Part I: The Experiment

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Huey Laforet stood, hands pressed to the porcelain sides of the sink, red-rimmed golden eyes staring at his reflection in the mirror. The faucet was on, pouring clear, cold water down the drain, the noise ambient in the back of Huey's mind. It took a lot of effort just to look himself in the eye, and then he couldn't anymore, leaning over the sink as his stomach tried to force out what little remained inside of him. He hadn't expected the sickness to be so violent.

Honestly, he hadn't expected any of this to be happening, at all. But here they were. Here he was, curled over the bathroom sink, struggling to keep his expression stoic as he wrestled with the millions of thoughts running through his head. Nobody told him it was going to be this hard.

It was morbid curiosity that had brought Huey here. Ladd Russo was by no means an acceptable romantic partner, but in truth, it hadn't been romance that drew him to Ladd. It was rather the incessant want, the need, to figure out how the man worked. What drove him to do the things he did, his bloodlust, why he wanted to kill Huey so badly. And Huey being Huey, he wanted to see if he could make Ladd fall in love with him, if he could manipulate the other man's emotions as deftly as he'd done with every other human in his life.

Six months of death threats, cross-country chasing, and fighting had finally gotten Huey what he wanted. The homicidal maniac was wrapped around his finger like a string. Whether he knew that Huey was using him to achieve a higher goal, Huey would never know. Driven as he was, Ladd was incredibly intelligent, possessing the brains and brawn to easily outmatch the majority of his opponents. Huey had seen him fight before, had seen him kill, and it was almost exhilarating to watch him, taking down a dozen men while barely lifting his finger.

And yet, he still didn't kill Huey. Not yet. He said he was waiting, for the sweetest prize he could get, until after he'd finished killing everyone else in the world. Huey laughed when he told him the first time, reminding him that he couldn't die only once, that it would be a waste for Ladd to wear himself out into old age before putting his hands on him. That only made Ladd laugh in response, then whisper in Huey's ear about how he knew how much Huey yearned to die, how much he would enjoy it when he put his hands around his throat. He was going to hold back that pleasure, he told him, for the both of them.

That was when things started to change.

Huey knew that taking the elixir of immortality could result in numerous side effects. Among those was the development of certain reproductive organs in people of XY genotype that hadn't been there before; no doubt a result of demon magic going haywire in the bodies of its consumer. According to the Devil, Ronnie, there were rumors of the childbearing organs actually being functional, which led to Huey's current experiment.

Everything in his world was an experiment, and Huey's own body wasn't exempt from that. He knew that there was a slim-to-none chance of getting Ladd to subject himself to such an experiment, so Huey decided that he would undergo the process. It wouldn't be difficult, he told himself; a few nights of sex with Ladd should be enough to do the trick, and he'd be willing enough to do that, at least. According to him, his last fiancee, Lua Klein, had no interest in anything involving that spectrum of her sexuality, and any advances Ladd attempted to make were met with clear disinterest. While he was more than happy to leave her alone, this left him incredibly frustrated, and this frustration ended up being a good thing for Huey.

It wasn't that terrible, which was what frightened Huey the most. There were points where Huey truly enjoyed being intimate with Ladd, which was something he hadn't felt in decades. True, he had spent nights with Elmer when he'd become truly desperate, but he hadn't really enjoyed having sex since—

He stopped that thought in its tracks. No need to think about that right now.

Huey did make sure to explain the details of the arrangement to Ladd before it even actually happened. All he would do was see if he could get pregnant, and if he was successful, the fetus would be aborted before it got big enough to cause issues to the parents. Surprisingly, Ladd almost seemed to tense up when Huey mentioned the abortion, but he agreed to it nonetheless. All throughout it, Ladd made sure to tell him how much nicer this would make killing him, how much sweeter it would be when the time finally came, and though he'd never admit it to anyone, it made Huey's toes curl.

Everything came to a climax a few weeks later. A second visit to Ronnie confirmed what Huey had been thinking: he was, indeed, pregnant. But, there was a catch, the demon said. There was not one, but two new souls resting inside of him, both incredibly strong and already radiating with their own tiny life-forces.

