look at what you all made me do
+“Interesting,” says Dr. Forsyth, examining Arthur's tail, yet again. “Mm. Yes. Fascinating.”
Arthur, scowling, resists the urge to snatch his tail out of the man's hands. Eames clears his throat and says quickly, “Have you ever seen anyone like Arthur before?”
“Mm. Once,” says Dr. Forsyth, blinking beadily behind his glasses. He straightens up. “Twenty years ago or so. He was very old and sick. Told me his species would die with him.” He blinks at Arthur. “Evidently not.”
Arthur's tail slinks out of the doctor's reach, and Arthur now has to bite back the urge to snap at him. He isn't being very helpful. Eames swears by this doctor, though, saying his family have been treating werewolves for generations. His bedside manner isn't all there, but he's incredibly good at what he does.
“Funny, though,” Dr. Forsyth says, as if just remembering. “That man had a second set of ears, as well. Feline. Yes.”
He studies Arthur's hair like he expects eartips to be poking out. Arthur scowls.
“I don't have those,” he says. “Cosmetic surgery.”
“Ah.” This seems to make perfect sense to the old man. “I see.”
He turns away and starts tidying up his equipment, thermometers and a blood pressure meter and things. Eames deflates at Arthur's side.
“So you don't know what's wrong with him, then,” he says.
“I never said that, did I?” says Dr. Forsyth sharply. He turns around, lips pursed, and looks remarkably like a turtle. “Of course I know what's wrong with him. He's expecting.”
+At home, Arthur curls up in bed, lying on his side.
He doesn't feel pregnant. He feels very angry and very exhausted. Mostly angry, though.
After a long time, during which he lies there glaring at the wall, he hears a sound behind him. At once he turns over with a hiss, muscles tensed to strike, but Eames is standing out of his reach, at the edge of the other side of the bed.
He holds up both hands, conciliatory.
“Are you going to throw something at me again if I come to bed?” he asks slowly, softly.
Arthur glares at him. Then, eventually, he drops his gaze and rolls over again so that his back is to Eames.
At once he feels the bed dip under Eames' weight and then his partner is there, a warm solid mass at his back, curving his body to fit Arthur's. His arm slides over Arthur's belly, clasping him tight, and he nuzzles the nape of Arthur's neck while pressing kisses there. Adoration seeps off of him. Arthur could turn around, lightning-quick, and attack, and Eames doesn't care. He just wants to be close to Arthur.
“Sorry for shouting,” Arthur mumbles, giving up. He's too tired to sustain this degree of anger. Eames nuzzles him again, humming softly.
“That's okay.”
It's not okay, Arthur realizes. His reaction had been-maybe not out of proportion, given the circumstances, but irrational, yes. He'd yelled at Eames, thrown things, even struck him on the chest, as if hurting the man he loves could make this better.
And Eames-Eames had not yelled back. Eames had not told Arthur he was being irrational. He'd ducked whatever Arthur threw, and winced when Arthur hit him, even though it couldn't have hurt him, not that much-Eames is strong, and Arthur hadn't been aiming to hurt, only to lash out mindlessly. He hadn't grabbed Arthur and told him to stop, or avoided the blow, even though he surely saw it coming.
He'd weathered all of Arthur's rage, just standing there and taking it until Arthur exhausted himself and stormed off to bed. It's not a very Eames reaction. It's one of the things Arthur loves about him, that he can give as good as he gets, an important trait when one is dealing with somebody as abrasive as Arthur. For him to just take it like that-
Well, nothing about this situation is normal. But Arthur thinks he can guess at the reason.
Eames proves him correct.
“I'll take care of you,” he murmurs. “I'll take care of everything. Don't you worry.”
“I'm not a delicate flower, Eames,” Arthur says flatly.
“I know you aren't,” Eames replies, “just ... please. Let me take care of you, for once.”
Arthur twists around in his arms, eyes blazing again.
“I don't want children, Eames,” he hisses. “I have never wanted children. And now I'm playing host organism to multiple mutants because you didn't realize this could happen. I don't want to be taken care of. I want them gone.”
There's real hurt in Eames' eyes, and it momentarily shocks Arthur. He didn't expect that.
And then, as suddenly as it appeared, it's gone.
“Anything you want,” Eames vows softly.
But in that second, all of a sudden, Arthur doesn't know what he wants.
+“Don't drive so fast,” Eames admonishes.
“I'm not even going the speed limit,” Arthur points out.
“I know. Just,” Eames says, staring fixedly at the other cars on the road. “It's not you I'm worried about, it's all the other crazies out there.”
Arthur rolls his eyes. Eames' protectiveness is as endearing as it is exasperating. Given his way, he'd probably pick Arthur up and carry him all the way to Dr. Forsyth's office, shielding him from all the lunatics who might unexpectedly whip out a knife and stab Arthur in the stomach. Despite Arthur's repeated insistence that he isn't delicate-he's not even showing, for goodness' sake-Eames has shifted into protective mate gear and doesn't seem liable to budge. It's how he's wired.
He seems to have hit upon a powerful nesting instinct, too. Suddenly their flat isn't sunny enough, their bedsheets not a high enough thread count. Eames is attacking their flat with a fervor, as desperate to make it hospitable as if they've been living in a cave together for the past year and a half, and nothing is too good for his Arthur. No more can Arthur hope to find a single non-organic product in their fridge, because Eames can't abide the thought of him ingesting all those chemicals.
“I just want you to be comfortable,” he says, the stress written plainly all over his face when he comes home dragging a brand new mattress behind him.
Eames' caretaking instincts are so bewildering that Arthur's anger melts in the face of it. He can't bring himself to feel resentful anymore. It's been two weeks since Dr. Forsyth dropped the bomb and he can't make up his mind. He doesn't know what he wants to do.
