Matthew Holland | Your omega got pregnant.

It had been raining since dawn, a steady, colorless drizzle that turned the district beyond the glass into a smeared watercolor of grey rooftops and yellow taxi lights.

Matthew was sitting cross-legged on the carpet of Sarah's bedroom, his back propped against the pink beanbag she had claimed as her throne months ago. A plastic tea set was arranged between them in a lopsided circle. Sarah, in a t-shirt with a glittery unicorn peeling at the edges and mismatched socks — one striped, one covered in tiny cartoon strawberries — was pouring imaginary tea into a chipped porcelain cup, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.

«Nineteen years old», Matthew thought for the hundredth time that morning, «Nineteen. Sophomore year. Two pink lines».

His stomach turned. He pressed his palm flat against the carpet to steady himself.

«Big brother», Sarah announced with the gravity of a small monarch, «You have to drink it. It's cinnamon-strawberry. I made it special».

Matthew took the tiny cup between his fingers and mimed a sip. His hand was trembling. He hoped she couldn't tell. Sarah, thankfully, was already busy arranging her plush rabbit in the seat next to hers, scolding it for slouching.

He'd been repeating variations of confession in his head since the pharmacy bathroom last night — since the twenty minutes he'd spent staring at the two pink lines like they might rearrange themselves if he blinked hard enough. He hadn't slept. He'd curled up in his nest under three blankets with {{user}}'s grey hoodie pulled over his face, breathing in the last faint traces of pheromones that clung to the collar, and he'd catastrophized his way through every possible ending until the sun came up.

The door to the bedroom nudged open with a soft creak. Dorian.

He was in his weekend clothes — a soft cream cardigan buttoned wrong at the bottom, his glasses pushed up into his hair, a dish towel over his shoulder. He smelled, as he always did, faintly of green tea and the vanilla paste he used for baking. He held two mugs, one in each hand, steam curling above them.

«I brought you tea, sweetheart», Dorian said, stepping carefully around the tea-party circle and lowering himself onto the edge of Sarah's bed, «Chamomile. The one Milo hates».

Sarah giggled without looking up: «Papa says it tastes like grass».

«Papa is a philistine», Dorian said mildly, and Sarah cackled.

Matthew took the mug. His fingers didn't stop shaking around the ceramic. He wrapped both hands around it, tight, and stared down into the pale gold liquid. His reflection wobbled on the surface — messy black hair, dark circles under his eyes, a mouth that wouldn't stop pressing itself into a thin line.

Dorian said nothing for a long time. He just sat there, watching his son the way he'd watched him at seven years old, patient and unhurried, waiting for the right moment.

He knows something is wrong. He always knows.

Matthew's throat closed.

«Sarah, sweetheart», Dorian said gently, not taking his eyes off Matthew, «Could you go and check on the cookies for me? The timer should go off any minute. If it does, come find me. Don't open the oven yourself».

«Okay!» Sarah scrambled up, unicorn t-shirt riding up over her stomach, and thundered out of the room in her mismatched socks. The door swung shut behind her with a soft thump.

Silence fell.

Rain against the window. The distant hum of the refrigerator down the hall. Sarah's voice already chattering to the plush rabbit she'd apparently dragged with her to supervise the cookies.

Matthew felt his eyes fill before he'd even opened his mouth. He set the mug down on the carpet very carefully so he wouldn't spill it. His hands went into his lap, twisting the drawstrings of his oversized hoodie — {{user}}'s hoodie — into knots.

«Mom», he whispered.

Dorian slid down from the bed to the floor without a word, folding his long legs beneath him and settling across from Matthew, close but not crowding. He reached out and let his hand rest palm-up on the carpet between them. An offering. Never a demand.

Matthew put his hand in Dorian's.

«I'm pregnant», he said, and his voice broke on the second word, «I took a test last night. Two of them. I don't know what to do».

He couldn't look at Dorian's face. He stared at their joined hands instead, at the thin silver band Dorian wore on his ring finger, at the small white flour smudge on his knuckle from the morning's baking.

Dorian's thumb stroked the back of his hand once. Slow. Steady.

«Okay», Dorian said quietly, «Okay, sweetheart. Breathe first. Look at me».

Matthew looked up. Dorian's eyes behind the wire-rims were soft, steady, entirely unshocked. It was the same face he'd worn when Matthew had come to him at fifteen crying about a bad grade.

«Breathe», Dorian repeated, «In for four. Out for six. Come on. With me».

Matthew tried. His shoulders were shaking. He counted along in his head, and by the third round of breath the worst of the crying tapered off, leaving him hiccuping instead, wet and quiet.

«Good boy», Dorian said, and it was the tone that undid him again, that soft, matter-of-fact kindness that had been sewn into every year of his life since he was six, «There you go. There you go, sweet boy».

«I'm sorry», Matthew whispered.

«No», Dorian's grip tightened just slightly, «No, don't. Not for this».

Matthew pressed the heel of his free hand to his eye and rubbed. The hoodie sleeve came away wet. He tried to speak twice before the words came out.

«I was on suppressants but I missed some. Midterms week. I forgot. And then I forgot again. I thought... I don't know what I thought. I'm so stupid, mom-».

«You're not stupid».

«I'm nineteen».

«I know how old you are, love. I was there», there was the smallest curve of a smile at the corner of Dorian's mouth, just for a second, gone again, «Matthew. Look at me. Does {{user}} know?»

Matthew shook his head. The tears started up again, hot and useless.

«No. No, I haven't told anyone. You're the first. I couldn't... I don't know how to... What if he-».

«Stop», Dorian said gently, «Stop before you finish that sentence. Whatever your brain is about to invent, stop. You know that spiral. You know it doesn't tell the truth».

Matthew swallowed. His breath hitched.

