mpreg jackrry, part 10
Nov. 12th, 2017 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ferryboatpeakAnother thing that would need to be part of a fully written fic... which this is rapidly becoming... is more development of how pregnancy messes with Harry’s sex pesterliness (sex peskiness?). All of a sudden his body is doing strange things, things beyond his control, and he goes from being supremely comfortable in his own skin to feeling distant from his body, like it’s this unknowable and increasingly unattractive thing. Consequently, he also loses his confidence that everyone else in the world would be happy to have his body draped over them at all times.
Jack, however, remembers Harry as the guy who pasted himself to his side and trailed his fingers along the seam of his jeans and poked his nose into Jack’s neck all before they even left the bar that first night, so the absence of any further sex pestering has contributed hugely to Jack’s sense that Harry is not interested in him beyond the necessary entanglements of their situation. So, as our story sails on bravely into the third trimester, Jack is not taking anything for granted, even now that Harry is draping himself over Jack at all times.
Because that’s suddenly all Harry wants to do. Here is our interlude of pregnancy bliss: the November days are short and cold, and Harry is increasingly large, and more often than not they spend the evenings bingeing Netflix on one couch or the other, with Harry half-sleeping on Jack’s shoulder or demanding that Jack rub his belly or kissing him lazily for hours on end while he scratches at Jack’s beard like it’s a housepet.
One night at Jack’s place, Harry looks too tired to move, and Jack says he should just stay over. “How many pillows do you have?” Harry asks. Jack gathers up spare pillows and throw pillows and assembles a sufficient amount for Harry to prop a pillow behind his back so he won’t accidentally sleep on his back and a pillow between his legs so his hips are aligned and a pillow under his belly so his back won’t hurt and a pillow wrapped in his arms for no good reason Jack can see, so while theoretically Jack’s got Harry in his bed there is no chance that Jack is going to get past the fortress of pillows that surrounds him. Harry stays again, and again, and Jack gets accustomed to seeing Harry blink sleepily at him in the mornings, accustomed to craning his neck over the pillow fort to give him a kiss.
Harry’s doctor appointments start to happen every other week instead of every month. The fruits of the week get less appealing: cauliflower, eggplant, butternut squash, cabbage. Maybe they start to talk about baby names: Charlie, Rory, Duncan, Oliver. Jack starts to wonder what the kid is going to be like, what he’s going to get from each of them. He hopes the kid gets Harry’s unhurried calm, his goofy enthusiasm. Whatever kind of confidence makes him play kickball even though he’s terrible, trip over his own feet into Jack’s lap and still convince Jack to take him home.
Jack goes home for Thanksgiving, armed with the most recent ultrasound pictures, and breaks the news to his family. He’s the firstborn son who made good, the job in the big city with a tech company whose name everybody recognizes, climbing the corporate ladder, never had to come home and live in his parents’ basement, and he feels like this is going to be a big disappointment. But all his mom hears is GRANDCHILD, and she’s delighted.
His folks want to know about Harry and Jack tries to explain… he works at a school, he’s good with kids, he’s going to be a good dad, no we’re not together but we get along. Then Jack’s mom’s eyes narrow and she starts asking about how well Jack knows Harry, and what rights Jack has in this situation. “We want to know this grandchild,” she says, and points out in some not-so-subtle way that Jack needs to protect himself so that Harry can’t cut him off. Jack is shocked -- “Harry wouldn’t do that” -- and his mom lets it drop.
Jack isn’t exactly thinking about that conversation one night the next week when Harry’s sleeping over, but he’s not not thinking about it, either.
“Hey.” Jack brushes his toes over the top of Harry’s foot, pretty much the only part of him he can reach past the pillow fort. “Is the kid ever going to stay here?”
“What do you mean?” Harry’s on his side, facing Jack. which means that if Jack were to turn his head to look at Harry (which he’s not going to do) he’d see one eye over the top of the pillow that Harry’s mostly buried his face in.
“Sleep here, at my place... like, with you, or just himself too, I guess.”
“Do you want that?”
“Yeah.” Pause. “If you do.”
“Sure.”
“I should get a crib.”
