Chapter 77
Apain-filled scream being let out beside him had Killian’s eyes snapping open wide. It only took a few seconds for his brain to wake up and recognize it as Ender’s. His heart started to race, and Killian’s stomach twisted with dread as long seated fears instantly rose up.
“Ender?!” he and Cyrus called out at the same time, as they both sat up in bed.
His eyes were closed, but tears were starting to form in the corners of Ender’s eyes as he laid there, curled into a ball in his nest, clutching at his stomach.
“It’s time—” The Gorgon’s words ended in a blood-curdling scream, with him writhing for a very different reason than yesterday, before gasping, “The shells!”
“I’ll call Dr. Corradetti, you go get the hot water ready, and umm—towels!?” Killian squeaked as he snagged his phone off the nightstand. Cyrus took off into the bathroom, where they’d placed a tub filled with towels last night.
His hands were shaking so badly, he almost dropped the small box of a phone as he went to unlock it, but managed to get it to unfold without losing it. His heart ticked faster as he called Ruby, and listened to the ringing, his mind screaming for her to pick the fuck up.
“It’s time!” he practically screamed as soon as the call connected. He yelled due to both fear and a need to be heard, as Ender had let out another scream of his own.
“I’m on my way,” the Druid said way too fucking calmly, before hanging up.
Killian tossed his phone aside on the bed and started to hum, pushing calming emotions out, as he went to caress Ender’s hair. But right before he made contact, the Gorgon’s head snapped towards him, along with all his snake coils, as they collectively let out a fierce predatorial hiss.
Killian jerked his hand back, before carefully getting off the bed, as he stared down into a gaze that didn’t seem to recognize him. But then the eyes cleared, as Ender shook his head a few times and blinked rapidly.
“Sorry, sorry…you can’t touch me right now,” the man gasped, before his eyes slammed shut on a wince of pain.
“Ruby did mention you would likely attack.” Killian wrung his hands together to stop himself from reaching out again, needing to do something.
He looked towards the bathroom door when Cyrus rushed out with a tub of hot water, the Fate almost tripping and tossing it before reaching the bed. Catching himself, the man sat it down on the nearest nightstand and rushed back into the bathroom, before coming back with the towels.
Dropping the stack of towels on the bed, Cyrus stood there awkwardly, tawny brown skin looking a bit paler than normal, before squeaking out, “W-what do we do?!”
Killian took a shuddered breath. “Th-there’s nothing we really can do. Wake people up, maybe?”
“Right, right, I’ll wake people!”
Killian tuned Cyrus out as he went to do just that. Hands clenched tightly together, he took one deep breath at a time as he tried to calm down, while starting to hum again. Killian’s voice only seemed to calm Ender for brief moments before the contractions came.
He flinched, tears forming in his eyes as Ender let out a shriek of pain that seemed to pierce his skull, doing his best to not let his memories claw their way up with the noise.
Killian jerked as arms wrapped around him, and as he looked back at Cyrus, he whimpered while the feeling of helplessness washed through him.
“It’ll be—” Cyrus cut off when the hallway door opened and Ruby walked in.
The doctor was in pajamas, and had a leather bag on her shoulder, and an injector in her hand. If he had thought the hiss Ender had let out towards him had been fierce, he’d been sorely mistaken. As it had nothing on the feral sound the Gorgon released when she entered the room.
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t want me here, but you are just going to have to deal with it for a moment, so I can give you the dilator.” She waved the device in her hand. As she slowly approached the bed, Ender’s hissing ramped up with each step.
The Druid stopped, only a step away, when the Gorgon sat up, looking ready to attack. But then Ender’s whole body suddenly spasmed, the man curling back in on himself as he let out an animalistic shriek of pain.
Images of his mother mid-birth and in agony now running through his head, Killian held himself stiff, struggling to not look away while his fears threatened to drown him.
