Whatever he'd done with Natsu in their hotel, whatever he'd done before that at Sting's house, Rogue absolutely was not going to be disloyal while in Joya. Helping that was that neither he nor Sting were up for anything other than flopping over on a bench by the pier and waiting for their motion sickness to pass when they first got off the boat.

"Romantic, huh?" Sting moaned as he fought to keep his lunch down.

"Shut up."

Sting bit his lip and obeyed while Rogue steadied his breathing. No sense in getting Rogue mad on the first day. Thank the lord for dragon slayer motion sickness rarely taking long to fade.

"Okay," Rogue said after the longest thirty seconds of Sting's life (not counting that time he found out Rogue and Natsu were a thing). "Let's stop by the hotel and drop off our things. We only have seven days to hit every tourist trap in the country."

"How about we limit things to the capitol? It's a lot fewer train rides if we stick to the city." Sting gave both cats a warning look about pointing out flight. As if either would. Rogue was heavy.

Rogue had been hoping to keep too busy to face any temptation, but he wasn't going to argue for more train rides. He bit his lip and nodded. "First up, then…"

-o-

"This is boring." Sting whined. "Rogue, you can't tell me that this is interesting to you."

"Hush. No one talks that loud in a museum," Rogue hissed. "You're making everyone stare."

Out of courtesy to the other museum goers, Sting didn't point out that there were much fewer annoyed glares going his way than there were curious stares directed at the pregnant boy's stomach. Didn't help that the boy was rubbing it self-consciously and edging towards the loud kid.

Sting leaned over and moved Rogue's hand away from his stomach. "Come on, we've got three more statues to see before we can leave this awful place."

"But—"

"Why should Sting and I have to come to such a boring place anyway. Just move along," Lector ordered. Sting swatted him as lightly as he could while still getting across that he really was annoyed with Lector. He had to look good this week if he wanted to undo… whatever damage Rogue being at a beach resort with Natsu for a week had done.

"Is your stomach hurting?" Sting asked in a whisper while he pushed Rogue towards the next exhibit. "I know it's a little early for it, but I asked about taking you on a trip with your doctor and there was some risk that you could go into labor early."

"It's fine." Rogue told him. "Alex just has the hiccups."

Sting came to a halt. "Is that a thing?" He demanded a little too loudly.

"Quiet. And yes, hiccups are 'a thing'. You've had me scare them out of you before."

"Fro remembers that."

"You're so stupid!" Exclaimed Lector. "Rogue's just being sarcastic."

Sting might not have been as embarrassed by the remark if Lector hadn't drawn a few snickers from the other museum goers. "Not the hiccups. Alex having hiccups. How can Alex have the hiccups?"

"I don't know. You're the one who read up on this. Alex has the hiccups and they keep fidgeting around and it's distracting," Rogue complained. "Why couldn't you be the pregnant one. Then everyone would be looking at you instead…"

And Rogue might have been even tempered enough to keep from kicking Sting out too, but if he wasn't laying on guilt for that any more than Sting wasn't going to mention it. Besides, he had to fulfill his end of their deal. Sting gave Rogue a quick kiss, just on the cheek, nothing big while the cats were witnesses, and stepped back to fulfill his end. Seeing the glint in his former partner's eyes, Rogue stepped back too-in the other direction. This wasn't going to be something he wanted people associating him with, whatever it was.

While Sting put on a magic show in the middle of a history museum that was, itself, historic, Rogue took advantage of all the museum patrons staring at his boyfriend and slipped off to see the next exhibit. In truth, it wasn't particularly interesting to him. It wasn't as fun as, say, being dragged around an amusement park and coaxed into playing booth games. He doubted they'd find something like that in winter, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to cut out a few more tourist hot spots from his schedule and find something more… festive, to do with Sting. Although it sounded like Sting was having plenty of fun on his own.

Rogue shook his head and focused on the display. Old relics and all sorts of other lovely little decorations that had belonged to dead people before being stolen from their graves and put in a glass case for strangers to gawk at. Not his thing, but nice to see from time to time, and it was a little interesting to learn about Joya's history. Would he be able to go out and see things like this once Alex was born? Probably not for a few years, if he didn't want a screaming baby or defiant toddler embarrassing him in public.