«You have to tell him, sweetheart», Dorian said, «Tomorrow. As soon as you can. Not because he has a right to demand it because you love him, and he loves you, and this is the kind of thing that gets worse the longer it sits inside you alone. Do you understand?»

Matthew nodded, though it felt more like his head was falling than moving on purpose.

«Do you want me to come with you?»

«No», the word was out before he'd thought about it. He blinked, then said it again, softer, «No. I have to. Alone. I just... I have to».

Dorian studied him for a moment, then nodded.

«All right. I trust you».

Matthew's throat closed all over again at that.

«And your father?» Dorian asked, careful.

«No», Matthew's voice sharpened for the first time, panic rising fast, «Not yet. Mom, please, he's going to you know how he gets, he's going to lose his mind, he's going to he already doesn't like {{user}}, he's going to-».

«Sweetheart», Dorian squeezed his hand, «Let me handle Milo».

Matthew stopped mid-sentence.

«You?»

«Me», Dorian's tone was gentle but final, «Tonight, after you're asleep. I'll tell him. He deserves to hear it from someone who can keep him from throwing anything. That's not something you should have to manage on top of everything else. All right?»

Handle Milo. Matthew almost laughed — a wet, ragged sound that was more of a hiccup than a laugh. Dorian was the only person alive who could sit Milo Holland down and speak the kind of sentence that would keep his fists from finding a wall.

«Okay», Matthew whispered, «Okay. Thank you. Thank you, mom, I'm sorry».

«Stop apologizing».

«Sorry».

Dorian huffed a soft breath that was almost a laugh. He shifted forward and pulled Matthew into a hug — slow, careful, the way he always did, giving Matthew time to lean in on his own. Matthew collapsed into it. He buried his face in the shoulder of Dorian's cardigan and cried, quietly, for a long minute.

From the kitchen came the distant beep of a timer, followed by Sarah's triumphant shriek.

«MOM! MOM, THE COOKIES!»

«Coming», Dorian called back over his shoulder, unruffled. His hand stroked slow circles between Matthew's shoulder blades, «We're going to be okay, sweetheart. All of us. I promise».

Matthew nodded against his shoulder and did not answer, because he was not sure he believed it, but he was very sure that Dorian did, and for the moment that was enough.

The rain had cleared overnight. The sky above the city was a washed-out, tender blue, and the streets smelled of wet asphalt drying under a thin autumn sun.

Matthew had taken his bicycle. He'd almost taken the subway, then remembered the crush of strangers and the pheromones and his stomach that had already thrown up his breakfast, and he'd unlocked the matte-black frame from the rack outside the building without a word. The ride across town had taken twenty-three minutes. He'd counted every one of them. The wind against his face had been the only thing keeping him from turning around three separate times.

{{user}}'s apartment was in a building on the east side of the city — glass front, steel canopy, doorman who nodded at Matthew now like he was an expected fixture. His parents had bought it for him the summer before he'd started at MICA. It was on the fourteenth floor. The elevator smelled like citrus cleaner.

Matthew stood in front of the door with his key in his hand for a long time.

You have to. You have to. In and out. Tell him. Just tell him.

His stomach felt like it had been replaced with a hive of bees. His fingers wouldn't stop shaking, and the little silver ring on the cord under his shirt pressed cool against his sternum every time he breathed. He rubbed at it through the fabric — Dorian's ring, the one he wore whenever the world felt too big.

He's going to leave you.

He's not.

He's going to.

Stop.

He locked the bicycle downstairs. He climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator, because he needed the extra minutes. His legs felt like water by the fourteenth floor.

He knocked instead of using his key. It felt wrong to walk in like a normal Sunday. This was not a normal Sunday.

Matthew's chest rose and fell too fast under {{user}}'s oversized grey hoodie. He'd worn it deliberately. Armor. Or evidence. Or a talisman. He wasn't sure.

He clutched the strap of his canvas bag with both hands, knuckles white, and stared at the doorframe, waiting.

Le Petit Verre was the kind of restaurant that pretended not to be expensive. Warm amber lighting bounced off exposed brick walls, jazz piano murmured through hidden speakers at just below the threshold of conversation, and the tables were far enough apart that no one had to overhear anyone else's business. It had been Dorian's suggestion. Neutral ground.

The reservation had been for seven o'clock party of eight.

Matthew had been standing in front of his closet for four hours that afternoon.

He'd tried on nine different outfits before Dorian had knocked on his door and quietly steered him toward a soft dove-grey cashmere sweater, black tailored trousers, and a slim silver chain that Dorian had lent him from his own drawer. Matthew had stared at himself in the mirror for a long time afterward. He'd looked pale. He'd looked thin. He'd looked, he thought, exactly like the sort of nineteen-year-old omega you did not want your son bringing home. He'd tried to swallow the thought. It had come back up like reflux.

He was ten weeks along now. His stomach was still flat — you could not have picked him out of a lineup as pregnant — but he could feel it, some phantom heaviness low in his belly that hadn't been there before. He kept touching it in the mirror. He kept flinching away from touching it.

What if they hate me. What if they take one look and know. What if his mother thinks I trapped him. What if his father-

«Sweetheart», Dorian had said quietly from the doorway, «You look lovely. Stop».

The four of them had arrived at Le Petit Verre at ten past seven. Deliberately late. Milo had insisted. He'd wanted, Matthew realized only halfway through the taxi ride, to make {{user}}'s family sit and wait first. To arrive second. To be, in some small and stupid way, the ones who had the room's attention when they walked in.

Matthew had wanted to sink through the floor of the cab.

Milo was in a dark grey suit that Dorian had pressed the night before. He hadn't shaved that morning — the stubble along his jaw was a shade heavier than usual — and his tie was knotted with the kind of grim precision Matthew had only ever seen him use before funerals. His hands were curled into loose fists at his sides. He hadn't spoken more than six words all day.

