O'Connor & Smitty are in a Fix

Content note: this story contains unplanned transmasc/FTM pregnancy and (offscreen) childbirth; references to attempted abortion; references to death in childbirth and death by suicide; references to military violence; occasional use of period-typical slang for female genitals; a main character's physical sex is revealed against his will. Ripped from the (1863) headlines. No main character death.

**

Smitty's belly was bloated. It had been for a while now, getting worse all the time, from what O'Connor could tell. Weeks at least. Maybe months? O'Connor was worried about it. Everyone had stomach troubles in the army and everyone got a little fatter in camp, but this wasn't something that sluggish bowels or winter rations and no forced marches would explain. Was it?

Smitty wouldn't talk about it, wouldn't let O'Connor ask about it, turned his back when O'Connor tried to touch him, in the privacy of their dog tent. When all the other men were asleep and only the sentries kept watch, shivering out on the picket line, waiting for a rebel assault that probably wasn't coming. That was how O'Connor knew Smitty was worried about it too.

O'Connor had stayed awake to think. Smitty had dropped off to sleep almost as soon as he lay down, and now he was curled up on his side with his arse pressed against O'Connor's hip. O'Connor sat up. Smitty didn't wake. O'Connor took Smitty by the shoulder and gently--very gently--eased him over onto his back. Smitty didn't wake.

I have to make him go to the surgeon about this, O'Connor thought, even though nobody ever wanted to go to the surgeon, about anything. What if he's dying?

But Smitty's arms and legs were strong, ropy with muscle. He was not a large man. There were only two or three in the regiment who were shorter, but he was stocky built, and could carry a pack and rifle tirelessly all day through the heat of a Tennessee summer, could knock a homemade baseball over the heads of the men in the field, could sometimes even pin O'Connor when they rassled because rassling was one of the only ways two men could touch each other in front of other men and not be thought unnatural. And his eyes were bright and clear, not like the eyes of any dying man O'Connor had ever seen.

O'Connor lifted Smitty's shirt and saw that his trousers were held together at the top two buttons with a knotted string, his belly pushing out between them like an alive thing trying to escape. He unfastened the string. Smitty didn't wake. He opened the trousers. Smitty didn't wake. His belly, almost perfectly round, impossibly round, rose and fell with his breath. O'Connor pushed down the waist of his drawers. Smitty didn't wake.

Very carefully, O'Connor put his hand on Smitty's stomach. He let it rest there for a moment. Smitty didn't wake. Then he added the other hand. He pressed down a little, felt its density and its weight. Smitty carried almost no surplus flesh, other than this--this roundness in his middle. Then he stroked his hand from Smitty's bony ribcage down to the place where the belly ended in a wild thatch of hair.

Smitty's belly was firm, packed full and tight, swelling outward into his hands. Something deep inside it squirmed. Smitty himself squirmed a bit, arching his back so that his belly reared up, then sinking back into exhausted sleep. O'Connor pressed a little harder, feeling about, waiting for the squirm again. His manhood was tight and hard, rock hard, twitching a little in his trousers. His heart pounded, once, twice, and he felt sweat break out on his forehead and trickle down his hairy chest. This wasn't dying, this was--

**

When he had been a boy, his sister Colleen had been his dearest friend. A wild girl, who sassed the priest and fought their Da when he tried to spank her. Their Mam despaired, but O'Connor had adored her, and she him. When he was with her, no one dared mention his odd, fey ways, a little faerie boy, so unlike his brothers. And when Colleen had taught herself to read by lurking as the children of the middle class house where she was the maid worked their lessons over with their mother, the first thing she did was teach him. It had been harder for him. Much harder. But he had learned, and once he could sound out words, and once the words flared to life in his mind, startling him so his head flew up like a spooked horse, she had said, satisfied, "There. Now you'll have a chance your Da never had."

But there hadn't been many chances for her. One night she had called him into the tiny room where all his sisters slept and said "Sean, I want to tell you a secret. Can you keep a secret, Sean?" Upon his solemn nod--she kept his secrets for him, didn't she? About the boys, the way he felt about the other boys, even though he had already begun keeping company with girls? Surely he could do the same for her. "Look here, Sean," she whispered, pulling up the skirt of her tidy gray work dress so that he could see her petticoat and shimmy. He had blushed painfully red, not sure what he was seeing, confused by the abundance of crisp white fabric.

"I'm to be married soon."

And she had taken his hand and placed it on her bulging tummy, just below the bodice of her gown.

