be.
As soon as that was done they began swabbing him with iodine, covering him from thigh to thigh. His perineum bulged more with a contraction, then returned to its previous state, and Sherlock had the sick thought that if they didn't make a controlled cut John was going to burst open anyway.
"Almost ready John, just waiting for the iodine to dry."
"I know how a damn iodine scrub works, dammit," John muttered. Sherlock kneaded the back of his thigh the best he could, tried to think of something soothing to say, and couldn't, settled for making a simple shhh noise near his ear.
"You might feel a little pinch as we put the anesthetic in," Sarah said. One of the doctors was instilling beads of a local anesthetic under his skin.
"You could shoot me with a fucking uzi and I wouldn't feel it right now," John muttered, fairly vibrating in Sherlock's arms.
"Try to hold still now. We're placing a pudendal nerve block, so you won't be able to feel the incision."
"Fine, yeah. Ok."
Sherlock watched as the second doctor took his place, as he was handed his scalpel, as Sarah adjusted the lamp for him. He felt fascination, of course, but it was dulled by concern for John. As he pressed a kiss to the crown of John's head, he realised that the emotion dulling his senses was fear.
Fill 7/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 04:51:03 UTC
"Alright, John, you're open."
Sherlock sighed with relief, but John evidently felt no such thing. The sheets beneath his spread legs were marked with blood, but nowhere near as much as Sherlock would have guessed. He was split open now from sac to hole, and it didn't seem like it could possibly be a big enough space.
"The next time you have a contraction, you have to push, hard," Sarah said.
"I know." John's voice was shaking, something Sherlock had never, ever heard before. "Here it comes."
John's face turned red as he pushed, the redness spreading to his neck, then his chest, as he struggled to move the baby towards the opening that had so carefully been made in his body. When he released his breath it sounded like a sob.
"Good John," the doctor between his legs said. It was a man, Sherlock realised, he hadn't even observed what the other doctors looked like, couldn't have picked them up out of a line-up. John was the only person in the room that mattered. "Just a few more."
"I can't," John began.
"You can," Sarah said.
"Shut up. I can't organise my muscles," John said. "It's all chaos."
"Sometimes it's easier if there's something in the rectum. We've had good results with two fingers," the doctor offered.
"Is that all right with you, John?" Sarah asked.
"I want Sherlock to do it."
Sarah looked to him, and Sherlock nodded. Sarah carefully traded places with him, hooking her arm under John's leg.
The second doctor was another woman, Sherlock realized, who guided him in putting on a pair of sterile gloves, then gestured for him to dip his fingers into the oil.
"I've already had my bare fingers in that tonight," Sherlock admitted.
"Then just hold your fingers over the bowl," she said, then poured oil from the bottle over them.
When Sherlock crouched beside John he could see the slit they'd made through his perineum, like an artificial vagina. The doctor noticed him looking and adjusted the lamp so he could see better.
"You can see there's already a passage here, partially normal male anatomy, partially the changes of the pregnancy. That dark curve is the amniotic sac. In a woman we'd consider rupturing it, but as long as it stays intact it is protection for the infant."
"Right." Sherlock crouched under the bend of John's knee, pressed his fingers against the iodine-stained pucker of his arse. "Ready, John?"
"I'm ready. Hurry."
Sherlock pressed, ready for the tight pressure inside, pressing his fingers against the mass within, giving John something to push against.
Fill 8/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 06:29:38 UTC
The pressure, when it came, was enough to bring tears to his eyes. He pushed his free hand into John's tailbone, trying to counter the pressure that John was feeling in his own body.
Sarah was speaking low to him, a constant murmur push, push, push. The pressure went on and on, until finally there was a sudden splash, a sound like a faucet on, and Sherlock's feet were covered in warm liquid.
"Ok, amniotic sac is broken. John, you need to try to push this baby out in the next three contractions."
