Title: In Which Joshua Orchestrates Immaculate Conception or Neku Really Should Stop Trying
Author: fantacination
Disclaimer: TWEWY (c) Square Enix and Jupiter.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and mental breakdowns.
Pairing: Soft Joshua/Neku.
Warnings/Notes: Not technically Mpreg. Crack. I swear Joshua explains it.
In Which Joshua Orchestrates Immaculate Conception
"No," Neku said flatly. He crossed his arms, refusing to touch a single one of the books or magazines Joshua had materialized out of thin air. "I don't even want to know where you got all that." The store probably had 'Essential Evil Overlord' somewhere in the store front.
" 'Expecting' is a very popular magazine amongst parents-to-be, Neku. The articles are really quite informative. I particularly recommend the baby horoscopes."
"I don't need to be informed. And it's not possible!"
"I can bend reality to my will, Neku. A baby is nothing. Unless, of course, you'd prefer it the usual way?" Joshua raised a silver brow, toying with his bright orange phone.
"Even if it were biologically possible, no."
"If you say so," Joshua said innocently, giving in with the air of someone going along with a fifteen minute mission to Cat Street.
"What do you mean by tha-"
Joshua leaned in, smiling at him like he couldn't give a shit about what Neku wanted to know.
Slender fingers wrapped around Neku's wrist, and before Neku could react, Joshua pressed his lips, feather-light on the vulnerable underside, brushing down the curve of it.
And Joshua never played nice. Sometimes he didn't even bother to sugarcoat it.
"Did you know, your soul gives off this interesting little trill when you-"
"Get off," Neku said dangerously, jerking his hand back and resisting the urge to cradle it like he'd been bitten.
"Not everyone is a two minute wonder, Neku."
Neku decided to switch tactics."Why do you even want a kid? Aren't you immortal?"
Joshua hummed, seemingly engrossed in his cell phone for a few seconds, before he pressed 'save'. "Why would Zeus sire any of the other gods?"
Neku frowned. Western classical literature was not his strong point. "Because he's got a runaway dick?" he said blithely.
Joshua snorted, tucking his cellphone back in his gray jeans' pocket. "That was just the sweetening. Think about it, hmm?" Joshua waved at him. "In the meantime, I have things to attend to." He smirked and phased out of existence, reminding Neku very strongly of a purple striped cat.
But Joshua hadn't gotten what he wanted, which was always a good day in Neku's books. And that was the last of that.
Or so he had thought.
--
"You fucking bastard."
"As I recall, you rejected that proposal," Joshua said smoothly.
"I- you made a kid! It's not- I don't even know what it is!"
"'It' is a little boy and his name is Shiyo," Joshua said casually. He was holding the tiny scrap of melded soul energy in his arms, wrapped neatly in some expensive cashmere blanket that was probably at least Pavo Real, but was more likely to be Pegaso. Mostly because Neku thought he could see the subtlest design of embroidered winged horses dancing across the cloth.
It looked a lot like Joshua, too. Except for the eyes. It's the freakiest thing in the world to look down into tiny versions of your sleeping eyes.
"I do hope that he hasn't inherited anything undesirable from you," Joshua commented, as if he'd read his mind.
"From me? What about you?"
"Anything the baby gets from me will be perfect in every way," Joshua informed him, smirking.
Just then, the baby woke up and stared at them both.
"It's not crying," Neku said uneasily. All babies cried.
"Well I could give him to you if you wanted to hear." Joshua held the baby out to him carefully.
Neku backed away like the baby had a gun. Which he really wouldn't put past Joshua to do as a joke anyway.
Or maybe the baby was the gun.
"Honestly, Neku, don't you want to hold the fruit of our love?"
"What love?" Neku demanded. Said lovechild was currently struggling a little against the blanket around him, clearly not in any mood to be restrained despite undeveloped motor skills.
Joshuas tsked. "You haven't been reading those manuals I lent you." He untucked the blanket from around the baby, lifting him out so the baby could look around and try to grasp at Joshua's shiny hair in futile fascination.
"I'm NOT going to have a baby with you, Joshua!"
"But Neku, you already have."
"That isn't a baby. That's a- a frankenstein of reprogrammed soul energy."
"So is everyone else, dear. How else did you think I put you all back in your charming little lives?"
Neku twitched. "That's not the same!"
Flapping a hand at him, Joshua made himself comfortable on Neku's bed, lying down and putting their bab- the thing on top of his stomach like a doting mother. The baby gurgled happily, reaching out for Joshua with tiny hands.
It couldn't get any weirder than this.
And suddenly he was infinitely glad that the Composer had never seen the point of actually having a pregnancy. Seeing Joshua with a baby bump might just give him new and interesting trauma points. Or Joshua forcing him to carry it, for that matter.
"Don't see why you didn't just program a clone your age or something," he grumbled faintly, sitting down next to Joshua on the bed. The Composer's hair was getting longer, spreading out like a halo on Neku's pillows. He'd have to change those later or something.
Joshua glanced at him, the same condescending look he gave when he discovered how little Neku actually knew about the city he'd grown up in. "I needed someone with your... unique traits. And melding different soul energy together tends to be more unstable, the larger it is. Fortunately, we fit together nicely, partner."