**

Absently, he stroked his hand down Smitty's swollen flank. He wanted to slip a hand into his own trousers, relieve his strain, but couldn't do it. Sometimes he forgot. Sometimes he forgot that his Smitty had female parts, even though in other ways he was a man like any other. Sometimes he forgot, and this was the result. His heart pounded in his chest. There had been no marriage for Colleen. No marriage, and no baby either. Just a cold death in the Chicago River and afterwards, the coroner's slab.

"O God," he said out loud. "Mother Mary forgive me."

"Well, damn."

He looked up. The lantern hung outside the tent cast shifting shadows as it swayed in the night wind. He could see Smitty's open eyes, but he couldn't read their expression.

"You're awake. Smit. Sweetheart--why didn't you tell me?"

Smitty shuddered beneath his hands. "I didn't want to, because then it would be real. I didn't want it to be real. I wanted it to go away. I drank medicine to make it go away, but--"

That time a few months ago when he had been so unwell. O'Connor had taken his pack off him, slung it into the baggage wagon and told the teamster what to do with himself when he complained. Some of the other boys had taken his rifle, his cartridge box, his haversack, so all he had to do was march. And then the lieutenant, riding up on his fine horse, said "What's wrong with you? Go back to the ambulances, son. Let the surgeon look at you." When Smitty refused, mumbling "No--no, sir," with his head down and his feet dragging, the lieutenant had looked for a moment like he would make a case of it, then shrugged, said "I should stretch my legs some," and dismounted his horse. "Boost him up here," he told O'Connor. "If he's going to be so stubborn."

"But it didn't work," said O'Connor softly. "And now--"

Smitty shivered again. Both of his hands joined O'Connor's on the roundness of his stomach. He pushed at it a little, and O'Connor moved to stop him.

"Does it--does it hurt you?"

"Not exactly. It's just so ... full. It gets fuller every day. Sometimes I feel ... if it gets any fuller, I'll burst, everything will just go flying out."

"Will it? I mean, will it get--fuller?"

Smitty nodded in the dark. O'Connor felt it more than saw it. "For another month, maybe two, I'm not quite certain-- I don't know how I can stand it, Sean."

"Jaysus. You poor lad." O'Connor lay down next to him, keeping his hand where it was, stroking the tight skin.

Smitty turned away from him.

"Do you want me to stop?"

There was a long pause. "No. You can keep doing--that."

And so he did.

**

It was hard, over the next weeks, to not fuss or nag or scold at Smitty, to not look too long at his bloated body as he grew grumpier and shorter of breath. He wore his greatcoat from reveille to retreat, even during an odd warm snap when the other lads stripped down to their shirtsleeves, and he read a collection of dirty stories he had stolen from a dead reb, in that peach orchard near the little church, while the others--including O'Connor--played ball in the muddy fields.

At night, they talked, more than they ever had before. O'Connor was not a talkative man, and he knew that Smitty was bright and quick in a way that he himself had never been. But they talked. O'Connor told him about Colleen, although not about her wretched death, about his Da, about the factory where the foreman had taken him under his wing, promised him promotion later on in exchange for, well, for favors.

"I thought you had sluggish bowels, at first," he told Smitty once, shyly. "Why you were so bloated and out of sorts."

Smitty snorted, then shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Oh, it's that too. Not for days now."

"Poor lad," he said, not for the first time. "Maybe more of the vegetable soup?"

"But the vegetable soup is disgusting. Yesterday, Mike found a roach in his. Squashed flat between the onions."

"More coffee then. That'll set you right."

Smitty kissed his bearded cheek, a thing he rarely did, and laid his head on O'Connor's shoulder.

One night, grunting a little with the effort, Smitty rolled into him, his full belly pressing against the ridges of O'Connor's hard, flat one.

"What's this, then?"

A quick hand dived down the front of O'Connor's trousers, and he gasped. "You're a disgrace, Sean. Look at this. An absolute disgrace." Smitty stroked him thoughtfully. "I should do this to you. See how you like going about all day with a--with a prize watermelon in your guts."

O'Connor bit down hard on the meat of his own hand to muffle his shout, and erupted.

O'Connor did not entirely understand the way he felt for his lover's body, a mix of fear and hunger and pity in almost equal measure. Was this what other men felt for their wives, when they were breeding? Smitty grew haggard, as the days went on. The lively weight in his belly made it hard for him to sleep. It looked so shocking on his square little frame when he lay back in his drawers and shirt, and felt so strange, a fascination he could not deny, under O'Connor's hands. But he kept that to himself as much as he could, seeing to himself after Smitty had fallen into one of his restless dozes. He was at it late one night when Smitty woke and punched him in the shoulder.

