Oops

Content note: this story contains unplanned FTM pregnancy; references to illegal abortion (no actual abortion); references to cis male pregnancy (no actual cis male pregnancy); references to military violence and trauma.

Gabe came home exhausted. His shift in the ER had been pretty bad. And afterwards he had had a panic attack in the men's room. His hands were still shaky, and it took a minute for him to get the key into the lock.

When he finally got the door open, Pete was halfway on his feet, one hand braced on the sofa arm and the other with a finger jammed in a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Pete.

He wore a pair of Hanes boxer briefs and nothing else, and his belly bulged out hugely from his lanky frame, round and pale in the morning light.

"Hey."

"Hey. Are you all right? Did something happen at work?"

How did he always know?

"Car accidents. And then a couple of shootings. One with a kid."

"Crap, dude, I'm sorry."

Gabe shrugged big shoulders. "It's all right. But I had a panic attack after."

"That's why you look so, I don't know, so drained. Come here, dude." Pete spread his arms for a hug. Gabe hugged him.

"I know I said I'd fix brunch. I just want to go to bed."

"No, yeah, that's fine, you should. Can I do anything? Mind if I join you?"

"You can join me. I don't know if I can, you know--"

"Yeah, no, of course. That doesn't matter. We can later, if you want."

"You know I always want," Gabe said, and quirked the side of his mouth up in a half-hearted smile. He let go of Pete's shoulders, and then trudged off to bed. He didn't have far to go. They had a studio, fairly spacious as far as studios went, with a double bed, a nightstand, and an old steamer trunk for clothes--XL (sometimes XXL) for Gabe and M (until recently) for Pete-- in the back corner across from the kitchenette.

Shoes off. Scrubs off.

Gabe let himself fall heavily onto the bed. They needed a new one, a queen or preferably a king, and they needed a larger apartment if the two of them were going to stay together, but he couldn't think about that right now. He felt rather than saw Pete climb into bed beside him, and then he felt a hand on his chest, stroking down his ribcage to his soft belly and resting there. Pete was trim himself, or he had been, but he liked men who carried a little extra weight. He liked to watch Gabe eat.

"Your stomach's growling. Did you eat anything on your shift?"

"Chocolate chip cookie from the nurse's station."

"That's all? That's not enough."

"I told you. It was bad. All the usual stuff, and then--"

"Like Iraqistan level bad?"

"Not quite, but, like. You know. Sometimes it all comes back."

"Bro, maybe you should quit. Lots of places are hiring nurses."

"The hospital pays better. I have bills. My mom has bills."

Gabe covered Pete's hand with his own, and the weight on his stomach steadied him, fixed him in time and space. He thought he heard Pete say something as he slipped away. But then he was gone, and there were no dreams.

When he woke in the early afternoon, Pete was up, and there was a smell of frying food in the room. Pete had pulled a pair of workout shorts on over his underpants, but wore nothing else. The AC was spotty, which was a problem in the Texas summer, and since his belly had gotten so big he rarely went out. No point in putting on real clothes.

For a while he'd looked, well, like a guy who had a belly. A guy who maybe ate and drank a little more than was good for him. Now he looked like something else. Uncanny was the word he'd used to describe himself. He'd seen it on people's faces, the way they winced or frowned, near the end of the spring semester. Summer break had come just in time.

Gabe peered over his shoulder. Eggs and bacon, fried potatoes, some leftover greens. Everything sizzling away in cast iron on the little two-burner apartment stove. Delicious. He put his arms around Pete's wiry shoulders and gave him a squeeze, then lowered his hand to his tum and gave it a pat.

"This thing behaving itself?"

"No."

"Want me to take over here?"

"Also no."

They sat on the sofa to eat, Gabe with his plate balanced on his lap and Pete with his balanced on his belly.

"You should eat more," Pete told him when they were nearly done. "My belly's, like, twice the size of yours now. It's not ok."

Gabe rucked up his tee shirt and relaxed his abs, allowing his full stomach to round out. He poked it speculatively.

"That's much better," Pete told him. "Nobody likes a skinny boyfriend."

"Is that what I am now? Your boyfriend?"

A brief look of panic crossed Pete's face, and he reddened. "Well yeah, I mean, I just thought--"

Before he could say anymore, Gabe had slung both of their plates aside, forks clanking onto the scuffed parquet floor, and had Pete bundled into his arms. His mouth on Pete's, Pete's mouth on his, hands twining into each other's hair. They kissed for some time, breathing hard, and then they both moved lower at the same time and their foreheads clunked together.

