Chapter Text
The gunwale tilted.
Senku's stomach and vision lurched; yet another occurence of the world's fabric being pulled from under his feet and almost dragging him down with it.
This - a gust of wind that jerked him back, a flicker of his gaze in the wrong direction which sent the horizon spinning - had been happening more often that he cared to admit. Like always, Tsukasa moved too fast for Senku to follow, his hands finding his shoulders to steady him before he had the time to collapse onto the bulwark.
Above the ocean, the sickening spiral of clouds slowed to a gentle drift - but the coils in his stomach did not ease down.
Wonderful.
Another day of being sick at sea.
"Uh. Ten billion percent inefficient." Senku grumbled as another wave of nausea forced him to bend and gasp over the railway, the warrior's palms still on his shoulders.
He dry-heaved against the salt sprays of an open ocean, the marine winds not enough to tame the uproar in his guts. When the next sharp inhale stuck to the bottom of his throat, the warrior tucked his fluttering wild bangs behind his ears - just in case. Senku was as white as a ghost ; a shaken, very much 'hungover from a wild party in a haunted castle' kind of ghost.
"Senku ?" The brunette probed, and the scientist waited for the queasiness to ebb before he straightened up and shook his head.
The blurry world righted itself and fell into line again.
"It's nothing. Probably just coming down with something."
Sure enough, Senku had been feeling off for a few days now ; more tired, sometimes light headed and nauseous, his footing somewhat less sound than usual.
It was just his luck that he'd catch some kind of stomach bug while on a ship crossing the ocean at top speed. The constant roll of the hull only made it harder to tolerate, but whatever illness he may have caught should be over before they reach solid ground. He could not offer to be bedridden once they reached Alloy City and he reunited with Xeno - their work schedule for the next few weeks was airtight, and there was a lot they needed to review together before heading back to Japan with an hopefully functional rocket engine. Although he had already been feeling unwell before they even boarded the New Perseus again, the young scientist had insisted they make the trip anyway.
Science and Why-Man wouldn't wait for a lousy sick scientist to recover from this mild predicament.
"Hm. You should head back to our cabin and lay down for a bit." Tsukasa suggested, his voice both worried and annoyed by a refusal he knew would inevitably come. Senku had never been one to heed his health and physical limits - or any limit, for that matter. When the blond turned around on his heels and his legs wobbled, Tsukasa frowned. "I can carry you there."
Of course he would.
The brunette had already shown bouts of protectiveness during their chase across South America, and this had only increased after the battle in Fort Medusa. It was fairly understandable ; they all had been shot (Tsukasa first) and the scientist had decided to move forwards with his plans regardless, going as far as to revive the one man responsible for that slaughter. Since then, the brunette had never been able to fully relax in Xeno's vicinity, despite his assertive claim of 'It will be alright' - a sentence meant to reassure everyone around him, and yet another attempt at shouldering everyone's security and making himself the primary shield of this resurrected Kingdom.
There had been a talk about Tsukasa staying in Alloy City to watch over the rocket scientist at first, and the warrior had barely dared to voice his distaste for the idea at loud. There had been no rational reason to back up the decision of taking the strongest warrior with them around the globe - only a silly wish from them both to not be apart for years. Still, the blond was quite grateful for Tsukasa tagging along in the end, seeing how their relationship had developed from there.
Neither of them would be able to precisely point out the moment they had started dating.
Well, Tsukasa would know more about this than Senku, always so attentive to the latter's emotion, mindful of every boundary, navigating their blooming relationship with the same solemnity he did everything else. It had been rather undefined regardless, something gradual between them, becoming more precise with each hour of longing and every stolen glance until they sealed the deal with a shy kiss - then, the very next day after their homecoming to Japan, Senku had moved Tsukasa's belongings to his own hut without even asking.
The latter hadn't asked any question either, immensely satisfied with being able to flank Senku around the clock, although they both were quite busy during the days. This had been almost two years ago, and Tsukasa's hut had remained unoccupied ever since, meanwhile he had reshaped Senku's place and created enough space to accommodate them both without feeling cramped - not that they needed much more than two square meters at night. The scientist had taken on sleeping nestled into his lover's broad frame, the 'Ten billion percent most performant heating system of all times', as Senku named it.
He had yet to explain why he did exactly the same during hot summer nights.
Thus, when it had been decided that the young scientist needed to visit his mentor in Alloy City, Tsukasa tagging along had never been a question, only an evidence.
"Tsk, I still have quite a lot of calculations to review before we arrive..." Senku complained, and he wasn't usually the kind of person to frown at the prospect of more work and more scientific breakthroughs. "I guess I can do it from bed, though..."
Well.
Seeing Senku being reasonable enough to go back to bed was as reassuring as it was unsettling. His condition must be worse than what he let show.
The scientist peeled himself off the bulwark, his legs once again betraying his weakness, and he raked his hand through messy hair in an attempt to draw his lover's focus elsewhere.
Still...