John's only answer was open-mouthed panting, and the crushing pain on Sherlock's fingers as he bore down. There was a shifting inside him, a shuddering movement downwards. Sherlock turned his head, saw the doctor pushing pads of cotton wool above and below John's opening, soaking up the blood that trickled from his split skin, framing the dark bloody mass that was pushing through, opening him even more.
"Is that?" Sherlock asked, scared to be wrong.
"Yes," the doctor said. The other woman poured mineral oil over John's perineum, washing away some of the blood, making the dark whorls of hair on the top of the baby's head even more distinct. "John, we can see the head."
"It burns."
In the next contraction though Sherlock watched in shock as somehow John's body opened up enough to reveal the entire crown of the head, and then, after some unknowable tipping point, a face-- closed eyes, furrowed brow, chin upturned from resting on John's body.
Sarah guided John's hand down between his legs so he could touch, could feel the reality of what was happening. Sherlock watched as John's fingers brushed over the baby's forehead and face, realized that but for a thin membrane they were both touching the same infant.
"Sherlock, no more," John said, his voice breaking. "I can do it without your fingers in me."
Sherlock drew his hand away, peeled off the gloves and stood, instinctively returning to the bed, to his spot behind John. He arranged himself there quickly, Sarah continuing to hold John's leg as she stood at the side of the bed, leaving Sherlock with nothing to do but see to John.
Fill 9/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 23 2011, 07:14:06 UTC
When Sherlock leaned forward to kiss him John reached up and held his head in place so he could whisper at Sherlock's ear.
"The shoulders. It's going to hurt."
"You can do this." Sherlock let his hands rest on John's chest, kneading the skin there, taking the nipples between his thumb and forefinger on each side. The amount of oxytocin released at this point had to be minimal, but maybe it would be enough to help.
"Fuck," John shouted, twisting as much as he could considering his position, his leg still being held up and flexed back by Sarah. He turned his neck far enough to push his face into Sherlock's chest, opened his mouth as if to scream, and instead bit down hard on Sherlock's chest, the wide circle of his teeth pressing in hard to his pec, tongue just resting over his nipple as his jaws squeezed tighter and tighter, drawing blood now, surely, the strength of his scream such that it was barely muffled at all.
Sherlock forced himself to keep his eyes open through the pain, to keep looking down over John's shoulder to where the doctor was busy, freeing an arm first, then a shoulder, then the second shoulder and the entire body in one quick slithering rush. John released himself from Sherlock's chest and laid back, his leg finally allowed to relax as he reclined.
The baby was quickly suctioned with a syringe bulb, then laid on John's chest and toweled off vigorously by Sarah, the thin cry increasing in strength until it was a solid newborn wail.
"It's a girl," Sarah told them as she took her hands away. The baby had four hands holding her to John's chest, Sherlock realized, two of them his. Her cries quieted quickly as John cooed at her, shifting her so that she looked up at him with wide, serious eyes.
"I think she has your eyes," John said.
It's far too early to tell, and besides, seeking objective familial resemblance in a newborn infant is merely an evolutionary tic meant to foster attachment between a time and resource consuming infant and the parents who had to risk their own lives to ensure the continuation of their DNA. Sherlock thought all of it and for one of the first times in his life held his tongue.
"I hope she looks like you," he said, tracing a fingertip down her cheek. She turned towards his finger, mouth open.
"Good reflexes," Sarah said softly. "Sherlock, you can take her into the other room. Mycroft is waiting to meet her. John, I'm sorry but you know we have to take you into the sterile room to close you up."
"I know." He kissed the top of his daughter's head, then kissed Sherlock.
Sarah left the baby on his chest for the moment while she lifted the towel and attached a plastic clamp to the cord, flush with her skin. "That will stay on until the cord dries up and falls off." She offered a pair of surgical scissors to Sherlock. "Do you want to cut it?"
Sherlock fought down the irrational feeling that he was doing something wrong and took the scissors, had to squeeze hard on the handles to sever the cord that for the last nine months had connected her to John's bloodstream.
"Good," Sarah said while someone else, yet another faceless pair of hands, in Sherlock's mind, took the scissors away. "Now we really have to take John." She scooped up the baby and John let himself be transferred to a stretcher, wincing as he did.