"You look like you're ready to pop," A woman said.

Rogue looked over at her. She could have been old enough to be on display herself. "Yeah…"

"Is that your friend creating all that ruckus? It's awfully distracting."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, you aren't the one doing wrong," the woman assured him. "It must be stressful, having a friend like that boy. A young lady like yourself shouldn't have to deal with that when they're about to be a mother."

Rogue coughed, waited a moment to see if the woman would realize she'd said something wrong, then decided to just let the young lady comment slide for the time being. "He's… spirited. I like it."

"He's a lucky man then, to find someone who would tolerate him like you do. Is he the father?"

Rogue nodded, mind suddenly elsewhere. Recently, something had been giving him the idea that he was actually quite intolerant. Now what could that be?

"I wish you the best of luck, dearie. Hopefully you have some lovely 'girl pals', as you youngsters like to call the, to help you out. A rude boy like that can't be much good with a baby and it would be such a pity if you had to take care of her on your own."

"Her?"

"Oh, it's a girl. I can tell. I had four girls myself. Husband wasn't around for any of them. Not a one! I really do wish you luck."

-o-

By the time they'd finished going through the exhibit and gotten back to their hotel room, Rogue had given up on repressing the memory of the conversation and decided to try and mitigate the damage it had done to his mental wellbeing by sharing it with Sting. Sting sat through the whole story and explanation of why he'd been told it before saying, "Yeah. I'm pretty sure the only scarring part of that was knowing that someone out there is dumb enough to mistake you for a girl."

"So I don't look…?"

"Nah. You do look pregnant. Or maybe tumorous, if you don't want to guess that a boy could be pregnant—b-but then I guess you could mistake a tumorous woman for pregnant, huh?" Sting added hastily when Rogue glared at him. Acknowledging that he was fat was one thing, but joking that he looked like he had a massive tumor was where Rogue drew the line. "She probably had bad eyes, and a powerful capacity for denial."

Rogue snickered at that and flopped over on their bed, tension over looking like a young lady eased. Tension over having to share a bed with Sting… wasn't quite so eased, but he'd get over it. It was a nice room. Not fancy like what Natsu had sprung for, but nice in its own way. Worn hardwood floors, moderately new rugs, quilt bedding, and a glass door that lead out to a frozen over pond all lent to a quaint, homey feel.

"Thanks for earlier. Making that scene."

"Don't mention it. I'm banned from all museums in the city now, so we both got something out of it."

Rogue made a mental note to scratch other museums off his list of places to see. That might make more time for finding something less sight-seeing and more fun oriented anyway. "You can be impossible, sometimes."

"I'm not the one who wanted to go on vacation to a country that hasn't heard of pregnant men only seven weeks before I was due."

"Again: why couldn't you be the pregnant one?"

"Because you were in that idiot girl's blast range when her spell misfired, and I was off hiding in an alley."

"Coward," Rogue told him, reaching back and pulling a pillow down to rest his head on.

"Butterball," Sting teased back, patting Rogue's stomach at the same time. "So I don't come off as a good parent, do I?"

"Not to that old bat, at least," Rogue mumbled.

"Are you going to sleep?"

"No. Just getting comfortable."

"Oh. Good." Sting looked away a moment, then back to Rogue. "You said Natsu was studying up on parenting. How's that going?"

"As well as your cooking." Rogue told him. "When I think about him as a father, I sweat a little. At least with you I'm confident that the child won't be smothered to death when I turn my back. You seem to have a better grasp of this than me. Then again, I wouldn't have to worry as much about Natsu accidentally poisoning Alex. I don't think… But you'd know not to feed them your own cooking, right? You always seem on top of this."

Sing laughed. "To be honest, when I realized I needed to get you back, one of the scenarios I imagined us in was me saying I was nervous about being a dad and you interpreting that as me not wanting the baby. I was thinking of all the other apologies I would be making after you came home, so I'd already worked out what I'd say to you when you took that as me saying I'd never wanted to have a kid with you. I mostly started studying up on this for that."

Although he'd never come home with Sting.

Rogue brushed the thought off. "I haven't been that irrational. Between the three of us, Natsu's the only one who was able to choose whether or not he wanted this."

