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This Thanksgiving, Ryan Ross is grateful for the fact that he is not, nor will he ever be pregnant. Up until seven months ago, it’s not a thought he had ever had or ever even thought to have, but within the past few weeks it’s become a common houseguest in his head, permanently stationed in the back of his mind. It worms its way there once again as Ryan pushes away sweat-damp bangs from his husband’s forehead and rubs a hand down his bare back. He isn’t sure if it’s helping or not, but every time he offers to go get him a glass of water or bring in a blanket, Brendon groans out a weak but firm protest and presses back into Ryan’s hand.“O-okay, I think that’s—” Brendon jolts and quickly ducks his head back down into the toilet bowl, retching violently.Every night after the singer goes to sleep, Ryan scrubs down the entire thing, knowing his husband will be back here again the next day and hoping that at least the fact that it’s not filthy will make him feel a little better.Brendon lifts his head once more and nods. “That’s it. No more for now,” he announces, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing.Ryan nods and reaches up to retrieve Brendon’s toothbrush from the bathroom counter where it’s been sitting, already prepared for the past half-hour.Brendon takes it with a grateful smile and begins vigorously scrubbing his tongue as Ryan pushes up and flushes the toilet.Offering both hands down to where Brendon’s still squatting by the tub, Ryan carefully tugs him to his feet and plants a kiss on his sweaty cheek.“You are still entirely, utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful to me,” he murmurs.Brendon snorts, opening his mouth to brush at the back of his throat before leaning over the sink to spit and rinse. As he wipes his mouth off with a spare hand towel, he glances at Ryan through the mirror and rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why you’re trying to sweet-talk me, Ross; you’ve already knocked me up, what more do you want, huh?”Ryan laughs softly, resting his hands on Brendon’s hips to twist him around so they’re facing each other. “That’s Ross-Urie to you, mister,” he hums, hands moving up to cradle the round swell of Brendon’s belly, thumbs rubbing over the overstretched material of an old high school t-shirt of his. “And all I want from you is a happy, healthy baby in a happy, healthy husband.”Brendon rolls his eyes again, but his cheeks are flushed and he’s obviously biting back a smile. “Baby says they’re hungry, so knock off the sweet nothings and feed us.”“Oh baby says that, huh? How do I know you’re not just using our unborn child as an excuse to bully me into getting you food?” Ryan asks, arching a brow.Brendon arches his own right back. “You really wanna take that risk?”“Alright, alright,” Ryan concedes. “What is ‘baby’ wanting today?”Brendon tilts his head from one side to the other, considering. “Tacos,” he says finally, nodding. “From that food truck down the road.”“I can do tacos,” Ryan agrees.Most of the time he’s able to get whatever it is that Brendon’s craving for the day, but sometimes ‘baby’s’ requests can be downright impossible, such as the time they were watching Spongebob and upon seeing a Krabby Patty, Brendon informed Ryan that he needed one then and there, and no already existing hamburger would do. That had not been a fun night for either of them.“Baby’s been liking Mexican food lately,” Ryan notes, pulling back enough to take Brendon’s hand and tug him towards the bedroom. “Last week they wanted enchiladas, and the week before that it was burritos.”“Maybe I’ll give birth to a chalupa,” Brendon says with a grin.Ryan shakes his head, walking down the stairs and discreetly watching Brendon do the same out of the corner of his eye to make sure he doesn’t fall; he gets furious anytime he thinks Ryan’s treating him as if he’s ‘fragile’, but Ryan can’t help but worry even if Brendon firmly insists that being pregnant doesn’t mean he can’t do things on his own anymore.“I sincerely hope not,” Ryan mutters as he grabs his keys off of the counter and offers Brendon his coat.Giggling, Brendon lets Ryan help him into his jacket, but all he says as they walk out the door is, “Olé.”---“Ryaaaann,” Brendon whines from his place sprawled across the couch with wads of aluminum foil that used to hold tacos scattered about.Ryan glances up from his own spot seated on the floor in front of the coffee table.