Guest - He does not know. I'm not entirely sure if I want Sting to learn about it or not, but I'm going to have fun planing Rogue's revenge.
darkhuntressxir - I didn't actually write it. Sorry.
StingxNatsu - I missed responding last chapter. Thank you for reviewing. It always makes my day to see what people have written.
Disaster struck a shortly before the six month mark.
Sting began the third worst day of his pregnancy (the second being learning that he was pregnant) sprawled out in bed staring up at the ceiling in boredom.
"No one said you can't go outside." Rogue pointed out. "And you're not supposed to lie on your back."
"Yes father." Sting snorted and rolled onto his side. "Can't we just rent a movie lacryma?"
"Those can get expensive. Between you not working, our rent still needing to be paid, and all the expenses for the baby, I'd rather not waste money on luxuries right now."
Natsu was covering a lot of it, but once you factored in reparations his budget didn't go very far, and thanks to Sting's insistence that his pregnancy be absolutely secret Rogue had to go out of his way to buy everything, which meant a substantial increase in the amount of money spent on train tickets and stomach medicine, unfortunately. He hadn't figured out how to buy a crib without being too obvious yet, but Sting was, by his counting, about twenty-three weeks into his pregnancy so he had already used up half the time he had to take care of setting up a nursery. It would be nice if all of that was finished before something went wrong. Because merely due to the fact that it was Sting who was pregnant he was certain something would go wrong.
"You're staring." Sting said suddenly.
Rogue shook himself from his thoughts. "Right. Sorry. Is the baby kicking right now?"
"No. I think it's sleeping. Even if it wasn't, I don't think you could feel it yet." Sting paused. It felt odd calling the kid it. "Next time they force me to let Wendy look me over I think I'll ask about the baby's gender."
"That would be good. Then you can actually pick out a name."
"Oh, yes, because it's so hard to just come up with a name for both genders." Sting rolled his eyes. "Never mind. If I know then you'll find out. It can be a surprise."
"Considering that everyone thinks I'm going to be an unwed father, since you can't buy your own vitamins or research this yourself, I think I earned the right to know your kid's gender." Rogue argued.
"I think if it's a boy I'll name him Aaron, but if it's a girl I'll have to call her Erin instead. Tell you what, when Wendy tells me, I'll just give you the name. You can figure it out from there right?"
"Fine. At least go outside. You've hardly left your room in a week. Where's Natsu anyway?"
"Working." Sting grumbled, but pushed himself up. "I'll go out in the evening. If it's dark people might think they're just seeing things." All the loose shirts in the world wouldn't hided his stomach now. Actually, no, any given loose shirt wouldn't hide it, but all the loose shirts in the world probably weighed enough to crush him and his stupid gut.
Whoa. Where had that thought come from?
Rogue shrugged. As long as Sting was getting out he didn't care. "Suit yourself."
"I always do."
If Sting had been honest, suiting himself would have meant hiding under his bed until his stomach was back to its normal size. Putting off going out any longer would probably result in being kicked out though, so he slipped out that evening to go for a walk.
"Don't be out late." Rogue had called as he left. "People know you're close to Natsu so Shadow Alp could come here."
"As if." Sting had told him before shutting the door. Even if the rumors regarding his all but disappearing from the face of the earth ranged from a bad injury at work that he needed a few months to get over to some terminal illness he couldn't pronounce, no one would be coming after him without confirming that. At least he still had that for protection. Lector and Fro had tagged along to keep him safe, but they were kidding themselves if they thought he could do that, just like he was kidding himself when he thought the kid wouldn't get in the way during a fight.
His son, he decided. There was a fifty percent chance that he was setting himself up for disappointment, but each time it kicked he had a harder time referring to the kid as it. If he had to be pregnant, then he wanted a boy.
"Sting, are we taking a shorter route than normal?" Fro asked. "Rogue said you needed to spend a lot of time out."
Since he got so little as it was. "Shut up. I'm tired."
"Tired? It's barely dark out." Lector pointed out.
Whatever Sting had grumbled in response was too incoherent for either of his companions to decipher. Rather than repeat it at their request he just slowed and rested a hand on his stomach. His damn stomach that now stuck out too far to pass as anything but the worst of beer guts. Even that would be better than admitting the truth.
"Sting, Fro was wondering if it feels good when the baby moves." Frosch said.
"H-huh? Well… I guess… it… s-sometimes. I don't really like it when I'm trying to sleep, but…" Sting stumbled over his words, trying to do the sensation justice. Unable to explain it properly, he just blushed and turned onto the next street. Thank God there were so few people out at this time.
"How nice. Fro wants to have a baby too."
"Exceed have eggs, stupid!" Lector scolded, chasing Frosch away.
"It's still a baby when it comes out of the egg." Sting pointed out.
"Well, male exceed don't lay eggs anyway, so why do I need to know that?" Lector defended, not used to Sting standing up for Frosch.
"And male humans don't get pregnant, so I guess that makes me some completely different species." Sting sighed.
All three flinched at the sound of something shattering on the pavement behind them.
All three turned to see Rufus, of all people, having dropped… was that the remains of a vase? Why was Rufus buying a vase? Why was Rufus buying a vase at ten at night? Why was Rufus buying a vase at ten at night on the street where Sting had just declared he was pregnant?
"Fuck. Um… forget I said that."
STA: All the X in the world is a phrase that bugs me. Anyway, posting this a day early since the chapter came out and I just needed to go somewhere to say: Wow Sting. Stop being such an ass. What wonderful timing for me to reach this chapter ^.^
My dad and grandpa both have beer guts, though Dad is in denial. I also have an aunt who's had a lot of kids, and they're all still young. So once when that aunt was pregnant with her fourth and they were visiting my grandpa her oldest daughter put a hand on his massive beer belly and asked "Grandpa, when is your baby going to be born?"
...
So originally it was gonna be Orga who overheard Sting talking about being pregnant, but then Sting said 'forget' and I knew it had to be Rufus.