"I think that nerve block is wearing off," he said.
"We'll give you something better."
Sherlock stood next to the stretcher, gave John one more kiss before he was wheeled away. He'd relentlessly grilled Mycroft for information-- none of the other gestational fathers had died in surgery, nor had there been any life threatening infections. It was irrational to be so frightened. He took his daughter in his arms as John was pushed out of the room, turned right to see Mycroft, rather than left, to follow John. The pull to follow was fading, though-- still strong, but not undeniable. To follow would mean to leave her without either of her parents to hold her, and that too was unthinkable.
Fill 10/? S/J MPREG
anonymous
October 24 2011, 00:50:10 UTC
In the next room Mycroft was waiting, along with a paediatrician who needed to examine the baby, take blood from her heel, weigh her, and stick tiny EKG electrodes on her. Sherlock bristled at him with every step, barely held in check by Mycroft's low words.
Finally he held his daughter in his arms, freshly wiped down, pink cap and babygro in place, her first nappy still clean and dry. Her eyes were still open, and, he imagined, judgmental.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry you've had such a rude introduction to this world. I'd like to tell you that it will get better." He paused and thought for a moment. "Actually, over the next few years, it will be quite a lot better, if I've anything to say in the matter."
Mycroft's smile was downright indulgent, and Sherlock sighed, barely believing that he'd been caught talking to her as if she could understand.
"If I've anything to say about it, too."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "We're raising her, Mycroft. She is no longer the purview of the British government. Never was, really, though her father was as good as a guest of the crown over the last few months."
"You are raising her, but I can spoil her from time to time, can I not?"
"You may as well say yes," Anthea said, walking up behind Mycroft. "He's already added it to his schedules over the next eighteen years."
"An exaggeration," Mycroft said.
Anthea handed Sherlock a bottle. "Try a bit of this," she said. "It's breastmilk."
Sherlock started, and the baby waved her arms, startled.
"It's from a bank, from donors," she clarified.
"Oh, good, then." Sherlock touched the nipple to the side of her face, waited for her turn towards it, mouth open. He bumped it gently against her lips, watched for her wide-open mouth before he pushed it in. He tested her latch by pulling back slightly on the bottle, and she fought him.
"She's strong," he said.
"She is," Mycroft said. "But she needs every advantage."
Sherlock fed and winded her with gentle guidance from Anthea. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the screen that held John's vitals, the steady up and down wave of respirations, the jagged but consistent EKG.
"How much longer?" he asked his brother. His daughter drowsed in his arms, nearly sleeping.
"In surgery, an hour. To wake up, another thirty minutes."
Sherlock sighed.
"She should be wet by now," Mycroft said. "Let me change her."
When he brought the baby back she was wearing only her hat and diaper. He had a pink blanket draped over one arm.
"She'll get cold like that Mycroft," Sherlock said, annoyed.
"Go lie on the sofa," Mycroft said. "We're going to have her lie on you for a while. You'll keep her warm."
Sherlock shifted, lying back on the chaise, feeling dangerously sleepy in the warm room, even more so when Mycroft laid the baby against his chest, her soft warm skin against his, and the blanket over both of them.
"I'm going to fall asleep," he protested.
"We'll watch you," Mycroft said. "You're quite secure. The sofa is wide and you're in a very secure position. Even if she did slip it would wake you immediately."
"Promise me." The soft puffs of her breath against his clavicle were mesmerising.
"I promise. Anthea and I will both watch you."
"All right." Sherlock could feel himself falling asleep, but caught one last thing that Mycroft said.
Sarah crouched by the side of the bed, adjusting the foetal monitor where it was strapped low on his protruding abdomen. She turned on the small speaker and Sherlock's breath caught for a moment as he heard the rapid beat of his child's heart.
"You're doing fine, John," she said. There was another monitor attached a bit higher, keeping track of his contractions, and she adjusted it minutely before standing.