Dorian was in a soft charcoal turtleneck and a slate-blue blazer, glasses pushed up into his hair, one hand resting between Milo's shoulder blades as they walked. The touch was continuous and deliberate.

Sarah was in her best dress, dark green velvet, white tights, patent leather shoes that clacked on the marble floor of the entrance, and she was clutching Matthew's hand with both of hers, swinging his arm, oblivious.

«Big brother», she stage-whispered, «I already saw them. Through the window. His mom has yellow hair like a doll».

«Sarah», Dorian murmured, «Inside voice».

«Inside voice», Sarah repeated obediently at exactly the same volume.

The hostess led them to the round table near the back. {{user}}'s family was already seated on the far side — three figures in a warm pool of lamplight, wineglasses in front of them, half-drunk. Matthew's vision tunneled slightly. He kept his eyes on the wooden floorboards and on Sarah's small hand in his.

Breathe. In four. Out six. Look up. Smile.

He looked up. He tried to smile. It felt like his face was made of paper.

{{user}}'s father rose first. Richard — Matthew already knew the name; {{user}} had said it enough times that it had lodged in his skull like a splinter — was a broad-shouldered man in his early fifties, with a thick head of silver-streaked auburn hair combed back from a high forehead, gold wire-frame glasses, and the neat, capable hands of a man who cut people open for a living. He wore a navy sport coat over a crisp white shirt, no tie. His smile, when it landed on Matthew, was genuinely warm.

«You must be Matthew», Richard said, stepping around the table with his hand extended before Matthew had finished processing the sentence, «I've heard a great deal. All of it good, I assure you».

Matthew shook his hand. Richard's palm was dry and enormous. Matthew's felt clammy by comparison.

«It's nice to meet you, sir», Matthew managed.

«Richard, please. Sir was my father», Richard's smile deepened, «Come, sit. This is my wife, Diane».

Diane was standing now too, small and precise, blonde hair pinned into a tight low bun, pearl earrings, a dove-white cashmere twinset. She was, Matthew realized instantly, the source of at least half of {{user}}'s easy warmth — she had the same bright, direct gaze, the same slightly performative openness. She reached both hands out and caught Matthew's between them like she was steadying a cup of hot tea.

«Oh, look at you», Diane said, tilting her head. Her voice was low, musical, professionally kind — a nurse's voice, «You're even lovelier than {{user}} said. And so slim. Sweetheart, are you eating?»

«I-I...».

«We'll fix that tonight. Sit, sit».

Behind them, Milo cleared his throat. It was the kind of throat-clearing that had preceded, in Matthew's memory, at least three separate construction-site altercations.

«Milo Holland», his father said flatly, extending a hand toward Richard. He did not soften his voice around the speech impediment tonight — did not slow down, did not compensate. The consonants came out heavy and clipped, «Matthew's father».

«Richard. A real pleasure».

«And this is my spouse Dorian», Milo continued, «And our daughter, Sarah».

«Hi», Sarah announced to the entire restaurant.

Diane's eyes flickered and then her smile reasserted itself.

«How wonderful. Please. Sit».

They sat.

The table was round, which had been Dorian's other stipulation. No head. No foot. Nowhere for anyone to stake territorial claim. Matthew ended up between Dorian and {{user}}, with Milo directly across from Richard, Sarah beside Diane, and an empty chair between Sarah and Dorian that had been meant for symmetry.

Matthew's hand found {{user}}'s under the table without looking. He held on.

The waiter arrived. Water was poured. Menus were distributed. Sarah announced, before anyone had opened a menu, that she wanted the biggest ice cream on the dessert page and also chicken tenders.

«We'll start with the burrata for the table», Diane said brightly to the waiter, without consulting anyone, «And another bottle of the Sancerre. My son, what are you drinking? And Matthew... sparkling water, dear? You look pale».

Matthew felt the heat rush up his neck.

«Water is fine», he said, «Just water. Thank you».

Matthew squeezed {{user}}'s hand harder under the table.

The burrata arrived. Sarah, uninterested, was already halfway through negotiating with Diane for a preview of the dessert menu. Dorian was speaking quietly to Richard about the restaurant's wine list, doing the careful diplomatic work of laying down social cushioning between the two alpha fathers. Milo had not touched his wine. He had not touched his water. His hands rested flat on the table on either side of his plate like he was preparing to lift it.

Richard leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.

«So, Matthew», he said warmly, «{{user}} tells me you're at MICA. Textile design, is that right?»

«Conceptual fashion and textile, yes. Sophomore year.»

«Marvelous. Marvelous. And you enjoy it?»

«I love it», Matthew said, and for a second his voice steadied because it was true.

«Good», Richard said. He smiled, and then he turned that same warm smile onto his son, and something in the temperature of the table dropped by three degrees before he'd even opened his mouth, «{{user}}, on the other hand, has been telling us for two years that he loves it, and I still cannot for the life of me understand what my son is going to do with a degree in from MICA?»

Matthew felt {{user}}'s fingers tighten around his.

«Richard», Diane murmured, «Not tonight».

«I'm making conversation, darling», Richard's smile did not waver, «Matthew, tell me. You're a bright young man. What is your assessment? Is my son going to feed a family with such a poor education?»

The word "family" sat down in the middle of the table like a loaded plate.

Matthew opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

Milo shifted his weight forward: «Watch it».

Richard blinked at him, unruffled: «I beg your pardon?»

«Watch your tone», Milo said. The consonants came out slow and hard, and Matthew watched his father not even try to hide the impediment now watched him wield it, in fact, the way he wielded his shoulders on a job site, «With my son. Watch it».

«Milo», Dorian said softly, his hand sliding onto Milo's forearm.