“Carry me to bed,” Brendon pleads. “I’m too full to move.”Ryan snorts, shoving the last bit of his taco into his mouth. “Baby, that’s getting a little difficult as time goes on.”“Are you calling me fat?" Brendon gasps, throwing a hand over his heart.Ryan rolls his eyes. “I’m calling me out of shape. Come on, you can do it. I’ll clean everything up and meet you there.”Brendon sighs loudly, but reaches a hand out to Ryan for help. He lays his other one over his stomach. “You had better remember everything I’m doing for you, baby,” he says, glancing down at his stomach with a firm expression. “Don’t you be mean to me when you’re a teenager, you hear?”Ryan grins. “Considering how you and I were as teenagers, that poor baby doesn’t stand a chance being anything less than a menace to society.”“I wasn’t a menace to society!” Brendon protests.“You were a menace to your parents,” Ryan points out. “And they’re society.”Brendon blinks, his mouth forming a small ‘o’. He’s silent for a moment before looking back down at his belly. “Oh, we’re fucked.”“Utterly and totally,” Ryan agrees, leaning forward to plant a gentle kiss on his husband’s lips.He cleans up quickly after Brendon’s waddled his way up the stairs, throwing all of their trash away and turning off the lights and checking that the doors are locked before heading upstairs. When he reaches their bedroom and gently pushes the door open, he can’t help the adoring smile that spreads across his face.Brendon is sprawled across their bed, mouth hanging open as he snores softly; he’s hugging the body pillow Patrick got them at their baby shower, but Ryan knows as soon as he crawls into bed next to him, Brendon will roll over and cling to him instead.Stripping down to his boxers, Ryan’s careful to be as quiet as he can as he brushes his teeth and turns off the bedside lamp before climbing into bed and pulling the covers up around him. Just as he knew would happen, Brendon exhales softly and twists onto his other side to wrap his arms and legs around his husband. With a tired smile, Ryan pulls Brendon a little closer and closes his eyes.---And wakes up in a cold sweat, heart pounding and breath coming fast and short.Brendon stirs atop him, pushing up and rubbing his eyes. “What is it, what’s wrong?”Ryan shakes his head, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. “Nothing, don’t worry about it, go back to sleep.”“Don’t lie to me,” Brendon says softly, but stern all the same. “Did you have another nightmare?”Ryan frowns, looking down at the sheets pooled in his lap; he stays silent.“You don’t have to talk about it,” Brendon murmurs. “But I’m here.”Ryan still doesn’t say anything. He just clasps his hands and tries to push away the violent images of drunken outbursts that keep trying to play in his head despite the fact that he’s no longer dreaming.There’s quiet for a long while, the only sound that of their breathing; Brendon’s is soft and slow while Ryan’s is still doing its best to supply him with all the oxygen it can, lagging behind in the dream where he was so cruelly deprived of it by savage hands around his throat.When he glances over, Ryan sees Brendon leaning back against the headboard, eyes shut and hands resting over his belly. He knows that his husband isn’t asleep, not with the way he’s tapping his fingers over the stretched skin of his stomach in some rhythm Ryan can’t hear. The Moonlight is throwing shadows across his face, making his pale skin look paler and the contours of his cheekbones sharper, the hair falling over his forehead an inkier black than it ever could be naturally. He looks the same as he always does: the kind of beautiful that makes Ryan’s chest clench like there’s a fist around his heart threatening to squeeze the life out of him. He wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything in the world.“Are you going to keep staring at me until you pass out or will you lay back down and go to sleep with me?” Brendon asks softly, not opening his eyes or ceasing the tapping of his fingers.Ryan’s lips twitch in the hint of a smile. “Is there a third choice?”Brendon shifts and stretches, sitting up straight and finally letting his lashes flutter open. “Sure, the one where you go out and buy me some ice cream to snack on because if I have to stay up with you ‘til the Sun rises I’m not gonna do it on an empty stomach.”