“We’ve already got one downstairs, we should just put it here,” Harry says sleepily. “It’s too big for my place anyway.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“We’ll figure something out. He can sleep in a pack n play or something.”
“What’s a pack n play?”
“It’s this thing you set up, like portable,”
“How do you even know that?”
“I’ve been registering.” Harry swats at Jack over the top of his pillows.
So the next day Jack hauls the crib out of storage and they set it up, or more likely Jack sets it up while Harry gives unhelpful suggestions, and maybe this somehow leads to a shopping excursion that could go any number of different directions, maybe Jack getting freaked out by baby gear, or maybe just happy fluff where they pick out crib sheets and buy the kid a stuffed kiwi or something, idk.
ANYWAY, meanwhile the tech bros are giving Jack a hard time because they barely see him anymore, because he’s spending all his time with Harry all of a sudden. Jack feels guilty and it turns into them descending on Jack’s place to hang out and watch football on Sunday. Barry of course catches sight of the crib in Jack’s room and gives him a hard time about it. ("You're in this deep and you don't even know if it's yours?") At halftime Barry and Fionn go on a beer run. The bodega they used to go to has been gentrified out of existence since last football season so Jack tells them the next best option is the new CVS a couple blocks away, on the ground floor of yet another mixed-use condo building.
A few minutes later they’re back. Barry stacks two six-packs on the table and says, “Got you a present, brah,” tossing a small box at Jack.
Jack fumbles the catch and bends over to pick it up. IDENTIGENE DNA Paternity Test, the box says. “Look what we found at CVS,” Barry says.
The box has a picture of a dad smiling at a baby. “You bought a paternity test?” Jack asks incredulously.
“Yes he did.” Fionn sighs, long-suffering. “It was awful. He leered at the checker.”
“I didn’t leer,” Barry objects. “It was a conspiratorial grin. 22 dollars, bro, you can thank me later. Lab fee’s on you, though.”
Jack picks up the box gingerly. Simple cheek swab, it says, above the silhouette of a q-tip. $89 Lab Fee Required. Results in 2 Business Days. It stares back at him from the coffee table until the guys leave, and then he tosses it in the bottom drawer in the bathroom, where he won’t have to think about it.
Jack, however, remembers Harry as the guy who pasted himself to his side and trailed his fingers along the seam of his jeans and poked his nose into Jack’s neck all before they even left the bar that first night, so the absence of any further sex pestering has contributed hugely to Jack’s sense that Harry is not interested in him beyond the necessary entanglements of their situation. So, as our story sails on bravely into the third trimester, Jack is not taking anything for granted, even now that Harry is draping himself over Jack at all times.
Because that’s suddenly all Harry wants to do. Here is our interlude of pregnancy bliss: the November days are short and cold, and Harry is increasingly large, and more often than not they spend the evenings bingeing Netflix on one couch or the other, with Harry half-sleeping on Jack’s shoulder or demanding that Jack rub his belly or kissing him lazily for hours on end while he scratches at Jack’s beard like it’s a housepet.
One night at Jack’s place, Harry looks too tired to move, and Jack says he should just stay over. “How many pillows do you have?” Harry asks. Jack gathers up spare pillows and throw pillows and assembles a sufficient amount for Harry to prop a pillow behind his back so he won’t accidentally sleep on his back and a pillow between his legs so his hips are aligned and a pillow under his belly so his back won’t hurt and a pillow wrapped in his arms for no good reason Jack can see, so while theoretically Jack’s got Harry in his bed there is no chance that Jack is going to get past the fortress of pillows that surrounds him. Harry stays again, and again, and Jack gets accustomed to seeing Harry blink sleepily at him in the mornings, accustomed to craning his neck over the pillow fort to give him a kiss.
Harry’s doctor appointments start to happen every other week instead of every month. The fruits of the week get less appealing: cauliflower, eggplant, butternut squash, cabbage. Maybe they start to talk about baby names: Charlie, Rory, Duncan, Oliver. Jack starts to wonder what the kid is going to be like, what he’s going to get from each of them. He hopes the kid gets Harry’s unhurried calm, his goofy enthusiasm. Whatever kind of confidence makes him play kickball even though he’s terrible, trip over his own feet into Jack’s lap and still convince Jack to take him home.
