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Ezra

Not for the first time since Titan had come into his life, Ezra really wished he was stoned right now. If he was, then maybe he wouldn’t notice how much this fucking hurt.

He’d never had the highest pain tolerance.

He was the type to bitch about a paper cut for way longer than necessary, and whenever he had even the suggestion of a headache, he was quick to dramatically proclaim it was the end.

Once, when he was in grade school, he’d gotten hit in the face with a soccer ball at recess, and even though it had done nothing but leave a hardly noticeable bruise just beneath his eye, the pain had been enough to turn him off of sports for the rest of his life.

Well, that, and the fact that he had no athletic skill to speak of, nor the motivation to willingly do that much exercise, but mostly it was the ball to the face thing.

Which was all to say, he was a wimp. So this whole labor thing? He was not vibing with it. Not one bit.

The two of them had migrated upstairs—Titan carrying him the whole way, which would have been mortifying if Ezra hadn’t been in too much pain to give a shit—and now were in Ezra’s bedroom.

The familiarity of it comfort ed some primal part of his brain as though he needed to be in his natural habitat to give birth, like he was a fucking lizard or something.

Although, Darvrokians were sort of reptilian, and he was half Darvrokian himself, so in a way he really was a lizard, and frankly, that was not a thought he needed to concern himself with right here, right now, as he paced the room, hand on his stomach, contractions crashing into him in waves.

“Oh my god, this sucks,” he groaned as the most recent pain receded. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his sweaty forehead, and looked to Titan helplessly. “I can’t keep this up. I’m gonna die, man.”

Titan, who was perched on the very end of the bed and had been watching him attentively as he paced the floor like a caged lion, said immediately, “You will not perish. I would never allow such a thing to occur.”

“But it hurts. ” Annoyingly, tears pricked at the corners of Ezra’s eyes, which he scrubbed away with the back of his hand.

“I know this,” Titan said sympathetically. “You are a very impressive being for bearing it, and I have much gratitude and admiration for what you are going through to bring our offspring onto this planet. If I were capable of switching our positions, know that I would do so in the beat of a heart.”

“Heartbeat,” Ezra said, grimacing as his lower belly began to cramp again. “You’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Of course, that is what I sa—I mean, many appreciations for the correction, my sweet Ezra. You are very wise.”

Ezra would have snorted a laugh, but the newest cramp had a full hold over him now. Stopping in his tracks, he bent forward with a groan, the hair he had just pushed off his forehead falling right back in his eyes again.

“Remember to optimize your oxygen intake,” Titan reminded him, hopping off the bed to stand behind him, his hand finding its way to Ezra’s tailbone.

He rubbed slow, soothing circles there, which would have felt fantastic if i t hadn’t felt like Ezra’s abdomen was attempting to forge diamonds out of his insides.

“It will give you relief from your immense suffering, however marginal it may be.”

“I don’t want ‘marginal’ relief,” Ezra managed to spit out through clenched teeth. “I want this whole thing to be over. How much longer will this take?”

“It is dependent on the being in question. For some, labor progresses quickly, and for others it takes several Earth days. The more your pain increases, the closer you are to delivery. Delivery itself, of course, is an agonizing event, but it generally does not last an inordinate amount of time… unless the clutch is unusually large, which I suppose ours could be. We have done no examinations to determine the number of eggs you are carrying, and while the compact size of your abdomen suggests a smaller number, it is possible that your reproductive organs have formed in such a way that a larger clutch need not protrude, which would mean you would be in delivery for a significant amount of?—”

“Stop,” Ezra said sharply. “You’re supposed to be helping. Telling me how much more pain I’m going to be in is not helping.”

“Oh, yes, I should have known this, as it is obvious. You have my apologies.” Ezra heard him clear his throat awkwardly.

“I have fear that I must make a confession to you, my sweet Ezra, and that is that while I have always prided myself on my wealth of knowledge, in this instance I am… what is the English phrase? Playing it on ear?”

“Playing it by ear,” Ezra muttered, slowly straightening himself out as his body granted him a few moments of peace.

