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mpreg jackrry, part 6
Nov. 2nd, 2017 12:16 am[if i’d realized this was going to turn into a plot instead of just some ultrasound fluff to amuse liz, i would have spent more time building up the initial hookup and making it clear that the reason jack was irresponsible about it was a combination of being really drunk and also really attracted to harry, like incredulous that somebody like harry was coming home with him and not wanting to let anything get in the way of that because it seemed like something that wouldn’t ever happen again. Jack’s perception of the subsequent events is therefore heavily colored by (a) his belief that harry’s way out of his league, combined with (b) his guilt around feeling like he’s kind of ruined Harry’s life, which leads to (c) his assumption that Harry’s not going to want anything to do with him beyond the necessary entanglements of their situation. So anyway let’s just pretend i developed all that subtly and organically.]
The morning after the ultrasound, Jack arrives at work and finds himself walking into his office building behind a dad in an overcoat holding the hand of a little kid with rainboots and a backpack. Then he sees someone else carrying a baby in a car seat. Have there always been kids around work? Is he only just noticing now? While he ponders these questions he sort of mindlessly follows the dad and the kid with the rainboots down a hallway to the side of the elevator bank that he’s never paid any attention to before. When they head through a door at the end of the hallway, Jack realizes this is the on-site day care, which on some level he knew existed but he’s honestly never thought once about it since skimming through the employee handbook when he got hired five years ago.
He stops and studiously inspects the bulletin board outside the door, so that he looks like he has some plausible reason for being there. It’s next to a square safety glass window, which Jack peeks through to see a large room with colorful rug and short tables and little chairs and toys everywhere and lots of kids. Lots of kids.
The overcoat dad emerges from the room and an older woman in a quilted vest leans out the open door. “Are you looking into child care?” she asks Jack in a motherly kind of a way. Jack stammers out something like “...not really, maybe, just looking for now…” and she gets a fond expression on her face and says, “Do you have a baby on the way?”
“Yeah?” Jack says cautiously. “I kind of do?”
“Must be pretty early yet?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Jack says.
“Well, you’re smart to be thinking about this already,” she tells him. "The wait list is pretty long. You should get your name on there if there’s any chance you’ll be interested.”
Jack’s internal freak-out must be showing on his face, because she pats him on the arm and reassures him that the list is confidential, it won’t get back to his department if he hasn’t told anyone at work yet. “...okay…” he says, and this child care worker who has seemingly made it her personal mission to usher Jack into parenthood says, “Hold on, I’ll get the paperwork for you.”
Jack considers fleeing down the hall when she ducks back into the room, but she reemerges with a clipboard and a pen before he makes up his mind. He starts to detach the form from the clipboard, saying something about how he’ll think it over, and this woman practically insists that he sign up now -- “You’re already here, it’ll just take a minute, might as well get it done. If a spot comes up and you don’t need it, you can always turn it down” -- and it’s kind of nice to have somebody just tell him what to do about this entire situation, so he fills out his name and contact information and puzzles over the blank about preferred start date before deciding on “spring 2018,” which seems like it could be somewhere close.
The child care woman smilingly tells him he can expect a confirmation email, then she sends him off with a pat on the back and “Good luck, such an exciting time!” and Jack walks back down the hall with gradually increasing panic about how much money this whole thing is going to involve, how much money and how much time, and how does it even work when he and Harry aren’t married, not even together, does Harry just keep the baby all the time? Does Jack have to share custody? Does he have to have the baby at his apartment? Does he need… he doesn’t know, bottles or a highchair or a stroller or whatever else it is that babies have? Diapers?
He doesn’t hear from Harry for a few days. Part of him wants to get in touch, but most of him assumes that Harry’s not too interested in hearing from him. He does text Harry on Monday, though. what’s the fruit this week?
kiwi, comes the response, along with a line of kiwi emojis.
Jack’s at the grocery store later that day anyway, so he hunts up a kiwi and sends Harry some kind of a stupid selfie with the kiwi in it, and Harry replies, and Jack asks how he’s feeling, and suddenly they’re texting here and there over the next week or so until Harry asks hey random question but do you have storage space at your place?
Turns out Harry has procured a crib, a nice hand-me-down from a coworker who needed him to take it immediately to make room for her kid’s big girl bed, and Harry and Zayn’s place is kind of small and they don’t really want to set the crib up until they absolutely have to because it barely fits in Harry’s bedroom as it is, and they keep tripping over the pieces. So, yeah, Jack’s got a storage locker in the basement with not much in it but his bike and camping gear and the crib’ll probably fit. Oh, and also would Jack mind helping to carry it because Harry’s not really supposed to be lifting things and he feels kind of bad about asking Zayn because Zayn’s putting up with a lot lately, what with listening to Harry puke and stubbing his toe on the crib parts.