"Hey. Hey. Stop doing that, will you. Bring that thing over here."

He stopped, with great effort, and drew a deep breath. "Are you certain? Won't I hurt you?"

Smitty shook his head. "I don't think so. Just--"

"And I won't--I can't get you more--?" O'Connor didn't think he could, but the thought of it--if Smitty's belly swelled much more, it really would burst.

"I don't think so," he said. "I'm pretty sure. I've never heard of--from the ladies, you know. They talk, when they think there aren't any men around."

"No more prize watermelons?" A rare joke from O'Connor.

Smitty snorted laughter. "No more prize watermelons."

They didn't try it from the front, because Smitty's front was so round and heavy now, and for Smitty to ride him--an idea which intrigued O'Connor quite intensely--risked his swollen silhouette outlined by torch or lamplight. He approached Smitty from behind, easing his groin against Smitty's rump and reaching around to cup his hand against the young man's surging belly, feel the restless motions of the thing he still couldn't quite believe was a child, and slip it lower past the bristly thatch of hair--

Smitty twisted in his grasp. "I vow to god," he said. "If you do not put it in me right now--"

O'Connor chuckled and released himself from his drawers and did as he was told, sliding himself into Smitty's damp heat.

Smitty gasped.

"Are you all right? Shall I stop?"

"If you stop, I'll kill you. I don't want you to ever stop again."

He moved slowly. It was awkward, from behind, both men on their sides. O'Connor's left arm soon grew numb. He held Smitty to him, both arms around his torso, ignoring the bandages around his upper chest, dipping a hand into Smitty's wetness down below, feeling the astonishing pressure and fullness in the middle of his body, oh Christ, and it was him who'd done it--

His pace quickened, his body broke a sweat, although the night was bitter cold, and he felt his face and chest flush red, and he spilled himself into Smitty's body.

After a moment:

"Did you--?"

Smitty shook his head. "Could you go again?"

"If you give me--a few minutes. I'm not--sixteen anymore. Or--" His hand found Smitty's private place again, the pert little nubbin of flesh that he'd become so fond of, and trailed his fingers around it in the way he'd been shown. Smitty gasped, bucked his hips so his belly bulged out, and O'Connor felt himself becoming ready again after all.

"Be quiet," he said, "or you'll raise the camp." He stroked harder and more directly.

"Mmph!" said Smitty.

"They'll come to see what the ruckus is." Another stroke.

"Oh God!"

"They'll find you like this. With your big belly, what have you been doing, you bold, naughty lad--"

"You're a villain. I hate you." But then Smitty shivered in his climax and sagged back, replete.

**

Smitty would have to desert the army.

"You have to do it soon," O'Connor told him. "Before--" he cupped Smitty's stomach through the front of his trousers. He paused. Something was different about the way it pushed out into his hand. Not just bigger, but--. Smitty swatted his hand away.

"They shoot deserters. I can't. I won't."

"They won't shoot you. Even if they catch you. Not if--" He patted Smitty's belly again.

"They'll think I'm a coward. If they don't catch me. If they don't know why. They'll think I'm a low-down copperhead. I can't. Sean. Sean. I can't." He grunted and leaned forward a bit, with a hand pressing his flank.

"What is it? Is it the--?"

"The watermelon? I don't think so. Not yet."

"But you have to. Before it comes. Or--"

"I won't, I told you, I won't."

"Smit. Sweetheart. I don't think there's any other way."

"I'll find a way."

O'Connor flung up his hands in exasperation.

"The state of you," he said, which was a thing his mother had said when she was past her patience with one of them. "Drop it on the parade ground then, see if I care."

Smitty stayed hunkered over, his body tense.

"What's wrong? Does your belly hurt?"

"No," Smitty said. "My back. Rub it for me, will you?"

**

They had a few more days. On one, when neither one of them had the duty, they left camp on a pass and walked into town, found themselves a hotel. It was a reb hotel, but they were willing to take federal money for all that. It was persuading them to hire a room to enlisted men that caused the trouble, and it had taken Smitty some smooth talking to bring the matron around. Women liked his boyish good looks, his open-faced charm, and eventually he was telling O'Connor to give the lady her money and making his way rapidly to the barroom. O'Connor paid her and listened to her scold him about No cutting up, do you hear me, and No dirty boots on the bedclothes, and No immoral women, this is a respectable house, you look like nice clean lads what would your mothers think. They drank a whiskey each and O'Connor bought a flask for later reference, but they couldn't make themselves wait for long, and when the barman's back was turned they slipped up the stairs.

