Omega's Joy: An MPREG Romance

by Oliver Crowley

  Alex kept close to his side, and as they stepped onto the porch he felt Alex press his hand lightly to the middle of Jeremiah’s back, guiding him inside the house.

  He whipped his head around, prepared to bitch at him for treating Jeremiah like a heirloom, but when he looked at Alex, Alex was already staring back, something intent and inscrutable in his eye.

  Spooked, Jeremiah turned back around, hurrying so he stepped away from Alex’s hand. He felt Alex’s fingers stretch out, prolonging the contact, then fall away.

  Jeremiah felt it for the rest of the night, even after he left Alex at Fabian and Emily’s after dinner and went to his own house and bed.

  Penny curled up beside him, wet nose snuffling into Jeremiah’s neck.

  “Penny, I got us into quite a pickle here, huh,” he whispered, but the dog didn’t answer. She was already asleep, snoring peacefully. Typical.

  It took Jeremiah another two hours to doze off, dreaming about things dark and frightening that he wasn’t able to recall in the morning, just that they’d made his heart pound.

  ***

  Having everyone back together was great.

  They recorded a promotional video for the company, Jeremiah sitting hunched over as much as he could, obscuring his belly in tick turtlenecks. Hopefully, people would just think he was fat, as much as his ego wanted to scream that he had actually been on the verge of getting his groove back an accidental disaster baby took up residence in his womb.

  Outside of work, things were a little weirder.

  While he was in town, Alex camped out at Fabian’s and Emily’s in the guest room.

  Inexplicably, when they weren’t working he still spent most of his time at Jeremiah’s.

  “How long has this sink been draining slow?” He pointed over his shoulder at the sink in the bathroom.

  Jeremiah raised his eyebrows, looked over his shoulder where he sat sprawled on the couch, like maybe then he could find the person Alex was talking to. When Alex just waited patiently, Jeremiah shrugged. “I don’t know, man, how long have I been living here? Year and a half?”

  Alex took that information in quietly. Jeremiah figured that was the end of it until he went to the grocery store late and came back to find that Alex had been industriously fixing things all over the house the entire time he’d been out.

  “I’m a renter!” Jeremiah yelled, maybe a little shrilly, but Alex had his shirt off and tucked into the waistband of his shorts and he’d just hauled himself off the floor from where he’d been inspecting underneath the sink. “That’s the whole point, I don’t have to fix things! I call the landlord.”

  Never mind that his landlord was a useless man who had never once returned Jeremiah’s messages about anything, ever.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Alex insisted. His forehead and shoulders and naked chest were all gently glistening with sweat. It was the worst. “Go sit down. I’m almost done in here.”

  Jeremiah narrowed his eyes. “I’m sitting down,” he said slowly, “because I want to, not because you’re telling me to.” Also because his lower back was aching like ,ad lately and he’d felt dead on his feet all day.

  Alex smiled wryly. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, buddy. I’ll get started on dinner in a minute.”

  And the unrelenting hellishness of the situation was: that’s exactly what happened. Alex made Jeremiah dinner, some joyless flavorless protein-filled monstrosity with balanced proportions of protein and carbs that Jeremiah hated but nonetheless ate three helpings of and then whined about because he felt overly full.

  “It was so bad,” he complained, letting his head fall back against his chair and folding his hands on his stomach, “and I ate so much of it.” He rotated his head sluggishly to find Alex watching him fondly. It made Jeremiah feel prickly. “What? Stop making that face, you look weird.”

  Alex snorted. “God, you’re a nightmare.” He got up and took his and Jeremiah’s plates. “Go sit down and find a show that doesn’t suck while I finish up.”

  “I don’t need to always be sitting down,” Jeremiah pointed out crossly, literally just to bicker, since he could feel his eyes drooping. “My legs still work. The baby’s not going to burst out of my body like an alien if I stay upright for too long.”

  Ignoring Jeremiah with the ease of long practice, Alex turned on the sink. “Your back still hurting you?”

  Like it knew it was being talked about, his back gave an unpleasant twang. “Yes,” he grumbled. “It’s fine though.”

  Sighing, Alex marched over and put his hands on Jeremiah’s shoulders. With an abundance of moral fortitude, Jeremiah didn’t shiver or lean into the touch, but he did let himself close his eyes, drinking it in.