"Jesus!"

"Fuck! Ow!"

He pushed Pete's shoulders back against the sofa and began kissing and stroking his way downward, from his stupid, adorable little mustache to his unshaven cheek to the smooth skin of his throat, which made him gasp and arch his back, along his hard, scarred, hairy chest, along his narrow ribcage, to his tremendous belly, which shifted restlessly under his hands and mouth.

Both men giggled at that.

"It's alllliiiive," Gabe intoned in a horror movie voice.

And then lower still.

"Get these off," Gabe said.

Pete hoisted his hips up so they could slip his gym shorts and boxer briefs down to his ankles, leaving his wiry legs and fluffy bush on full display. And there it was, his tiny dick, poking out like a thumb from the tangle of hair.

"Hello there," said Gabe.

"I, like, can't see it over my belly, but I think it likes you," said Pete.

"Tell it I like it too."

"Tell it yourself."

Laughing, Gabe got down on his knees. His own dick was an iron bar in his boxer shorts, and he paused for a moment to release it from the fly. It sprang out and he gave it an idle stroke or two before he bent to his task.

"Inside you or nah?"

"Inside is fine." Pete sighed in anticipation and reached down to curl his fingers in Gabe's mop of black hair. For work he wore his topknot pulled back in a warrior's wolftail, but now it fell loose around his face.

Gabe obliged him, sliding a couple of his thick fingers into Pete's wetness before parting his pubes--no point in flossing while he was down there--and slipping Pete's dick into his mouth.

"Oh fuck," Pete moaned. "Oh man. Oh that's so good. Oh Jesus Christ. Oh God." He continued in that profane vein, driving Gabe to greater and greater enthusiasm, fingers inside Pete's hot, swollen body as far as they would go, the other hand cupping his skinny ass and feeling the way his meager butt cheek flexed into his palm. At last Pete's body spasmed and relaxed. There was no spend, like there was with a cis dude, but his climax was unmistakeable for all that.

They were both a little winded, Gabe mostly because in his excitement he'd forgotten to breathe. He sat back on the floor, broad chest heaving.

"Better now?"

"Aw man. That was so fuckin good." For such a literary guy--he was reading for comps in English, for god's sake!--he could be surprisingly crude and inarticulate in his everyday speech. Gabe thought it was probably a holdover from early transition, when he'd been made up of little more than three beard hairs and a flyweight's machismo, before Gabe had known him, before he'd figured out how smart he truly was. Pete had his hands resting on his belly and his head thrown back.

Gabe climbed onto the sofa. "Well good. Boyfriend." His tee shirt came off and was tossed aside. His hand joined Pete's, pressing a little as if assessing his belly's texture, its weight, then sliding down to the place where it began to bulge above Pete's groin. He stroked the swollen flesh, enjoying the new softness of Pete's skin, the silk of his treasure trail. "You know, I think you're right. This belly of yours is getting pretty big. Especially for a skinny guy like you. Want to tell me what you've been putting in there?"

"You." Pete opened an eye to peer at him. "You're what I've been putting in there, bro." He arched his body into Gabe's hand.

"Oh, is that it." He continued to massage Pete's straining abs. "Because I have to tell you." He kissed him. "I've put it in a lot of guys." He kissed him. "Since I was nineteen." He kissed him again. "And absolutely none of them have swelled up on me like this." He kissed him one more time. "Baby, you're just ... full to the brim."

"Skill issue," Pete said, and sighed, reaching up to pull Gabe's head back down to his.

While Pete kissed him and tickled him with his mustache and nibbled on his lips, Gabe slipped a hand behind Pete's back, began to probe the long muscles on each side of his spine.

Pete groaned, but not in pain. "That spot in my back, right there, don't stop."

Gabe didn't stop. He worked Pete's muscles with one hand and stroked from his belly to his chest to his throat with the other, clamping down on his slightly softened jawline and allowing his tongue to toy with Pete's.

Pete snaked a hand out and grasped his dick, hard, hard.

"Jesus Christ!"

"What is it about this thing?" Pete asked contemplatively, and kissed him. "I let you put it in me." Pete kissed him again. "And just look at what it did." Pete kissed him again. "Nobody else does this to their boyfriends."

"Skill issue," said Gabe, and Pete laughed breathlessly, then stroked Gabe from the root of him outward, pressed his mouth to Gabe's once more, and bit his lower lip, which was his special thing.

"Oh God," Gabe breathed. "Bed. Now. Before I jizz on the couch."