"Stay with me ?" Senku asked as he grabbed ahold of Tsukasa's wrist, not quite able to circle the large bone with his dainty fingers, and ah, yeah.
For him to voice such a request meant that he must really be sick - and Tsukasa wouldn't take his eyes off him.
When the warrior offered to carry him back once more, Senku merely flipped his middle finger up, and started walking.
It was five days later (five days of Senku nitpicking at everything on his plate and barely eating, five days of him being slumped over a chair in the lab instead of moving around the beakers like a tornado) that Tsukasa found the young scientist sitting cross legged on the floor, grease and graphite staining his cheeks and fingers. He was, as always, so engrossed in his work that he did not notice Tsukasa coming in - or at least, he did not bother to acknowledge it.
It made sense. Tsukasa's presence by his side was as constant and absolute as gravity, a truth so deeply rooted it required no reassurance or further testing.
"There you are, Senku. Hm, you skipped breakfast again." The warrior stated, although he was fairly certain that Senku knew that fact.
He had been up and out of their shared cabin before dawn, and it was the lack of heat between his arms that had stirred Tsukasa awake. Despite Tsukasa being an early riser, the blond was kind of an insomniac, and it was not rare for the latter to be awake in the middle of the night with a thousand thoughts making a racket in his head and preventing him from going back to sleep.
Still - more often than not, Senku would loiter in the bed, his back pressed flush to his boyfriend's warm chest as he scribbled things down the notebook he now left on the bedside table so that he could work while cuddling. The scientist was a renowned multi-tasker, and he was confident that 'being snuggled by Tsukasa' could (almost) always fit in whatever he was doing at the moment.
However, this morning, Senku had woken up then immediately deserted the bed. The explanation for this laid right in front of Tsukasa's eyes, a skeleton of wires and coils connected to one of those screens they had been making for computers.
He did not know what kind of idea had struck his genius boyfriend again.
"What are you doing ?" He inquired, his tone conversational and not reprobative in the slightest. He had learned years ago that there was no point in asking Senku to take a break and rest for a while. It didn't mean that Tsukasa wouldn't hover until the scientist collapsed from exhaustion, and then tuck him in to bed with a kiss and a caress in his hair, glaring daggers at whoever dared to knock on their door and disturb his lover's much needed sleep.
"An ultrasound. Or at least, I'm doing the groundwork for that, I still need some lead zirconate from Alloy City to finish it." Senku answered, still not looking up from the contraption and what looked like an empty transducer in his hands.
Then, his mouth hung open in the air for a few seconds, as if he were unsure of what to say next. He could tell his lover pretty much anything ; trust and honesty were the solid foundations of their relationship .
"I... am not getting any better. In fact, it's getting worse. My stomach hurts, my blood pressure is low as fuck, and don't get me started on the nausea... It would ten billion percent suck to get appendicitis in the middle of the ocean, but waiting for it to go away won't help either."
Oh. Worry and doubt were an unfamiliar sound in Senku's voice, a reluctant admission that something was very, very wrong.
Tsukasa remained his composed self nonetheless. He had sworn to always be the steady anchor Senku could rely on, and panicking had never proved to be useful. Not when he was a scared child, and most certainly not now. "Hm. What do we do if that turns out to be the case ?"
Senku just shrugged.
"Eeeeh. We should reach Alloy City tomorrow, so I hope this thing will be operational in two days at most. If something's really wrong, then we hope the team there has revived some kind of surgeon. If they haven't..." Senku's gaze drifted up in thoughts, then a manic grin split his tired face. "Keh keh, then I guess Xeno-Sensei is going to have the time of his life cutting me open without any consent forms to sign nor ethical considerations whatsoever. So exciting !"
Ah, this - this almost made Tsukasa falter for a second here. The memory of his own lung surgery without proper anesthetics reminded him of how terrible this had been. Although Tsukasa had been able to take it (barely), Senku most definitely wouldn't.
"That is... not very reassuring." The brunette forced the words up his tight throat, if only to disturb the heavy silence and prompt Senku to correct him - and he eventually did, breaking into fits of laughter as he finally put the probe down.
"Ha ha ha, oh damn, don't pull that long face ! You look like a kicked lion cub, and it's me undergoing surgery we're discussing, not you." Senku cackled, then the tension in his shoulders seemed to subside as he offered a reassuring smile. "Besides, that was a joke, moron, a joke. If it turns out to be something like this, then we either have the proper requirements to treat it the conventional way, or I'll let Medusa handle it. I'm reserving hardcore wound treatment for you, yeah ? I just wanna know what we're dealing with first, and an ultrasound might come in handy sooner or later anyway.''
Tsukasa exhaled sharply, both to dissipate some of the worry and to signify how not funny his lover's grim sense of humor was. Truthfully, watching Senku turn down food and sometimes press a palm to his midsection with a grimace without throwing him over his shoulder and forcing him into bed was complicated enough. The warrior wasn't sure if he'd be able to suppress the urge to fend Xeno off if he neared Senku with anything sharp.