"How much longer" John's voice was thin, higher than usual, the result of strain in his neck. Sherlock slipped a hand under his neck and kneaded the muscles there. John's eyes closed as he groaned, face softening a bit then tensing again as his abdomen tensed too. Sherlock wore no watch but he knew that the contractions had progressed to being about seven minutes apart.
"We're not sure, but John, we know that you and the baby are doing well."
John fixed her with a stare. "If I were a woman, what would you tell me?"
"The same." She turned her stethoscope over in her hands. It wasn't quite the truth and all three of them knew it. John's internal anatomy bore only a passing resemblance to a woman's. "Probably about an hour, or a bit more. Once your perineum starts to bulge, that's when we'll step in."
"Can't you just cut me now?" John sounded desperate, pleading, a tone Sherlock had never heard from him, even at his most exasperated.
"You know we can't. Sherlock, I need to speak to you."
Sherlock stood, reluctantly taking his hand out from beneath John's neck. Sarah waited for him in the corridor, the door open. The thick carpet muffled their steps, and their voices. Mycroft's country home had always been the last word in understated elegance, and now, over the last few months, the last word in security and medical equipment. The other pregnant males had been kept in what had been described as humane comfort in a secure undisclosed government medical centre. Sherlock hand told Mycroft that he'd be damned if that was going to be John's fate-- but it wasn't a threat that he could have carried out. Absconding with John would have meant risking his life and keeping him from the specialists who could help. Mycroft had relented, and every time he and John had taken a careful stroll around the gardens or slept in complete comfort in their canopied bed Sherlock had felt something uncomfortably akin to abject gratitude.
Sarah's voice broke into his reverie.
"Sherlock, you can help him."
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She shook her head slightly. "Sherlock, just look at him."
"I've done little else in the past twelve hours," Sherlock muttered, but complied. John was lying on his side, soft baggy track bottoms on, his chest bare in the warm room. He was slightly damp, and his fingers twined restlessly in the sheets.
"He's in pain," Sherlock said.
"Look just at his face. Forget the rest." The tone Sarah was taking with him was uncomfortably familiar-- it was the tone he took with John when John wasn't seeing something obvious.
He complied. John's eyes were glassy, fluttering shut as another contraction started. He goraned, worrying his lip in between his teeth. The contraction passed and he opened his eyes, shuddering. Focusing on his face alone, Sherlock realised he didn't look in pain so much as painfully aroused.
"Oh god."
"Exactly. You can go give him some relief. We won't watch. We'll just monitor his heart rate and the baby's heart rate as well."
"Which to my brother might as well be as good as watching," Sherlock muttered.
"Do you care at this point?"
"No." The answer was instantaneous.
"Good. Go. If you see his perineum bulging, call us at once." She walked off down the hall to where the next bedroom was, set up now with monitors and other medical equipment.
Sherlock tried to will his own heart to stop pounding as he walked back to John.
Instead of sitting next to him he laid himself down beside John, curled around his back. He cupped the back of John's head in one hand, and leaned towards him, brushing his lips against John's partially open mouth. He was surprised when both of John's hands came up to grab his head, holding Sherlock close, tongue pressing against his lips. Sherlock deepened the kiss, one hand running over John's chest, then lower. John groaned into Sherlock's mouth as Sherlock traced the swell of John's belly.
John pushed him away. "Get your shirt off. I need to feel you."
Sherlock sat up, undid his shirt buttons and tossed it away, then slid down on his side, pulling John close. He slipped his left arm under John's neck, cradling his head as they kissed again. When Sherlock lifted his head to take a deep breath John spoke.
"Touch my cock. Please."
Sherlock placed his hand on John's bellow below the heart monitor and slipped his hand beneath the loose trousers, shocked to find John's cock was curving up towards his protruding stomach.
"You're hard," he said, wrapping his fingers around the shaft.
"Yeah." John arched into the touch.
