Your arms are here

Lu Han and Minseok

Sunrise always comes too early on a Monday. Lu Han is torn from sleep by the shrill bleating of his alarm, I hate that thing, flailing around as he s for the snooze. There's a loud crash and the sound of something breaking, but the alarm is still screaming. Cracking one eye open, he dares the sunlight, because Minseok likes to pull open the drapes when he wakes up and nothing Lu Han can say will apparently change his mind.

The smell of coffee drifts in through the arch of the bedroom doorway, and Lu Han almost forgives his husband, but the alarm is still ringing and when he looks down at the ground, the snooze button has detached itself from the rest of the clock, glinting sadly in the morning light as the alarm continues to vibrate. It's chilly, early in the morning, but Lu Han swings the handle to open the window and drops the clock down from the seventeenth floor. The sound of the alarm, fading away, is satisfying.

Padding on bare feet to the kitchen, Lu Han pours himself a coffee, hopping up to sit on a stool at the counter. Minseok is reading the paper, cup half empty.

"What did you do?" he asks, the paper crinkling between his hands. "Throw the alarm clock out of the window?"

"Actually, yes," Lu Han says, taking a sip of coffee, letting the thick liquid roll over his tongue. Delicious. He can bear to open his eyes now. Minseok just shakes his head, not saying anything, as he turns the page.

"You'd better remember to buy a new one on your way home from the hospital then," he says, then makes a face, suddenly, setting the porcelain cup down on the marble countertop with a startling clunk.

"Are you okay?" Lu Han asks, concern breaking through his early morning laissez-faire. He reaches over to rest his hand on Minseok's forearm; his skin feels a little colder than usual, but maybe it's just his imagination.

"It's nothing," Minseok says, giving his head a little shake. "I think we just stayed up too late last night, had a little too much fun . . ." He punctuates his sentence with a saucy wink and Lu Han feels better and worse.

"You're such a jerk," he huffs, talking another gulp of coffee and jamming a slice of bread in the toaster. "Don't tease when you know I'm already late."

"There's time if we rush. . ." Minseok makes a show of looking at his watch, letting the ed collar of his shirt slip down to flash a line of collarbone. Lu Han groans, choking as he feels Minseok's foot inching along his thigh to press on the bulge in his pajamas. Why are you so flexible? With regret, he pushes back his stool and slips off to stand on the the cold tiles.

"Thanks to you, my shower is going to have to be cold now," he scowls, but the middle finger his flips at his husband as he heads for the bathroom is more teasing than angry.

"You know you love me," Minseok calls after him, newspaper still rustling. "In fact, I love you so much I'll eat your toast right now so you don't have to eat it cold." Lu Han can hear the toast popping out of the machine and shakes his head.

The hospital is busy today. Every day; Lu Han is glad to be able to head to the Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Andrology wing where people have appointments and babies have schedules. Fertility is an island of calm in a sea of car crashes and broken limbs and cardiac failures.

"Hi Lu Han!" It's Yixing's voice, he turns and sees his friend waving. I'm so glad to see you around. He's still on crutches from the accident, but looking well.

"How are Kyungsoo and the baby?" he asks, pausing for a moment and taking the excuse to lean against the nurses' station. He's feeling a little off today and he doesn't know why. He smiles at Yixing, and hopes he doesn't ask.

"Kyungsoo is fussing around as usual," Yixing smiles affectionately, "I think he's so happy to be walking lighter that he forgets that he doesn't get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep at night anymore." He shakes his head, but the sparkle doesn't leave his eyes. "I'm just popping by for the day to collect some files, I don't want to be too off track after I'm off sick leave."

"You mean paternity leave," Lu Han reminds him, pointedly. They've all been hinting heavily that Yixing needs to take a proper break, after the accident, but he's always too concerned about his patients to listen. Oh well, Kyungsoo will make sure of that.

Yixing nods his head noncommittally, waving Lu Han off as he continues down the hall.

By lunch time Lu Han is feeling really strange, he's tired and hungry but when he thinks about eating his stomach rolls and he has to sit down.

"Are you okay?" Sunyoung, his assistant, looks at him in some concern. Lu Han is about to nod, brushing off her comment, when his stomach flops completely over and he's running for the restroom. When he comes back, pale and a little wobbly on his feet, she's waiting by the door, a determined expression on her face. Lu Han sighs internally. Sunyoung with a mission is undefeatable.

She hands him a urine cup.

Lu Han opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"I'm not pregnant," he says, but his voice is less vehement than he was aiming for. It sounds more like resignation. This was never part of the plan.

"Then it'll come out negative," Sunyoung says, and she sounds so reasonable, Lu Han almost wants to nod, yes, but catches himself and frowns instead, stepping forward to walk past her to his desk.

"I'll call Yixing," she says, and Lu Han stops walking. He knows a lost cause when he hears it; but that doesn't stop him from stomping petulantly back towards the restroom.