"Hm. That sounds acceptable."
It did. The warrior might still be wary of the Medusa and all the unknown tech behind it, he'd still rather use it than listen to Senku scream while his crazy mentor decided to play mad scientist. Not that he was not already doing that...
"Of course it does. Now help me carry this big ass monitor to the worktable there." Senku ordered instead of asking politely, and Tsukasa had better battles to fight than correcting the blond's ill manners.
"Yes, I will. Once you've had breakfast with me."
Senku raised his brows at him, then he wiped his stained hands on his tunic.
"How about you bring some tea here instead ? The smell of coffee in the kitchen makes me sick as fuck. Wouldn't be very polite to throw up in front of Francois' delicate pastries, would it ?"
They reached Alloy City without any noteworthy incident - the match of rugby where Hyoga had thrown the ball with so much brute force it had sent Ginro flying overboard the afternoon before put aside. Tsukasa had had to jump into the ocean to rescue him from drowning, and the sight of him drenched with his sodden tunic outlining his every muscle so perfectly had made Senku mutter a quite elaborated curse. For a brief moment, his body had felt like his own again, buzzing with energy that had led him to drag (or rather, Tsukasa had let himself be dragged) back to their cabin for no less than two hours.
The warrior had noted, back when he had hoisted Senku up in the air to - delicately - slam him into a wall, that the scientist had felt somewhat lighter. It wasn't much, probably only a few pounds, but it had been enough for Tsukasa to suppress even more his strength as he latched onto him, only for Senku to kick his heels in his lower back and urge him to go harder.
Perhaps this was why Tsukasa looked so concerned today, never letting the blond out of sight, making sure that he'd at least drink some water even if Senku argued that it tasted like ''the stale water at the bottom of an unattended vivarium where tropical tortoises have been fed a goat on steroids' cheese and left to die and rot for around 4 years, and the calcium hydroxyapatite of their carapace has reacted with the rotten lactic acid to create methyl mercaptan.''
Gen had declared that he would rather not know if Senku had ever owned a tortoise. Tsukasa had promised that he'd climb trees to find guava and press it into juice, at which point Senku had threatened to make him swim back to Japan if he dared do that because the mere thought of it made him want to ''cough up my gallbladder and a bit of pancreas.''
So, yeah. Senku was sick, and Tsukasa was hovering, afraid that the cruel sun ouf the Equator might cause an heat stroke, trying to stand between the smaller scientist and the cosmic ball of fire to offer some fresh shadow as often as possible.
Xeno's presence did not help Tsukasa to let his guard down.
It only got worse when the mentor tried to drag Senku to his lab and put him to work as soon as they set foot on the southern continent.
"Senku."
Tsukasa didn't need to say anything more than that. His clipped tone and reprobative glance were enough for the blond's wobbly legs to skid to a halt.
Xeno glanced between them with a raised brow, analyzed Tsukasa's concerned face and the faint tremor constantly coursing through his mentee's limbs - and the fact that Senku actually listened made him take a step forth.
"Senku." The mentor grabbed ahold of the blond's chin, tilting his head back and forth to take a good look at the pale complexion, the eye bags, the glassy shimmer on the scarlet eyes. "Are you feeling unwell ? Are you perhaps running a fever ?"
Xeno should have noticed earlier. Indeed, Senku had not ran to the lab and wrecked havoc in his neatly organized folders yet, although he had gotten off the ship a whole hour ago. He should already be elbow deep in the engine prototype by now.
"Ugh, don't do that. I might throw up on these ugly shoes of yours.''
The older scientist's hands retreated as he took a step back with a grimace.
"Don't do such an inelegant thing."
"Right." Senku clicked his tongue then he leaned back into the warrior's broad frame behind him - something he did not usually do in front of an audience. "Xeno, do you by any chance have any calcium zirconate at the ready ? There's something I gotta do first."
Thanks to Senku's and Xeno's joined efforts, the ultrasound was operational in less than twenty hours. Tsukasa had suggested that he takes a break and go to bed for a bit in the middle of the night, an offer Senku had of course declined, arguing that his sleep was of very mediocre quality as of late. If he was unable to rest properly, then he might as well find out why and work to fix it before the exhaustion became too much to handle.
While the warrior had not wrestled his lover to bed despite his harrowing desire to do so, he had stayed by his side and helped with everything he could - which consisted more of soothing caresses down his hair and jaw than raw engineering.
The night flew by to the rhythm of hammering and electronic circuits springing to life, until Senku found himself laid down on a cot in Xeno's lab at dawn, the upsetting queasiness in his stomach preventing him from laying perfectly still.
"Can you stop moving for a second, Senku ?" Xeno scolded as he raked the probe across the younger man's abdomen, now able to look through the thin layer of lean muscles, fishing for clues to explain why his mentee had been feeling so weak. He pushed the probe under his right ribs. ''Does that hurt ?''
"No, but you really don't care about your shoes' fate, do you ?"