"But you'd still take it as me not wanting the kid?" Sting asked jokingly.

"Maybe," Rogue confessed. "It would depend on my mood at the time."

"I do want Alex."

"I know."

"And you."

Rogue sighed. "I'm not about to—" He stopped.

"To…?"

"Hang on." Rogue stood up, cheeks red. "Um… Sting, I could use something to eat, could you go get me… something…"

"Anything in particular?"

"Something salty," Rogue told him dismissively, hurrying into the bathroom.

"Take your time!" Sting shouted to him through the door before going to follow orders. Something salty. He hoped Rogue hadn't meant a specific something salty when he said that.

-o-

When he came back with a basket of fries, Rogue had changed clothes.

"Did you need those to get comfy?" Sting asked teasingly.

"I don't think I'm going to be comfortable until your spawn stops moving," Rogue told him.

"Mood swings?"

"The bastard kicked me in the crotch."

"I didn't know Alex could reach there," Sting said. "Seems like you'd have plenty of natural padding to keep that from hurting though. And even then, a baby's kick isn't exactly a nutcracker."

Rogue held a hand out and didn't reply until Sting had passed him the consolation fries. "Yes, but there isn't much padding between my uterus and bladder."

"Ah. Should I do laundry?"

"Yes."

"Would you like me to pick up dinner too?"

"Please."

"Something salty?"

"God, no."

"But you're eating the fries."

"I said no."

Sting gave up, throwing his hands up in surrender and going to get the clothes in need of being washed.

"Wait," Rogue sat up and held the fried for Sting to see. "Where did you get these?"

"Street fair."

"Let's go see that."

"Can I put your piss pants in the wash first?"

-o-

Sting had assured Rogue that his thick winter coat made his baby bump, while not invisible, much less obvious. Of course, Sting was still pressing an ice pack over his left eye, so who knew how well he could see right then.

"I miss you not being moody."

"I miss not being moody, too," Rogue let him know. "You said it was this way?" he asked, pointing to the left when they met a fork in the road.

"Smells like fair food in that direction, doesn't it?"

Greasy, salty fair food. After the fries, Rogue wasn't sure he'd want anything like that. What he was being drawn to was all the noise. There was bound to be something worthwhile to do with Sting there.

He turned the corner and spotted it, dozens of vendor booths set up down the street, and sounds drifting from the next few streets over to suggest that this went on for blocks.

"Hey, does this look like it's going to swell?" Sting asked.

Rogue looked back and inspected Sting's eye when the ice pack was lifted off of it. "No. I think your good. I didn't punch that hard."

"Good." Sting tossed the icepack aside, missing a trash bin and not caring. "Alex still throwing a fit?"

"Unfortunately." Rogue rubbed his stomach. "They seem to be calming down though. I'm going to be paranoid about this from now on."

"We can get you adult diapers."

"I will give you a black eye."

"How about crepes instead then?" Sting suggested. (Not that crepes could properly perform the function of diapers or black eyes.) He gestured to one of the closer vendors, who'd set out hotplates and was making crepes in front of his customers.

Rogue studied the vendor for a moment, then nodded. "Crepes would be acceptable."

Sting pulled out his wallet, but by the time he'd counted the amount he'd need to purchase the treat for Rogue, his ex was already paying for his own order.

"Hey," Sting said, running up to Rogue. "Come on, let me pay for it."

"A boy is supposed to pay for his girlfriend on a date," Rogue told him. "I'm not a girl, I'm Natsu's boyfriend, and this isn't a date."

"Right. Natsu's boyfriend."

The vendor handed Rogue his crepe, who accepted it and walked ahead muttering something about how the sugar would get Alex worked up again. "You want one, boyfriend?" the vendor asked. Sting shook his head.

It was surprising, to Sting, how much Rogue took the lead. Usually, Rogue would have followed him around, insisting all the while that nothing they did together was worth having done. Why was Rogue taking charge tonight? He couldn't begin to guess.

Was that why Rogue liked Natsu? Could Natsu tell what to do with Rogue? Th-that couldn't be! He and Rogue had known each other so long… Could Natsu be better at reading Rogue?

