The following morning found Mistoffelees on his knees, head suspended over the edge of a discarded bucket, hacking up everything he'd eaten the night before. Tugger knelt behind him, one paw on his shoulder to steady him, the other running along his back, hoping to provide a little comfort to Mistoffelees, who'd been in that position for several minutes and was showing no signs that he'd be leaving it any time soon.
"Remind me never to have whatever it was you had for dinner last night." Mistoffelees turned and gave Tugger his usual Really, you're doing this now? look. "Okay, okay sorry. Well I guess it worked, huh? Unless you did eat something bad last night, in which case I'll stand by my original statement requesting you remind me to not partake in whatever it was you ate. If you'll be alright without me for a minute, I'm going to go find you some water for when you've finished." He stood and hurriedly went off to find the water.
A few moments later Mistoffelees felt the nausea subsiding, and let himself fall to the ground beside the bucket. He put a paw over his eyes, palm facing the sky, and lay there breathing heavily, waiting for his stomach to finally calm itself. Once it had, he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at his stomach and placed his free paw on it. If it hadn't been real when he'd turned himself into a queen two days prior it certainly was now. He and Tugger were going to be fathers. What would their kitten look like? What would they name him? What would they name her? Would he or she love to dance like he did, or would they love to sing like Tugger? Would they be shy like him or flamboyant like Tugger? Would they inherit his magic? What if they had more than one? What if he had a full litter? How would they explain everything when their kitten or kittens were old enough to realize that she had two fathers? His pulse began quickening as he starting thinking of all the other things he'd never thought of before. What if she turned out to be a troublemaker like Jerrie and Teazer? What if he hated his parents? He felt his breath quickening as he broke out in a cold sweat and tears pressed against his eyes. What if she was ashamed of being the child of two toms? What if he turned out like Macavity?
"Misto!" He was pulled from his thoughts by his mate's voice. "Everlasting Misto, are you alright? What happened?" he asked, kneeling down beside Mistoffelees and pulling him into his chest. "Here have some water." He produced a old teacup full of water and brought it to Mistoffelees, gently tipping it so he could drink from it.
Mistoffelees drank almost all of it before he'd collected himself enough to speak. "Thanks Tug, I'm okay now. It's just, real now, you know?"
"Personally I thought it was pretty real when you turned yourself into a queen. That's just me though," Tugger replied, putting the cup down as he spoke.
"I mean, it's actually happening. There's a kitten, maybe even more than one, growing inside me. It's what we wanted, sure, but even after I became a queen I had my doubts as to whether this would actually work and now it has and it's happening and at first it seemed great and then I starting thinking about all kinds of things and it started to freak me out 'cause how do we know they won't hate us or cause all kinds of trouble for the tribe or turn out like Macavity or-"
"Stop right there Misto. Everything is going to be perfect." He took his free paw and caressed his mate's cheek. "We're going to have a beautiful kitten, or maybe a few beautiful kittens, and they'll be absolutely perfect, I promise." When he'd finished speaking he bent down and placed a tender kiss on Mistoffelees' lips.
"I don't know why I'm so scared all of a sudden Tug. All of this was my idea, it's what I wanted. Now it's happening and I'm terrified." He buried his face in Tugger's mane, needing to feel his mate close to him. Tugger put his arms around him and pulled him in tight.
"It's the same thing that happened to me right after you changed. It just became real, and like Jenny said yesterday, it's only natural for us to be terrified. It happens to normal couples, and even though we've never been totally normal, it's going to happen to us, and probably more so for it. But we've always made it through. Remember when we were kits? Nobody could ever fathom why we were such good friends. Remember when we first became mates? Everyone thought you were crazy for agreeing and they all thought I'd break your heart within the month. We've never been like everyone else - we've always gone beyond what they thought would work, and we're going to do that again now. We may be the only pair of toms to ever have our own biological kit, but I'll be damned if we're not the best damn parents that kit could ever want."
They stayed there together a while, needing nothing more than some quiet time with their mate. Neither of them knew what lay ahead of them on the road to parenthood, but frankly who did? They did know one thing though, and that was that they had each other. They'd beaten all the odds so far and deep down they knew that as long as they had each other they'd always be able to beat the odds no matter how bad things looked, and they knew they could handle whatever the universe was going to throw their way.