«I assure you», Richard said, spreading his palms, still smiling, «I meant no offense. I was speaking to {{user}}. It's an ongoing conversation in our family. Matthew is a lovely young man and I would not dream of-».

«Then don't use him», Milo said, «To make a point at your own son».

The table went completely quiet.

Sarah, sensing the drop in temperature without understanding it, reached for a breadstick with the pragmatic instincts of a seven-year-old and began to eat it very quietly.

Diane laughed a bright, professional, deflecting laugh and set her wineglass down.

«Well. Now that we're all warmed up», she looked at Matthew, and her eyes were soft again, and Matthew realized with a lurch that she was about to do something worse than what her husband had just done, «Sweetheart. Matthew. {{user}} told us your news last week. We are absolutely thrilled. I want you to know that».

Matthew's stomach dropped straight through his chair.

Dorian went very still.

Milo turned his head slowly toward {{user}}.

«And I've been thinking», Diane went on, «About timing. Because these things move quickly, you know, and I want us all to be on the same page. Richard and I have been talking. We think, and I'm just putting it on the table, no one has to agree tonight, we think a spring wedding would be lovely. Late March, early April. Before he starts to show. We have a beautiful venue in mind. It's small. It's tasteful. And it would put everything on a firm foundation for the baby's sake. Legally. Socially. You understand».

Matthew could not breathe.

He looked at {{user}}. {{user}} was looking at his mother with an expression Matthew had never seen on him before.

Dorian, beside him, set his own wineglass down with the slow, deliberate care of someone defusing an explosive.

«Mrs. Diane», Dorian said quietly, «I don't think this is the conversation for tonight».

«Oh, please», Diane said, waving a hand, «Call me Diane. And it's exactly the conversation for tonight. We're family now, aren't we? We might as well-».

«Family?» Milo's voice cut across the table. Low. Not loud. Worse than loud, «My son found out he was pregnant three weeks ago. He is nineteen years old. He is in his second year of college. And you're already picking the venue?»

«Papa», Matthew whispered, «Please».

Milo did not look at him.

«Mr. Holland», Diane said, and her professional smile had thinned into something less warm, «I understand you're upset. This is a lot. It's a lot for all of us. But surely you agree that if the children are going to keep this baby-»

«If?» Matthew heard himself say, and his voice cracked in the middle of the syllable.

Everyone looked at him.

He felt every drop of blood in his body rush to his face and then immediately drain back out. He set his water glass down. His hand was shaking so badly that the ice cubes clicked against the rim.

«We are», Matthew said, «We are keeping the baby. That's already...».

«Of course you are, sweetheart», Diane said quickly, reaching across the table to pat his hand, «Of course. I only meant-».

Richard cleared his throat.

«While we're being direct with one another», he said, in the same easy, pleasant tone he had used to compliment Matthew's sweater, «I do want to say one more thing, and then I promise, Diane, I will let it rest for the evening. {{user}}. Son. This actually gives me an opportunity to say what I've been trying to say for two years. You have a wife and child on the way now. It is time to be serious. MICA is a hobby. It is not a career. I want you to withdraw from MICA at the end of this semester and I want you to sit the MCAT in the spring. I will pay for the prep course. I will make every call that needs to be made. You could start at Johns Hopkins in the fall of next year. You have the brain for it. You have always had the brain for it. And you will thank me, in ten years, when you can support your family».

«Richard», Diane, sharp now.

Milo stood up.

He didn't shove his chair back. He rose slowly. His napkin fell from his lap to the floor. He put both his hands flat on the edge of the table and leaned forward, and Richard, to his credit, did not flinch, though the two men were suddenly closer to each other than any two alphas at a dinner table should ever be.

«You», Milo said quietly, «Will not blackmail your son in front of my son. Not tonight. Not at this table».

The restaurant behind them had gone quieter. Not silent. Just quieter. The nearest table had stopped pretending not to listen.

Dorian rose too, in one smooth motion, and stepped in close to Milo's side — not restraining him, just present, one hand on his back and the other extended slightly, palm-down, toward Richard.

«Everyone», Dorian said, in the voice that had once talked Matthew down from a panic attack in the middle of a grocery store, «Please. Sit. Let's everyone, sit down. We're going to eat. We are going to eat, and we are going to speak about pleasant things, and any decisions that need to be made will be made by Matthew and {{user}}, not by any of us. Is that understood?»

There was a long, brittle pause.

Sarah, into it, quietly asked: «Can I have my ice cream now?»

Diane laughed a real laugh, this time, small and startled and pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

«Yes, sweetheart», Dorian said, without looking away from Richard, «You can have your ice cream».

Milo sat down. Slowly. His jaw was so tight Matthew could see the muscle jumping under the stubble. His eyes had not left Richard's face.

Richard sat down as well and picked up his wineglass and took a long, controlled sip.

Diane smiled again brilliant, brittle, professional and lifted her own glass.

«To the children», she said, in a tone that was almost a threat, «And to a healthy, happy pregnancy».

Sarah, who had already flagged down the waiter, was pointing rapturously at the largest sundae on the dessert menu — three scoops, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, a maraschino cherry on top, extra sprinkles. Her eyes were enormous.

«That one», she informed the waiter with the authority of a small general, «Please. Thank you».

Matthew, hand still clenched around {{user}}'s under the table, stared down at the burrata in front of him and thought, very distinctly, that he was going to be sick.

Under the tablecloth, he pressed his free hand flat against his still-flat stomach.

«I'm sorry», he thought at whatever was in there, «I'm so sorry. Welcome to your family».

The apartment on the fourteenth floor had, over the last three months, slowly stopped being {{user}}'s apartment and started becoming theirs. The transition had not been dramatic. It had been small, incremental, textile — the way Matthew did everything. A soft throw draped over the back of the leather couch that had previously been too cold to sit on. A row of Matthew's sketchbooks colonizing one shelf of the bookcase. The bathroom counter now had two toothbrushes, a small pyramid of prenatal vitamins, and a scented candle Dorian had brought over the weekend before.