Ruby’s face pinched with determination as the Gorgon’s scream trailed off. “Ender, I am going to get on the bed, and you are going to hold real still while I give you this injection into your hip. Because based on that scream, your eggs are harder than we want them to be.”
Black started to creep around the edges of his vision at her words, his panic digging deeper with each second that passed that Ender didn’t react.
“Breathe,” Cyrus rasped softly in his ear.
He drew in air on realizing he’d been holding his breath.
As he took one deep breath after another, he heard another heartbeat aside from his own racing just as fast. That was when he felt it…
the trembling. The arms around him weren’t as steady as he first thought.
Cyrus was afraid, just like he was. Killian gripped onto the Fate’s arms, and tried to cling to the knowledge he wasn’t alone in this.
His breath caught in hope when Ender uncurled.
“Quickly,” the Gorgon rasped, his word practically a hiss. The snake’s slitted yellow eyes locked on Ruby as she slowly crawled onto the bed.
When Dr. Corradetti finally pressed the automatic injector to Ender’s hip, removing it only seconds later, Cyrus had to hold him up as his knees almost gave out in relief.
Ruby scurried off the bed and back when the Gorgon let out another hiss that continued endlessly, as the man’s eyes became unfocused again.
“Okay, I’d say stay where you are, as he is no longer conscious enough to not bite,” the doctor said before facing them.
“The dilator should take full effect over the next couple of minutes. I made the dose higher than what he likely needs, just in case. The eggs are harder, but it should be fine.” Killian flinched when she patted him on the chest. “Curb your panic a bit there, Killian. He’ll be fine, I promise.
This is probably the least troubled Gorgon pregnancy in history.
Now, I’m going to head out into the hall, call me back in when he’s done. ”
With that said, she left, partly closing the door behind her as she did. As soon as she was gone, the hissing stopped, but only for a brief moment until Severo peeked his head in and asked, “How’s it going?”
Instantly, the Gorgon let out another feral hiss, and Severo yelped before disappearing into the hall at the clear threat.
“Stay out, and keep your mouth shut!” Cyrus snapped.
“Told you,” he heard Soren say with a snort from somewhere else in the hall.
Killian would have threatened him too, if he had the energy to do anything aside from stopping himself from losing it.
He flinched when the Gorgon screamed again in pain, trying to convince himself that it sounding like it was less agony-filled meant it would be okay.
He couldn’t completely. Too many weak screams had ended in death for him to fully commit to that reality.
Minutes ticked by, with them standing there unmoving as contraction after contraction hit Ender. The tightness in his chest was growing with each cry of pain, and Killian could only do his best to not hyperventilate and pass out.
But then it happened. While still curled up, Ender’s whole-body suddenly went rigid, the snake letting out a high-pitched hiss, as first one egg slid out into the nest, followed quickly by another.
As relief slammed into him, something deep inside him shattered, and for the first time since his mother died, Killian’s tears tumbled free. Cyrus inhaled in shock behind him when the droplets clattered to the floor, having turned into pearls.
Killian’s emotions were too much for him to understand, and his mind was blank, even as warmth spread through his chest while his gaze traveled over the perfectly intact eggs, and Ender.
With his tail curling around the eggs, the Gorgon’s body seemed to relax as he looked up at them, his face pale and wet with tears.
Killian crumbled further, a sob slipping out when Ender reached for them.
Slightly out of breath, Ender’s body ached, and he felt entirely exhausted as he reached for the Siren and Fate, while tears continued to trail down his face.
With his mind floating slightly, he absently noted the teary-eyed yet slightly shocked expression on Cyrus’ face, and how pretty the grayish-purple pearls Killian’s tears were turning into were.
Both of them quickly curled up beside him, with Killian ending up in his nest with him, while Cyrus laid beside it, as the Fate called out, “Ready for you, Dr. Corradetti!”
Ruby entered the room, with a group of people behind her, consisting of Soren, Severo, Seri, Quill, and all the members of his inner circle that were currently on Earth at the moment.