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Sherlocke smoothed his thumb over the head of John's cock, collecting th ebead of moisture there. She smeared it over John's shaft, then drew his hand away, bringing his thumb to his mouth. John tasted clean, almost sweet, without the deeper darker male scent Sherlock had grown used to, but still, unmistakably, John.
He rearranged himself so his left arm was under John's shoulders, reaching around just enough for his long fingers to tease at his nipple. john shuddered when Sherlock pinched, testing. He hadn't grown breasts, but his chest was softer, nipples puffier and more sensitive. Sherlock slid his other hand up and down John's shaft while alternated between kisisng his mouth-- glorious pressure of tongue against tongue, John's mouth almost in a frenzy against his, John's lips sealing against his and stealing Sherlock's very breath at times-- to kissing and licking at his closer nipple.
John gasped as Sherlock let his hair trail over John's chest before taking a warm, soft, delightful mouthful of nipple and surrounding areola into his mouth, tugging with his lips and tongue even as his hand tugged on John's cock.
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Sherlock tightened his arm around John's shoulders, feeling his back arch.
"It's ok, I've got you. I've got you John." In his hand John's cock pulsed, hot throb of blood beneath the skin fading as the contraction loosened.
"They're getting stronger," John said, his eyes fixed on some middle distance. "I wish I could explain what it was like. Pressure, like I'm being squeezed hard from the outside, and everything is concentrated down to my cock, and balls, and the space behind my balls. It just throbs. It's not quite an ache. It's intense."
"Does it hurt?" Sherlock felt lost in a description of something he had no reference for.
John laughed. "Oh, it hurts. But it's nothing like getting shot." He gently thrust his hips, reminding Sherlock that he still had John's cock in his hand. "This helps."
Sherlock kept his face turned in to the crook of John's neck as they settled back down, in the uneasy space between contractions. He breathed in John's scent, listened to his breath. In the last few weeks they'd not been this close for long, John's discomfort and the anxiety that both of them had felt keeping them to less intimate postures. Even though the next contraction loomed Sherlock found himself slipping into a peaceful languor in the warm room, John's cock a familiar weight in his hand.
"Sherlock?"
"Yes?" He lifted his face from John's neck.
"Please suck me."
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Sherlock laid his hands over the curve of John's belly, spreading his fingers, pressing down over the straps of the two monitors. The baby inside had been an endless source of inquiry and wonder- kicking at random, in response to the violin, and even in response to his voice. Now, with John's body so tightened up, labouring, there was no overt kicking, only a sense of movement within.
Sherlock kissed the head of John's cock, (he'd learned that intimate gestures were appreciated in moments like these, even though the fact of intimacy was obvious) then ran his tongue around the crown before sliding down and taking John in to the root.
John's hands grasped the backs of Sherlock's hands as he cried out. His contraction tightened his belly and only served to force his cock further into Sherlock's mouth, not quite to the point of gagging. Sherlock held on, feeling John's cock pulsate in his mouth without release for the duration of the contraction. Finally it abated and John loosened his hands.
"Fuck, I need," he stuttered out, at a loss for how to ask for what he needed.
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"Yes."
He dipped his fingers in the oil, brought his fingers to the cleft of John's arse, slipped effortlessly towards his opening. John groaned low in his throat when Sherlocked pressed into him. Sherlock returned his mouth to John's cock, sucking hard as he worked his way in deeper, a heavy pressure over his finger that normally was not there.
Despite all the other changes that had taken place in his body, John's prostate was still intact, a smooth firm bulge under the pad of Sherlock's finger and he pressed down, tracing down the sulcus as he always did.
As Sherlock massaged his prostate John's cock hardened and lengthened within his mouth, John's hands grabbing at Sherlock's hair as he writhed on the bed, a staccato whimper punctuating his every breath.
Tears formed at the corners of Sherlock's eyes as John's cock bumped into his throat, and as John became tighter, the shifting mass inside him crushing against Sherlock's finger, pressing him even closer to John's prostate. His whimper became a sustained scream as he came, cock pulsating as he filled Sherlock's mouth with come.
