AU: Baby Talk (Sean)

[Chase Campbell]

James kept telling Chase that spending time with the other pregnant men in their circle of friends. It was good for him. Good for all of them, really. They could talk about what had happened, how things were going...

Chase equated it to a knitting circle, only with back pain, the constant need to pee, and feeling like he was starving all the damn time.

No, he was not enjoying pregnancy. How women voluntarily went through it, he had no desire to know.

The trainer was visiting Sean while James ran some errands. His lack of patience and the whining that went on if they were out for long periods of time hadn’t been worth it, in both of their minds, so off he had gone to Sean’s. Chase honestly admired Sean for the calm approach he’d taken to the whole thing. While the rest of them had devolved into various messes ranging from crying at the drop of a hat to... well... Chase, Sean had been the calm one. It wasn’t fair.

No, that was not the raging hormones talking. Really, it wasn’t.

Once again, Chase shifted on the soft couch he generally liked to throw himself whenever Sean had a get together. “You’re so lucky you’re not pregnant anymore,” he grumbled as his own baby attempted to use some sensitive piece of him as a punching bag. Eleanor was adorable, he had to admit that, and he couldn’t wait to have his and James’ own baby in their arms. The one they were still trying to figure out a name for at home, because he’d just had to go and change genders on them from the first scan to the most recent. Chase had a feeling it was going to go on up until the baby was born, and possibly even longer than that. It just added to his frustration levels with the whole situation. Yes, he was happy he was going to have a baby with James. He loved his step-daughter, and he loved Niko, but this was different. He had a part of James now.

Still, he made himself be at least a little sociable. “How’s Eleanor been? She’s pretty cute.” Maybe distractions would help.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean fully conceded that his pregnancy had been both inexplicably and unfairly easy, given the situation as a whole. As much as a smugger person might attribute those facts to clean living, the telepath held enough modesty and honesty to admit that nothing of a sort played a role. Both he and his partner drank too much, and quitting cold turkey for the duration of his pregnancy had been difficult, although he had done so and felt better for having done so.

Not that that had prevented him from having a glass of wine as soon as he returned home from the hospital.

He and Josh drank too much coffee, and coffee had been his first request after the C-section. Coffee and a cupcake from Ari’s.

Josh smoked and had continued to do so throughout the telepath’s pregnancy. Sean had a sweet tooth and ate too many baked goods and too much refined sugar, and he had no intention of stopping or modifying his diet in the future. He should exercise more than he did, given his sedentary lifestyle, although the post-surgery restrictions would keep him off his feet and prevent that for a while.

Moreover, while he considered him an ethical person, “cleaning living” tended to mean “religious faith” which he lacked and had lacked for approaching three decades.

Not that it mattered. By good luck and aided by his emotional balance and excellent coping skills, the telepath had experience an easy pregnancy, a complication-free birth, and now he and Josh had a healthy newborn baby.

They had both loved her at first sight.

The good luck had continued, in that, so far, Eleanor proved to be a mellow baby. She didn’t cry very much, and although she couldn’t sleep through the night, and would not for a long time, he and Josh had worked out a system of shifts for feedings and diaper changes that kept both men better rested than if either tried to shoulder the lion’s share of the responsibilities.

Thus, even with the tenderness at the surgical scar, he was all smiles.

At the moment, she was napping in her bassinette, which he had moved close to the sofa for the duration of Chase’s visit. That kept him from needing to use the stairs to get to her.

“She’s doing fine,” he said, with a wide grin on his face. He was so proud of her for every tiny thing she did, which, he knew, resulted from the hormone bath, but that changed nothing. “We’re all doing fine.”

Quite fine in fact.

Then, because even new fatherhood hormones and emotions couldn’t squelch his sense of responsibility, he added, “You’ll get through these next few months.” All of the other men would.

[Chase Campbell]

The Campbell baby was not making things very easy on Chase. It was constantly restless, and seemed to be most comfortable when Chase was decidedly uncomfortable. It was starting to become difficult to sleep in bed with James, and more often than not he could often be found downstairs on the couch in the morning, all of the pillows stuffed under his back. He honestly didn’t think he could take a few more months of this.

He missed everything fun. He missed coaching the soccer team. He missed coffee. God, he missed alcohol, because he’d wanted to have a drink at least once or twice a week since pregnancy began, and much more frequently now. Most of the time he substituted with candy, much to James’ chagrin, he was sure, but it was better than diving for the coffee pot. Granted, he still gave liquor stores a longing look whenever they drove past, but he knew James wouldn’t give in no matter how much he whined about it.

Being around Sean was supposed to help. He was so calm, but Chase couldn’t bring himself to be half as serene. It did feel a little better to talk to someone who had gone through what he was, though. James could listen and comfort him as best he could, but he still didn’t know how it felt. Sean knew, and he could throw out suggestions to help, if he had them.

Even if Chase outright rejected some of them. Like Lamaze classes, because he was not doing it, and no one was going to make him. Not even James.

“That’s good everyone’s doing well.” He meant it, too. “The kids are getting excited. Niko, especially. He likes the idea of being a big brother.” Growing up as an only child, Chase could see the appeal.

Of course, that was quickly dismissed from his mind as the baby lurched sideways, causing him to hiss under his breath. At least he kept from swearing this time. “I don’t know I’m going to get through the next few weeks. Was Eleanor really active? Because I swear this kid’s trying to kill me.”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I’m sure he does.” Sean had faint memories of his parents telling him that he would have a baby brother or sister fifty years ago. Although he remembered little from being so young, he did remember being excited, and he still remembered the day that his mother and father had brought Kathleen home from the hospital. Little could compare in a child’s life to meeting their baby sibling for the first time.