So Jack picks up the crib from Harry’s place on the other side of town, a neighborhood with older housing stock and more diversity and definitely a higher crime rate than Jack’s. Maybe he meets Zayn? Maybe Zayn is nice but a little bit guarded, like it’s clear that Jack is very much on probation but he does get some points for moving the crib? Harry goes with Jack, and they put the crib into storage, and maybe they get some dinner afterwards and/or take a walk, and it’s pretty pleasant, and they keep on texting.
The next week, Jack and Tom are grabbing lunch at Whole Foods and Jack sees a pile of lemons at the end of the fish counter. “Just a sec,” Jack says, pulling out his phone and handing his deli box off to Tom, “can you hold this?”
Tom balances Jack’s box on top of his own. “Why are you taking a picture of a lemon?” he asks Jack, quite reasonably.
“Hold on,” Jack says as he sends the photo to Harry. “Remember that guy Harry, that I hooked up with?” Tom nods. “He got pregnant."
Tom’s eyes go wide. “Holy shit.”
“So there’s this thing where they tell you what fruit the baby is every week, like the size, and this week it’s lemon.” He suddenly realizes that this must seem kind of insane.
“I am so sorry,” Tom says, and hugs him, hard, with the arm that’s not holding their food. “That really sucks. Are you OK?”
It’s nice for someone to feel sympathetic, Jack realizes. The only person he’s talked to about this is Harry, and he never feels like he deserves any sympathy from Harry.
“Yeah, well, it’s my own fault. Nothing I can do about it now.”
“Is he... keeping it?”
“Yeah.”
Tom makes a face. “Why?”
Jack feels strangely defensive. “He’s got his reasons.”
“Are you… talking to him?”
“Well, yeah, of course I am.”
“You like him,” Tom says suddenly.
“Shut up.”
“You liiiiiike him,” Tom croons. “You’re going to get married and have a baby and move to the suburbs.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re going to drive a minivan.”
“Look, I knocked him up, he’s probably going to hate me forever.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I mean, I’d hate me, this is kind of ruining his life.”
“Well it’s not great for yours either.”
Jack shrugs.
“I mean, you’re kind of stuck together, right?” Tom asks. “You might as well get laid.”
The only other thing that happens around this time is that Jack ends up going to Harry’s 16-week checkup, because Harry asks and Jack doesn’t turn down any opportunity to be in Harry’s presence. It’s short and uneventful except that they get to listen to the heartbeat, a rhythmic alien whoosh like a recording of a sea creature. They have lunch again afterwards, and note that there’s avocado on both of their sandwiches, because the baby’s avocado-sized this week. They also discuss telling their friends, establishing that the only people they’ve told so far are Tom and Zayn, but resolving to start telling the others this week. Part of Jack’s relieved to not be keeping a secret any more, but the rest of him already misses having a secret with Harry.
The morning after the ultrasound, Jack arrives at work and finds himself walking into his office building behind a dad in an overcoat holding the hand of a little kid with rainboots and a backpack. Then he sees someone else carrying a baby in a car seat. Have there always been kids around work? Is he only just noticing now? While he ponders these questions he sort of mindlessly follows the dad and the kid with the rainboots down a hallway to the side of the elevator bank that he’s never paid any attention to before. When they head through a door at the end of the hallway, Jack realizes this is the on-site day care, which on some level he knew existed but he’s honestly never thought once about it since skimming through the employee handbook when he got hired five years ago.
He stops and studiously inspects the bulletin board outside the door, so that he looks like he has some plausible reason for being there. It’s next to a square safety glass window, which Jack peeks through to see a large room with colorful rug and short tables and little chairs and toys everywhere and lots of kids. Lots of kids.
The overcoat dad emerges from the room and an older woman in a quilted vest leans out the open door. “Are you looking into child care?” she asks Jack in a motherly kind of a way. Jack stammers out something like “...not really, maybe, just looking for now…” and she gets a fond expression on her face and says, “Do you have a baby on the way?”
“Yeah?” Jack says cautiously. “I kind of do?”
“Must be pretty early yet?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Jack says.
“Well, you’re smart to be thinking about this already,” she tells him. "The wait list is pretty long. You should get your name on there if there’s any chance you’ll be interested.”
Jack’s internal freak-out must be showing on his face, because she pats him on the arm and reassures him that the list is confidential, it won’t get back to his department if he hasn’t told anyone at work yet. “...okay…” he says, and this child care worker who has seemingly made it her personal mission to usher Jack into parenthood says, “Hold on, I’ll get the paperwork for you.”
Jack considers fleeing down the hall when she ducks back into the room, but she reemerges with a clipboard and a pen before he makes up his mind. He starts to detach the form from the clipboard, saying something about how he’ll think it over, and this woman practically insists that he sign up now -- “You’re already here, it’ll just take a minute, might as well get it done. If a spot comes up and you don’t need it, you can always turn it down” -- and it’s kind of nice to have somebody just tell him what to do about this entire situation, so he fills out his name and contact information and puzzles over the blank about preferred start date before deciding on “spring 2018,” which seems like it could be somewhere close.
