Usually, having two parents meant that they could take turns getting out of bed at night when their baby started screaming, but usually one of those parents wasn't so bandaged that they may as well have been a mummy. If Rogue had felt spiteful he might have forced Sting into his wheelchair and pushed the blond down in the hall and into the nursery, but it wasn't that bad. Yet. By the time he was willing to force Sting up, the wheelchair would probably have been traded out for crutches anyway.
His side of the bed was pressed against the wall, so Rogue scooted over the foot of it to get out. If he didn't disturb Sting now, he'd be allowed to sleep come morning. That was the pattern they'd settled into. Rogue handles night shift. Rogue makes breakfast. Rogue takes Sting to nursery. Sting handles day shift while Rogue sleeps. Or works day shift at the guild.
Alexandria was wailing as loud as ever when Rogue drowsily stumbled into her room. How many times a night did she need to wake him up, anyway? He'd preferred it when she just made it hard for him to go to sleep.
Scooping her out of her crib, he bounced her on his shoulder while he checked for any of her common concerns. Diaper still smelled clean. She hadn't just wanted to be held. His next guess was that she was hungry, so he carried her down to the kitchen and fumbled around, trying to prepare her formula with one hand and hold her with the other. By the time she'd been fed and pacified, he was wide awake.
"You just like harassing me, don't you?" he asked.
Alex squealed and flopped her head down against his shoulder.
The temptation to carry her back to his bed was great, but injured or not, Sting would still be in close enough range to strangle him in the morning when he saw her there. Babies had the strangest safety hazards.
She wasn't crying, and he was still eager to get back to bed, so he carried her back to the nursery, passing a spare room on the way. They hadn't been able to find the perfectly sized place in Magnolia while house hunting, but they'd gotten one that was close enough. Rogue had figured the spare room could be for guests, or maybe a play area once Alex was a little older. Sting had said it could be a bedroom for their next kid.
Ha.
Not unless the blond wanted to subject himself nine months of embarrassing discomfort. Although when Rogue thought about it, maybe Sting was better suited for pregnancy than he'd been. He could certainly handle the post-birth aspects better than Rogue did, and in a wheelchair no less.
Tucking Alex back into her crib, Rogue gave her star mobile a twirl and waited just long enough to make sure she was happy with it before returning to his own bed.
-o-
It was still Rogue who had to get up first the next morning, when their organic alarm clock went off again.
"Do you want me to get breakfast for you two," he mumbled as he crawled over Sting to get out of bed.
"Eggs, please," Sting mumbled and rolled over.
Oh, that was not going to fly. Not after he had to get up six times the past night. Rogue ripped off the sheets from on top of Sting and dropped them on the floor before wheeling his chair over.
Sting eyed the contraption as if it's purpose was designed to torture him rather than help him get around. Stupid motion sickness. But according to the doctor he was almost ready to move to crutches, healing much faster than they'd predicted. If he wanted to make a full recovery then he just had to stick it out a little longer. And not make Rogue think he was taking care of two babies. With that in mind, he bit his tongue and held back and protests as Rogue lifted him from bed and into the chair.
No conversing took place as he was wheeled across the hall. It was only a short distance, and Rogue wasn't so cruel as to make Sting talk while feeling miserable.
Once Sting had been positioned in front of Alex's crib Rogue lowered the sides of her bed prison, then put down the breaks on Sting's wheelchair. With Porlyusica's help his arms had recovered enough that he could lift them and move himself a few feet if he needed to. The only thing keeping him from wheeling himself further than that was the issue of such an act involving wheels.
He might have been out of that chair already if Wendy had helped. She was still asking Rogue why he didn't love Natsu though, so Rogue didn't have it in him to ask her to help the boy he'd split with Natsu for.
"Today's the day Erza brings Kiseki over, isn't it?" Sting asked.
Was it? Rogue rubbed his eye and muttered something vaguely affirmative, then tacked on a more coherent sentence. "I'll get you something to eat."
"Eggs," Sting reminded him as Rogue plodded out of the room.
Once the sleepy brunette was gone, Sting reached out and lifted Alex from her crib. If she weighed a little more than what the doctor said he should be carrying, well, the doctor didn't need to know. She needed a new diaper, a bottle, and maybe some lap time. Despite whatever Rogue thought, Sting was no expert with infants. He'd just researched it more after learning he may need to care for one. It also helped that while they were moving into the new place and getting all set for the baby, Sting had been unable to do much beyond practicing silly things like how to put a diaper on someone. It wasn't like he could have helped set the bed up. Thank God for Gray and Mira.