The telepath stopped in at Eleanor’s bassinette for one moment to check on her, before providing Chase with his mostly undivided attention. His daughter remained blissfully asleep, not that he worried should she wake up. She made herself known through noises, and, absent that, the telepathy kept him alert all the same.

“You’ll make it through the next few weeks,” he assured his friend. To his knowledge, there had been no medical conditions like gestational diabetes, and Chase had not been put on bed rest or warned of preeclampsia. As such, although the situation was odd and uncomfortable, Sean had no reason to think that his friend couldn’t make it through the next few weeks, and then the next few months.

After all, he had done it with flying colors.

“She was active in the last couple of months. I lucked out, because she was very mellow.” And continued to be so. Josh claimed she took after him that way.

[Chase Campbell]

Both Nikki and Ginny were excited about the upcoming arrival. Ginny already had Nikki as a little brother, but that didn’t stop her from being excited to add to the collection. It was something Chase had never experienced himself. The closest thing he’d had was when his best friend’s parents had had a second child. Even then, Ryan’s little brother had been more annoying than anything else. Really, Chase wanted to applaud the kids for being excited about it.

There was nothing stopping Chase from surviving the next few days, weeks, or months, no. Thus far everything was going smoothly and both him and the baby were as healthy as could be expected. Normally Chase could handle pain and discomfort, but this was a whole new level of both sometimes, and the hormones going haywire made him... well... much less capable of handling much of anything these days. At least not sanely. “Maybe,” he mumbled, pressing a hand to his belly. Almost immediately he began to feel the flutters that were surely kicks. Sigh.

“If that’s the case, I don’t know who it takes after.” James always had that constant, nervous energy, but Chase was far and away the more active of the two of them. Another sharp kick made him remove his hand. “Jesus, nevermind. It’s gotta be me.” His head flopped back against the top of the sofa. “How’d you do it, Sean? I keep looking at the calendar and marking how far I still have to go, and it’s not looking very possible right now.” Maybe amid his whining he could actually get some sound advice.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

How did he do it?

Every single person with whom Sean had engaged since first learning of his pregnancy had asked him a variation of that question, some more than once. He knew that, objectively, his calm perserverence made little sense. He was a fifty-four-year-old cisgendered man, turning fifty-five in a few months, who had recently given birth to a daughter, one that belonged both genetically and emotionally to him and his equally male partner. It had never happened before. Even with the other pregnant men, he had been the first. Everyone expected him to feel ashamed, or frustrated, or scared, or depressed, and he had experienced none of those.

Unfortunately, beyond sheer personality type and general outlook on life, the telepath possessed no secret. He couldn’t bottle his perspective or his calm demeanor and bottle it to give to Chase or to any of the other men.

“I’m a remarkably patient man,” he reminded his friend. With a bit of effort, he reached for his mug and took a sip of the warm liquid inside. “I waited decades to have children. What was another few months compared with that?”

He had been prepared to cut back on his alcohol consumption and to enact a more regular schedule in order to adopt. In order to bring a child into this world, he had certainly been willing to wait patiently and follow medical advice.

[Chase Campbell]

If there was some secret to surviving this intact, Chase wanted to know what it was, and the sooner, the better. He already disliked how this was going. He hated the mood swings, the physical effects... Call him what you would, Chase wouldn't readily admit to being a little vain, but now? Yeah, he could admit it. He'd always been in good shape, so the developing baby bump was a little more distressing than it should have been. Most of the time he could look forward to having his and James' baby in the next few months, but there were times he couldn't get past the fact that he was miserable and felt like he had very little control of anything anymore.

"Patience is overrated," he muttered softly, a hand resting slightly on his belly. "I just want it to be over." It was something James had probably heard a lot of over the past few weeks, but it warranted repeating. "I mean, I'm happy. It just... needs to be over." Soon. Nothing fun was accessible anymore, and running felt like a kind of torture with his back, to the point he'd given up on it for now. No alcohol, no coffee, no fun, and nothing to really make this feel tolerable. And he knew it was only going to get worse from here on out.

At that moment, his stomach decided that he was once again starving. He hated that switch flipping, going from fine to a raging starving fit in a matter of seconds. "I know I'm a pain in the ass, but do you have anything to snack on? Baby's hungry, or something." Because blaming the baby was the easiest thing to do.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Unfortunately for Chase and for the other pregnant men (and for students like Evan), there was no simple secret to surviving pregnancy. With proper medical intervention and a bit of good luck, it was as inevitable as the passage of time. In one sense, that could be reassuring, because it meant that this, too, would end, no matter how uncomfortable it felt in the moment. However, Sean doubted that Chase would take comfort from that.

“Patience has never steered me wrong,” the telepath replied. It had gotten him to where he was today, and, if where he was today included no longer being pregnant with the baby that he and his partner had managed to conceive out of wedlock and with no scientific or physiological explanation, despite his emphasis on proper condom use, then so be it. He had a baby now, and he couldn’t be happier about that.

He loved her so much.

“It’ll be over soon enough.” While it might sound easier said than done, Sean had been there, and so he spoke with some authority on the topic. In a few months, Chase would have had his C-section, he would have a new baby, and his pregnancy would be a distant memory.

Upon hearing his friend’s rumbling stomach, he nodded and rose to his feet. “Let me know what you want. I probably have it.” While he’d always kept a fully-stocked pantry, he had taken better care while eating for two.