Matthew was almost twenty weeks along.

You could see it now. Not dramatically — not the way the pregnancy books had led him to expect — but the soft, unmistakable curve was there under his sweater, low and firm, no longer confusable with a bad meal or a bloating day. He'd stopped being able to button his own trousers three weeks ago. He was wearing, at present, a pair of {{user}}'s grey sweatpants pulled up over the bump and one of his own oversized cream cardigans, the sleeves flopping over his hands.

The apartment smelled of garlic and browning butter.

He'd come home from his afternoon lecture at half past four, dropped his tote bag by the door, gone straight to the shower to rinse the cold and the diesel-smell of the bus off his skin, and then he'd padded into the kitchen barefoot to start dinner. {{user}} would be home from the aquatic center at seven — he'd sent a photo an hour ago, standing on the pool deck in a red instructor's jacket, giving a thumbs-up next to a small elderly patient in a floral swim cap — and Matthew wanted the risotto to be ready when he walked in.

He had the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder now, the risotto pot bubbling gently on the induction burner in front of him, a wooden spoon in his right hand.

«No, mom, I promise, I'm eating», he was saying, «I ate two bowls of that soup you sent, and I had a whole yogurt at ten. And a bagel. With cream cheese. The full-fat one you like».

«And protein?» Dorian's voice on the other end was warm, distant, home. Matthew could hear Sarah in the background yelling something about a lost sock.

«And protein. Chicken tonight. That's what the risotto is».

«Good boy».

Matthew's mouth curved despite himself. He stirred slowly, watching the arborio grains swell against the wooden spoon.

«Is she okay? Sarah?»

«She's fine. She's lost her striped sock again. She's convinced the washing machine eats one out of every pair».

«Maybe it does».

«Don't encourage her».

Matthew laughed a small, breathy sound and reached with his free hand to lift the wooden lid off the smaller pot beside the risotto, checking the chicken stock. Steam bloomed up into his face. He blinked, tilted his head, and set the lid back down.

«How's papa?»

There was a pause on the other end. Not a long one. Just the length of a breath.

«He's fine, sweetheart. He asked after you again this morning. He wanted to know if the heating in your building was working properly. I told him yes for the fourth time».

Matthew's throat squeezed. Milo had spoken to him roughly six times since the dinner at Le Petit Verre. Each conversation had been polite, short, and full of the kind of careful silences that meant he had not, in his own head, actually forgiven anything yet.

«Tell him I love him», Matthew said quietly.

«I will. He knows, sweetheart. He knows».

Matthew reached down and rested his free hand on the curve of his belly under the cardigan. The gesture had become automatic in the last two weeks. He wasn't even sure he registered it anymore.

«Did you feel anything today?» Dorian asked, gently.

«A little. This morning, in class. Like a fish flipping. Just for a second».

Dorian made a small, delighted sound.

«Oh, sweetheart. Oh, that's wonderful. It'll happen more and more now».

Matthew smiled down at the pot. He stirred once. Twice. He tilted his head toward his own belly, half-conscious of it, and murmured, softer, in a voice not entirely meant for the phone:

«Did you hear that, little bean? Mom Dorian says you're gonna keep doing it. You're gonna keep flipping around like a little fish. Yeah?»

He rubbed a slow, small circle low on the curve.

«Are you talking to the baby?» Dorian's voice, fond.

«Maybe».

«You should. They can hear you, at this stage. Their ears are forming».

«Really?»

«Really».

Matthew looked down at his own hand splayed low across the bump. He felt, distinctly, a small warm tug of something under his ribs that had nothing to do with the baby and everything to do with the fact that he was standing in a warm kitchen in their apartment, on a Thursday evening, making dinner, twenty weeks pregnant, on the phone with the person who had raised him. His eyes stung, suddenly and stupidly. He blinked hard.

«Sweetheart, I have to let you go, Sarah has apparently now lost the second sock».

«How do you lose two socks».

«A great mystery of our time. Eat your dinner. Call me tomorrow. I love you».

«Love you, mom».

The line clicked.

The kitchen was quiet again, except for the soft rolling boil of the risotto and the distant honk of a taxi fourteen floors below. Matthew set his phone face-down on the counter beside the cutting board. He stirred once more. He tilted his head toward his belly.

«Just you and me for a minute, little bean», he murmured. «Papa {{user}}'s going to be home in two and a half hours. We're going to make him a really nice dinner. Yeah? He's going to be tired. He worked hard today. He was teaching a very old lady how to do the doggy paddle. I saw a picture. She has a hat with flowers on it. You're going to love her».

He kept stirring. The rice was almost there. He added another ladle of stock, watched it hiss and settle.

«And after dinner», he continued conversationally, «We're going to draw. I have to finish that pattern for Professor Halloran's crit on Monday. You can help me pick the colors. You've been very helpful about colors this week. I liked the green».

He was smiling, faintly, at the pot.

And then — quite abruptly, quite without warning — the smile went sideways on his face.

The sensation arrived low. Not painful. Not even, strictly speaking, unpleasant. It was a slow, warm, drawing tightness in his lower belly and between his hips, like something inside him had rolled over and stretched. His breath caught around the wooden spoon in his hand. He blinked.

Oh.

He straightened. He waited for it to pass.

It didn't pass. It deepened.

Matthew set the spoon down carefully on the little ceramic rest beside the burner. He turned the heat down to low. He wiped his hands on the dish towel that had been slung over his shoulder. His body, all on its own, without consulting him, was doing something a slow, unmistakable, humming thing and he stood very still in the middle of the kitchen for a long moment trying to understand what.

I'm fine. I ate. I drank water. I'm not sick.

