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It’s mid-afternoon, sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the curtains hanging over the apartment windows, and Jimmy is sitting in the middle on their thrifted, hot-pink couch, the same spot he always gets. Joel is on one side of him and Grian on the other, the former’s legs all jumbled up over his while the latter’s arm is around his shoulders as he gestures furiously with his free hand. There’s some nonsensical show playing on the television at the moment, something with lots of bright colours and shapes, but Jimmy is too zoned out to really pay it any attention. He can’t remember who put it on, either⎯
Oh, Scar, probably. One of those Disney cartoons he’s always talking about that have way more depth than anyone expects. Jimmy thinks that Scar is probably right, but his attention span is too short to really commit to something that just doesn’t come right out and say what it is. Sue him, he’s a simple man.
“I’m saying, Joel, that of course water is wet, you can’t⎯”
“It’s bloody water! Water itself isn’t wet!”
“What do you mean?!” Grian all but shrieks, hand flailing dangerously close to Jimmy’s nose. Preemptively, he scrunches himself back, sinking into their couch so he can avoid getting a broken nose again.
What can he say, Grian gets really expressive with his hands when he’s arguing, and somehow, unlucky Jimmy is always right in the line of fire.
“Oh, you heard me, Grian⎯”
Scar is building a Death Star on the floor, Jimmy thinks. He’s never actually watched Star Wars, always zoning out on those movie nights (and usually zoning back in to see Grian on Scar’s lap, kissing him, anyway), but everyone knows what a Death Star looks like. Besides, you can’t spend any amount of time around Scar without being shown at least one Star Wars picture, more often than not featuring that very same…spaceship? Jimmy doesn’t really know, or care, to be honest. He only listens to Scar because it’s Scar, his friend, not out of any true desire to learn more about Star Wars. He reckons that place can’t be comfortable for Scar’s back, but Scar likes ‘floor time’, and who is Jimmy to judge?
He’s not exactly a maker of healthy decisions himself, nowadays.
As if on cue, his hangover headache gives another painful pulse against his temples.
“You’re being ridiculous, Joel, I can’t believe I live with someone who is so idiotic⎯”
“Oi, watch who you’re calling an idiot!” Joel snaps, clearly not truly upset, as he tosses one of their throw pillows into Grian’s face. Odd for a group of three men to have a hot-pink couch with throw pillows to boot, but the couch was Joel’s pick (‘for the laughs’, allegedly, but Jimmy thinks that he just likes it) and Lizzie had insisted on getting them some cute accent pillows when she came over, so… Really, their flat looks more like a couple of grandmothers live there, between Grian’s eccentric love of knickknacks, Joel’s obsession with pink and sometimes lace, and Scar’s habit of bringing trinkets wherever he goes.
Jimmy’s the most normal one of all four of them, in his opinion.
Plus, it’s not like Scar actually lives with them, but he might as well at this point. It’s more concerning to wake up and not see Scar in their kitchen, attempting to make breakfast from whatever scraps left over, than it is to see him wandering the halls at three in the morning, half-dressed in what’s probably one of Grian’s sweaters. Jimmy doesn’t mind. Scar makes the flat feel a bit more balanced.
“I’m gonna be a dad,” Jimmy says with a blink. It’s the first time that he’s said it aloud. Didn’t even dare to think the words before, ears ringing as he ended a call with a man he’d thought about being his forever, but not necessarily in such a way. It feels like he’s moving through water, everything muffled and…off. As if he’s weightless, but there’s a pressure coming in from all sides, surrounding him and making it difficult to breathe. He can barely concentrate, lost in his thoughts and almost deaf to the world around him.
Maybe this is what shock feels like.
Jimmy thought the alcohol would’ve washed that right out of his system.
Grian and Joel are still arguing about whether or not water is wet, speaking too quickly and aggressively to hear what he said, but he can tell that Scar clocked it. The man has gone suspiciously still, the way he always does when he’s eavesdropping, hands frozen in the air with two lego pieces each. He doesn’t want to say it again, Jimmy thinks, doesn’t want to give room for the thought to take off and fly. It’s the truth, but he doesn’t want it to be, not right now. He’s twenty-four, for crying out loud. He has his whole life ahead of him! Jimmy swallows. His mouth is strangely dry, making it hard to form the words he needs to say.
He can’t be a father…
He can’t be a dad.
Jimmy has never even met his own father, how is he meant to be a dad to someone else? A baby. He doesn’t mind children, he thinks that they can be funny and he’s always thought about maybe having kids of his own one day, but the last time someone tried to hand him a baby he panicked. They’re too small, too fragile, and Jimmy has always been clumsy and cursed with bad luck. Pearl laughed at him when he panicked, and B quickly took their baby from him, making it look effortless, but Jimmy had been terrified the whole time. He’d followed B all around that party, just hovering anxiously and looking at the little baby who was essentially his niece, even if he and Pearl aren’t actually siblings.
Cousins is close enough.
Jimmy can’t imagine how neurotic he’d be if it was his baby.
“I’m gonna be a dad,” He repeats, loud and clear.