  Alex hauled Jeremiah out of his chair, ignoring Jeremiah’s groan at being moved, which also helpfully disguised the way it made Jeremiah’s stomach swoop to be so casually manhandled. He wasn’t a small guy, but Alex moved him around like it was nothing.

  “Just go, Carson.” Alex gave him a gentle shove toward the living room where Penny was already passed out on the couch.

  “We’re not watching a single game,” Jeremiah said warningly. “Nothing with a score. I’ll make a goddamn scene.”

  Alex sighed, long-suffering but grinning like he was having a good time being bossed around. Jeremiah didn’t understand a single thing about him sometimes.

  “Whatever you want, Jeremiah.”

  That would have been the perfect time for Jeremiah to step in and say, “You don’t have to do this, Alex.”

  It had only been a week, but Jeremiah was already becoming dangerously dependent on this.

  He really needed to figure out how to say it soon, too, because it was becoming unbearable, being the recipient of the full-on Alex Vane Boyfriend Experience, which so far was attentive, supportive and engaged, like being slowly suffocated by a warm bath towel right of the dryer that also smelled like fresh-baked cookies. It was a lot to handle.

  He turned on an episode of a comedy he could recite from memory and sprawled on the couch, brooding.

  “Would you sit like a normal person, you monster,” Alex groused when he came into the living room, nudging aside Jeremiah’s legs so he could squeeze into the corner of the couch. He thrust a bowl of ice cream at Jeremiah, waiting until Jeremiah grasped it with both hands to let go. Jeremiah hadn’t realized that he’d even wanted ice cream, but now that it was in his hands he felt almost dizzy with how much he needed to consume it, and how had Alex known that?

  Alex settled in beside him. He kept glancing at Jeremiah out of the corner of his eye.“What,” Jeremiah snapped. He ate a huge bite of ice cream and gritted his teeth through the brain freeze. He swatted at Alex’s face. “Stop looking at me.”

  Slouching deeper into the couch, Alex grinned. “Relax, maybe you just have ice cream all over your face.”

  Jeremiah rubbed at his mouth. “I do not. Dick.”

  Casually, Alex reached over and swiped at his chin. Jeremiah smacked his hand away to cover any residual blushing. “Not anymore.”

  They watched for a few moments in silence while Jeremiah tried to calm down, and then Alex said, “Remember when we used to do this in DC?”

  Jeremiah tensed. Yeah, he remembered.

  He remembered dozens of nights of curling up next to Alex on their cheap futon, both exhausted as Jeremiah got stoned in front of the TV, making fun of the show and each other relentlessly, trying to make the other person laugh harder. He remembered making a joke of how Jeremiah didn’t care about personal space so that was why he insisted on leaning into Alex or throwing his legs over Alex’s lap or resting his head on Alex’s shoulder.

  “Don’t be a homophobe,” he would scold preemptively if Alex even rolled his eyes.

  Alex would huff, grinning even as he argued that it wasn’t homophobic to not want someone’s cold toes to dig into your thighs for warmth.

  “Sounds like something a homophobe would say,” Jeremiah would sniff, and then qui
etly preen as Alex threw his head back, laughing helplessly as Jeremiah tucked himself more firmly into Alex’s side.

  “I mean, I know it’s been a while since we lived together,” Alex was saying thoughtfully now. “I just. Think about it a lot, I guess. It was fun.”

  Jeremiah set his empty ice cream bowl on the coffee table. “I was easily the best roommate you or anyone has ever had, so that’s not surprising,” he said grandly.

  That made Alex bark out a laugh. “You never, once, in the entire time we lived together took out the garbage or emptied the dishwasher.”

  “Never get too good at a job you don’t want to do, Alex.”

  It was easy to fall into the same rhythm. It was so comfortable, and it made it easier to forget that less than a foot to Alex’s right a horribly destructive secret was gestating in Jeremiah’s cursed womb.

  The longer they sat, the more Jeremiah’s traitorous body let itself go lax, creeping slowly into Alex’s space. Alex made a point of giving him an unimpressed look but didn’t move as Jeremiah shoved his toes under Alex’s thighs.

  Alex was just really warm, and Jeremiah’s circulation had always been bad. It wasn’t a big deal.

  The next episode cued up automatically, and Alex made a small, thoughtful sound.

