OC story: third installment (With art!)

Felix knew that his body was going to change. It came part and parcel  with the whole pregnancy deal, but he honestly hadn’t expected it to  change quite so fast or quite so drastically. 

In less than two  weeks since he had found out he was pregnant, his stomach was already  starting to round out. Not enough for anyone to really notice except  himself or someone who knew him very well but just enough for him to  catch in the mirror and sigh. 

Felix had always been thin and  gangly, ever since he was a kid. His stomach had been almost concave  between his hip bones for most of his life but now, much to his chagrin,  there was the hint of a bump there, softening him up like fresh dough  and it was only going to get bigger. 

It was hard to tell if it  was from the baby or a bloat from just how sick he had been. The past  week had been nightmarish with morning sickness. He was exhausted and  nauseous beyond anything he had ever felt before. 

When he dared  stand up, he was immediately floored with a wave of dizziness and  sickness that sent him lurching to the bathroom to lose whatever water  and toast he had managed to eat prior.

It was well and truly miserable. 

 "Please  put me out of my misery" Felix huffed. The sweat glistening on his  forehead as he emerged from the bathroom for what felt like the  thousandth time that morning. 

“Has it really been that bad?”

“Worse  than bad. How can people do this more than once? I’ve been sick 4 times  today and it’s not even noon” Felix flopped onto the sofa, slapping a  wet towel over his face and groaning into it like a dying whale. 

“I don’t know why people call it morning sickness when it’s morning noon and night sickness. I swear dying would be less awful”

“Yikes.  Well, at least you have your first scan this evening? That’s something  to look forward to? And the doctor can probably give you something for  the nausea.”

“Hopefully a shotgun.” Felix managed to make a joke…even if laughing hurt his ribs at that very moment

“Seriously though, I need to know if this is normal. I can’t take much more time out of the studio..”

Lucy hushed him immediately. 

“Don’t  you worry about that. I’ve gotten it all under control! Clients have  been informed of the reschedules and they were all okay with it given  the circumstances”

“Oh god…you didn’t tell them do you?” Felix  groaned. He was dreading the inevitable flurry of questions he was bound  to get from people once the word got out.

It made his insides  cringe just thinking about it. Having to explain over and over again how  it was just going to be him, no there wasn’t an alpha in the picture,  yes, he was keeping it, no he didn’t need any help…

What was worse  is that he could picture every interaction and automatically know what  everyone was going to say. They were going to see him as some poor  unfortunate omega and whisper behind his back about how he didn’t have  an alpha and how he was some floozy that got into trouble.

What stung most was felix knew that they would be right..

“No,  I didn’t tell them the reason, I just said that you would be out for a  while as you were feeling sick. Mrs Fletcher on the other hand, guessed  that shit immediately. I swear that woman is some kind of witch” Lucy  laughed. 

Mrs Fletcher was a regular client of their since they  first set up the studio. Once a month, she would bring her Corgis, Taffy  and Lola in for a photoshoot. She was an eccentric old lady but she was  always lovely to deal with a paid very well for their services. 

Now  that Lucy mentioned it, the last time she was in a few days before  Felix found out he was pregnant, she was giving him a weird look. 

Maybe  she could smell it off him, she was another omega after all and some  omegas are better able to smell the little changes in pheromones better  than others

“She sends her well wishes and offered to bring you soup”

“That’s a lovely gesture…” Felix grimaced “But please don’t mention food…”

–

Mercifully,  Lucy tagged along with him to the doctors appointment. He could feel  knots of nervousness in his stomach about it, it was a solid  confirmation that this whole thing was really happening and it sent  Felix’s blood pressure through the roof. 

As hard as it had been,  He hadn’t smoked a single cigarette since he found out he was expecting,  but he desperately wanted one sitting in the waiting room now. He could  have taken someone’s hand clean off if they had offered him one but he  had to resist. 

He bounced his knee and folding his arms tight  across himself, chewing some gum and tryed to focus on anything else  than the upcoming discomfort. 

It was a natural part for any omega  to have internal check ups, but Felix always hated them and shuddered  to think how many he was going to have to be subjected to throughout the  remainder of his pregnancy. Having strangers poking and prodding his  bits were not high in his list of favorite things… despite the obvious  irony of exactly that landing him in this situation in the first  place.  

There were a few other expectant parents in the waiting  room with them. they all looked so happy with their partners, excited  and hopeful about their little bundles of joy on the way…it made Felix’s  heart pang until Lucy touched his hand.

“You okay?” Lucy asked concerned, her eyebrows furrowed. Felix had obviously been pulling one of his overthinking faces.

Felix nodded weakly “yeah. I just feel a bit…ya know. It’s a bit awkward being here”

“Try  to focus on the good stuff. You’ll get to see the baby for the first  time, that’s gotta be exciting? Right?” Lucy was really trying her best  and Felix was thankful for her efforts but he doubted anything would  have made him relax. 

It wasn’t that Felix wasn’t feeling excited,  it was that he was terrified. Everything was happening so fast and so  much and he had no idea if he was ready for this…The doctor had  confirmed the pregnancy before but seeing it with his own two eyes,  hearing it’s heartbeat… was going to be a whole different ball game. 