"Images, Joshua, not needed." It was bad enough when Joshua made insinuations about their Fusion attacks. Mid-fusion, even.
Joshua hummed, smiling when the baby tried to copy him, small wet bubbles spluttering from the infant's lips.
It was pretty adorable. For a weird artificially created Joshua-baby with his (forcibly taken) soul genes. Energy. Whatever.
Hesitantly, Neku reached out and touched the top of the baby's downy head, awed at how soft and delicate it was, with large, grave blue eyes and Joshua's pretty face. He felt a lot like Joshua, too, the Composer's music trilling in the baby's veins. But there was something there. Something familiar that called out to his own music. A part of his soul.
The room fell into a serene quiet, just Joshua humming an old lullaby and Neku and the baby, wonderingly making contact for the first time.
Before he knew it, Neku had fallen asleep.
When he woke up, Joshua had left him a note, taped to a very fancy, glossy silver-white card that read:
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Sakuraba,
You are cordially invited to the baby shower of Shiyo Kiryu-Sakuraba, son of Yoshiya Kiryu and Neku Sakuraba, to be held on the seventh of December at The View.
Reception will be open at seven. Cocktails will be served at nine.
Neku's brain shut down abruptly as he snatched the note from the card.
The note simply read: Your friends have theirs already.
--
Three rounds of phonecalls later, Neku found out three very important things. One: everyone thought he'd knocked some girl up. Two: Joshua was evil. and Three: He was never going to live any of this down. Ever. And Joshua was Evil.
So it was that in between reassuring his parents that no, he wasn't in trouble and no, mother, he hadn't had unsafe sex ever and he was very much a virgin at nineteen by choice, thankyou, that Joshua decided to show up. In the RG. With the baby in tow.
"Good afternoon," Joshua greeted smoothly. His hair was pinned casually at the nape of his neck, a long, soft premium Lapin Angelique sweater over his Dragon Couture dress shirt and tight white jeans. Somehow, he managed to look even more gender ambiguous than usual. Particularly since people couldn't actually see most of his chest when he leaned over now.
And he had the baby in a tiny, fuzzy bunny parka.
"Joshua!" Neku hissed, trying to drag him back from whence he came. "What the hell did you think you were doing??"
Joshua brushed back a curling lock of smoky silver hair. "I thought your parents might like to know they had a grandson."
"Joshua, he is not their grandson. He isn't even mine!"
"Oh, Neku, are you implying I've been having affairs behind your back?" He smirked.
"That's not what I meant!" Which wasn't the same as Joshua wouldn't. As far as Neku was concerned, Joshua could probably lead on half of Shibuya's glamourous night life, tire of them within the hour, and lead the other half right into his pad for orgies.
"And how am I supposed to explain how I've begotten a son with some random guy?"
"Immaculate conception," Joshua shrugged. "I hear it's quite popular, in certain circles."
"Joshua, you're not even a girl!" Neku growled, clutching at his last straw.
"Details," Joshua smiled beatifically. "Now then, I believe I was introducing myself." Phasing through Neku's grasp, Joshua cheerfully carried the baby into the living room.
"Joshua!"
"Good afternoon, I'm the baby's other parent," Joshua introduced, the baby cradled in his arms.
had to leap up from the couch in time to catch his wife from fainting dead away.
----
This had disaster written alll over it.
"But- you- and Joshua?!" Shiki asked again, almost morbidly fascinated as her eyes darted from one boy to the other, in between bouts of cooing at the baby in Joshua's arms. Shiyo, for his part, was staring semi-vapidly at Shiki like she was green and melted with water. Neku hoped it was just the lack of any feminine contact that wasn't already dead.
Beat was more direct. "Which one of you's actually a girl, yo?" He sized them both up warily. "Hope it ain't you, Phones, 'cos we dids all that time in the game and that'd be damn weird."
"We're not!" Neku repeated for the sixth time since they walked into the ramen shop. "He," Neku jerked a thumb at Joshua, "made it."
"So...he's the 'mom'?" Shiki made tiny air quotes with her fingers, trying to look understanding.
"He'd have to have a womb first," Neku grumbled, giving up on explanations. You couldn't apply RG logic to a Composer. You just couldn't. It was like trying to beat Taboo Noise with one of those Crimson Stilettos.
Rhyme was trying to interest the baby in the bright pink pen she had with a giant feather-ringed crystal heart on top (Neku could just see Beat's confusion as to where his little sister had gotten something that wasn't Wild Boar). Shiyo gurgled, fascinated. Great. His 'son' was apparently on the fast track to becoming just like his dad. mom. Shibuya Sugardaddy.
"He's adorable," Rhyme pronounced as Shiyo made a grab for the crystal, tiny pink fingers sliding over the glass. "And he has your eyes, Neku."
"Tell me something I don't know," Neku grumbled. "You and Shiki don't seem to be complaining."
Rhyme smiled brilliantly at him. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. And the baby's really, really cute."
Joshua looked smug.
"It could be worse," Shiki consoled helpfully, "I mean, at least you and Joshua make beautiful babies together."
Beat suddenly spat out a mouthful of curry noodles. "Wait- Phones is gay?!"
TBC? Who knows. I'm a little tapped out in the idea pool, but it's a fun idea.
Please review if you smiled. :)