Truth be told, Senku wanted nothing more than to be able to lay still and relax, but there was something preventing him from doing so - a tension under his skin like a low electric current keeping him awake, an underlying nausea that forced him to prop his head up at regular intervals. It felt as if his body was too drained to initiate sleep, and yet he could feel the life whirring in its core, vital energy spiking with each exhale and each spasm in his guts. It didn't make sense to feel so off from an infection without actual pain nor a significant fever, and it only made him wonder further - what was his body fighting against, exactly ?
Xeno's furrowed brows were his only answer for a while, his focused gaze aimed at a screen he could not see as the ultrasound probe slid lower and lower.
Until he broke the silence with a question, his tone cautious and for once quite unassured.
"Senku. What do you know about your health as an infant ?"
Tsukasa tensed beside him, visibly on edge although they knew for a fact that whatever was happening to his lover, the Medusa would be able to fix it.
... But what if it wasn't ?
"Uh ? What exactly do you want to know ? I started talking at 9 months old but it was mostly science gibberish, at least according to my old man."
Xeno shook his head and cleared his throat and gosh, the uneasiness was contagious. What kind of bad news was that dictator wannabe seeing, that he wasn't able to deliver with cold indifference ? Damn, was Senku dying ? He sure didn't feel like it. He was exhausted and sluggish, yes. Unable to eat and sleep, sure. Yet, it couldn't be that bad, right ? Fuck, should he have started with blood work first ?! He was pretty certain that whatever was wrong should be located in his abdomen, considering how his flanks sometimes smarted and his stomach rejected basically everything, but...
''I am asking about your medical history, especially in your early years." Xeno pressed as the probe pressed below his navel, and goosebumps erupted all over Senku's skin at the memory of a bullet piercing his flesh. That's uncomfortable. "No health issue ? No medication, no surgery as a baby ?"
Senku fought off the urge to slap Xeno's hand away as his ungloved fingers dug slightly in the soft skin, obviously looking for something, and the only reason why Tsukasa did not hurl the megalomaniac through a window was because he was the only one who could help and Senku trusted him.
It was quite ironic, to entrust his health to Dr. Wingfield after the latter had gotten them all shot. The brunette had never fully believed in redemption - at least not until Hyoga had died by his sides on the front lines while Senku remained in the fort.
"Keh ... How should I know ? I'm adopted, and I don't think my biological parents had the time to give Byakuya my full medical record before they died."
"I... see. And I take it you hit puberty normally, didn't you ?"
"Yeah." Senku glared up, downright annoyed by all the back and forth. "What are you getting at, Xeno ? Just tell me what's going on already, it can't be that bad."
Xeno's little strangled laugh then set off alarm bells in Senku's brain.
Oh, I really am dying, am I not ?
The American set the probe aside and turned to face him with a kind of gravity that, on Xeno's face, could only mean 'the world is going to end and it's gonna be my doing and you're not going to find this funny but I will.'
"Senku... You're pregnant."
Uh.
... What ?!
The blond vaguely wondered if whatever condition he was suffering from had damaged his hearing too, or if Xeno had inhaled too much of toxic fumes, because that sentence simply did not make any sense.
"Sure, yeah." He nodded whereas the corners of his lips twitched in annoyance, because hello he would very much like to know what was going on and he did not need his mentor to have an acute delirious episode right now. "Now that you've made that awful joke to soften the blow, care to tell me what's actually going on ?"
Xeno blinked, taken aback by the dismissal.
His eyes jumped between the screen and the perplexed couple in front of him, and he raked his claws through his hair as he worried his bottom lips, mulling over words that were bound to change his mentee's life forever. The nervous body language was a foreign sight on the older scientist, and it only fed the sense of unease slowly spreading throughout Senku's whole being.
"I am telling the truth, Senku." Xeno eventually let out with a long suffering sigh, his voice tinted with an hint of disbelief at his own words.
Then, he grabbed ahold of the screen and turned it around so that the younger man could take a look ; and Senku immediately did, ready to disprove Xeno's theory.
But there, on the screen they had built together the previous night, laid something unmistakable. A rough round form squeezing then expanding - a heart beating - and the small silhouette around it, the round skull and the four limbs... it was all most definitely human.
Senku's mind ground to a halt - not a soft push on the brakes, but more like a brutal crash against a sturdy wall that left him shaken and stunned.
It couldn't be.
It simply could not.
The sight and following deduction were so impossible that they made Senku's mind blank for a minute, before it set to reject it like the biological impossibility that it was.
No.
Humans turning into stone was something Senku could work around, but him being with child ? Ten billion percent illogical.
Unbelievable.
Simply... impossible.
Senku sat up, glaring at the absurd image on the screen, ignoring the very frozen frame of his lover at his sides.
Oh come on, there was no way that Tsukasa was believing this ? No. At least Senku was most certainly not buying this.