He nearly leaped out of his skin when his name was finally called to go in.

—

The internal exam was every bit as unpleasant as Felix had expected it to be but a necessary evil considering. 

The  doctor had weighed him, measured him, took his blood pressure and a  urine sample before finally ushering Felix onto the examination table to  start the scan. 

“Pop up on there and roll up your jumper” the doctor chirped, slapping his latex gloves. 

Felix  blushed a little as he did. He really wasn’t used to being so soft  around the middle. Even if it was because of the baby, it didn’t stop  him feeling self conscious. He didn’t dare think of how he was going to  feel even further down the line…

“Okay, so you say you convinced  around 9 weeks ago?” The doctor asked while setting up the ultrasound  machine. Clicking switching and adjusting the screen. 

“Yeah, it  was umm…I hadn’t been…"Felix blushed even harder having to talk about it  out loud "I hadn’t had any relations in the six months prior or since  so it’s a fairly definite time frame”

The doctor nodded and  thankfully didn’t press for any further information. “This is going to  be a bit cold” the doctor gave very little warning before he poured the  conduction gel over felix’s stomach. He immediately flinched and hissed  as it felt more like ice than gel.

“HOLY Mother of fuck that’s cold” Felix gasped loudly, making the doctor chuckle.

“That  reaction never gets old and I’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years!”  The doctor smiled broadly and pressed the wand into the base of Felix’s  stomach and began to move it around to find the best position. 

“Let’s have a look and see if we can get a good picture of baby”

After  a few moment the whooshing sounds of the ultrasounds came through. It  was fast and strong but almost sounded like it had an echo to it, where  it sounded ever so slightly out of sync.

After a few hums and a few more movements of the wand, digging in a little uncomfortably, the doctor let out a little “ah”

Felix  furrowed his eyebrows in concern. “Ah” was very rarely a good thing to  hear from a doctor. “What’s wrong?” Felix could feel his heart freeze in  place

“Nothing’s wrong per say” The doctor turned the screen towards him. 

“But  I believe we have an explanation on why you’ve been having such strong  morning sickness. Congratulations, you’re having twins”

“Im sorry… what?” Felix surely misheard him. He had to be joking. Right? 

“You  can see here” the doctor pointed to the screen “Two perfectly healthy  teeny tiny dots. Usually you don’t see twins this early but there they  are. They’ll be identical too by the looks of it. Both”

Felix felt  like the floor had just dropped from under him. He couldn’t breath and  his whole body felt numb as a panic attack hit him in full force. There  they were. Two specks of white on the screen, fluttering away without a  care in the world while his world felt like it has just been tossed off a  cliff. 

“Oh my God. Holy shit” Felix flopped back into the table  and covered his face with shaky hands. Tears rolling down his face. This  cannot be happening. 

“This must be a bit of a shock…” the doctor  said softly at Felix’s reaction. “Do you need a minute?” He handed him  some tissues. 

“I..I…tell me you’re joking. This has to be a mistake right? I can’t..” Felix whimpered beneath his hands. 

“I’m afraid not… Is there a father in the picture? I noticed you don’t have a bond mark..” the doctor asked kindly.

Felix shook his head

“No. It’s just me…”

How could he possibly raise one baby, let alone twins all by himself… it was impossible.

—

“What  are you gonna do?” Lucy asked once Felix had calmed down enough to tell  her the news. He had come out of the scan looking like he had seen a  ghost, his eyes all puffy and sore. The poor doctor looked just as bad,  patting Felix on the back and handing him an envelope of scan pictures. 

“I…I  don’t know. I thought maybe I could handle one baby. It was scary but  manageable. Like how hard could one baby be? People do that shit all the  time. But twins? I can’t even begin to think about it.” Felix put his  head in his hands, pulling at the roots of his hair. 

“How can I  keep the studio going? How the fuck can I afford this? Where am i even  going to find the space!? Have you seen my place?? It’s tiny! It’s  barely big enough for me let alone twins” Felix was getting more and  more upset as he spoke. 

“You need to calm down and take some deep  breaths. It will be alright. You know I got you covered in the studio  and we have some new clients coming in so money should be okay. I mean,  you don’t have to be rich to raise a kid well, you just gotta love them  and be there for them, and I know you can do that” Lucy smiled the best  she could and reassured him. 

“But twins?…Jesus Christ how am I  even going to manage to carry twins! I’m a fucking twig.” Felix curled  into a ball, folding in on himself as the anxiety drowned him

“I  mean…true. but you’re an omega, we’re literally built for baby making.  It’s going to be okay. I promise!. We can come up with a game plan and  work through this" 

Felix wished he had even a fraction of Lucy’s optimism. 

–

As Felix lay in bed that night the reality of the situation began to settle over him like a layer of dust after a storm. 

He held his hand over his faint little bump and started to cry. 

He  was terrified out of his mind but there was something in his heart that  told him that as scared as he was of the vast unknown that lay before  him, he knew that deep down he already loved the tiny dots inside beyond  all logical explanation. 

It didn’t seem real before but the  memory of the little specks of life inside him on the screen  just…clicked. like a piece of his heart had finally slid into place once  the panic had ebbed away. 

Even if he was alone…he was going to have them and that was all that mattered.