Dr. Forsyth makes that decision for him, as soon as he pronounces Arthur healthy.
“Have you given any thought to how soon you'd like the procedure done?” he asks, his tone brisk and businesslike. Arthur and Eames exchange a glance.
“What procedure?” Eames asks guardedly.
“The termination, of course.” Looking up, Dr. Forsyth spots the expression on Eames' face and snorts. “What, you didn't think he'd bring the young to term, did you? Of course not. We have to get them out. By now we should be able to tell where on the abdominal wall the placentae are attached. I thought I mentioned this last visit. Did I not?”
“No,” says Eames quietly.
“Oh. Well, it ought to be common sense anyway. You're a male,” Dr. Forsyth says, addressing Arthur now. “You have no uterus. No uterus means no endometrium for a placenta to attach itself to. No endometrium means cutting the placenta out of you. Although I suppose I shouldn't be talking about common sense to two people who thought a creature with a heat cycle couldn't get pregnant ...”
“What if we did that?” Arthur cuts him off, rather than look at Eames' face. “I mean, took them out, when they're ready to be delivered?” It sounds like a C-section, really, and it's still not like he's resigned himself to this, but-
“It would cause a massive bleed,” says Dr. Forsyth simply. “And with multiples you would almost certainly die.”
Eames flinches visibly at Arthur's side.
“Oh,” says Arthur.
“So you see.” Dr. Forsyth peels the latex gloves off his hands and drops them in the bin, businesslike as ever. He smiles grimly. “The sooner, the better.”
Eames reaches down and squeezes Arthur's hand silently.
+The drive home is very quiet.
“I'm so sorry,” Eames says, once they're home safe and the door is shut behind them. Arthur turns, surprised. “I know you didn't ask for this. And I-I know you don't want children, so. It's for the best, really.”
He looks lost, standing in the middle of their flat and staring round like he doesn't even know where he is. He can't meet Arthur's eyes. He looks helplessly at the floor.
“I'm sorry I put you through this,” he says. “I wish I had... I'll call the doctor back. We can schedule something as soon as possible. I won't take any jobs, we can give you lots of time to recover from the surgery, and I'll stay right here, and I'll take care of you ...”
“Eames,” Arthur says, moving to stand in front of him. “Eames,” he says again, when Eames doesn't tear his gaze away from the floor. He looks up, and there's a stark, raw fear in his eyes that tells Arthur that he's still shaken by the knowledge that this thing could end up killing him.
But under that fear, there's a desperate sense of loss.
“Hey,” Arthur says softly, taking both his hands. Eames looks down at their joined hands, and it's like he's ashamed that he can't be the strong one, right now, but that's why they work so well. One of them is always there to catch the other should he fall.
Arthur takes a deep breath.
“How good of a friend do you think Ariadne is?” he asks carefully.
Eames' eyes widen. Arthur has just a moment to register this before he's pulled into the tightest hug of his entire life.
+++
Eames had warned him about this. Somehow, though, Arthur always figured he was joking.
“Eames!”
Eames is fast. He comes skidding into the room just as Arthur is lifting the warm, furred body out of the crib where their two very human-shaped babies are still sleeping.
“He's,” he splutters, holding the wriggling pup out in front of him. “He just-”
“Bless.” Eames' face creases with wonder and affection. Gently, he takes the squirming pup from Arthur's hands, cradles it in his huge arms and tickles its belly. It yawns squeakily. “Hello. Look at you. Your first transformation. Arthur, we should take a video to show Ariadne.”
Arthur is still a little shaken: firstly by the fact that their firstborn son is suddenly four-legged and furry, and secondly by the fact that he was just cuddled up to his still-human (ears and tails aside) siblings. When he's mostly recovered from the shock, he holds out his hands.
Eames smiles at him, a sort of secretive, happy smile between parents, and hands the pup over. Arthur studies him.
“He's ... big,” he manages to say, not sure whether to cradle the pup like Eames did or hold it up to his shoulder like he does when the baby is human. His son squirms again, whimpering quietly. His eyes are big, unfocused and bright blue, just like they always are. Eames chuckles.
“Equal mass, Arthur, know your physics. We have an eight-pound baby. Now he's eight pounds of puppy.” He reaches over and brushes the pup's fur back. “Or perhaps I should say six pounds of puppy, and two pounds of kitten.”
Taking the pup back, Eames turns him over and shows Arthur the fur down his back. It's all soft baby fuzz, the barest bristle of a little mane starting between his shoulderblades, but they can already see that he's tawny-grey, just like Eames in his wolf form.
Arthur peers closer. Tawny-grey, yes, but down his back he's got faint bands of fur with darker grey tips, almost like ... like little brindled tabby stripes.
He starts to laugh. He can't help it, and if there's a faint tinge of hysteria to it, he can't help that either. He just laughs, and Eames, grinning, grabs him around the waist with one arm, pulls him in tight with the pup pressed between their bodies and gives him a long, lingering kiss.
“Our mutant baby werewolf kittens,” Arthur whispers, when he catches his breath.
“Yes,” Eames says. Then he laughs, too, and they kiss while Thomas begins to determinedly chew the buttons on Eames' shirt.
A/N: Just a little tidbit for now. Doubtless there will be more, I just had these little scenes in particular in my head that wanted to be typed out. Consider this VERY VERY in the future for this verse, because their first story still isn't done yet.
I HOPE YOU ARE ALL PROUD OF YOURSELVES *fistshake*
ps You can blame platina for this and also b_huer because she drew bb werewolf kittens and then I had to write this, oh and also the like 300 PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR WEREWOLF KITTENS, WTF. So, THANKS A LOT YOU GUISE.
ETA: moar werekittens