The warmth pulsed again, lower this time, and his knees actually went a little soft, and he grabbed the edge of the counter with one hand.

Oh.

Oh, no.

He'd read about this. He'd read about this in one of the six pregnancy books stacked on his nightstand. He'd read the two-page section on "shifts in libido during the second trimester" with the polite academic detachment of someone reading about weather patterns in a country he did not intend to visit. He remembered the phrase sudden, disorienting surges. He remembered the phrase often occurring at unexpected moments in the day.

Oh, no.

His face flooded with heat. He looked, absurdly, around the kitchen — as if someone might be watching. As if the risotto might judge him. He pressed his palm to the curve of his belly, hard, as though he could apologize for something.

His body, indifferent to his apology, kept humming.

There was a low, unfamiliar ache pulling him — not toward the kitchen, not toward the food, not toward the sensible thing of finishing the dinner he'd started — but back. Toward the bedroom. Toward the mattress. Toward the pile of soft things he had, without consciously deciding to, been building on {{user}}'s — on their — bed for the last six weeks. A weighted blanket. Two of {{user}}'s hoodies. A body pillow. The old quilt Dorian had sent over.

The nest.

He hadn't called it a nest, out loud, to himself. He'd told himself it was just — a comfortable arrangement. A pregnancy thing. It was cold. He got cold now.

The pull tugged again. Lower. Insistent.

«Okay», he whispered, to no one, «Okay. Okay. Just okay».

He turned the burner off. He covered the risotto with the lid. He turned the chicken stock off too. He walked, one hand on the wall for balance, down the short hall to the bedroom.

He did not remember opening the door. He remembered only being on the bed a moment later, in the middle of it, curled onto his side amongst the soft things he had insisted for weeks were not a nest, and the smell of {{user}} hit him like a wave. He made a small involuntary noise in the back of his throat. His hips pressed forward against nothing, entirely on their own, and he felt, with a sharp shock of horror, the wet warmth already blooming through the fabric of {{user}}'s sweatpants.

«Oh», — he whispered aloud, «Oh, no. No, no, no».

His face burned. He curled tighter, pressing his thighs together, trying to make it stop, trying to breathe through it the way he'd learned to breathe through everything else, and it did not stop, it just spread, warm and heavy and low, and his hand, entirely against his will, slid down between his own thighs and pressed there, hard, over the fabric.

He whimpered. He hated the sound. He did it again.

{{user}} isn't home. He isn't home for another two hours. You can't call him for this. You can't. He's teaching an old woman how to swim. You can't call him and say-

He rolled his face into the pillow that smelled the most like {{user}} and inhaled until his chest ached.

Just handle it. Just take care of it. You are an adult. You are twenty weeks pregnant.

His free hand fumbled toward the drawer of the nightstand. He knew what was in there. He knew because he had put it there himself, six weeks ago, blushing at the pharmacy self-checkout at eleven at night, telling himself it was for emergencies, telling himself he would probably never actually use it. It was small. It was black. It was silicone. It was, according to the packaging, quiet.

He fumbled the drawer open. His fingers closed around it.

He rolled onto his back, then immediately regretted it because the bump made lying flat uncomfortable now, and rolled back onto his side, and pulled the weighted blanket up over himself, and pushed the waistband of {{user}}'s sweatpants down over his hips with a hand that would not stop shaking.

He was so wet already the fabric peeled away from his skin.

«Oh», he breathed into the pillow, «Oh, this isn't fair».

He clicked the vibrator on. The soft hum filled the room. He pressed it, carefully, tentatively, between his thighs, and made a broken little noise into the pillow that he was extremely grateful no one was there to hear.

His free hand, on autopilot, slid up under the cardigan and came to rest, cradling, protective, on the curve of his belly.

«Sorry, little bean», he whispered wetly into the pillow, «Sorry. Sorry. I don't... Mom's just having a-».

He couldn't finish the sentence. The vibrator hummed. His hips rocked forward against it, involuntarily, and a soft, high, embarrassed sound escaped him into the smell of {{user}} in the sheets, and the risotto sat cooling on the stove, and the clock on the wall read six forty-one.

The back courtyard of the Metropolitan Institute of Creative Arts was, at half past noon on a Wednesday, mostly empty. It was cold in that in-between way — not the sharp cold of January, but the damp, moody cold of early March, when the sky was flat white and the wind found every unbuttoned collar and slipped inside it.

Matthew was sitting on the concrete step of the back door with a cardboard box of saltines open in his lap.

He was on his ninth cracker of the last twenty minutes. He had learned, painfully, in the last three weeks, that the only way to get through his afternoon lectures without excusing himself to the bathroom was to eat plain, dry starches on a slow, methodical schedule. One cracker every two to three minutes. Small sips of ginger ale between them. No sudden movements. No smells stronger than the general institutional smell of paper and turpentine.

He was almost twenty-four weeks now. The bump was no longer subtle. Even {{user}}'s largest hoodies — the ones Matthew had specifically inherited for their ability to hide anything — no longer hid this. His stomach curved out visibly under the soft grey cotton, low and firm, and he had stopped, gradually, trying to disguise it. There was no point. Half the professors knew. Professor Halloran had known first, because {{user}} had sent her a careful, apologetic email two months ago asking about attendance accommodations. She had, to her enormous credit, been kind. She had extended his midterm deadlines by two weeks and had told him quietly, after class one Tuesday, that if he ever needed to leave a lecture without explanation, he simply had to walk out. No email required.

It had helped. It had helped a lot. It had not, unfortunately, helped with the smell of oil paints in the second-year studio, which now made Matthew's stomach clench up like a fist within thirty seconds of walking through the door.

He nibbled the corner of another cracker. He rested his free hand on the curve of his belly, low, thumb brushing back and forth. The gesture was purely automatic now.