Jack goes home for Thanksgiving, armed with the most recent ultrasound pictures, and breaks the news to his family. He’s the firstborn son who made good, the job in the big city with a tech company whose name everybody recognizes, climbing the corporate ladder, never had to come home and live in his parents’ basement, and he feels like this is going to be a big disappointment. But all his mom hears is GRANDCHILD, and she’s delighted.
His folks want to know about Harry and Jack tries to explain… he works at a school, he’s good with kids, he’s going to be a good dad, no we’re not together but we get along. Then Jack’s mom’s eyes narrow and she starts asking about how well Jack knows Harry, and what rights Jack has in this situation. “We want to know this grandchild,” she says, and points out in some not-so-subtle way that Jack needs to protect himself so that Harry can’t cut him off. Jack is shocked -- “Harry wouldn’t do that” -- and his mom lets it drop.
Jack isn’t exactly thinking about that conversation one night the next week when Harry’s sleeping over, but he’s not not thinking about it, either.
“Hey.” Jack brushes his toes over the top of Harry’s foot, pretty much the only part of him he can reach past the pillow fort. “Is the kid ever going to stay here?”
“What do you mean?” Harry’s on his side, facing Jack. which means that if Jack were to turn his head to look at Harry (which he’s not going to do) he’d see one eye over the top of the pillow that Harry’s mostly buried his face in.
“Sleep here, at my place... like, with you, or just himself too, I guess.”
“Do you want that?”
“Yeah.” Pause. “If you do.”
“Sure.”
“I should get a crib.”
“We’ve already got one downstairs, we should just put it here,” Harry says sleepily. “It’s too big for my place anyway.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“We’ll figure something out. He can sleep in a pack n play or something.”
“What’s a pack n play?”
“It’s this thing you set up, like portable,”
“How do you even know that?”
“I’ve been registering.” Harry swats at Jack over the top of his pillows.
So the next day Jack hauls the crib out of storage and they set it up, or more likely Jack sets it up while Harry gives unhelpful suggestions, and maybe this somehow leads to a shopping excursion that could go any number of different directions, maybe Jack getting freaked out by baby gear, or maybe just happy fluff where they pick out crib sheets and buy the kid a stuffed kiwi or something, idk.
ANYWAY, meanwhile the tech bros are giving Jack a hard time because they barely see him anymore, because he’s spending all his time with Harry all of a sudden. Jack feels guilty and it turns into them descending on Jack’s place to hang out and watch football on Sunday. Barry of course catches sight of the crib in Jack’s room and gives him a hard time about it. ("You're in this deep and you don't even know if it's yours?") At halftime Barry and Fionn go on a beer run. The bodega they used to go to has been gentrified out of existence since last football season so Jack tells them the next best option is the new CVS a couple blocks away, on the ground floor of yet another mixed-use condo building.
A few minutes later they’re back. Barry stacks two six-packs on the table and says, “Got you a present, brah,” tossing a small box at Jack.
Jack fumbles the catch and bends over to pick it up. IDENTIGENE DNA Paternity Test, the box says. “Look what we found at CVS,” Barry says.
The box has a picture of a dad smiling at a baby. “You bought a paternity test?” Jack asks incredulously.
“Yes he did.” Fionn sighs, long-suffering. “It was awful. He leered at the checker.”
“I didn’t leer,” Barry objects. “It was a conspiratorial grin. 22 dollars, bro, you can thank me later. Lab fee’s on you, though.”
Jack picks up the box gingerly. Simple cheek swab, it says, above the silhouette of a q-tip. $89 Lab Fee Required. Results in 2 Business Days. It stares back at him from the coffee table until the guys leave, and then he tosses it in the bottom drawer in the bathroom, where he won’t have to think about it.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-13 07:00 am (UTC)ugh and i just know that paternity test thing is going to end badly, I KNOW IT AND I'M PREEMPTIVELY HURT ABOUT IT!!
no subject
Date: 2017-11-13 09:16 am (UTC)I'm excited for more!