Emergency Transport

When he'd first been offered a place to stay by Mungojerrie Elliot, and then welcomed into their house by his wife Rumpleteazer, Shuuichi hadn't really been expecting either of them to be so willing to let him stay in their house with them while he tried to get his feet under him again. He also hadn't been expecting for Mungojerrie-san to take any kind of interest in his hobby of playing video games, and he'd never expected the man to suggest that he could get a job dealing with them.

Either as someone who tested newly developed games, or someone who worked on the development itself.

It was kind of weird to think about, not having every single part of his life criticized – everything he thought about doing with his life disparaged and denigrated – just for looking the way he did. He couldn't say it was a bad thing, but it still took some getting used to. He knew that both of them would have been sad if he'd told them that kind of thing, so he made a point not to talk about it.

He knew that neither of them would give up on him if he admitted to something like that, but he didn't want to worry them, either.

Chewing the tip of his tongue, Shuuichi made his way to the kitchen for lunch. He'd been hoping not to encounter Elliot-san there, since she was steadily growing more and more heavily pregnant by the day, and he didn't want to make any more trouble for her than her baby already seemed to be making. He also didn't really know how to deal with that kind of thing, so Shuuichi just thought it would be best if he kept to himself and just tried to help her when she needed him.

He still tried to do as much as he could for her around the house, considering just how pregnant she was, at the moment.

After fixing himself lunch, Shuuichi made his way back to the room he'd been allowed to use for as long as he'd been staying with the Elliot family, Shuuichi found himself reflecting that while he didn't quite feel like the room itself was entirely his yet, he knew it would only be a matter of time until this place did feel like home. It was strange to think about, just how comfortable he was in a place like this.

Especially after he'd been treated so badly by pretty much everyone he'd ever met.

Not that there weren't still some people who'd tried to keep treating him badly, but that had been happening a lot less since Elliot-san had slapped the last person to try that in the face and lectured the man about his complete lack of manners. That, combined with how kind she always was about helping him to brush and clean his scales, even when he was shedding, was probably why he'd ended up slipping and calling her "Mom" a few days ago. He'd blushed about it for basically the entire day afterward, but Elliot-san had been just as kind about it as she ever was.

She'd even offered to let him keep doing that, if it wouldn't feel too awkward for him; he'd yet to take Elliot-san up on the offer, but just knowing it was an option helped.

The sound of Elliot-san's labored breathing drew his attention then, and Shuuichi hurried over to her. Sure, Elliot-san had said more than a few times that he shouldn't worry so much – since she was pregnant, not sick, the way she'd told him on many previous occasions – but Shuuichi hurried over all the same. He still wanted to help her, in return for everything she'd done for him.

"Come on, let's get you to the couch," he said, ducking under her left arm to support her and take at least some of the weight off of her feet.

"This doesn't feel like the baby's just shifting around this time, Shu," Elliot-san said, right hand on the swell of her very pregnant belly, and left wrapping firmly around him in turn. Elliot-san huffed deeply, breath heaving as she tried to recover from whatever it was that had happened to her. "No, I think the baby wants out."

Yelping as he suddenly found himself in the one situation he'd been hoping to avoid, Shuuichi Iguchi took a deep breath to steady himself, then crouched to pick Elliot-san up so that he could carry her to her car rather than letting the woman who'd taken such good care of him waddle there. Straining for a moment, Shuuichi gritted his teeth and stood up again.

"You don't have to go this far for me, Shu," Elliot-san said, wrapping her arms around his neck to steady herself as he set off for the garage where her car waited for them.

"It's the least I could do, really," he said, making his way to the garage as quickly as he could without jostling Elliot-san or her baby. You and your husband have done so much for me already, Shuuichi didn't say, both since he'd already said just those kinds of things before, and the more times he'd found himself saying it, the more he noticed the both of them seeming bothered by it. They were both pretty low-key kinds of people, and neither of them really enjoyed being put on the spot.

At least not for things they clearly thought everyone should be doing already.

When he managed to get Elliot-san to her car, Shuuichi quickly opened the passenger door and helped Elliot-san to lay down the front seat o that she could stretch out and relax her stomach while he drove her to the hospital. Once the pair of them had made it out onto the road, Shuuichi pressed down the accelerator as steadily as he could.

"How are your contractions?" he asked, since it looked like Elliot-san was straining against herself.

"Feels like they're getting closer together," Elliot-san said, voice straining as she panted.

"Right," he said, accelerating as smoothly as he could, knowing that he couldn't afford to do too slowly.

A moving car was no place to have a baby, after all.

The sound of sirens, coming up beside him as he drove Elliot-san to the hospital so that she would be able to have her baby safely, drew his attention for a brief moment. He'd been hoping that it would pass them by, but no such luck.

"Sir, do you know how fast you were driving?" the man – someone normal-looking enough that Shuuichi couldn't tell what their Quirk was – asked, pulling up in front of him so suddenly that Shuuichi was almost forced to stand on the breaks to keep them from crashing into the police car.

Before he could say anything, however, Elliot-san gasped, and for the first time the officer seemed to take notice of her. He cursed, though it sounded more like surprise rather than anger, and soon enough Shuuichi found a Pro Hero dressed in purple and green lifting Elliot-san out of the car and into an ambulance that had been parked nearby. Climbing into the back of the ambulance beside Elliot-san, Shuuichi quickly called her husband.

The both of them had been expecting their baby, but not nearly as soon as that baby had decided to come out, so he'd want to know about what was going on.

On their way to the hospital, however, Elliot-san's contractions grew steadily closer together. And, as Shuuichi found his right hand being steadily crushed by Elliot-san as she rode out the contractions slowly forcing her baby out into the world, Shuuichi kept her husband abreast of what was happening as well as he could. All the while, Shuuichi found himself reflecting back on the small, rural town where he'd once lived.

Back then, he could have hardly believed that he'd ever be this happy.