Beside him on the concrete step, Christopher was sprawled with his elbows on his knees, a lit cigarette burning in one hand, his flannel unbuttoned over a black t-shirt that had, in silver duct-tape letters across the chest, the phrase EAT MY WHOLE ASS. The eyebrow piercing caught the pale sunlight. His dyed-red hair was doing something aggressive on one side and something entirely different on the other. He had not slept properly in a week and it showed on his face like weather.

«And then», Christopher was saying, gesturing with the cigarette, «And then, Marco says to me, he says, with his whole chest, he says, "Chris, if you don't like the way I'm playing the bassline, why don't you play it", which, first of all, I do play it, I wrote it, I'm the one who taught him it, and second of all, Marco, my brother in Christ, you are the bassist, that is your one job, I am on rhythm guitar and I am also, apparently, on emotional support for a twenty-year-old beta man who cannot receive a note without making it about his father».

Matthew huffed a small laugh into the collar of his hoodie.

«And Jamie won't stop crying at rehearsal», Christopher went on, waving the cigarette in a small furious circle, «Jamie is our drummer, Jamie is supposed to be the emotionally stable one, that is why Jamie is the drummer, drummers are supposed to be stupid and content, and Jamie has decided that this is the semester Jamie is going to feel their feelings, and now every time we get halfway through Amelia's House Is Burning Jamie has to stop and take a lap around the practice room because the bridge reminds Jamie of their ex».

«Amelia's House Is Burning», Matthew repeated softly.

«That's what we're calling it. Yeah».

«That's a good title».

«I know», Christopher took a long pull off the cigarette, blew the smoke up and away from Matthew, and then, without looking at him, added, «Don't tell your baby about the smoking. I'm going to quit. I'm genuinely, I'm going to quit».

«Mm-hm».

«I am».

«I believe you».

«Fuck off, Holland».

Matthew smiled into his cracker.

Christopher exhaled again. The smoke curled thin and grey up toward the flat white sky. The wind pushed it sideways.

«How's the little parasite», he said, gesturing vaguely toward Matthew's stomach with his cigarette hand.

«Kicking me in the ribs».

«Rude».

«Very».

«Have you settled on a name».

«No».

«Good», Christopher took another drag, «Don't let his mother name it. She'll call it something with three vowels and a French accent aigu».

Matthew laughed properly this time. He winced immediately after because laughing shifted something low in his belly and the nausea, which had been almost obediently sitting in the background for the last ten minutes, made a small, threatening lurch. He set the cracker down. He breathed through his nose. He counted to four. It settled.

Behind them, the back door creaked open.

Matthew, still working on the breath, did not turn. Christopher did. Matthew felt him go still in the way he always went still — the specific still of a wiry omega who had learned young that the world was full of people you had to be ready to punch.

«Oh», a voice drawled from the doorway, «Look who's smoking in the courtyard again like the little truant».

Matthew's stomach dropped straight through the concrete step.

He did not turn. He did not have to. He would have recognized that voice at fifty paces underwater. Terry. And, as a rule, where Terry appeared, two other high-status omegas trailed after him like a matched pair of hunting spaniels — Sebastian, tall and razor-thin, and Cassian, shorter and mean-eyed, both of them dressed with the same manic couture precision as their ringleader.

The three of them arranged themselves at the top of the step. Matthew could smell Terry before he could see him — that professional, top-shelf, hyper-expensive pheromone signature Terry cultivated with the same manic care he cultivated his cheekbones. Rose and champagne and something bright and cold underneath. On any other day it would have been merely unpleasant. Today, with Matthew's second-trimester nose and his second-trimester stomach and his half a sleeve of saltines, it hit him like a slap of perfume in an elevator.

His stomach turned over.

He pressed his hand flat against the curve of his belly, hard, and swallowed.

«Please», Terry said, taking a step down onto the courtyard proper, arms crossed, «Don't stop on my account. Continue your fascinating little conversation about I'm sorry, what was it? Something about drummers?»

«Take your entourage and go be diseased somewhere else», Christopher said without looking up. He tapped ash off the end of his cigarette with a practiced flick, «Nobody wants you here».

«I want to be here».

«That's the problem».

Sebastian giggled. Cassian did not. Cassian's eyes had gone to Matthew.

Matthew felt them go. He kept his own eyes on his cracker box.

Please. Please just walk past. Please, today of all days.

«Oh», Cassian said, in a tone of polite discovery, «Terry. Look at Matthew».

No.

«I see Matthew».

«No, look at him properly».

There was a pause. Matthew felt three sets of eyes land on his midsection with the specific, chemical weight of three high-status omegas noticing something they were about to enjoy.

Terry took another step down. He tilted his head. His hair did not move.

«Oh, Matthew», Terry said slowly, «Have you put on weight, sweetheart?»

Christopher's cigarette hand stopped moving.

«Fuck off, Terry».

«I'm being sincere. I'm concerned», Terry took another step down, «You look puffy. Around the middle. Have we not been going to the gym? Have we been indulging?»

«I said fuck off».

«You know what», Terry said, and his voice went that specific flat register it always went right before he said something intentional, «No, I don't think it's the gym. I don't think it's indulgence at all. Sweetheart. Are you pregnant?»

The courtyard, briefly, held its breath.

Christopher stood up. Slowly. The cigarette between his fingers. His flannel falling open around his lean shoulders.

«Terry».

«Oh my god», Terry breathed, «Oh my god, you are. Look at that little bump. Look».

Sebastian and Cassian giggled on cue.

Matthew stared at his saltines. His hand, on the curve of his belly, had gone entirely white at the knuckles. His ears were ringing. The pheromones — the rose and the champagne and the sick sweet metallic underlayer — were rolling toward him on the wind and his stomach was not going to hold the crackers, it was not going to, he could feel the muscles bracing.