The scent of burnt eggs, paired with the sound of scraping, reached Sting. Alex must have cried more last night than he'd realized, if Rogue was tired enough to let food burn. By the time his boyfriend came in with food for him and a bottle for the baby, Sting had taken care of everything else. Just to be on the safe side, he checked the temperature of the bottle before giving it to Alex. Even wide awake, he'd known Rogue to forget that one.
Alex leaned back against him as he fed her, little hands flailing and sometimes lingering on the bottle a moment as she drank from it. Her tiny fingers brushed Sting's thumb and he smiled, warmth from seeing her being enough to fight down the chill that usually ran through him when he thought of how close he'd come to losing not only Rogue but his little girl to Natsu. Had jumping out in front of a fast moving vehicle really been what it took to win Rogue back? He didn't know. Rogue's response when asked about how they'd ended up back together could range anywhere from 'because I love you' to 'Natsu broke up with me, and I needed someone to look after her' depending on his mood.
But at least he didn't need to beg Rogue to use the word 'love'. According to Frosch, Natsu had done that. He didn't have to try to know he and Rogue were good together.
When Alex finished with her bottle, Sting hoisted her up onto his shoulder, patting her back. His shoulders were finally willing to handle weight on them again. Until a week ago he'd needed to ask Lector of Frosch for help burping her.
Speaking of which…
"Lector?" Sting called out.
"It's seven…" A small voice from their bedroom replied. "If I can't get any solid sleep, seven is too early."
"Rogue is supposed to be at work. Don't let him go back to sleep."
It sounded like Lector was carrying those instructions out. Rogue didn't usually use so many words that made Sting want to cover his daughter's ears, in any case.
Two thumps later, one for Lector being hit into the wall by a pillow, and one for Rogue not trying hard enough to get out of bed like a normal person, Rogue was at the nursery door again, glaring.
"Sorry. If I hadn't nearly died saving you, I'd be happy to be the one to go out and supporting the family."
Rogue snorted and walked away from the doorway to go get dressed to help Mira at the guild. It didn't pay as much as taking jobs off the request board, and with the various expenses of a child they were going to run out of saving soon, but Rogue was trying to be around at night until Sting could get out of bed on his own. Not many jobs you could get off the request board gave that option. They were just counting themselves lucky that the driver who'd struck Sting (and his various funders who hadn't wanted to look bad) had taken care of the hospital bills for them.
Two minutes later Rogue was out the door, probably having seen the clock and decided that there was no time for breakfast for himself.
Alex was looking around the room, cooing whenever she saw anything that looked fun. Sting undid the breaks on his wheelchair and moved forward enough to set her up in a play chair. Considering that they were strapped for cash, it was amazing how much baby crap they'd already accumulated. Rogue had brought over several boxes of the stuff from Natsu's house. Mostly gifts from the baby shower, but a few toys here and there that he'd seen while off on his own and grabbed. She'd yet to show interest in a third of them, including Fishlogia. The dragon doll slept on their bed now.
-o-
Erza came with her baby around noon. To the best of Sting's knowledge she'd never been pregnant, but he'd never bothered to learn the personal lives of anyone at Sabertooth, and he had yet to make any effort reaching out to people who were still a little sore about him at Fairy Tail, especially because he was only an honorary member until Makarov stopped worrying about it being too much pressure on his arm to get the guild mark.
"She looks like her mom," Erza noted when she brought Kiseki into the nursery. She was right. If Rogue had wanted, he could have claimed anyone was Alex's dad. A fair skinned, black haired, red eyed little beauty. The only thing you could tell when you looked at her was that she was Rogue's.
Aside from his eye color, Kiseki looked like the spitting image of Erza.
"What's your team doing without you?"
"Working like mad. Lucy is, at least," Erza answered. "That was Natsu's first love. She's trying to distract him from it."
Some clichéd line about how the first is the hardest, but everyone gets over it eventually occurred to both of them, but neither was a big enough hypocrite to say it.
"He's taking it badly?"
"He could have taken it better." Erza smiled. "It's fine. He's Natsu. He'll bounce back."
"Ah." Sting didn't care.
When Sting didn't say any more on the subject, Erza switched topics. "How are things with you and Rogue? Back to how it used to be already?"
"We have a baby and I'm in a wheelchair."
"Besides that." Erza clarified.
"I suppose." Kiseki fell over. Sting watched Erza straighten him back up and help him get his little mouth around the tie-dyed jellyfish doll she'd brought with her. "I mean, I don't think he's quite adjusted to taking care of Alex yet, but we don't argue any more than before."
"That's good. It's nice that the two of you can stay together."
"H-hey, it's only been a month. Considering we just spent over half a year apart…"
Erza covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. "I didn't mean it quite like that, but if you two are getting along then that's good too."