“We have ice cream downstairs in the freezer,” Ryan says, reaching out to gently brush the hair back from Brendon’s face.“We only have chocolate and chocolate-chip cookie dough. I want strawberries and cream.” Brendon yawns wide, nose crinkling and brow furrowing slightly.Ryan snorts, but he doesn’t argue. He also doesn’t move, keeping his hand against his husband’s cheek for a moment before letting it fall back into his lap.Brendon wiggles over to lay his head on Ryan’s shoulder, sighing softly. His fingers skate over the skin of Ryan’s forearm, lightly tapping the same rhythm from before, something slow and deliberate.Ryan swallows, watching his husband’s hand for a minute before closing his eyes. “Do you think I’ll be any good at it?”“Good at what?” Brendon asks, shifting so he can use both hands to toy with Ryan’s hand now, opening and closing it and placing their palms flat together.Ryan stays quiet for a moment, having to force the words out of his mouth. They ache in his throat, too thick, too bulky. “Being a dad.”There’s silence for a long moment, the kind that seems like it lasts for hours, stretching on until the pounding in his ears threatens to drive Ryan mad with the lack of an answer.“You aren’t going to be like him,” Brendon finally says, voice barely more than a whisper.“That isn’t what I asked,” Ryan murmurs.The mattress creaks as Brendon shifts to push up onto his knees, taking Ryan’s face gently in his hands and turning it towards his own. This time when he speaks it is a whisper, soft and breathy, and full of so much sadness that it makes Ryan’s stomach hurt. “Yes it is.”Despite the fact that Brendon’s hold on his jaw is hardly more than a light press of his fingertips, Ryan finds himself unable to look away even as his throat begins to burn and his eyes grow hot. He clenches his fists hard enough to feel his nails bite into the thin skin of his palms.“You won’t be him, Ryan,” Brendon says, reaching up to gently thumb away a tear the elder of the two hadn’t even realized had escaped down his cheek. “And you won’t do what he did. You won’t make his mistakes.”Ryan swallows hard, trying to force his quivering hands to still even as the trembles run up his body and make him shake. “How do you know?”Brendon tilts his head to the side, one hand falling into his lap and the other staying pressed against the side of Ryan’s face. “Because I’ve seen all of the love you hold,” he says softly. “I’ve seen the way you look at my belly when you hold it, and I’ve seen how your eyes light up when we talk about our child, and I watched your face when I walked down the aisle to make you my husband, Ryan, you hold so much love inside of you I don’t know how it doesn’t all burst out at once. No one with that much love, with that pure of love could ever do something like what your father did to you. I have no doubt in my mind that you’re going to be a wonderful dad, this baby is going to be so appreciated and lifted up and adored it won’t know what to do with itself. Ryan, you won’t be like him because you can’t be like him. I don’t think you would even know how.”“How are you doing this?” Ryan asks, shaking his head and sighing.Brendon arches a brow. “Doing what?”Ryan gives a dry, almost bitter laugh as he falls back to sit against the headboard, watching Brendon crawl over to kneel next to him. “Carry our child in your body—another human being, get sick every morning only to spend the entire day full of joy and hope, comfort me when my dreams are so bad I think I’ll suffocate. How can you wake up every morning knowing that pretty soon there’s going to be a whole person that relies on you for everything and not be scared? Who expects you to be everything they need and more? How does that not make your soul shudder in fear?”Brendon blinks, eyes widening a fraction; he looks so owlish that Ryan might laugh some other time, if he weren’t on the verge of hysterical tears.“Ryan, I’m terrified.”It’s Ryan’s turn to blink now, slow and dumb, Brendon’s words taking ages to push through his head. “What?”“I’m terrified,” Brendon repeats. “I’m so scared I could throw up, and not from the morning sickness.”“You’re…scared?” Ryan asks.Brendon nods. “Shitless.”