Sherlock pulled himself away, swallowing, flexing his hand carefully-- not broken, only bruised. John's cock was soft, but he was still moaning, head tossing back and forth on the bed. He touched John's belly-- there had been an obvious shift, the curve much lower now.
"John?"
"The pressure, oh my god, the pressure."
Sherlock sat back, ready to run to the next room, to get Sarah, but she was already opening the door, leading in two other doctors in white coats.
"We're here John," she said, her voice kind, but loud enough to cut through John's own moans. "You're going to meet your baby soon."
"Fucking end it, I can't take this." John's eyes were screwed shut again, his hands and arms flailing. Sherlock grabbed his hands, held on, just to give him a sense of being connected to something.
"Soon." Sara guided Sherlock to sit behind John, supporting his torso, then turned John to lie on his side. "Sherlock, can you hold his leg up?"
Sherlock nodded, hooked his forearm under John's knee, holding him open so that the doctors had a clear view of his perineum. By leaning forward and craning his neck Sherlock could see that it was indeed bulging. He looked away as one of the doctors used paper tape to secure John's penis and scrotum to the front of his pelvis, leaving his perineum as open as it could possibly be.
As soon as that was done they began swabbing him with iodine, covering him from thigh to thigh. His perineum bulged more with a contraction, then returned to its previous state, and Sherlock had the sick thought that if they didn't make a controlled cut John was going to burst open anyway.
"Almost ready John, just waiting for the iodine to dry."
"I know how a damn iodine scrub works, dammit," John muttered. Sherlock kneaded the back of his thigh the best he could, tried to think of something soothing to say, and couldn't, settled for making a simple shhh noise near his ear.
"You might feel a little pinch as we put the anesthetic in," Sarah said. One of the doctors was instilling beads of a local anesthetic under his skin.
"You could shoot me with a fucking uzi and I wouldn't feel it right now," John muttered, fairly vibrating in Sherlock's arms.
"Try to hold still now. We're placing a pudendal nerve block, so you won't be able to feel the incision."
"Fine, yeah. Ok."
Sherlock watched as the second doctor took his place, as he was handed his scalpel, as Sarah adjusted the lamp for him. He felt fascination, of course, but it was dulled by concern for John. As he pressed a kiss to the crown of John's head, he realised that the emotion dulling his senses was fear.
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Sherlock sighed with relief, but John evidently felt no such thing. The sheets beneath his spread legs were marked with blood, but nowhere near as much as Sherlock would have guessed. He was split open now from sac to hole, and it didn't seem like it could possibly be a big enough space.
"The next time you have a contraction, you have to push, hard," Sarah said.
"I know." John's voice was shaking, something Sherlock had never, ever heard before. "Here it comes."
John's face turned red as he pushed, the redness spreading to his neck, then his chest, as he struggled to move the baby towards the opening that had so carefully been made in his body. When he released his breath it sounded like a sob.
"Good John," the doctor between his legs said. It was a man, Sherlock realised, he hadn't even observed what the other doctors looked like, couldn't have picked them up out of a line-up. John was the only person in the room that mattered. "Just a few more."
"I can't," John began.
"You can," Sarah said.
"Shut up. I can't organise my muscles," John said. "It's all chaos."
"Sometimes it's easier if there's something in the rectum. We've had good results with two fingers," the doctor offered.
"Is that all right with you, John?" Sarah asked.
"I want Sherlock to do it."
Sarah looked to him, and Sherlock nodded. Sarah carefully traded places with him, hooking her arm under John's leg.
The second doctor was another woman, Sherlock realized, who guided him in putting on a pair of sterile gloves, then gestured for him to dip his fingers into the oil.
"I've already had my bare fingers in that tonight," Sherlock admitted.
"Then just hold your fingers over the bowl," she said, then poured oil from the bottle over them.
When Sherlock crouched beside John he could see the slit they'd made through his perineum, like an artificial vagina. The doctor noticed him looking and adjusted the lamp so he could see better.