"Oh…" It clicked. "Sorry," Sting muttered. That time he did care. Even if she was Natsu's friend, she'd been good company while their kids explored or ignored having another fun sized person to interact with. "Would it be rude for me to ask what happened to Kiseki's father?"
"You're looking at her," Erza told him. Cold glint darting through her eyes, she added, "And I believe you've met his mother too."
"Have I?" Sting racked his brain for anyone he knew who could have had their child fathered by a woman. Aside from Rogue, though he couldn't quite… "Oh. The blue haired man."
Erza nodded.
"How is he?"
"Fine. Stupid, but that's nothing new."
But she'd commented on him and Rogue staying together. "Where is he?"
Erza smiled.
"That's not an answer," Sting told her.
Before he could express any more annoyance with her refusal to comment, he heard the door slam shut. Erza took the opportunity to get up and see who'd come in, returning a minute later with Rogue.
"Don't you work until evening?"
"It seems they let you off early if you fall asleep standing up…"
"Fine, fine. Go to bed."
Rogue looked over his should at his and Sting's room. Bed did sound so very nice. Just to crawl in and cocoon himself in the sheets and…
"How's she doing?" He asked instead.
"Good." Sting hesitated, unsure of what else to say. That was the first time since giving birth that Rogue had asked about Alex when given the opportunity to sleep instead. "Do you want to join us?"
Rogue came in and sat on the ground between Sting and Erza, watching their children bat at the brightly colored toys in front of them and completely ignore the fact that they had a play-date. "I guess they're a bit too young to play together."
"Alex lost interest in Kiseki hours ago," Sting reported. "He still notices her from time to time. If he keeps doing that over the next couple years, I'm going to have to lay down some ground rules."
"My month old is not about to scandalize your daughter," Erza told him.
"Hey, I know from personal experience that boys only have one thing on their mind," Sting joked.
Erza looked back and forth from Sting to Rogue, recalling everything she'd heard from Mira and Sting about their love life, and snickered. Even if Rogue was willing to lay down for someone now, there was no way Sting was in any shape to finally give away his own virginity. "I'm sure that if you voice your thoughts enough, Rogue will teach you how to do it eventually."
Sting sputtered and turned scarlet, falling silent shortly after.
"Soon," Rogue dismissed.
Alex giggled.
-o-
Erza left not too long after, giving the mixed message of not wanting to expose her precious baby boy to such vulgar ideas and having some good tips for Sting if he still hadn't gotten any by the next time she brought Kiseki over.
"I'll probably die a virgin," Sting sighed.
"It could happen," Rogue acknowledged.
"But you know, I would like another kid. If that spell that gave us Alex is still working…"
"I'm not getting pregnant again," Rogue assured him. "And in any case, that was from magic. You can't convince me that sleeping with you will end with a second pregnancy."
"But you'd like another kid, right?"
"Isn't one enough?" Rogue asked tiredly. Adorable as she was, he wasn't so fond of Alex while she was forcing him out of bed on an hourly basis. That, and something about needing more kids felt like trying to collect all the prizes that came in your cereal box.
"She'll stop crying in the middle of the night once she's older," Sting pointed out. "But, I mean, the girl who botched that spell says she knows what she got wrong. In theory, we could ask her to—"
"I'm not getting pregnant again."
Alex burst into tears. Before Sting could do anything, Rogue responded. He scooped her up and held her against his chest, cooing to her and rocking her back and forth without having given it a moment's thought.
Sting waited until Rogue had managed to use what parenting skills he did have to calm the girl, then cleared his throat and said, "We could ask her to give me a kid."
"You're crazy."
"We could see her once Alex is old enough to sleep through the night."
"You really want to be pregnant?"
"I want Alex to have a sibling. Single children get spoiled. Besides," Sting patted his chest, fingers running over his belly shirt, "I don't need to worry about maternity clothes."
True, but not overly relevant. Rogue opened his mouth to tell Sting that he was crazy once more, but was distracted by the sound of Alex yawning. Her little form fidgeted just a bit, then relaxed in his arms. Within seconds she was fast asleep.
Struggling to keep from smiling too broadly at that, he shook his head and told Sting, "Fine. But not until she sleeps for longer. One baby crying all night is more than enough."
"It won't be nearly so bad once I'm up and walking again." Grinning so broadly his mouth might split his face in two, Sting bent over in his chair to kiss Rogue on the forehead. "I'll hold you to that."
"Don't worry. I look forward to seeing you suffer."
-x-
STA: And the adventure continues. By the way, I have no plans of detailing Sting's pregnancy with Rogue and Alex in tow. Yet. I'm trying not to think past the Jerza mpreg I need to get started on before I make any more plans. Don't count on it, though.
Anyway, that's it. All done. Hurrah. Thanks for sticking with me!