Courage because I love

Chanyeol and Jongin

Baekhyun's baby is born early on a Saturday, so both Chanyeol and Jongin are able to go see their former university classmate.

"What's it like?" Jongin asks curiously, as Chanyeol coos  over the baby, carefully holding her nestled in his arms. Lately it seems like everyone is having kids.

Baekyun smiled. He looked tired, but radiant. "It's the best thing that ever happened to me," he says, and the mushy look that he sends Junmyeon, sitting in a chair next to the bed, is somehow too tender for words.

In the car on the way home, Chanyeol looks like he wants to say something, he keeps looking over at Jongin in the passenger seat and opening his mouth but then thinking better of it, fixes his eyes back on the road. Finally Jongin has had enough.

"You're going to get us so both killed, being so distracted while driving," he says, poking Chanyeol lightly in the arm. They've lived together for so long that they have the whole routine down. Chanyeol won't want to say something, Jongin will make him say it, and then it will all spill out and be peaceful again. Best friends for life.

"It's . . . well," and Chanyeol's voice trails off, fingers white on the steering wheel. It's strange, and for the first time Jongin feels a pang of . . . not quite worry, but something very akin. Do you finally want to move out? he thinks and the idea hurts more than he would have expected it to. They've been flat mates for a very long time, after all, and their lives are mixed up, coffee cups in the cupboard, red sheets stacked together with the blue.

Jongin doesn't know what to say.

They drive home in silence.

Chanyeol turns off the ignition and and they sit, sit by side, in the underground parking lot. There's still music playing, neither one has opened their car door yet.

Finally Chanyeol turns to Jongin, in the passenger seat, taking a big breath before opening his mouth. Jongin braces himself

"Have you ever thought about having kids?" Chanyeol asks in a small voice. His eyes are anxious as he searches Jongin's surprised gaze, looks away.

"Kids?" Jongin can't hide the surprise in his voice. He's honestly never thought about it, kids are for . . . well kids are for couples, right? And yet somehow the idea is oddly appealing. He remembers Chanyeol cooing over the baby, the smile on his face, the weight in Jongin's arms as Chanyeol passed him the baby girl.

The idea takes root.

"It's okay," Chanyeol says, and opens the car door. His footsteps in the sudden silence are loud. "It was a ridiculous idea." Jongin sits in the car, illuminated only by the small dome light, and thinks.

"What's it like, having a baby?" he asks Sehun. He's dropped by after work, Sehun is just wrapping up a photoshoot, assistants scurrying this way and that while Jongin stands in the middle of the room and tries not to get in the way. Sehun looks tired, there are bags under his eyes and his lips are chapped from the dry winter air but he smiles fondly at the question, and Jongin feels . . . something.

"I wouldn't give it up for the world," he says, and Jongin can tell that Sehun's mind is far away, at home with Yifan and the baby, not here with the lights and diffusers and assistants.

He realizes he wants it too.

"Chanyeol?" he asks, over supper, spaghetti and tomato sauce that Chanyeol made because Jongin isn't great at cooking, he's better at other things around the house like vaccuuming and laundry and getting the faucets to gleam like polished silver. Chanyeol looks up; Jongin can tell that his best friend's mind is somewhere else, there are practically numbers scrolling across his pupils and he almost chickens out but then he doesn't. "Remember what you said, earlier, in the car?"

And it's obvious that Chanyeol does remember, that he's obviously been thinking about it these past few weeks, thinking about it a lot, because his gaze snaps up and his eyes are suddenly completely present. There's apprehension in his expression, a kind of tentativeness that Jongin hasn't seen since they first talked about moving in together, feeling out the thing they have between them.

"Yes?" Chanyeol asks, and the word is such a small word in comparison with all the emotions it's trying to express.

"You asked if I'd ever thought about having kids," Jongin says, and it's strange to say out loud what he's been running over in his mind for so long, but it feels so right, somehow, and that more than anything helps him finish his thought. "I hadn't, before, but I've been thinking about it now, thinking about it a lot, and I think . . . " his voice trails off, but one look at the almost hopeful expression on Chanyeol's face and he finishes in a rush of words tumbing over each other, "I think I want to. Have kids," he adds, to be clear. "I really, really want to."

He's not imagining the expression of joy on Chanyeol's face, and he's pretty sure he's wearing an equally mushy expression.

"Wow," Chanyeol says, and Jongin nods. He can't think of anything else to say.

They end up talking to Lu Han about it, and though it's not precedented, there aren't any rules about aual people getting in vitro, "after all," as Lu Han explains, "that has nothing to do with it," so they book their first appointment with a lot of excitement and a little trepidation.

"Which of you wants to carry the baby?" Lu Han asks, and Chanyeol and Jongin look at each other and shrug. They haven't thought about it.

"I'm okay with it," they both end up saying at the same time, and Lu Han bursts out laughing, until Jongin and Chanyeol are laughing too, at the wonderment of it all. That this is real.

"That's a first," Lu Han finally says, after calming down, and he puts on his serious face, though his composure is a little crooked. "Do you want to, I don't know, flip a coin or something?" Chanyeol and Jongin look at each other and grin.

"Why not?" Chanyeol says, and Jongin pulls out his wallet. They give the honour to Lu Han, who makes both of them promise not to blame him for the repurcussions, no matter what happens.

"Heads," Chanyeol says, a split second before Jongin shouts, "tails." They share a lop-sided grin as they watch the coin arch through the air and land on Lu Han's outstretched palm.

"Heads," Lu Han announces, and Chanyeol looks scared for a split second before he raises his fist in a victory cheer. Jongin gives him a hug, just because.

"I can do it next time," he says, "if we want."

Lu Han scolds them to take it easy, "start with one okay?" But Jongin and Chanyeol are grinning at each other too hard to listen to anything he's muttering on about.

And the day the pregnancy test comes out positive, Chanyeol is so happy he's a crying mess to Jongin on the phone, who comes home right away, and they squish together on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket, and start picking out baby names.

Jongin thinks, as he sits beside Chanyeol, leaning his head on his best friend's shoulder, that it's the things you didn't even know you wanted that are the best.

The title was taken from Swallow my Mind by Peterpan Complex.