“I do not have joy for what you English speakers refer to as ‘prepositions,’” Titan said with disgust. “Their meanings are too similar, and it makes using them intuitively difficult. Al and I have spoken at length about this problem, as well as the vast number of other problems English contains, and we have discussed the possibility of bringing in several revered Darvrokian linguists to assist with improving your language . Once your world governments hear our proposal, I am confident they will agree that it would be beneficial—especially the government officials who speak much better languages than English. Once you are able to return to your ambassador duties, I believe it is something we should consider.”

“Okay, new ground rules for helping me through labor and delivery: no talking about how much worse things are going to get, and no talking about work.”

“Ah. Understood. Should I also refrain from voicing discontent with ridiculous and illogical Earth concepts and inventions?”

“Bitching about stupid Earth shit is okay, but keep it to a minimum.”

“Understood.”

It was endearing, really, to see Titan so flustered—to hear him rambling and making nervous gestures—all because he wanted to be supportive of Ezra and was afraid of doing it wrong.

Even through his pain, Ezra could see the effort he was making, and it warmed his heart.

Nobody had ever considered Ezra worth trying for.

But here Titan was, standing by his side during his most vulnerable and terrifying moment. And sure, it was his fault this was happening in the first place—note to self: use a condom next time—but Ezra wasn’t in so much pain that he was blind to the effort Titan was putting forth.

“Thank you for being here with me,” he said in a small voice, leaning back and letting Titan hold him upright. In response, Titan pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek and nuzzled his face into the crook of his neck.

“There is nowhere in the universe I would rather be than at your side,” he told Ezra in a whisper. “That is true even when you are not in pain.”

Those were some of the sweetest words anyone had ever said to Ezra, and while he would have liked to revel in them, his body was all too quick to remind him that right now, his focus needed to be on getting their eggs the fuck out of his body.

Another contraction seized him—god, they were getting so close together now—and involuntarily, he was forced to curve his back forward again. “ Shit! ”

Or at least, that was what he thought he’d said, until he heard Titan laugh. “Where did you learn such crass Darvrokian?”

“What?”

“You shouted a Darvrokian expletive. Did you not mean to do this?”

“I don’t know how I learned it,” he explained through deep breaths—he had to “optimize his oxygen intake,” after all. “It just slips out sometimes. It happened once before when I was hanging out with Jude.”

“Ah, this must be a side effect of exposure to Darvrokians. Living and working with us has likely unlocked parts of your latent Darvrokian abilities. You are absorbing our language through your highly improved telepathy, just as an infant might. Perhaps soon you will have the fortune of no longer needing to speak English unless in the company of those with remedial language abilities.”

“Okay, now there are three rules,” Ezra started to say, but was forced to stop when a fresh burst of pain swept through him.

He hissed in agony and doubled over, barely noticing when Titan seized him by the hips to help stabilize him.

In that moment, very little existed outside of his own body, and it was screaming at him, telling him that being on his feet was a terrible idea.

“I need to be in bed,” he ground out between his teeth.

Titan asked no questions—he scooped Ezra up at once and carried him across the room, laying him upon the mattress as though he was a porcelain doll a feather’s drop away from an irreparable break.

But Ezra was not made of porcelain. He clambered wildly onto his knees and began snatching up his pillows, piling them into a semicircular formation that bore some semblance of …

He blinked back to reality.

It looked like a nest.

“What the fuck,” he whimpered, even as his hands itched to resume building his little safe space. “What the hell is happening to me?”

“Is there something I can assist you with?” Titan asked, concern evident in his voice. “Do not have hesitancy in asking, even should your request feel trivial or silly. I am here to provide you with whatever you need.”

“I don’t know what I need,” Ezra admitted in a small voice.

He plopped down so he was sitting cross-legged on a heap of blankets and began to rock slowly to and fro with his hands on his knees.

“I don’t know how to be in pain. I don’t know how to give birth.

I don’t know how to be a dad. I don’t even know how to be helped!

” He looked at Titan through blurry, watery eyes. “I don’t know anything right now.”