Work Text:
Xiao Zhan groans and flops over onto his back, seeking relief that will not come. The moment the weight of his swollen belly settles onto his aching hips, another contraction rolls relentlessly through his abdomen, forcing him to curl up and roll over on his side again.
Ahhhaaaaahhhhhhahhh, he half-laughs, half-cries into the sadistically hard hospital bed as his insides clench impossibly tighter.
Relax, he tells himself, trying to call up some of the calming images the birthing instructors had talked him through, but the only thought he is able to cobble together is when will this fucking contraction end!?
He pants through the pain, and when it finally, finally releases him, he rolls onto his back again with a long, relieved sigh. The white noise that had been roaring in his ears subsides, and the room is quiet, but for the comforting sound of the heart monitor chirping in the background.
And a deep, vaguely impatient groan.
“Aiyaaa, Zhan-ge,” Yibo whines groggily from the pull-out bed by the window. “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to sleep here.”
It takes Xiao Zhan a few moments to process this complaint, and then a few moments more to try to decide whether it’s worth it to pull the pillow out from between his aching knees and fling it at Yibo’s head, maybe smother him with it.
He can’t summon the energy to do it, though, so instead he grits his teeth and demands, with a sharp edge he knows Yibo won’t miss, “What the fuck, Lao Wang? Did you really just tell me to keep it down?”
At this, Yibo pops up, eyes wide, his brown hair sticking up adorably in all directions. Then he stretches like a big cat and scratches at his belly -- his unfairly flat and muscled belly -- and Xiao Zhan feels an intense desire to slap and fuck him.
And then he remembers that’s how he got into this state in the first place.
“Baobei,” Yibo coaxes, his voice still sleep-drunk, “didn’t the midwife just say you’d only started dilating? It’s so early still! How could it already be so--”
“Fuck you,” Xiao Zhan hisses, feeling the telltale windup of another contraction in his gut. “I’m in pain, okay? Don’t tell me what I should be feeling!”
This outburst seems to jolt Yibo fully awake and into action. He stumbles awkwardly off the pull-out bed and bends over Xiao Zhan to place a warm, placating hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Zhan-ge,” he says in a practiced croon. “I was wrong. What can I do for you?”
Xiao Zhan can feel the sweat beading on his face as another contraction bears down on him. “G-get the - the midwife. Now,” he gasps. “Tell her I - I -- oh god! -- I want the epidural--”
“No, Zhan-ge, come on!” Yibo urges brightly, like he’s encouraging one of his Street Dance dancers to just give it another try. “You wanted the natural birth! Jiayou!” he says with a determined shake of Xiao Zhan’s shoulder. “You can do it! Don’t give up!”
Xiao Zhan narrows his eyes, then reaches out, grabs a fistful of Yibo’s shirt, and yanks him close, his voice wound tight with pain. “I said. I want. The epidural. Now. Goddammit.”
Yibo sucks in a breath and his Adam’s apple bobs with a click as he swallows and nods readily. “Yeah. Okay, okay.”
Xiao Zhan flings open his fist, and Yibo falls backwards, tripping over his own feet as he scurries out the door.
Yibo has been a doting husband over the last nine months, Xiao Zhan reminds himself, massaging his swollen ankles, rushing out to buy whatever weird food he suddenly needed to eat at 2 am, even sitting with him in the bathroom those first few months when the morning sickness was at its worst.
But sometimes the guy just did not get it, didn’t understand or fully sympathize with the crazy, grinding physical and mental toll that carrying and growing another human being was taking on Xiao Zhan’s body. It was like Yibo thought that what Xiao Zhan was going through was just another challenge to grin and bear.
Yibo’s attitude isn’t totally unreasonable. Xiao Zhan has a high tolerance for pain and a competitive fire that has driven him more than once to the breaking point (and into the hospital). This thing that they’re doing, though -- it’s not a competition or something to win.
They’re about to start a family together, and it’s something different from anything they’ve ever done before. There’s the physical pain, yes -- but it’s been an emotional (and hormonal) journey too.
If ever there was a time when Xiao Zhan would want Yibo to understand just what he was going through, it would be now.
This thought sits heavy in Xiao Zhan’s mind as he’s sweating on the hospital bed, the contractions now rolling endlessly through him, one after another. There’s not much time left.
The minutes tick by, each one feeling ten times as long.
Where the fuck is Yibo?
At last, Yibo appears at his side again. “She’s on her way.”