They walked awkwardly to the bed, Pete because of his belly, Gabe because his dick was still out of his pants and Pete had a hold of it.

"Elephant walk," Pete announced happily. "Hey. I'm already naked here. Get those panties off, big man."

"Yes sir, if you'll release my dick, sir," Gabe said, and, once released, shoved his boxers down, letting himself spring free.

"Good boy." Pete slapped him briskly on the ass.

They embraced once more, bellies pressed together, torsos tilted forward to accommodate them, hands roaming, mouths exploring lips, cheekbones, beards, throats. Finally Gabe bent and hoisted Pete into his arms and bounced him gently onto the bed, feeling a twinge in his lower back that he knew he'd be sorry for later on. He climbed in after him and their limbs tangled together, Gabe's hand pressed to Pete's groin, his palm grinding against Pete's dick, Pete's hand clamped around Gabe's, drawing pleasure out of him with a strength that was almost painful.

"If you finish me like that--I won't be good for anything else," he gasped finally, and Pete released him, licking moisture off his palm with a salacious glee that drove Gabe mad.

It took them a minute to figure out how to fuck. They'd been using their hands and mouths on each other every day, several times a day if they had time and focus (Pete had all the time in the world, because his only job this summer was to read for comps and let his belly grow, but Gabe's hours were long and sometimes he came home twitchy and upset and all he wanted to do was sleep or drink or talk about the things he'd seen and done in fucking Iraqistan), but actually fucking, with Gabe's dick or Pete's strap, because they were both switches, had gotten a lot more logistically challenging since the last time they'd done it.

Pete on his elbows and knees, ass and junk all present and accounted for, seemed to do the trick.

"Jesus, you're sopping wet," Gabe breathed. "I'll never get over how that works for you."

"Factory originals," Pete said, wiggling his rump.

Gabe slapped him lightly on the butt cheek and then, out of habit, fished a Magnum out of the nightstand drawer, peeled open the wrapper, pinched the tip, and began to roll it down over his dick.

"Afraid you're going to put another one in me?"

Gabe laughed and stripped the condom back off. "Want me to? Because if you keep shaking your ass at me, I might do it. Let's see how big that belly can get."

"Well what are you waiting for? Do it." Pete sighed and pushed his rear end back against Gabe's groin. "Do it, bro, let's see what happens."

When he slid himself inside Pete's body, felt the grip of his flesh, his dampness, his heat, he had to stop for a moment, steadying himself on Pete's hips. "Don't you dare move. If you move--I'll bust early--like a damn teenager." Bareback sex was a rare treat for a gay son of the 80s and 90s. Jesus Christ, it felt so dangerous. But he was tested, and clean, and he hadn't been with anyone but Pete in more than a year, and he trusted Pete when he said he hadn't been with anyone either. Once he caught his breath, he began to move. He held back as much as he could, trying to be mindful of Pete's distended, ungainly body, but soon his pace quickened, flesh smacking quietly, the silly schloop schloop noises that their genitals made.

"Is this--all right?"

Pete's head was down and his voice was muffled, but the sound he made was clear enough. That was all Gabe needed. His beautiful man. On his knees before him, overcome by pleasure, his belly filled to bursting by their sex. They finished, one right after the other, and Gabe, panting, sweat trickling down his hairy chest and stomach and dripping from his forehead onto Pete's back, withdrew his softened dick and let himself slump over and pull Pete onto his side, wrapping him in a big, bearish hug.

"How does it feel, having another one in you?"

"Mmm." Pete's voice was muzzy from sleep and satisfaction. "Midwife comes over, she's going to be surprised. When my belly's twice as big."

"You mean your tummy. Your tummy's twice as big." Gabe patted it for emphasis. The midwife used babytalk with them, even though they were both grown men and Gabe likely had more medical experience than she did, although his of course was of a different nature. She irritated them that way, but she was good at her job and had never once made them feel like their situation was anything out of the ordinary, or treated Pete like anything less than a man.

"Mmm. I'll tell her it's the crystal's fault. The moonlight charged it too full."

The crystal, a little gift from the midwife, hung from a string and a strip of scotch tape in the kitchen window, casting rainbows around the room.

Gabe's eyes drifted shut. Sex talk was nice, but sleep would be better.

"Hey. Tell me to go pee so I don't get a UTI again."

"Go pee so you don't get a UTI again." He felt Pete heave himself out of the bed and pad off to the bathroom, and then he was gone.