Sighing, Sting shook his head and followed after Rogue, who'd startled babbling about finding a game for them to play together. He had a week to reconnect, as well as to evaluate what connection he was dealing with. There was no need to panic on day one.

-o-

On day four Sting felt he had a reason to panic.

"Fro likes this trip better," Frosch has said out of the blue. "Rogue doesn't ask Fro to go away and look at stars with Lector."

Sting bit his lip and tried not to acknowledge that he was prompting Frosch into spilling Rogue's secrets as he said, "Well, Lector wasn't around then."

"No. Rogue wanted Fro to play with Happy."

"Does he feel like you two don't get along?" If the answer was yes, then that might be a way to drive Natsu and Rogue away, but…

"No. Happy and Fro are friends. Rogue just wanted private time to play with Natsu."

"Did they bring board games?" Sting joked.

Frosch nodded. "They didn't mind Fro and Happy playing along during the day. Night games were Rogue and Natsu only, though."

It didn't take a genius to figure out what those games were. Was that why Rogue had been so into everything they did? Was he still high off of his time with Natsu? He'd gone out on his own that morning to track down some famous statue that Sting hadn't cared about, leaving the blonde with a good solid hour to pace back and forth and play back everything Frosch had said in his mind.

Rogue had told Frosch to go. Sting sat down on the bed and buried his face in his arms as he let that sink in. Rogue had been the one asking for private time. Natsu hadn't slipped the cats out to surprise Rogue with a romantic evening. Rogue was in on it. Rogue was…

"You're sleeping with Natsu," Sting blurted out as soon as Rogue stepped into the room.

Rogue stopped at the doorway, thinking to shut it behind him in case things got personal, but not coming any closer. "Yes. You've already stuck your foot in your mouth on that one before."

"But you're initiating it," Sting accused, looking up at Rogue. "You're planning it. You went and did it… did him after making out with me. When you knew you were coming here."

"That time was—" Rogue bit his tongue. What had it been? He couldn't tell Sting that kissing him was a mistake. It hadn't been right but… but… but what?

"It was a mistake, wasn't it?" Sting demanded. "You think we're a mistake. And I bet you told Natsu that agreeing to this was a mistake too."

"No. I just told him I was coming with you as a friend. Which is what I told you." Rogue reminded him.

Sting wouldn't hear it. "So this is it? I lost."

"Lost?" Rogue hissed. "What, you thought this was some win or lose game? I'm not a game, Sting."

"Well, I don't know. You are playing us," Sting snapped at him.

"I had sex with my boyfriend! Sue me!" Rogue yelled. "You weren't complaining when I cheated on him with you. If I recall, you kick cheaters out of your house."

"Well why don't you just tell me what the fuck is wrong with me?" Sting demanded. "We were together for years and the closest we got to sex was you kicking me in the balls—which is how it feels seeing you instigating it with someone you haven't even known for a year. Did you just not want me that way?"

"Of course I don't want to sleep with you!" Rogue screamed. "You're impossible! You kick me out for not cheating, you pull me back in for cheating with you, and now you get mad at me for trying to make it up to my boyfriend! If you're going to be like this for the rest of the week…" He caught himself. The whole hotel must have been able to hear him.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Rogue strode across the room and began to grab his things, tossing them into his suitcase with no concern for organization. When was the last time he'd done that? Oh yeah, when he game to get his possessions after Sting dumped him. Asshole.

"What are you doing?" Sting demanded.

"Leaving," Rogue told him. "If you're going to be such a hypocrite about everything I do, I can't be with you."

"But—"

"I will see you back home. Enjoy your vacation."

He was missing a few toiletries, but Rogue didn't want to ruin the effect of him storming out by grabbing his shampoo and toothbrush after saying such a thing. He grabbed his bag and turned to Frosch, silently ordering her to follow as he stormed out of the room.

Sting sighed. Wonderful. Not only had he failed to undo the clearly massive damage Natsu had managed on his trip. He'd made things worse.

"If you take two months to tell him sorry again, he'll probably have an engagement ring next time," Lector pointed out. "You might want to follow."