  “It’s funny,” he said slowly, picking each word carefully like he was tiptoeing around a live bomb, “when I first hugged you at the airport, and like-felt your stomach, you know. And realized what it meant. The first thing I thought of was.” He laughed self-consciously. “I thought of that night when you came up to visit in the spring. I thought, you know. Maybe it was from that.”

  Jeremiah kept his eyes stubbornly on the TV. He refused to look at Alex. They had never talked about that night, not ever, not once, and why Alex thought it was cool to just bring it up with no warning when Jeremiah didn’t even have socks on was a mystery.

  “Yeah, you really dodged a bullet there, huh?” he said evenly. He refused to glance over and catch Alex’s reaction to that, either.

  He felt Alex staring at him for an endless moment. Jeremiah felt out of control, like any second he’d whip around and blurt everything out rather than keep feeling this unrelenting pressure of lying.

  He put a hand on his belly, rubbing a thumb mindlessly over the ridge. “I don’t know why I can’t feel it moving yet,” he pivoted, desperately.

  Alex cleared his throat. “Yeah?” He leaned closer. “When are you supposed to?”

  “I have no idea. The doctor said it could be up to twenty-five weeks.”

  “And how many weeks along are you again?”

  Jeremiah shrugged a shoulder. “Not twenty-five weeks yet. I don’t know, second trimester.” He was a math major, pretending he couldn’t count probably wasn’t selling this whole thing like he could be. “My doctor keeps saying it should be easier now, but it hasn’t been too hard yet to begin with. It makes me nervous. What if I go in for my next appointment and they’re like, ‘hey, sorry for the mistake, there’s not a baby in here, it’s just a burrito.’”

  “A beautiful, healthy burrito,” Alex said.

  “Fingers crossed.” Alex laid a tentative hand on Jeremiah’s ankle. “It must be pretty nerve-wracking. Doing this alone.”

  “Well, the thing about being pregnant is, you’re never truly alone. It’s like a tape worm.” Jeremiah sighed. It was a terrible joke. “Fabian and Emily have been really great. You’ve been-it’s been nice having you here, too. Guess I gotta drink it in before you head back up to wherever the hell you live now.”

  “You know where I live.” He felt Alex’s hand tighten on his ankle, then relax. He didn’t take it away and Jeremiah carefully didn’t shift or move his ankle in any way.

  They watched TV for a while longer until Jeremiah drifted off, only rousing when he heard the door click shut and Penny’s nails clicking on the ground, Alex talking softly to her.

  “You want to go wake up your dad? Okay, let’s go.”

  Jeremiah kept his eyes closed until he heard Alex kneel beside him, touching his shoulder. “Carson, time for bed.”

  He blinked his eyes open slowly. Alex’s face was really close. He had these tiny wrinkles by his eyes that Jeremiah wanted to touch. He refrained.

  “Why’d you let me fall asleep on the couch, you filthy enabler,” he mumbled, smiling a little when Alex laughed.

  “Come on, up.” Alex hauled him to his feet, hands gentle, guiding him up until Jeremiah felt stable enough to stumble toward his own bedroom. Before he could, Alex reeled him in for a hug.

  “Why are you being weird,” Jeremiah said, muffled into Alex’s shoulder. He wanted to go stiff but he was still pretty lax from his couch nap, pressing his face to the soft fabric of his shirt.

  “I’m just really happy for you,” Alex said. He rubbed slow circles on Jeremiah’s back. “And proud. You’re being really brave.”

  Jeremiah groaned. “Ugh, shut up.” He could feel Alex chuckle from his ear pressed to Alex’s chest. It was awful.

  Finally, Alex released him. “You mind if I sleep on the couch?”

  “You have a bed at Jeremiah and Emily’s.”

  Alex stepped back, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “I know, it’s just-it’s late. Don’t want to bother them. And just in case you need something in the middle of the night.”

  “That’s so stupid, I’m fine. I don’t need a live-in nanny dog, Alex Vane.”

  But when Alex didn’t look convinced, Jeremiah relented. What was he going to do, bodily shove him out the door? Jeremiah was tired and his back was sore, and Alex looked so good, hopeful and rumpled in the dim light of Jeremiah’s living room.

  “You’re taking Penny out in the morning,” he declared crankily. “Probably for a run. She’s getting chunky, and that’s kind of my thing these days. Can’t have her stealing focus.”