When he woke again the afternoon had fled and the apartment was dark. In the glow of his phone he saw that Pete lay sprawled on his back, belly rearing up, rising and falling gently with the rhythm of his breath. He reached over to massage it briefly, just below the navel.

"Fondling my belly when you think I'm asleep, huh."

"Excuse me, I was, like, feeling your tummy?" He did the midwife's voice, young and full of vocal fry.

"Checking to see if it's any bigger yet?"

"Mm hm. Any minute now. It'll be twice the size."

"God, I can't even imagine that. It's huge already."

"Roll over onto your side, babe. It's better that way."

"Right." Pete grunted and flopped over, tight against Gabe. The bed really was too small for men like them. "Are you working tonight?"

"No, not tonight."

"Good."

Gabe combed his fingers through Pete's stupid, adorable mullet.

"I'd say I want big spoon," said Pete sleepily, "But my damn belly's in the way."

"Want little spoon instead?"

"No, this is fine. I'm too comfortable to roll over. It's ... weird. I've never had a big belly before."

Gabe chuckled. "I have. Not like yours, though. Mine's just ... beer. And tacos."

"We'll have to fix that." Gabe could hear the smile in Pete's voice. "When I can fuck you properly again. We'll see what your belly does then."

**

The text had come through just after 2am.

"Bro. WTF."

And then a jpeg. Of a pregnancy test. Which was positive.

He'd been drowsing on the sofa with some stupid rom-com on tv, trying to stay awake so he could normalize his sleep for the night shifts he'd been working. He sat up, heart pounding so hard he could see it in his field of vision, and muted the tv. He dialed the number back.

"Pete? What the fuck, man?"

Loud gay dance music in the background. Indistinct shouting. Pete sounded like he was crying, or maybe laughing, or maybe both. Gabe couldn't tell.

"Are you drunk? Take your phone outside. Wait. Scratch that. Can you come over here? Do you need me to come and get you?"

Thirty minutes later Pete stood in the hallway. He had a woman with him. Gabe recognized her as one of his roommates' girlfriends. He didn't know her well, but they all had mutual friends. Gays and lesbians and everyone in between and the straights who liked their vibes, their second-hand thrills. Fun chick, a little handsy when she was drunk, but fun and kind-hearted.

When Gabe opened the door to let Pete in, she hugged Pete, quick and hard, and then held him by the shoulders and said "Are you sure about this? Call me if anything happens, ok? I'll come get you in an Uber."

"He'll be all right," Gabe told her.

She gave him a skeptical look, then turned back to Pete. "Call me. Or text me. With how it goes." Then, weirdly, she patted the front of his tee shirt where it pooched out over his belt.

Gabe put a pot of coffee on and pulled a bottle of Gatorade out of the fridge to start getting Pete sobered up a bit. His first thought had been that Pete had gotten this girl pregnant, and needed help from a medical guy, someone with connections, someone who might be willing to break the law, but of course that couldn't possibly be true. Then he sat down on the sofa next to him--there was nowhere else to sit, other than the double bed and a precarious little folding chair-- and said "Got something you need to tell me?"

Pete nodded, head down.

"Was that test yours?"

Pete nodded, and began to pick at his fingernails.

"When did you take it?"

"Tonight."

Gabe's mind raced. They hadn't been together that way in months. They were busy men, Pete teaching and working on a PhD on the epistolary novel, and Gabe paying for PA school with the GI Bill and picking up shifts as an LPN at the hospital because he helped his mother with her bills.

He guessed that meant that whatever they'd briefly had was over. It would have been nice if someone had told him that.

Pete mumbled something.

"I can't hear you. Speak up."

Pete said, "Help me."

And Gabe's heart broke.

"What do you need me to do? Do you need me to talk to the father? Do you need me to take you out of state?"

Pete mumbled something.

"I can't fucking hear you. I can't help you if you won't tell me what you need."

Pete said, "You're the father. Asshole." And he pulled up the hem of his tee shirt and straightened his spine a little so Gabe could see the way his belly bulged, five months gone or maybe more, distending his lean muscles and pressing firmly against the waistband of his boxer briefs and the belt of his jeans.

**

When Gabe woke up he started a pot of coffee, using his phone for light. Pete needed all the sleep he could get.

That night that Pete had come over, on the edge of a full blown crisis, and who could blame the man, Gabe had put him to bed and taken the couch for himself, his long limbs folded up in a way he knew he would regret. In the morning he had awakened to find Pete up and drinking coffee, sitting on the one folding chair in the kitchenette.