-o-

Rogue sat on the same bench he had Sting had first caught their breath on when arriving in Joya, waiting for his boat. The trip back wasn't something he was eagerly anticipating, but Frosch had looked around and bought him the safest motion sickness treatment for the expecting that he could find, and that would make the whole thing at least bearable.

The boat was late, though only by a few minutes. He'd played up his condition at the ticket booth, pretending he could pop Alex out any second and insisting that he wanted to be home with his family when the time came. The young woman manning the booth had eaten it up, and pulled some strings to get him on the next boat out. After that he'd have had to wait a day, and likely go back to Sting while he waited.

When they started boarding Rogue hesitated to get on, waiting to be the last and not putting up a fight when somebody helped him onto the horrible, rocking, bobbing, constantly in motion torture device. He had to assure three employees on the ferry that he wasn't doubled over because he'd gone into labor.

Going to his cabin, where he had no windows or fresh air, would only make it worse. Rogue wheeled his bag up to the deck and leaned over the rail there, taking the medicine and shutting his eyes as he waited for it to take effect. The boat was blowing it's horn. Once it started really moving it would only get worse.

"Rogue!"

Rogue opened his eyes. Sting was running along the dock, dragging Lector and his own bag behind him. But the boat had already pulled its loading ramp up. Too bad. Rogue sighed and shut his eyes again, trying to tune out Sting calling his name again and again.

When he heard the collective gasps of everyone else on the boat, he opened his eyes again. That was pretty impressive, actually. Sting had managed a jump from the dock, and was clinging to the deck by… was that only two fingers? He'd go help, but it looked like Lector was already on it. Of course. Why had neither of them thought about Lector just flying him up?

And where had he seen that before?

Rogue looked away as Sting stumbled over to him, struggling to keep a straight face as the effects of being on a boat set in.

"I'm sorry," Sting gasped. "I'm sorry. I talk without… thinking and can… over-react too… selfishly and I'm… sorry."

He was drawing the eyes of everyone on deck. Rogue looked away, hoping his tremble would be discounted as motion sickness. "I was hoping… not to hear that from you again."

"Yeah…" Sting paused to swallow back the vomit rising in his throat. "I know… I… shit. Now I've got to… make up two screw ups, don't I?"

"And I suppose you can manage those without screwing up?" Rogue demanded.

"I… I can do my best to…"

Ah. That's where he'd seen this before. In the romantic comedy Natsu had picked for them to watch the week before, the boy had chased his ex down and leapt onto a boat to let her know he still wanted her. She'd seen his determination and that had been enough for her to ignore how he'd been lazy and irresponsible and not realized how much she was worth. In the movie it had worked, but Rogue was not the silly little idiot girl in a romantic comedy. Real life didn't take one grand gesture as enough to make up for a growing list of errors.

"Well once you're sure of that, maybe you can talk to me again," Rogue told him. "Until then, I'm going to have to agree with what Natsu said when you first came back. Don't bother me again."

He left then, trying and failing to ignore the sound of Sting being approached by a ticket taker and demanding some proof that he was allowed on the boat, and even ignoring Frosch's cries for him to wait for her. He locked himself in his cabin and tried his best to cope with the motion sickness with no fresh air to ease it. He must have looked awful. He certainly felt awful.

Why did Sting have to get so hung up over the whole sex issue? He didn't want to discuss it. He'd never wanted to discuss it.

Of course I don't want to sleep with you… because I felt so much safer without that expectation. "Because I liked just being your boyfriend and spending time with you."

So had it been a mistake to go farther with Natsu?

-x-

STA: I feel like all of the scenes were really short. Sorry for that. At least there were a bunch of scenes. This almost felt like it should have been two chapters.

The original plan for the chapter was this: (week 33 feb) romantic week with Sting. Sting raises the question of him and Rogue taking their relationship further, but when Rogue thinks about it Sting cuts off his answer, saying he'd rather not sleep with Rogue while Natsu's in the picture and Rogue still hasn't forgiven him enough to come back home. Rogue says he has forgiven Sting, he just happened to fall for Natsu before remembering his feelings for the blond, and now he needs to decide who matters more, and fast. But somehow I just didn't stick to that. I think I like this better. Frosch already said for Rogue that he still loves Sting anyway.