"Keh ! You went as far as to make a digital image of that shit for the sake of a prank ?!" He cackled, because harsh rebuttal and denial were the only way to go for his scientist brain. This was impossible, thus there must be another explanation - and Xeno messing with him as payback for leaving him in South America without Stanley sounded like a very plausible one. Yeah, he'd cling onto that. ''Damn, Xeno, you have way too much time on your hands, I should exploit you more."
The older scientist stiffened not because of Senku's accusations, but because of the situation at hand. Like his mentee's, his mind was already reeling with hypothesis, although miles apart from the other man's conclusion.
Tsukasa's agape mouth had yet to produce any sound.
"Senku... I understand that it may come as a shock, but that image is very much real, albeit widely unexpected."
"There's no way I'm buying this, you senile old geezer. We both know this is ten billion percent impossible. Here, gimme.''
Senku shifted again, his hand fetching the discarded transducer before pressing it to his own belly. He twisted from the right to the left, brows furrowed then shooting up in disbelief.
The image was moving with him.
Tiny outlines of fists fluttered around until the whole thing went out of sight, and when Senku recentered the transducer, the brittle heartbeat showed up again.
Ah.
That was either a very elaborated prank that required more tools than they actually had, or...
Oh.
Senku felt something give within him, an earthquake mercilessly shaking all of his certainties and rewriting his life in real time. This wasn't the usual thrill that animated him when he found himself faced with a scientific mystery to solve, but a jarring wave of vertigo that made him bent forth, his wide eyes still fixated on a screen that must belong to some kind of alternate reality.
No way.
Impossible, yet unmistakably there.
''What." He mouthed, his breath thin and voice drowned in something. ''Oh crap. Fuck. What the - ugh. Wait, hold that for a sec."
The blond shoved the probe into Tsukasa's hands none too gently before he pressed a balled fist to his lips. No, not throwing up now - not that his stomach wasn't already empty save for the few nuts Tsukasa had managed to get into him at some point in the night, when Senku's body had decided to bail out and he had swayed and almost fainted.
Still... This may be illogical, yet this would explain so much. This was...
This was real.
Everything on that screen was real. This was not an illness, but something alive, precious, growing. Not an incurable disease, not a death sentence - this was life.
Not the lives of seven billion humans that they'd steal back from the stone, but a brand new one, a life created by him and Tsukasa.
Them, right there throbbing beneath his fingertips, so close yet out of reach.
There.
Senku uncoiled his fist to hide his face in his palms, and he shrieked.
The muffled scream seemed to pull the brunette out of his torpor, for his hands immediately shot for the quivering huddled frame of his lover.
"Senku... Are you okay ?" He worried, shoving his own shock down his throat as he moved to stroke his spine, unsure if he was still allowed to touch. What he himself was feeling did not matter, not when Senku was so obviously struggling to process the news - and how could he not ? ''I... I apologize, I did not know that -"
"Well neither did I, you turnip !" Senku abruptly cut him off, his voice coming out strong and distraught despite the hands on his face. The whole situation was upsetting in its absurdness.
How ?! Why ?!
The blond drew a few deep breaths in, battling both the lingering sickness and this newfound reality. Okay, yeah, there was a fact laid out in front of his very eyes, and he'd have to compute with that. His first instinct was to understand why, and it was oh so much easier to focus on the unresolved mystery than everything it implied.
A child.
An actual child !
This didn't make sense, and he needed to understand how before he could even begin to think about that terrifying unknown future. His mind was stalling, unable to imagine what the next weeks, months and even years would bring. Somehow, waking up alone in the world surrounded by statues and having to fend for himself while looking for a cure had sounded less frightening than this. Perhaps it was because this phenomenon was his own doing somehow - something inescapable, nestled in his flesh yet only half his.
Tsukasa's large hand was still rubbing down his back, a grounding presence amidst the tornado they were both mercilessly thrown into. Senku did not blame Xeno for breaking the news to them like this, at the ass crack of dawn in a rudimentary lab ; there simply wasn't an adequate way to tell them this, and no amount of preparation could have spared them the wild confusion.
Senku raked his palms down his face, not strong enough to graze his skin but enough to take some of the nerves down with them, then he looked up at Xeno.
Alert.
Focused.
Ready to solve the mystery.
The shock and the whirlwind of emotions had just been carefully locked in his chest where his heart was thrumming hard and fast, filed under the 'disasters to tidy up later' category.
"Okay. First things first. How did that get there, and what the actual fuck am I supposed to do with it ?"
Xeno leaned back in his chair, ready to engage in a professoral lecture despite his student's ruffled glare - and oh, Tsukasa's distraught expression was quite delightful too.
"People usually enjoy the little slobbery mammals that eventually show up, and raise them. That is something you two will have to discuss." The older scientist quickly dismissed that topic in favor of what had really stirred his interest. ''As for the how... Oh, I already have a few elegant hypothesis !"
"There's nothing elegant about this, jackass. It is chaos !" Senku bristled, and when he straightened up to shoot his mentor a glance that could kill, his lover's hand followed the motion.