“How can you be scared?” Ryan asks, disbelief painting his voice in ten shades. “You’re already so wonderful at this! You’re a natural, it’s like you were made to be a parent! You’ve read all the books and you tell me what you learned so I’ll know too, and you’ve been going to those classes, and I feel like you’re always on the phone with Spencer or Patrick asking questions, what is there to be scared of when you know everything?”Brendon laughs now, head tilting back. The sound is mirthless and Ryan frowns just slightly. “Know everything? Ryan, I know nothing. I don’t even know our baby’s name yet, and we only have a month left! All those books tell me is that I know absolutely nothing, that I’m not prepared at all, that there is a very high chance I am going to be terrible at this! And talking to Spencer and Patrick only make it worse because they make it look so easy! I could never do what they do, like it’s as natural to them as breathing air. I’m scared of every single thing there is to be scared of, Ry, but you know what? None of that matters, because scared or not, this baby is coming and whether I think I’m ready or not, I’m gonna do my absolute damndest to give it the best possible life I ever could. And I know you will too.”Ryan stares at his husband for a long while, unaware that his trembling has subsided and his breath is coming at a normal pace once again. The silence stretches on, but Brendon doesn’t fill it either. He sighs, running a hand through his hair, and Ryan notices that dark circles have begun to form beneath his eyes. How did he not notice those before? They certainly didn’t just appear tonight.“We’re in this together, Ryan,” Brendon says finally, turning to look at him. “And with you on my team, I know we can do it.”Ryan nods, lips twisting into a smile as he pulls his husband over and into his arms. “You’re right,” he agrees. “You’re not alone, we’re in this together.”Looking relieved, Brendon smiles too and curls up against Ryan, tugging him down so they’re both laying flat again and tugging the covers up around them. It’s not five minutes before he’s snoring quietly once more, but Ryan doesn’t know that because he’s snoring too.---Deafening cries fill the hospital room, the loudest Ryan thinks he’s ever heard, and for a moment he almost covers his ears. That’s the sound of his child, though, the first noise she’s ever made, so he revels in it, rushing forward to see a tiny, wriggling, squalling mass of waving fists and kicking feet. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and his throat grows tight at the sight of it.“Well?” Brendon breathes, leaning back and closing his eyes.His skin is pale and coated in a sheen of sweat, but he looks pleased and proud all at once, a tired smile taking up most of his face.“She’s perfect,” Ryan says simply, watching the doctors wipe their baby off and begin to inspect her. “And it seems she’s got your lungs, loud as she is.”Brendon laughs, shaking his head and reaching a hand out to take Ryan’s.“You did good,” Ryan murmurs, leaning down to press a kiss to his husband’s damp forehead.“We did good,” Brendon corrects softly, lifting Ryan’s hand up to press against his cheek.Ryan smiles, turning to see that the nurse now has their baby swaddled tight and is bringing her over. To his surprise, Brendon lets go of his hand to gently nudge him forward, and the nurse carefully deposits the newborn into his arms.The baby has stopped crying for the moment and is now staring up at him with wide, bluish-grey eyes that he knows will most likely turn brown within the next few months. He remembers Brendon telling him that when they’re born, babies can’t see very far, so chances are she can’t make out more than his blurry face, but all the same he offers a hesitant smile to his child, swallowing down the lump that’s grown in his throat.“She’s beautiful, Bren,” he whispers, biting his lip and glancing back up.Brendon smiles, nodding. “Well how could she not be with two devilishly handsome dads?”Ryan laughs, shaking his head and walks over so his husband can see too. He sits down on the edge of the bed, scooting closer and making sure not to jostle the baby too much, leaning against Brendon’s side.“Perfect,” Brendon murmurs, gently running his fingertips over her head.Ryan nods. Looking down at the tiny human that’s blinking slowly up at him from her place cradled in his arms, somehow he knows there will be no more nightmares. He has a new reason to lose sleep now.