As soon as they were out of sight of the soldiers and resentful but grasping citizens and flashily dressed salesmen and assorted other hangers-on of an army in camp, they came together as if drawn by magnetism, lips crushed beneath the force of each other's passion, hands fisted in hair. Both of them stank of sweat and coffee and woodsmoke and bad whiskey and infrequently washed wool, and neither one of them cared.

They bundled each other through the door, and in the dim, cramped, faintly mildew-scented room they lay down together on one of the narrow beds--dirty boots still on--and O'Connor let Smitty shuck him out of his woolen blouse and waistcoat and shirt, then slide his baggy trousers and drawers down around his hips. His manhood poked out rudely. He had always had a large one, but now it felt enormous, bigger than ever, and so hot with blood that he expected, when he looked down, to see it steaming in the unheated air.

Smitty's grip on him was like a vise. O'Connor groaned. "Take your clothes off, then, if you're going to handle me like that."

Smitty threw off his outer garments. "This too," O'Connor said, tugging on his drawers and shirt. "I want to look at you. Let me look at you."

"No," Smitty said, pushing back and clambering awkwardly to his feet.

"Aye."

"No. Sean--my belly's as big as a--a fucking observation balloon. You don't want to see it."

"I do. I do want to see it. Now take this off or I'll take it off for you." He grabbed the waistband of Smitty's drawers and gave them a good hard yank. A bone button snapped, and the garment fell.

"Damn you, man. You'll have to sew that back on."

A hand in the neck of Smitty's shirt. Smitty's hands swatting his, but Smitty was laughing. Another hard yank, and the shirt came off and Smitty stood naked--or almost naked-- before him, his feet braced, his arms crossed defensively over the bindings around his chest, his belly bulging low between his hips.

It was the first time in months that O'Connor had seen him like this, all of him at once, and there was so much more of him now. He reached for the bindings around Smitty's chest.

"No." Smitty slapped his hand away, hard enough to mean it. "No. Not that."

"All right," he said. "Lie down with me then. Lie down, lad. I won't do that again."

After a moment they lay down, Smitty grunting as he struggled with the weight and mass of his belly and O'Connor's heart breaking even as his yard stiffened.

"I have to have you," O'Connor said. "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you. But if I wait any longer, I think I'll die."

"Oh thank God," said Smitty, laughing and gasping as he propped himself up on his elbows.

O'Connor kissed him, first on the mouth, and then down the long line of his throat, and then, shyly, on his swollen stomach, having skipped over the bindings around his chest, which seemed oddly damp to him, and smelled bad, like milk about to go off. He folded Smitty's tangled hair aside and slipped a finger into Smitty's quim, felt its furnace heat, the grip of its flesh, and gasped. Smitty moved his hips into O'Connor's cupped palm.

"Is that all I get, then? One sorry finger?"

"Be patient, lad."

O'Connor introduced another finger, felt its welcome, and stroked upwards, feeling the ridged flesh, beckoning him to come. Then his hand pulled free. It seemed absurd that Smitty's body could tolerate the intrusion of even one more thing, a finger or a prick, his belly crammed full, the skin streaked with red where the watermelon had stretched him until it seemed he really might burst--.

And then, after pondering briefly, he rolled out of bed, pulled Smitty's butt to the edge, cocked his hips, holding his weight on one hand and aiming himself with the other, and shot his bolt home.

The noise they made together.

Pleasure and surprise and gasps for air.

"Did I hurt you--sweetheart?"

"No but. Hurry up--won't you? Can't stand this--for long. It's so--heavy."

That was all O'Connor needed. He stroked, feeling Smitty's impossible tightness, the way his swollen body gripped him, could this be the way the watermelon would get out, could such a thing be? Surging through this narrow canal of flesh? You might as well put a cannonball through a--through a--through a--

Smitty panted beneath him, stroking O'Connor's lean back, the sweat-soaked hair on his head, his bearded cheeks. O'Connor felt sweat drop from his face and chest, felt his arms tremble. His buttocks clenched. His back ached. The angles of their coupling were all wrong. His cock reached deeper, then deeper still, Smitty grunting with the effort of receiving him. O'Connor took him by the wrists and pinned his hands, one by one, at each side of his head. His own eyes closed, but he could see the picture his lover made as he squirmed to get free. He felt his climax rushing over him, rushing through him, and twitched himself out into the air, spilling onto the bedclothes beside his lover's body. Herself downstairs would have more to worry about than a couple of muddy bootprints.