The others stayed back, annoyingly staring while the doctor crawled onto the bed and prompted him to turn on his side a bit. He winced as she spread his cheeks and prodded at his poor sore cloaca, before sighing while she cleaned him multiple times with a warm, wet towel, before patting him dry.
“No tearing,” Dr. Corradetti announced happily, before moving his tail a bit, and pulling a few things his brain was too tired to identify from her bag, to check his eggs.
After a few silent moments, she coiled his tail back over his eggies, and patted him on the hip.
“Good job, Ender. Everything looks good to go. The shells are intact, no cracks. Get some rest, we can talk more in the morning.” With that said, Ruby turned to the group behind her and snapped, “All of you, get out! You can visit when it’s not 3am.
This included you, Soren, in case you thought you were exempt. ”
Soren let out an irritated chirp, as the others grumbled, but she ignored their protests and just started prodding them out of the room. Ruby closed the door behind her, leaving as well once she had succeeded.
The Siren was creating quite a few pearls in his nest, as he gently caressed his snake coils, and whispered shakily, “Good job.”
He smiled weakly, and rasped, “What do they look like? My vision is different in this form.”
“One is a bit larger, and overall, a light tawny brown color with purple speckles. While the other is a pearlescent white with light grayish-purple and teal speckles,” Cyrus said softly, before adding, his voice full of emotion, “They are perfect.”
“Ahh, cute little eggies,” he giggled tiredly.
Killian sniffled. “Mm, they are cute.”
“The cutest,” Cyrus agreed.
Glancing from one man to the other, his eyes widened slightly as a realization hit him.
The conversation he heard, they hadn’t been lying.
The looks in their eyes, the smiles on their faces…
they were warm, so very warm. Warm enough to touch the permanent coldness that seemed to radiate from his heart since losing his family.
Were they really happy…being there with him?
But wasn’t he just interfering in their relationship?
Maybe… Maybe he wasn’t. He could smell it…
their fear. The room was filled with it.
They’d been worried about him. He could tell by the way they touched his hair and held him, their relief was obvious.
It was him they had been worried about too, not just his babies… No, not his, their babies.
As their warmth touched him more and more, Ender found he couldn’t suppress the growing urge he hadn’t known he had, or possibly had just ignored, to want what they were offering. But was it okay for him to? With those questions in his head, the man he’d planned to spend eternity with came to mind.
Coop…would it be okay for me to…let them in? The Gorgon’s smiling face flashed into his head, causing new tears to flood Ender’s eyes. The truth was…he didn’t even need to ask. Coop would have been yelling at him for holding out for so fucking long.
But he would hold on for a little while longer… He just wasn’t ready yet. Even if he couldn’t fully let go right that moment, he would soon, but before that, he would start to let them in.
Sniffing hard, he softly croaked, “Thank you both for coming.”
Their smiles widened, before a no longer crying Killian cheekily said, “Thank you for not eating us that first day.”
Ender giggled. “No problem. Now, cuddle closer, I’m cold.”
“Mm,” Cyrus grunted as the man pressed more firmly against him and the side of the nest. At the same time, Killian wrapped himself closely around him, while the lower half of Ender’s body remained coiled over their eggs.
He hesitated for a moment, struggling to keep his eyes open, before managing to say, “O-our babies…they uh—I mean, we—” He cleared his throat. “—need to name them.”
Before, Ender had intended to just decide by himself, even when they’d first come to the compound, so he’d never brought it up. And likely they’d been too afraid to. But this could be a start for them…
Killian let out a surprised laugh that was full of delight. “Yes, we do, don’t we?”
“We do,” Cyrus rumbled softly. “We can start a list tomorrow, or rather, later today.”
A yawn forced its way out, and Ender sleepily mumbled, “Mm, later,” as his eyes slid shut. Later or tomorrow, it didn’t matter. Either way, something new was starting between them. Something new that hopefully had a happy ending.