The child care woman smilingly tells him he can expect a confirmation email, then she sends him off with a pat on the back and “Good luck, such an exciting time!” and Jack walks back down the hall with gradually increasing panic about how much money this whole thing is going to involve, how much money and how much time, and how does it even work when he and Harry aren’t married, not even together, does Harry just keep the baby all the time? Does Jack have to share custody? Does he have to have the baby at his apartment? Does he need… he doesn’t know, bottles or a highchair or a stroller or whatever else it is that babies have? Diapers?
He doesn’t hear from Harry for a few days. Part of him wants to get in touch, but most of him assumes that Harry’s not too interested in hearing from him. He does text Harry on Monday, though. what’s the fruit this week?
kiwi, comes the response, along with a line of kiwi emojis.
Jack’s at the grocery store later that day anyway, so he hunts up a kiwi and sends Harry some kind of a stupid selfie with the kiwi in it, and Harry replies, and Jack asks how he’s feeling, and suddenly they’re texting here and there over the next week or so until Harry asks hey random question but do you have storage space at your place?
Turns out Harry has procured a crib, a nice hand-me-down from a coworker who needed him to take it immediately to make room for her kid’s big girl bed, and Harry and Zayn’s place is kind of small and they don’t really want to set the crib up until they absolutely have to because it barely fits in Harry’s bedroom as it is, and they keep tripping over the pieces. So, yeah, Jack’s got a storage locker in the basement with not much in it but his bike and camping gear and the crib’ll probably fit. Oh, and also would Jack mind helping to carry it because Harry’s not really supposed to be lifting things and he feels kind of bad about asking Zayn because Zayn’s putting up with a lot lately, what with listening to Harry puke and stubbing his toe on the crib parts.
So Jack picks up the crib from Harry’s place on the other side of town, a neighborhood with older housing stock and more diversity and definitely a higher crime rate than Jack’s. Maybe he meets Zayn? Maybe Zayn is nice but a little bit guarded, like it’s clear that Jack is very much on probation but he does get some points for moving the crib? Harry goes with Jack, and they put the crib into storage, and maybe they get some dinner afterwards and/or take a walk, and it’s pretty pleasant, and they keep on texting.
The next week, Jack and Tom are grabbing lunch at Whole Foods and Jack sees a pile of lemons at the end of the fish counter. “Just a sec,” Jack says, pulling out his phone and handing his deli box off to Tom, “can you hold this?”
Tom balances Jack’s box on top of his own. “Why are you taking a picture of a lemon?” he asks Jack, quite reasonably.
“Hold on,” Jack says as he sends the photo to Harry. “Remember that guy Harry, that I hooked up with?” Tom nods. “He got pregnant."
Tom’s eyes go wide. “Holy shit.”
“So there’s this thing where they tell you what fruit the baby is every week, like the size, and this week it’s lemon.” He suddenly realizes that this must seem kind of insane.
“I am so sorry,” Tom says, and hugs him, hard, with the arm that’s not holding their food. “That really sucks. Are you OK?”
It’s nice for someone to feel sympathetic, Jack realizes. The only person he’s talked to about this is Harry, and he never feels like he deserves any sympathy from Harry.
“Yeah, well, it’s my own fault. Nothing I can do about it now.”
“Is he... keeping it?”
“Yeah.”
Tom makes a face. “Why?”
Jack feels strangely defensive. “He’s got his reasons.”
“Are you… talking to him?”
“Well, yeah, of course I am.”
“You like him,” Tom says suddenly.
“Shut up.”
“You liiiiiike him,” Tom croons. “You’re going to get married and have a baby and move to the suburbs.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re going to drive a minivan.”
“Look, I knocked him up, he’s probably going to hate me forever.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I mean, I’d hate me, this is kind of ruining his life.”
“Well it’s not great for yours either.”
Jack shrugs.
“I mean, you’re kind of stuck together, right?” Tom asks. “You might as well get laid.”
The only other thing that happens around this time is that Jack ends up going to Harry’s 16-week checkup, because Harry asks and Jack doesn’t turn down any opportunity to be in Harry’s presence. It’s short and uneventful except that they get to listen to the heartbeat, a rhythmic alien whoosh like a recording of a sea creature. They have lunch again afterwards, and note that there’s avocado on both of their sandwiches, because the baby’s avocado-sized this week. They also discuss telling their friends, establishing that the only people they’ve told so far are Tom and Zayn, but resolving to start telling the others this week. Part of Jack’s relieved to not be keeping a secret any more, but the rest of him already misses having a secret with Harry.