"On one hand... Obviously, the easiest explanation would be to suppose that the Medusa randomly modifies biology, or makes mistake when recomputing someone. A simple, purely theoretical explanation." Xeno drawled as he drummed his claws against his chin, lost in thought.
No, Senku would not be satisfied with such an answer. This was too life-changing to be simply chalked up to some Medusa magic, something they wouldn't be able to test, but his stricken mind was unable to come up with an adequate hypothesis regardless.
"On the other hand... Well, I am certain that you know how some people are born with a phenotype that doesn't always match their genetics. XY people that develop with a female body because of androgens resistance, or even rarer, Muller ducts that persist in a XY embryo and lead to a perfectly normal male phenotype with some not functional female addition. There also are XXX, XXY...'' Xeno waved his hand in the air, listing off rare occurrences that could maybe explain a fraction of what they were witnessing.
''Obviously, biology was not my major, but we can suppose that you fell in a mild category of those at birth. You developed normally, so it is probable that no one knew about this little specificity... until you got deadly wounded and 'revived' by petrification. It is plausible that Medusa saw a non functional residue of something female, and healed it."
Senku listened to his mentor's enthusiastic rant, turning paler with each word as the theories rung in his head - too real, too logical, too possible. Next to him, Tsukasa was politely trying to keep up, struggling to understand what this meant for Senku and them both. The answer was already clear in front of them, impossible to ignore.
Truth be told, the warrior wasn't sure if he wanted it to be ignored or disproven in the first place, the fleeting glimpses of the tiniest heart beating now carved on his retinas.
His.
Theirs.
"Soooo... You're telling me Medusa considered me defective and got me knocked up ?!" Senku shouted out, indignant, too many emotions stacked in his high-pitched voice which only made Xeno scoff.
He couldn't say that his mentee losing his composure in front of a scientific mystery was very elegant.
"Of course not. Technically speaking, Tsukasa did that part." Then, the older scientist seemed to pause, weighing the possibilities as he gazed expectantly between them both. "It is a Shishio baby, isn't it ?"
"Unless it's fucking immaculate conception, which wouldn't even surprise me at this point, then yes, it ten billion percent is."
Xeno nodded, turning his focus back to the frozen screen. "This would explain why it already looks like a strong and healthy baby. I wish you luck."
Why thank you. He'd most definitely need that, and much more.
Senku craned his head to observe his lover's unreadable face, and the realization that it was indeed Tsukasa's child washed over him like a cold waterfall. He couldn't help but think forwards, imagining a kid that would tower over him at barely ten years old, giving him heart attacks whenever they'd decide to go hunting frigging lions with their father so that they could have matching fur cloaks.
A bout of protectiveness welled up within him, along with a spike of dread because...
"Oh damn. There's no way out !" Senku groaned as he hunched in on himself again, his forearm now awkwardly bent around his midsection in a natural instincts to cherish and protect despite what it could mean for him. "Xeno, there is no way out. No matter what we do, I'm getting cut open, right ?"
The blond's tone indicated just how much he'd like to be proven wrong, to be assured that this would be alright - and Xeno's gleaming eyes shattered those hopes with displaced scientific thrill.
"You most definitely are, yes !" He enthused, and Senku could already guess who was going to enjoy themselves playing surgeon - sadly not himself. "Preferably before labor starts on its own and you... you know. Rip open and die."
Ah, better start synthesizing proper anesthetics and baby formula now, was Senku's only thought whereas Tsukasa tensed and barely refrained from shaking Xeno for his awful bedside manners.
"Xeno, could you not ?" The warrior stifled through gritted teeth, and the maniac only shrugged.
"Ah. Do not fear. By the way it looks, I'd say we have five to six months ahead of us to get everything ready."
"Wait wait wait. Only five to six months ?!" Senku parroted, and damn was he allowed to start panicking now ? Pregnancy had never been part of the equation, and he'd have to recalculate everything - on top of dealing with the changes in his soul and body while endorsing this brand new responsibility. "Can we search for a frigging obstetrician now ?!"
Xeno blinked, his expression genuinely confused.
"Why would you want one ?"
Oh, this was so worst than he first thought, uh ?
"I... I need a minute." Senku mumbled as his face fell flat, and he did not want to think about his mentor with a scalpel in hand. "Scratch that, I need a goddamned year to think about it !"
"No, Senku. You do not have that time."
Senku had excused himself and darted for the woods to think before Tsukasa got a chance to drag him to bed once more.
He now strolled around aimlessly, the ache in his stomach no longer an unknown - yet, it was still something that he could not fully understand. It was not an illness, would not kill him, but this would turn his whole world and life upside down nonetheless.
A child.
He was with child.
It should have never happened. Being a parent was something he had never even thought about, too caught up in saving the world, and now... his body was building a world of its own too.
It was not planned. It had never even been in the realm of possibilities, and now it was a reality he found himself caught in, a truth etched in his flesh, writing itself under his nose day after day.
