"Morning Greetings" Suho/Lay

Warnings: seahorse hybrid, mpreg

Joonmyun snorkeled through the water carelessly, kicking up his feet faster than he should, disturbing the waters, hands trailing, face in the water, hoping none would slip in through the seal in his goggles. Keeping his vision was especially important right now. He needed to find- he needed to be on the lookout for- 

Joonmyun cursed himself for sleeping in this morning. Time was very important to someone like Yixing. Very important! Every morning at the same time, and if he wasn't there Yixing would worry-

"Joonmyun!" 

Joonmyun sputtered, and breathed through the spout wrong, coughing and choking as he lowered his feet and treaded water. He pulled off his mouthpiece and goggles. 

"Yixing!" he choked, dropped a foot into the water, and laughing, Yixing pulled him back up by the arm. "You're on time for morning greetings! I love you so much."

Yixing grinned harmlessly and swam around him in a circle. Joonmyun worked hard to keep the blush off his face, but probably failed. Yixing and his affection and proclamations of love. He gave them so easily, so profusely. It was sweet and embarrassing and heart-warming all at the same time. 

"Sorry, I'm late," he started to apologize. 

"It's okay!" Yixing glanced at the morning sun, and just below the water Joonmyun saw him put a hand across his protruding stomach. His heart clenched for an entirely different reason this time. 

"Can we..."

Yixing dropped his hand and beamed. "Swim over to the island? Sure!" 

Together they swam. It wasn't a true island exactly, but a little rock formation in the middle of the harbor, at which they met often. Every morning to be exact. Ever since... well, Joonmyun would ask about the babies soon. They dodged the coral reefs with practiced ease, and only when Joonmyun could drag his legs and rubber flippers up out of the water and perch on the lowest sea rock, Yixing bobbing next to him in the shallow water, did Joonmyun sigh and look, actually look at Yixing's belly.

"How are... the kids?"

Even since yesterday, Yixing's stomach bulged wider than before. Below his trim, tanned chest, Yixing bore the distinct signs of a pregnant belly, thin skin stretched over his stomach. Below that, no legs, but the curly bone structure of a hybrid seahorse. It had freaked Joonmyun out at first, when he was new to the marine facility and learned that such giant half-breeds actually existed. Even crazier, that these species were mostly friendly and quite the flirty beasts! 

"You. You're cute," Yixing had said the first day they met. A week later he was already propositioning Joonmyun in the most artless but endearing form to help him have his babies. "Please, please please? My incubation period is coming up and, well as I said before, you're cute. Let's mate!"

It took another few weeks before Joonmyun would agree, and in the meantime he took daily swims with Yixing. He said it was because he was getting to know what hybrid seahorses were really like. Yixing called it courtship, and Yixing in the end, called the shots. Now that the seahorse was heavily pregnant though, he was even more demanding. Demanding in that he smiled when he told Joonmyun in no uncertain terms that he needed to visit him every morning - every, morning - without fail until he carried the babies to terms. And by then, Joonmyun was whipped. 

Today, as he yawned, missing his morning breakfast and usual routines - all in good time though because really, he kind of adored his seahorse boyfriend. "How... are they today?" 

Yixing beamed and hauled himself up on the rock next to Joonmyun. He stretched his arms and arched his back, flapped his tail fin which knocked against the rock. Joonmyun grimaced but knew it wouldn't hurt him. Yixing always appeared so fragile, but he was actually quite strong. Instead of legs, the curled, round-ridged pink-green tail fin was the only part of him that was distinctly seahorse, other than the slightly off-angle forehead where the tiniest hint of a crown-shaped structure identified him as a hybrid underwater fish. 

Joonmyun gulped though because every other part of Yixing was human, and handsome. He would never get over this. Never get over the fact that Yixing chose him as his mate, and that for some reason, it was the male seahorse that carried the babies. 

"So.. when are they do? What, what's going to happen again?" Joonmyun stuttered, eyes darting over the belly where Yixing's - no, their kids - slept happily in their pouch. Yixing had said he could have as few as five and as many as fifteen. 

Fifteen children. Joonmyun had never... thought... him? A dad to fifteen sea-kids?

"Should be in the next few days, I think," said Yixing, inspecting his stomach curiously. "I swear they are ready to come out very soon." 

"Where, where will you be when that happens?"

"Here, probably. It's a good spot. Should we plan it for tomorrow evening?"

"You already know what time of the day it'll be?" Joonmyun asked, shocked.

"Well yeah? Seahorses always ahve their kids overnight and then by the time you get here in the morning, we can go for another round!"

Joonmyun gaped, almost fell off the rock. "Wha-what?"

He didn't realize for a moment that Yixing was laughing at him, cheerfully, beautifully. 

"Relax... I'm just kidding." He clutched a hand to Joonmyun's shoulder as if to calm him down, and it did, just a little bit. Before Yixing added, "We can wait a few days at least, yeah?"

Joonmyun made a mental note not to eat any food for the next couple of days. Yixing seemed sure to make him freak out and want to vomit it all up. And Joonmyun wasn't even the pregnant one!

"I uh.... sure, yeah?" he wheezed uneasily, Yixing' smile actually doing a lot to calm him down. Still though, him? A daddy? His parents and grandparents would never believe this...

He almost didn't himself, a few days later, with Yixing in labor, Joonmyun panicking trying to catch the tiny babies. 

"One... two... three... Yixing, they're coming out so fast, how am I supposed to... four... five... Yixing, they're floating away!! six... seven... Yixing, what do I do???? eight... nine... nine.... is there... Yixing... ten! Ten, Yixing, and ahhhh how do I stop these little things!!!"

Yixing looked completely at ease as his stomach shrunk, Joonmyun just the opposite. 

"Relax, Joonie, the babies are always little wild things. They'll drift back with the tide." 

"WHAT!"

He was really going to have to invest in that seahorse daycare back at the facility at this rate. Ten babies, ten little babies, and there was Yixing already starting to name them. The last one, the runt, already back-peddling through the water with a wicked, mischievous glint to his eye, was really promising to give Joonmyun some trouble. 

"Baekhyun... Baekhyunnie.... come back here," Yixing was already cooing at the cute little hybrid horse. 

"It's... uhm... okay, definitely daycare for that one," Joonmyun agreed. 

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