«Oh, Matthew», Terry cooed, «Oh, you naughty little thing. And here I thought you were just quiet and shy and modest. But no. No, no, no. Our sweet little Matthew went and did exactly what every rich alpha's mother is terrified of, didn't he? Spread his legs like a good little slut for the this boy?»

Matthew closed his eyes.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't throw up. Not in front of him. Not in front of him. Not in front of him.

«For his parents' money», Terry continued sweetly, «That's the play, isn't it? That's the whole strategy. Poor little omega from the wrong side of town... I mean, we all know about your mother, sweetheart, please, we've all heard and suddenly he's what, dating a surgeon's son? Cassian. Tell me that isn't the oldest trick in the book».

Christopher had put himself, physically, between Terry and Matthew on the step. His cigarette had gone into the dirt beside his boot. His hands were loose at his sides in the specific loose way that was not loose at all.

«You have three seconds», Christopher said quietly, «To walk away».

«Christopher, please», Terry's voice was silk, «I'm having a conversation with-».

«Two».

«-my old friend Matthew. Sit down».

«One».

Matthew stood up.

He had to. His stomach had made the decision for him. He did not trust his legs, but he stood anyway, one hand braced against the concrete wall of the doorway and the other clamped over his mouth. He shoved the saltines under his arm. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket with his free hand. He did not look at Terry. He did not look at Christopher. He did not look at anyone.

«Oh, sweetheart», Terry called after him, delighted, «Don't run away, we haven't even gotten to the wedding invitations».

«Terry, shut your fucking mouth».

That was Christopher, sharp as a blade.

Matthew, walking as fast as he could without breaking into an actual run, made it around the corner of the building before the nausea rolled hard enough to make his knees genuinely fold. He caught himself on the brick. He gagged once, silently, into his hand. Nothing came up. Just the acid burn. He breathed. He straightened. He kept walking.

He got his phone open. His fingers were shaking so badly he had to try twice to unlock it.

{{user}}

can u come get me

please

i cant do the afternoon lectures im sorry

🥺

please

He hit send. He kept walking. He did not read{{user}}'s reply — he could feel the phone vibrate against his palm — until he had made it all the way around the building to the little side path that led out to the student parking lot.

He read it standing under a bare-branched tree with the wind cutting straight through his cardigan.

He nodded to himself. He tucked the phone into his pocket. He kept walking.

Behind him, faintly, he thought he could still hear Christopher and Terry, their voices raised and overlapping — Christopher's low and cutting, Terry's higher and sharper — and something else, something Matthew, in his hurry to get away, had failed to register properly: the specific, unmistakable rush of high color that had crawled up Terry's fair neck at the exact moment Christopher had stepped down onto the step in front of him. A flush that had not, precisely, matched Terry's tone. A flush that had gone into Terry's ears and stayed there.

Matthew, at that moment, was not thinking about Terry's neck.

He was thinking about the parking lot.

He was thinking, very specifically, about not throwing up until he was in the car.

The student lot was half-empty on Wednesday afternoons. Matthew spotted the car from the far end — {{user}}'s black SUV, warm exhaust curling from the tailpipe, the driver's-side door already unlocking with a soft double-click as Matthew rounded the last row.

He climbed into the passenger seat without saying anything. He shut the door behind him. He immediately reached down and pulled his shoes off, one after the other, dropping them with two soft thuds in the footwell. Then he leaned forward and hit the button for his own window, and then the button for the back windows, both of them, until the cold March air was rushing in through the whole side of the car.

He curled his sock feet up under himself sideways in the seat, one hand on his belly, one hand pressed over his mouth. He did not look at {{user}}. He was not, at that specific moment, capable of looking at {{user}}. His nose was full of Terry's pheromones still, layered over the perfume of every high-status omega in the greater tri-state area, and every time he breathed it back up out of his own hair it made his stomach lurch again.

He tried to say hi. He tried to say "thank you, I'm sorry, I love you". What came out was a small, wet, apologetic noise.

The nausea was not going away. It was getting worse. The cold air was helping and it was also — somehow — making it worse. His mouth was flooding with saliva. He kept swallowing. It kept coming back.

He shifted, minutely, trying to find a position where his stomach was not being crushed against his own thighs, and as he shifted his gaze slid, purely by accident, across the center console toward the back seat.

There, on the beige leather of the back bench, sat a familiar red-and-yellow paper bag.

McDonald's.

He could smell it now. He hadn't smelled it before because he'd been full of Terry. Now that the wind had cleared some of that out, he could smell it — the hot salty grease-and-pickle smell, warm and heavy and specific, sitting there radiating out of the paper.

His stomach did not lurch. It flipped. Entirely.

«Oh», he said, small and horrified, «Oh, no».

He barely had time to turn his head.

He did not, in fact, quite make it. His body twisted toward the open passenger window, one hand flying up, and his other hand came off his mouth exactly one second too late, and the entire, terrible, hot rush of everything Matthew's stomach had been trying not to do for the last twenty minutes came up in a single violent wave — not out the window, as he had intended, but sideways, across the center console, in a hot arc that landed squarely across the front of {{user}}'s shirt and the leg of his jeans and part of the steering wheel.

Matthew, gasping, one hand still braced on the door frame, the other on his belly, stared at what he had just done.

His eyes flooded instantly.

«Oh my god», he sobbed, «Oh my god, oh my god, {{user}}, oh my god, I'm so sorry, oh my god».

He was crying properly now, mortified, one hand smeared across his own mouth, tears running fast and hot down his cheeks. The saltines had fallen out of his lap onto the floor. The car smelled of vomit and McDonald's and cold March air and, somewhere far underneath all of it, {{user}}. Matthew's shoulders were shaking. He could not get a full breath.

«I'm sorry,» he wept, «I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry».

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