A child.
Tsukasa's child.
A life born from love and care, from feud then trusted partnership, a crystallization of humanity's greatest hopes. A brand new future forcing him to look forward instead of gazing back at everything they'd lost and wanted to rebuild. A new path made of radiant smiles and small hands in his, of sleepless nights tucked under a blanket rocking a child in between them, of bright giggles and tiny footprints in the sand around their huts.
Yes, he could see it now, what should have been nothing more than a fleeting fantasy years ahead of now. What he could have one day found himself wishing for, once humanity had been restored and his curiosity fulfilled. It was as complex as it was simple.
His steps would no longer be guided by logic alone, but by love, that all-encompassing feeling he felt for his lover and the new life growing within him. Though it was scarcely larger than a Medusa by now, it was already oh so more important.
This future was theirs for the taking.
Senku flopped down heavily onto a log, taken out by the dizzying prospect. His legs were tired and his eyelids heavy, yet turning in for the night - or should he say day - felt impossible.
There was so much to do now, and he didn't even know where to start. He was kind of struck down by the fact that he did not have anyone with whom he desperately wanted to share the news, too monumental to be kept behind sealed lips. Xeno already knew, Tsukasa had been here to hear and digest the information with him. And...
... Byakuya was not here.
Of course, Senku would have told him first.
He would have made the announcement in some unhinged genius fashion, relishing in the shock that would have indubitably spread to his old man's face - then he'd have blamed him. He would have teased that 'Come on, you could at least have given me proper sex ed before I got accidentally knocked up, you useless old man !', although there would have been no way for Byakuya to have seen that coming. Besides, Senku was knowledgeable enough to not need The Talk™ from him.
Once the surprise would have worn off, he would have been hugged.
Byakuya would have laughed with tears of joy and ruffled his hair, pulled him in a hug so tight that Senku would have groused 'Careful, you'll suffocate the baby !' - then, he would have ran out of the flat and to the nearest store, only to shower them in tons of baby clothes and toys they would probably never use. He would have made a nursery in his own home ; for every time Senku would be too tired, for every evening where Tsukasa and him would have needed some time just the two of them, or simply for the pleasure of taking care of a baby with big carmine eyes that would remind him so much of his own son.
He would have sat Tsukasa down and dutifully recounted every mischief and tricks Senku had pulled as a child like he'd told the hundred tales, warning the brunette that 'You know, one day you might just wake up to a five years old trying to cook methamphetamine in your kitchen because he saw it on a documentary - and it was not a documentary !' He would have called all of his friends, bragging that he was going to be a granddaddy - and he would have been the best one, too.
He would not.
Byakuya was not here anymore, deceased thousands of years ago, and Senku tried not to feel sadness at the fact that this child would grow without grandparents. Not his own biological parents, long dead too, nor Tsukasa's parents - still encased in stone somewhere, so low on the priority list of people to revive. Even then, neither Senku nor Tsukasa would trust them anywhere near this kid.
No, it was just them - Tsukasa and Senku, and Mirai as an amazing aunt, too.
The faint rustling of leaves behind him barely disturbed his thoughts, and he didn't need to turn around to know who was carefully walking his way. As absurd as it may sound (although it wasn't the most absurd thing he'd heard that day) he could feel the tenderness and genuine worry in the gaze on his back, not making his skin crawl like the cold glare of a stranger but allowing him to relax and slump onto the tree some more instead.
Large arms curled around his neck and chest before the soft voice reached his ears.
"Senku. We should talk about it. Please share everything on your mind."
Oh, he most definitely wasn't going it.
He would not tell Tsukasa just how lost he felt, how terrified he was in front of something that he could not control with some reasoning and a bit of chemistry. He would not say that he was too tired to plan, torn by conflicted emotions, that he somehow wanted this just as much as he feared everything it involved.
What if he wasn't good at this ? What if they didn't reach the moon in time and Why-Man destroyed everything once more ? What if it didn't work out, what if he didn't know how to love well enough ?
For so long, he had been persuaded that science was the only thing worth his time and interest. Then he had met Tsukasa and discovered that there was more to life than just this, that lips against his own could feel wonderful too, that being held close at night and caressed and cherished made his heart beat faster than any rare chemical ever could.
And now, he was going through such revelations all over again. Adjusting to something bigger than everything he'd known so far.
"It's... There's nothing on my mind." He sighed as he leaned back, his whole body pressed to his lover's grounding frame behind him - sturdy and unwavering even now, whereas Senku felt like screaming and running away from something he couldn't escape anyway. ''It's just that... Damn, I had never ever considered being a parent, not even one millimeter. Especially not like... this.''
He didn't need to elaborate on what 'this' meant, and Tsukasa was considerate enough not to bring it up again just now, not when Senku was still struggling to accept it. He merely stood behind him, his forearms a grounding weight on the blond's shoulders, his heat bleeding into him as seconds then minutes ticked by. He was giving him time and space, politely waiting for his lover to speak out again, on his own terms and when he'd feel ready to.