"You can see there's already a passage here, partially normal male anatomy, partially the changes of the pregnancy. That dark curve is the amniotic sac. In a woman we'd consider rupturing it, but as long as it stays intact it is protection for the infant."
"Right." Sherlock crouched under the bend of John's knee, pressed his fingers against the iodine-stained pucker of his arse. "Ready, John?"
"I'm ready. Hurry."
Sherlock pressed, ready for the tight pressure inside, pressing his fingers against the mass within, giving John something to push against.
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Sarah was speaking low to him, a constant murmur push, push, push. The pressure went on and on, until finally there was a sudden splash, a sound like a faucet on, and Sherlock's feet were covered in warm liquid.
"Ok, amniotic sac is broken. John, you need to try to push this baby out in the next three contractions."
John's only answer was open-mouthed panting, and the crushing pain on Sherlock's fingers as he bore down. There was a shifting inside him, a shuddering movement downwards. Sherlock turned his head, saw the doctor pushing pads of cotton wool above and below John's opening, soaking up the blood that trickled from his split skin, framing the dark bloody mass that was pushing through, opening him even more.
"Is that?" Sherlock asked, scared to be wrong.
"Yes," the doctor said. The other woman poured mineral oil over John's perineum, washing away some of the blood, making the dark whorls of hair on the top of the baby's head even more distinct. "John, we can see the head."
"It burns."
In the next contraction though Sherlock watched in shock as somehow John's body opened up enough to reveal the entire crown of the head, and then, after some unknowable tipping point, a face-- closed eyes, furrowed brow, chin upturned from resting on John's body.
Sarah guided John's hand down between his legs so he could touch, could feel the reality of what was happening. Sherlock watched as John's fingers brushed over the baby's forehead and face, realized that but for a thin membrane they were both touching the same infant.
"Sherlock, no more," John said, his voice breaking. "I can do it without your fingers in me."
Sherlock drew his hand away, peeled off the gloves and stood, instinctively returning to the bed, to his spot behind John. He arranged himself there quickly, Sarah continuing to hold John's leg as she stood at the side of the bed, leaving Sherlock with nothing to do but see to John.
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"The shoulders. It's going to hurt."
"You can do this." Sherlock let his hands rest on John's chest, kneading the skin there, taking the nipples between his thumb and forefinger on each side. The amount of oxytocin released at this point had to be minimal, but maybe it would be enough to help.
"Fuck," John shouted, twisting as much as he could considering his position, his leg still being held up and flexed back by Sarah. He turned his neck far enough to push his face into Sherlock's chest, opened his mouth as if to scream, and instead bit down hard on Sherlock's chest, the wide circle of his teeth pressing in hard to his pec, tongue just resting over his nipple as his jaws squeezed tighter and tighter, drawing blood now, surely, the strength of his scream such that it was barely muffled at all.
Sherlock forced himself to keep his eyes open through the pain, to keep looking down over John's shoulder to where the doctor was busy, freeing an arm first, then a shoulder, then the second shoulder and the entire body in one quick slithering rush. John released himself from Sherlock's chest and laid back, his leg finally allowed to relax as he reclined.
The baby was quickly suctioned with a syringe bulb, then laid on John's chest and toweled off vigorously by Sarah, the thin cry increasing in strength until it was a solid newborn wail.
"It's a girl," Sarah told them as she took her hands away. The baby had four hands holding her to John's chest, Sherlock realized, two of them his. Her cries quieted quickly as John cooed at her, shifting her so that she looked up at him with wide, serious eyes.
"I think she has your eyes," John said.
It's far too early to tell, and besides, seeking objective familial resemblance in a newborn infant is merely an evolutionary tic meant to foster attachment between a time and resource consuming infant and the parents who had to risk their own lives to ensure the continuation of their DNA. Sherlock thought all of it and for one of the first times in his life held his tongue.
"I hope she looks like you," he said, tracing a fingertip down her cheek. She turned towards his finger, mouth open.
"Good reflexes," Sarah said softly. "Sherlock, you can take her into the other room. Mycroft is waiting to meet her. John, I'm sorry but you know we have to take you into the sterile room to close you up."