  Alex laughed. “You’re the boss.” He looked relieved. He was so stupid. Jeremiah turned away abruptly, calling out, “If you wake me up before seven I’ll murder you,” and let the sound of Alex’s laughter carry him into his own bedroom, Penny at his heels.

  Once he slipped into bed, he braced himself to toss around for a few hours, struggling to sleep knowing Alex was just a few rooms away.

  Instead, he dropped off after a few minutes, sleeping hard with no dreams he could remember in the morning. Which was just typical, really.

  ***

  It took two weeks for Jeremiah to notice that Alex didn’t seem to have any concrete plans to return to San Francisco.

  It took him another week to work up the courage to ask him about it, one evening when they were sitting on the couch, Jeremiah’s feet in Alex’s lap, Alex absently rubbing the knob on his ankle and the tense pad of his foot until Jeremiah was loose-limbed and so warm and willing himself not to get a boner.

  That had been happening more and more. The boner thing, obviously, but the casual way Alex would scoop up Jeremiah’s feet or drape an arm around his shoulders or sit closer than he needed to so Jeremiah could lean against him. It was impossible to resist, really. Jeremiah was only a man.

  “When are you going back home?” he heard himself ask muzzily.

  The hand tracing along the arch of his foot stopped. Alex wrapped a hand around Jeremiah’s foot and turned to look at him.

  Jeremiah propped himself up on his elbows, blinking rapidly, trying to look alive.

  “I’m not going back to San Francisco.”

  Of all the possible answers, Jeremiah hadn’t even considered that one.

  “What?” He made a face, groggy. “What are you talking about?”

  Alex said, unwaveringly, “I’m staying here, with you.” He glanced away, a ruddy blush appearing on his cheeks and neck. “And with Penny. Fabian and Emily and Leroy.”

  “Well, obviously more Penny than Leroy. She’s the better dog. Wait.” Jeremiah couldn’t stop shaking his head. “You can’t just move here.” This was crazy talk. He suddenly needed to not be on his back f
or this. He waved a hand in Alex’s face. “Help me up.”

  Alex immediately shifted to pull him upright, holding his arm until Jeremiah shoved a pillow behind him and settled comfortably into the couch. Even then he didn’t move far, keeping an arm looped over the couch back just behind Jeremiah’s head.

  He was smirking a little. “Why can’t I just move here? You did.”

  Why was he being so difficult, is what Jeremiah wanted to know. “You have a whole life in San Francisco!” He scrounged for what exactly a whole life entailed. All he could come up with was, “You have an apartment!”

  Alex rolled his eyes. “I can sublet the apartment, it’s not a big deal. And it’s not practical for me to be all the way up there when the company’s going to be based here. You and Fabian have been telling me that for forever, anyway.” Alex voice was carefully light. “Felt like time to make the leap, you know?”

  Jeremiah had to swallow so he wouldn’t make some kind of embarrassing sound. His blood was rushing in his ears.

  “What about being so happy in San Francisco?” he challenged. “What about Anna?”

  Finally, Alex’s calm broke slightly. He glanced down. “Anna and I broke up a month ago. Just before I came down, really.”

  That killed some of Jeremiah’s verbal momentum. “What, really? Why?”

  Alex wasn’t really meeting his eye. “A lot of reasons. We weren’t really seeing eye-to-eye on a lot of things. I wanted something different. It was time.”

  Jeremiah couldn’t possibly imagine what he wanted that Anna couldn’t possibly give him, and by contrast, what Jeremiah could even hope to offer in exchange that was any better.

  He grabbed Alex’s free hand with both of his, feeling frantic with the need to make Alex just be reasonable, here. “I know what you’re doing, Alex, and you can’t let me ruin everything for you. I don’t need you to do this for me.” Jeremiah knew Alex’s identity and self-worth and sense of purpose was tied up in his ability to give himself over to a cause, but Jeremiah also knew he had a tendency to go overboard with it until he was miserable, and now he was about to do it again just because Jeremiah and his disaster baby had cannonballed through his entire life-Alex carefully pulled his hand from Jeremiah’s clammy grip and took Jeremiah by the shoulders. “Hey.” When Jeremiah looked up at him, feeling pitiful, Alex’s entire face was so open and warm it made Jeremiah look away again. “This is my call. I want to do this.”