Senku eventually did.
''I mean... I was fifteen when petrification hit, I had not one millimeter of interest in such things then. And after that, well, I was quite busy solving petrification and looking for Why-Man. Still am. Falling in love was never part of the equation, yet it happened, and now that...''
Senku took a deep breath in as he let his head tilt back, relishing in the soft touch of Tsukasa's fingertips dragging down his face, caressing his temples and nose and jaw. It was comfortable, it was safe - and the scientist knew that he could tell the other man everything, his weaknesses and doubts included.
''I don't ... I don't think I can do it, 'kasa. There is already so much going on, and I'd be an awful parent, and ...''
For once, the scientist felt like there was something he could not easily do, a challenge too big for him. Something that even the patient and steady application of science would not guide him through.
Tsukasa hummed, perfectly able to understand his lover's turmoil, for he was experiencing it too. Yet, it wasn't about him ; Senku was the one whose whole identity had just been tremendously shaken, the one in dire needs of reassurance and love.
His own insecurities could wait.
"I wish I could tell you that it won't change anything, but it will. It will change many things... and we'll manage. We'll adapt. We, and most of all you, are stronger than that, Senku."
The latter closed his eyes. He nuzzled farther into Tsukasa's cloak and oh, how he wished to believe those words, gentle and soft like the fur tickling his neck.
The warrior squeezed him tighter. Plucked a tender kiss atop the blond head.
"If you want this, then we'll have this. You won't have to give up anything - I would never allow that. Even if our priorities shift, I will take care of everything I can, whether you're busy in the lab or on the Moon. We will patiently wait for your return."
Tsukasa's velvety voice was soothing in his ears, both in its gentleness and its confidence. Of course, he would be there, and he was not afraid of sharing both the happiness and the hardships with him. It almost made Senku wonder if the warrior truly realized what kind of adventure they were about to engage into, how complicated raising a child could be - before he bitterly reminded himself that Tsukasa knew.
Better than anyone.
"It's not that easy. You know they say 'it takes a village' to raise a kid."
"And we have one, love. We have one, and it is the best there could be."
This was true. Perhaps this was the quiet reassurance that Senku had needed, perhaps the words landed with more certainty when Tsukasa was the one to say them - all that mattered was that, for a minute, Senku felt himself able to unwind. There, in his lover's affectionate embrace and with the warm rays of a rising sun scattered across his cheeks, he could almost fall asleep and dream of that blissful future.
Life wasn't always predictable, that much Senku had understood when he had almost landed in foster care before Byakuya took him in, then when the world had abruptly ended and the darkness had spat him out alone in the wilderness. He had managed this far, and with Tsukasa and his comrades by his side, there was nothing they could not accomplish - even if it defied reality, science, and everything he had always thought he was.
"Of course, this is ultimately your choice, and I will support you and stand by your side no matter what it will be." Tsukasa picked up again, his arms still wrapped like a cosy scarf around the scientist's cleavage. He didn't dare voice what the other choices might be - entrusting that child to someone else would be beyond his strength. "But... Hm, please do not think that you have to choose between two paths. You can have it all, anything you want - I will make sure that you do.''
Yes. They were never men to tread the beaten path, they always carved one of their own. Senku had never been the type to give up on anything in favor of something else - he always strived to find a solution to have it all. Perhaps he was not so different from Ryusui and had his own kind of greed, in the end.
His outstretched fingers settled carefully on his midsection, and Tsukasa didn't dare mimick the movement just yet.
''What I want, uh...'' Senku mused as his eyelashes fluttered open again, taking in the radiant rising sun. It was going to be another wonderful day, although he'd most definitely hide from the sunlight under his lover's cape. ''... I think I want guava juice.''
He felt the slight twitch of surprise behind him, could easily picture Tsukasa's confused face staring at the back of his head.
"Hm ? You said just thinking about it made you, and I quote, 'want to cough up your gallbladder' ?"
"Well, the nausea has settled a bit, and I need the fructose and vitamins. Can't let myself starve anymore, right ?'' Senku gave a heavy yawn, considering whether to fall asleep here and let Tsukasa handle the rest or to crawl back to their temporary hut.
If Tsukasa was relieved that Senku felt even marginally better and was going to heed his health for once, he only let a polite smile show.
"Of course. Why don't we get you to bed first, then I'll bring you some ?"
Ah, yes, wonderful.
"Sounds good, but only if you join me and get some sleep too afterwards. Oh and, uh ... If the others ask questions, just tell 'em the truth, I don't care."
He turned around just in time to witness Tsukasa's startled look - it was an expression that he had been sporting a few times by now, since that time Senku had told him that they were invading the Moon.
"What ? This is science too, and science doesn't lie. Besides, they'll know eventually. Might as well break the news before I faint in the middle of a meetup and everyone panics and accuse Xeno of poisoning me.''
The warrior briefly wondered if this would stir up more chaos than the actual revelation would.