“I see…” he said carefully. “How are you doing, Zenny? Like it here?”
“I'm good. Everyone here is nice. And I do like it. They gave me my own room, and even let me decorate and paint it. And there is always food for me to eat. Oh, also there are chickens. They’re funny, I like them,” Zenny said with a smile, before wrinkling his nose and adding, “I don’t like the homework though.”
Kore chuckled. “Since you mentioned it, you didn’t do your math last night, did you?”
Zenny’s face pinched. “I’ll do it later.”
The Electric Elemental pushed, “Later, as in, after breakfast?”
There was laughter around the table as the kid huffed, “Fine!”
“So…” Killian cleared his throat, his gaze dropping down even though he couldn’t see the Gorgon’s rounded stomach through the table.
He felt almost overwhelmed, and more than a touch panicked as he asked, “How are the babies? I assume with the…issues between our species, you’ve been…monitoring them?”
What he really wanted to ask was what was the likelihood that the child that was genetically his would make it to full term. Killian knew the statistics for his species too fucking well, but not much Gorgon-wise, and that made him feel on edge. He hadn’t found shit, aside from basic things, when he’d tried to dig during the drive. Dead ends meant he’d then tried to not think about all the complications he could in fact list and had witnessed first-hand while stuck in the car, but it had been a continuous fight he hadn’t always won.
Ender stiffened a bit, his hands dropping below the table, likely to protectively cradle his bump. “Why don’t we eat breakfast and then go to the clinic? You can ask the doctor all the questions I can see you want to blurt out,” the Gorgon stated, before quickly adding, “Don’t take this as me agreeing to you two staying! Because I haven’t, and I am not going to!”
Despite what the man was saying, and his worries, he couldn’t help but smile at the Gorgon’s stubbornness. “If you say so.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Please, like you’d let them or their clothes leave at this point,” Soren snickered.
“As he hasn’t thrown a fit this morning, and as of yet, no one else has been turned to stone, I’m not letting them leave at this point,” Kore sighed.
Ender glared at the two men and snapped, “Someone fetch me some rope, I have a few traitors to drown in the pool.”
His brow rose with interest.Pool? Was there really one this far underground?He frowned.Could pools be built underground?Well, he was sure they could, he supposed. At least, they had at one point, hadn’t they? Had they?
Things were rarely made underground, aside from utility shit. Buildings were mobile, with levitation stones that were able to go higher in case of bad weather and natural disasters. Though the government mostly curbed all of that with the atmospheric controls in place now.
“Why don’t you go to the clinic first? Quill woke up late, so it’s going to be a hot minute before food is ready,” Soren stated, completely ignoring Ender’s threats.
“Again?!” Ender huffed. “Do I need to implant a damn alarm into that kid’s skull or something?!”
The Harpy snorted. “If five air horns weren’t enough to wake him up on time, what makes you think that would even work?”
While on the examination chair, Ender tried his best not to move as the machine scanned him. Or rather, he tried to not feel awkward as he sat there while Cyrus and Killian outright stared at him as if he was about to do a trick. He was not, but they sure looked like they thought he would.
Ender barely held back his sigh of relief when the men looked at the screen as the scan of his eggies appeared.
“You have two very healthy boys,” Dr. Corradetti mused, before amending, “Well, their genitalia is male. We won’t be able to tell more specific factors, such as reproduction capabilities, until they are laid, and gender will be much later. But there have been no complications as of yet.”
He frowned at the barely noticeable tremble he saw run through Killian at the mention of reproduction subsets. Smiling hesitantly when the Siren’s gaze turned back his way, he found the man’s expression unreadable, even though the tremble remained.
Ender imagined, based on how they’d ended up screwing in the first place, and the whole kidnapping thing, it was a touchy subject for the Cryptid. He’d seen the mark clearly enough, and knew that Killian could in fact give birth. Ender also knew enough about Sirens as a species to know that it wouldn’t be a pleasant life with his family had the man actually reached the destination intended for him.
Starting to feel awkward again under the man’s stare, he cleared his throat and asked, “Want to feel?”
Killian blinked, before a smile broke across his way too beautiful face that almost made Ender’s breath catch in his throat while the Siren asked, “Can I?”
He nodded stiffly. A small smile he had tried to suppress broke free as the Siren slowly reached out and placed his hand on his baby bump. The touch was featherlight, before becoming more solid. Despite not being much warmer species-wise than him, there was still a considerable amount of warmth to the man’s touch.
“Do you feel any movement with the shells there?” Killian asked, his eyes fixed on where his hand was touching.
Ender smirked. “I do. It’s probably more muted than other species, but the shells are soft right now, so I still feel a bit. Especially when they move enough to cause the eggs to shift.”