The news hit Huey like a blow to the chest, and when he left the demon's house, he felt as though he was in a daze. Returning to an empty house, he sat on the couch, one hand pressed numbly over his stomach, remembering how Ronnie had put his hand there to feel the souls of his children.

"They aren't children yet," Huey reminded himself sternly, getting up from the couch and stumbling to the bathroom. "Don't call them that. Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't, don't, don't –" And then he leaned over the sink to vomit, and couldn't stop.

Now, Huey was forced to face the fact that his plan was falling apart as he heard the front door open and shut. His fingers tightened against the sink, knuckles turning white with the force it was taking to push down on it. Everything was going wrong. This wasn't what he'd planned, wasn't what he'd wanted. There was only one way to fix this.

He had to face Ladd himself.

Huey was hit with the strong smell of blood and gunpowder, which made his already-upset stomach lurch even more. Ladd was in the process of removing his bloody jacket, which, surprisingly, wasn't too soaked through with blood. It must've been an easy and uninteresting assignment, if he wasn't looking like he'd decided to take a bath in someone's bodily fluids. Even so, Huey had to cover his mouth a few times while approaching, just to keep himself from hurling up what precious little he had left in his stomach onto the ground.

"Ladd." He cut the other man off in the middle of humming some morbid tune, great blue eyes settling on Huey within seconds of saying his name. He felt himself flinch, but didn't pull away when Ladd stepped up, calloused palm grazing his cheek. For just a second, Huey felt a spark of something run up and down his spine, the urge to reach out and hold Ladd's hand to keep it there becoming overwhelming. And yet, he kept his hands firmly balled up at his sides, swallowing heavily as Ladd took his hand away, the warm sensation at being touched fading as quickly as it had come.

Huey really was falling apart.

"We need to talk," he finally said, keeping his face and voice impassive as ever when he spoke. His hands went behind his back, a sign of Huey trying desperately to keep some semblance of control over the situation. He couldn't lose it now, not like this. "About the experiment."

"Yeah? I thought you went to see Ronnie today," Ladd replied, taking the jacket to throw it into the laundry room. Then, Huey's hand shot out, grabbing Ladd's right arm just below his bicep.

"Look at me, please." That got Ladd's attention. Never once in their time together had he heard Huey say "please", and he looked at the smaller man with a mix of curiosity and shock. Huey loosened his grip on Ladd's arm, letting his own fall limply into place at his side. "I didn't go through with it."

Now there was confusion. "What're you talkin' about?"

"I didn't go through with it," Huey repeated more forcefully. "There are two, Ladd." He was almost certain that he saw Ladd stop breathing for a second, before he let it all out in a long rush of breath.

"Okay. That's not all there is, right?" His voice was gruff, and Huey could tell that Ladd was struggling to hide his true emotions himself. "I know that's not enough to stop you."

Before he could stop it, Huey's hand moved to his stomach, resting there as he remembered what Ronnie had showed him. "He let me feel what their souls felt like, Ladd. They're alive. He took my hand and he..." Huey trailed off, fingers curling and uncurling as he did. "I've gotten soft. I couldn't do it."

There was a long, drawn out silence between the two of them. And then, Ladd did something totally unexpected; taking the few steps to close the space between him and Huey, he reached out, putting one hand on Huey's hip and the other over his stomach. Huey's hand slid over Ladd's, their fingers lacing together, bodies acting totally on their own, falling into sync with each other. He wanted to stop, wanted to pull away and tell Ladd not to touch him again, but Huey couldn't.

"You knew they were alive when we started," Ladd said again, petting his hand slowly. "And that didn't bother you. Why now?"

"I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me," Huey replied, trying to swallow back his tears. "This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I planned, this is – I let myself get attached." His fingers tightened over the fabric of his shirt. "And now I can't do it."

"And now we're having twins," Ladd finished for him.

Huey couldn't take it anymore. It had all become too real, too physical for him to stop it anymore, to remove himself from it. It hadn't been like this with Chane and Liza, when he had Renee's detachment to feed off of, when he could effectively remove himself from really being in the situation. He couldn't do that now. Not when it was him who was carrying those two, tiny strong lives inside of him. Not when it was Ladd, who had tried and failed to disconnect himself from the emotions he felt, as well.

Collapsing into Ladd's arms, Huey finally let himself cry, a low wail he never thought he would hear again.