It comes out positive.

Lu Han sits, at his desk, listening to the silence of the room, the humming of the central air, the whispers of feet passing in the hall. I don't know what to do.

"I never wanted a baby," he tells the hanging emptiness of the afternoon, white clouds piling outside the window. The word sounds strange in his mouth. Baby. It's not something that fits with Lu Han and Minseok, the busy professionals, the kid-free best friends, the ones who like to party on the weekend, drinking a little too much wine and flagging a cab home, making out in the back seat as a prelude to a Sunday spent in bed, laughing and poking fun at the kama sutra.

He thinks about telling Minseok. He thinks about not telling Minseok. He thinks about terminating the pregnancy.

"I think you need to go home," Sunyoung says softly, walking out of the storage room with a pile of files in her hand, all expertly tagged and ready to be pulled for reference tomorrow.

Lu Han nods.

He's driving when he gets the phone call. It's Minseok — the shrill ringing of the alarm ringtone an inside joke that feels flat right now. Everything feels flat. He doesn't know what to say.

Lu Han pulls over, hits the hazard lights. The phone in his hand is vibrating, and it's not because he doesn't have it set to ring only. Do I tell him?

"Minseok?" he asks, and waits for the answer. There's only silence, static on the other side of the line. Lu Han's heart rate begins to pick up; he can hear it singing in his ears.

"Lu Han?" he finally hears, exhaling in relief; he hadn't realized he was holding his breath. But Minseok's voice sounds strange — something is off, and the Lu Han realizes that he can't hear the usual background noises that usually underpin their conversations during normal working hours.

"What's wrong?" Lu Han asks. There's a brief pause, before Minseok lets the words fall out in a waterfall of syllables, like he pulled the plug.

"I'm pregnant." Lu Han can't believe it. He can't believe this, this, how can this be happening to us, when he works with so many couples who would do anything for a child and now here, the couple who never wanted kids —

"I'm pregnant too," he says, while he's still off balance and not second-guessing himself. You told me. I can't believe I thought about keeping it a secret.

"What?" Minseok says; his voice is almost incredulous, Lu Han can picture his face, his eyes wide in surprise, and the whole thing is all of a sudden far too hilarious. He giggles, swallows, bursts into bright peals of laughter that turn sharp and soon tears are rolling down his face.

"I don't know what to do," he whispers over the phone.

"Let's go home," Minseok says, softly, and his voice sounds a little breathy too. Lu Han feels bad, springing it on him like that. He feels bad for a lot of things now.

"Do you want kids?" "I don't know, not really." "Me neither."

He's easing the 911 turbo into his parking spot when Minseok's white R8 pulls up, slipping into the slot on the right. He cuts the engine, sits. The basement parking lot rings with silence.

Standing in the elevator, they don't speak. Lu Han looks at Minseok; his face is drawn, but composed. Their footsteps on the tile of the hallway ring hollowly in the cold mid-afternoon light, and the door swings shut behind them with a heavy thud. Time's up.

"I really want a drink," Lu Han says, just to say something, anything, but it's true. He's dying for a shot of something, but he won't. He's pregnant now. That's when he realizes he's going to keep the baby.

"I wish," Minseok echoes, eyeing the door to the wine cabinet, but he doesn't make a move either. They're both just standing in the hall, kitchen archway open to the left, but Lu Han feels like he can't move forward until he knows what he's moving forward to.

"How did this happen?" Minseok asks, and the bewilderment in his eyes echoes what Lu Han is feeling. We had our whole lives planned out.

"I don't know." Lu Han just doesn't know, and it's a strange, scary feeling. "But . . ."

"I know we didn't want kids," Minseok blurts out, jutting into his train of thought. "But I —"

"You want to keep the baby," Lu Han finishes the sentence. Minseok nods. "So do I." He doesn't know how it's going to work. He doesn't know anything.

"I believe in us," he says, rather than the hundreds of questions waiting to fall out of his mouth, to pile up in doctor's appointments and furniture and parental leaves and sleepless nights.

Minseok nods. It feels strange, standing there in their flat, not touching, and Lu Han realizes they haven't touched at all since they left for work earlier this morning. Before the world changed forever. He steps forward, just as Minseok does likewise, and they sink into each other's arms. It's warm, and comforting, and Lu Han knows they'll be okay. They'll work things out.

Minseok laughs, then, and Lu Han pulls back slightly to look at his husband's face, a question hovering above his eyes.

"You forgot to buy an alarm clock, didn't you," Minseok scolds him, and Lu Han grimaces. Dammit.

"Don't worry," Minseok murmurs into his ear, resting his chin on the soft skin of Lu Han's shoulder. "Let's enjoy the sleep while we can." Lu Han groans at the thought, but he's smiling as they walk, fingers entangled, through the archway.

This is the final story (for now) from this series, however I will be coming back to it at a later date. Thank you for reading!
The title was taken from Easy to Read by Milk & Bone.