“Wh-what took you so long?” Xiao Zhan asks weakly. “I - I can’t do this much longer.”
“Ma called and wanted to know how you were doing.”
Xiao Zhan gapes. “And you couldn’t tell her you’d call her back?”
Yibo blinks. “But you’re doing so well, Zhan-ge! I--”
“O-oh my god, Lao Wang! You - you just don’t get it, do you?” Xiao Zhan wails, almost in tears as the contractions move lower and he feels the burn of dilation. “If - if only you knew--” he starts, and the rest of his words dissolve into a guttural moan as he feels his insides twist like a towel being wrung out, the torment so exquisite that he feels, for a moment, like he’s left his body entirely.
XIao Zhan squeezes his eyes shut against the pain, and when he opens them again, he’s looking into his own face, contorted in agony.
Oh shit, I’ve lost my mind, he thinks as he watches himself pant through another contraction and whine, “Zhan-ge, something’s wrong with me.”
Xiao Zhan startles. “Wh-what did you say?”
“O-oh fuck, it hurts, it hurts so much,” he watches himself cry, and as he hears the words, Xiao Zhan has the sudden realization that he doesn’t feel any pain at all. He looks around. They’re still in the hospital room, but he’s standing by his own bed, next to his own body.
Have I died?
His own voice sounds from the bed, shrill and frightened. “Oh fuck, what - what the fuck!? What is - what - my stomach is -- oh my god, what am I doing lying here?”
Xiao Zhan looks frantically around -- for what, he’s not sure -- but his eye falls to his iPhone on the bedside table and he grabs it. It’s solid in his hand, so he’s not a ghost, but also… his hand is bizarrely large.
His eyes widen. He’d know this hand anywhere.
Heart racing, Xiao Zhan looks into his phone to unlock it, but annoyingly, Face ID stubbornly refuses to cooperate. Fuck, he mutters, and types in his PIN.
“Who -- wh-what am I - what - who...?” Xiao Zhan hears himself stammering from the bed, just as he opens the camera app and taps the button to turn on the front-facing camera and--
What the hell.
Xiao Zhan looks into his phone’s screen and sees Yibo’s confused face staring back at him. He shakes the phone for no good reason, then taps the selfie button again and the screen flips to a view of the hospital room. He pans it around and at himself, lying on the bed and looking distressed.
He taps the selfie button once again and stares into the screen. “Lao Wang,” Xiao Zhan says, watching Yibo’s face mouth the same words. “Lao Wang,” he says again, just to confirm what he’s seeing.
His exasperated voice rings out in the room. “What? What? Oh my god, I’m going insane. Why am I seeing myself call my own name?”
Xiao Zhan reaches out with one large hand, and pokes the shoulder of the person on the bed. “Yibo?”
“Yeah,” he pants impatiently, “who else would I be?”
Xiao Zhan turns the phone around to show it to… who? Himself? Yibo? Xiao Zhan is still not convinced he hasn’t had some kind of pain-induced psychotic break, but he watches his own eyes widen in a mixture of horror and disbelief as he takes in the image on the screen.
“Zhan-ge?” he breathes, “wh-wh-wha-” he starts, then throws his head back with a cry. “Ohhh my god, it hurts!” he shouts as he clutches at his belly. “Wh-what is happening here?”
“I think,” Xiao Zhan begins in a voice both intimately familiar yet entirely alien in his mouth, “we’ve somehow switched bodies?”
Yibo is silent for a moment before he curls into himself and wails. “Fuck fuck fuck oh god the pain -- I can’t, I can’t -- these - these are contractions? Where - where is the m-midwife?”
Just then, a no-nonsense middle-aged woman bustles in, takes one look at Yibo and clucks her tongue at Xiao Zhan. “Aiyaa, you should have called me in sooner!”
She snaps a glove on and turns to Yibo. “Try to relax, dear, and let me check how we’re doing, okay?” She reaches under his gown and Xiao Zhan has to stifle a laugh at the way Yibo stiffens and squeals.
The midwife sighs.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Xiao, you’re too far gone now for the epidural--”
Yibo moans and writhes on the bed. “No, no, I need, I need--”
Xiao Zhan rubs a large, comforting hand on Yibo’s shoulder. “Breathe, baobei. You can do it!”
“No, no, I can’t -- you - you have no idea--”
Xiao Zhan leans down to press a kiss onto his sweaty forehead. “Oh, I think I do, darling.”
“But Zhan-ge--”
“You can do it. Jiayou.”