But they didn’t talk about it.
Jude was well aware that they needed to, but neither of them seemed to have the guts to actually initiate the conversation. So instead, they kissed and cuddled and fucked. Made food together. Watched TV and talked and laughed. Anything to distract them from the fact that Jude—despite his feelings for Al—was still planning on letting him go, and that very shortly, Al would be living the single dad life somewhere out there in space, raising their children on his home planet all on his own.
It made Jude feel like a deadbeat.
Sometimes, at his most emotional, he wondered if there was some sort of intergalactic child support system he could set up to help Al out, but thinking about it always sent him spiraling until he felt so wretchedly guilty about everything that he broke down ugly crying, snot running down his face, nearly drowning himself in his own tears.
But what else was he to do?
He hadn’t asked for this. Three months ago, if you had told him he’d be getting knocked up by an alien that had nearly crash-landed into his car, he would have… well, had the reaction any rational human being would have had, which would have been to say, “Yeah, okay, sure,” before going on with his day. Yet here he was, having to wear extra-large t-shirts and baggy basketball shorts like some sort of heterosexual so that no one noticed the load he was carting in front.
All he’d wanted was some dick.
So why did the thought of letting his children go make him cry like he was being forced to amputate a limb?
“What are you thinking about, Jude?” Al asked quietly. “You are feeling many emotions at once.”
Touch telepathy. The bond. That was another thing that had Jude twisted up in all sorts of ways. Those two strange moments from last night, when he could have sworn he was feeling what Al was feeling, came flooding back to the forefront of his mind.
“It isn’t possible for me to be able to feelyouthe way you feelme, right?” he asked. “Like, in a weird alien telepathy way, I mean.”
“Why do you ask this?”
“No reason, really. It’s just that last night, I thought I… actually, never mind, it’s stupid. I’m human, our only special skills are making awesome calendars and speaking great languages. Forget I said anything.”
“I know you are being facetious, but I will remind you there are over seven thousand languages on your planet. Many human beings speak languages that make sense. I have decided recently that I do not feel desire toward French either, however. There are many letters in their words, but you pronounce very few of them. It is very stupid.”
“I know how to say ‘come to bed with me’ in French,” Jude supplied.
“This is not relevant to anything I just said.” Jude could hear the fond eye roll in Al’s voice. Al pushed a strand of hair back behind Jude’s ear—he really needed a haircut, but he thought Al might enslave the human race in a devastated rage if he did—and said softly, “Tell me what occurred last night.”
“It’s dumb,” Jude sighed. “Probably nothing. It’s just… there were just a couple moments when we were touching a lot where it was like I could feel what you were feeling. I’d say it was like looking through your eyes, but it was more like experiencing my body through your dick.”
Al chuckled, which made Jude smile. His heart warmed and went gooey, thrilled that he had made Al laugh, before he realized he was acting like a lovesick schoolgirl and shut that shit down before it could affect him any more than it already had.
“I believe,” Al said thoughtfully, “that you might have been feeling our bond. I, er, have not severed it yet. I will, of course,” he added quickly, “but it is complicated to accomplish and I need time to prepare.”
“I’m not upset,” Jude assured him, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “Just—that’s what the bond does? Lets me feel you?”
“A true bond allows emotions to flow freely between two minds, with or without touch. Ours is very weak in comparison, but in moments of intense feeling or sensation, it is quite possible you felt me through it. Especially as you reach the end of your pregnancy.”
“Oh,” was all Jude could think to say. Mere seconds of feeling the bond had almost overwhelmed him—it was hard to imagine what it would be like to have access to it all the time.
Al was silent for a moment, clearly thinking about something. Finally, he asked, “Are you feeling prepared? For the delivery of the eggs?”
Wasn’t that a question and a half. And also a topic of conversation they had failed to acknowledge—unless you counted dirty talk during sex, which Jude decidedly did not.
Was he ready to give birth? Well, he was ready to not be pregnant anymore. It was easier to hide now that he didn’t have school, but Ezra was often around, and Corbin made a habit of stopping by unannounced now and then. It wasn’t that he wasashamedof his pregnancy, but there was an undeniable embarrassment that went with being the only person on Earth who had gotten knocked up by an alien. Talk about first contact.
But if Jude was being honest, he was also a little afraid.
He really didn’t know how many eggs he was carrying—Al had helpfully told him somewhere between three and twenty-seven—nor how big they would be. Would they be too much for him to handle? His stomach wasn’t huge—nowhere near as large as it would have been had this been a typical human pregnancy—but he didn’t exactly have the right equipment to be delivering anything, eggs or otherwise.
“Will it hurt?” he asked shyly.
Al hummed in a way that did not fill him with much confidence. “I have not experienced it myself, but my understanding is that there is pain involved.” Al must have felt Jude tense, because he followed that up with, “Do not feel worry, Jude. The pain will be temporary, and I will not leave your side. I will be there to get you through it. And it will be worth it because once you are done we will have…” He trailed off, and Jude could guess what he was going to say. He was going to say it would all be worth it, because in the end they would have their children. Except Jude wasn’t keeping the children.
Guilt shot through him all over again.