"I know." He kissed the top of his daughter's head, then kissed Sherlock.
Sarah left the baby on his chest for the moment while she lifted the towel and attached a plastic clamp to the cord, flush with her skin. "That will stay on until the cord dries up and falls off." She offered a pair of surgical scissors to Sherlock. "Do you want to cut it?"
Sherlock fought down the irrational feeling that he was doing something wrong and took the scissors, had to squeeze hard on the handles to sever the cord that for the last nine months had connected her to John's bloodstream.
"Good," Sarah said while someone else, yet another faceless pair of hands, in Sherlock's mind, took the scissors away. "Now we really have to take John." She scooped up the baby and John let himself be transferred to a stretcher, wincing as he did.
"I think that nerve block is wearing off," he said.
"We'll give you something better."
Sherlock stood next to the stretcher, gave John one more kiss before he was wheeled away. He'd relentlessly grilled Mycroft for information-- none of the other gestational fathers had died in surgery, nor had there been any life threatening infections. It was irrational to be so frightened. He took his daughter in his arms as John was pushed out of the room, turned right to see Mycroft, rather than left, to follow John. The pull to follow was fading, though-- still strong, but not undeniable. To follow would mean to leave her without either of her parents to hold her, and that too was unthinkable.
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Finally he held his daughter in his arms, freshly wiped down, pink cap and babygro in place, her first nappy still clean and dry. Her eyes were still open, and, he imagined, judgmental.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry you've had such a rude introduction to this world. I'd like to tell you that it will get better." He paused and thought for a moment. "Actually, over the next few years, it will be quite a lot better, if I've anything to say in the matter."
Mycroft's smile was downright indulgent, and Sherlock sighed, barely believing that he'd been caught talking to her as if she could understand.
"If I've anything to say about it, too."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "We're raising her, Mycroft. She is no longer the purview of the British government. Never was, really, though her father was as good as a guest of the crown over the last few months."
"You are raising her, but I can spoil her from time to time, can I not?"
"You may as well say yes," Anthea said, walking up behind Mycroft. "He's already added it to his schedules over the next eighteen years."
"An exaggeration," Mycroft said.
Anthea handed Sherlock a bottle. "Try a bit of this," she said. "It's breastmilk."
Sherlock started, and the baby waved her arms, startled.
"It's from a bank, from donors," she clarified.
"Oh, good, then." Sherlock touched the nipple to the side of her face, waited for her turn towards it, mouth open. He bumped it gently against her lips, watched for her wide-open mouth before he pushed it in. He tested her latch by pulling back slightly on the bottle, and she fought him.
"She's strong," he said.
"She is," Mycroft said. "But she needs every advantage."
Sherlock fed and winded her with gentle guidance from Anthea. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the screen that held John's vitals, the steady up and down wave of respirations, the jagged but consistent EKG.
"How much longer?" he asked his brother. His daughter drowsed in his arms, nearly sleeping.
"In surgery, an hour. To wake up, another thirty minutes."
Sherlock sighed.
"She should be wet by now," Mycroft said. "Let me change her."
When he brought the baby back she was wearing only her hat and diaper. He had a pink blanket draped over one arm.
"She'll get cold like that Mycroft," Sherlock said, annoyed.
"Go lie on the sofa," Mycroft said. "We're going to have her lie on you for a while. You'll keep her warm."
Sherlock shifted, lying back on the chaise, feeling dangerously sleepy in the warm room, even more so when Mycroft laid the baby against his chest, her soft warm skin against his, and the blanket over both of them.
"I'm going to fall asleep," he protested.
"We'll watch you," Mycroft said. "You're quite secure. The sofa is wide and you're in a very secure position. Even if she did slip it would wake you immediately."
"Promise me." The soft puffs of her breath against his clavicle were mesmerising.
"I promise. Anthea and I will both watch you."
"All right." Sherlock could feel himself falling asleep, but caught one last thing that Mycroft said.
"This is good for her. You're doing well."
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