All of a sudden, the room stops.
Joel and Grian’s bickering comes to a halt, and Jimmy’s face and neck heat with an unforgiving blush, because he can feel their shocked gazes on him. It’s silent, dust motes floating through the air in dazzling shades of iridescence. A click of a Lego feels like it echoes; Jimmy doesn’t mind. At least one person isn’t seemingly frozen in time, even if it is just Scar, with his Lego Death Star. That small action alone makes everything feel a bit more real.
“Timmy, what?”
“Oh, come on, lad, he’s got to be joking⎯”
“Do you see his face, Joel?! He’s pale as the bloody moon!”
“Jim?” He feels someone poke his shoulder insistently and blinks, snapping somewhat out of his daze. Slowly, Jimmy turns his head to Joel, lips parted but no sound coming out. Joel’s brown eyes go wide. “Oh, Jim. What have you done?”
“Should’ve known it, I reckon,” Grian mutters. “Never seen him come home that knackered before.”
“Shut up, Grian,” Joel says without once looking away from Jimmy. “Go on, then, Jimmy. Tell us the story.”
So Jimmy does.
He tells them all of it. Meeting Scott at that one café on the corner, hitting it off while waiting in line for their coffee. The way Scott’s eyes glittered when he said something sarcastic and teasing, how Jimmy was instantly smitten, because Scott was so cool and so stylish and would never go for him. It’s perpetually his type, after all, men and women way above his league. (Joel interjects with annoyance there, punching his shoulder in Jimmy’s own defence, and it makes him laugh, the weight on his chest feeling slightly lighter.) How Jimmy actually managed to muster up the courage to offer his number when it became clear that they’d have to part ways, and how better yet⎯
Scott said yes.
He tells Joel and Grian about how it wasn’t supposed to happen that fast, but they’d been texting and calling for weeks, on and off, even met back up in real life a few times, when Scott suggested that Jimmy come over to his apartment. He’d mentioned not having roommates, and Jimmy wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t want to be that pushy asshole who assumed things, either. So he brought condoms and lube, travel-sized, just in case, but never breathed a word of it to Scott. Scott made a wonderful dinner⎯ (“Way better than anything I could’ve done, you know me, I burn water.”)⎯ and after that, well…
“Okay, okay, shut up,” Grian interrupts, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t want bloody details about your sex life, Timothy. I think I can guess for myself what happened then. Jeez, already had to listen to you moon about the shade of the guy’s eyes for thirty seconds, and now you wanna make me listen to you recounting how you two fucked?”
Jimmy splutters.
“I’m a bit confused, though, Jim, how does this lead to you being a dad?” Joel says, brow creased. Jimmy takes a deep breath, suddenly sobering up. Grian, maybe sensing the atmosphere change, shifts around to get comfortable, all of his attention solely on Jimmy.
It’s a little overwhelming, honestly. Jimmy is used to flying under the radar with these two, used to not always being the centre of attention. Joel and Grian are both loud and argumentative and they love talking each other up the wall, and Jimmy is loud, too, but he doesn’t care for arguing just for the sake of it the way that his boys do. He’s okay with fading into the background a little because he knows that Grian and Joel still love him and care about him, even if they’d never say it outright in as many words. Besides, if Jimmy begins to feel like too much of a third wheel, he always has Scar to fall back on, and Scar is wonderful.
This much attention, though…
Jimmy tries to breathe past the weight pressing on his chest.
“Well, yeah, about that. Uh, Scott is trans?” He winces in preparation for the shouting to come in 3, 2, 1…
“And you didn’t use a bloody condom, Jimothy!?” Grian really does shriek this time, throwing his hands into the air and nearly whacking Jimmy on the side of the head. The movement seems to have given him the idea, because he goes right ahead and properly smacks Jimmy on the side of the head immediately thereafter. Jimmy pouts, clutching at his head and giving Grian the finger in retaliation. He knows he deserved that one for being stupid, but c’mon, he’s still got a raging headache! Grian could stand to be a little more courteous!
“Oh, I thought we raised you better than this,” Joel grumbles, nose wrinkled in what is probably faux-disgust, arms crossed over his chest as he gives Jimmy his best disapproving dad look. Jimmy blushes darker, nearly mortified, and looks down at his lap, head slightly bowed.
It was stupid, he can tell that much now, but they don’t get it. Scott is wonderful and amazing and a whirlwind, everything that Jimmy could never be in so many ways. He’s capable and clever and fun⎯ It wasn’t just his idea to not have a condom, either. Jimmy isn’t going to blame Scott for that, or make it seem like it was all his fault. He was okay with it, too, even jumped at the chance, really.
“I didn’t… I wanted to, at first, but you don’t understand, it was romantic, and, and there were⎯ I mean, he’d lit candles for God’s sake! How was I supposed to resist? We were both clean, and I really. I like him, okay? And he liked me back, and that never happens. He was on birth control, and with the testosterone, his chances of actually getting pregnant were supposed to be zero!” Jimmy finishes, exclamation edged with frustration. He knows that testosterone isn’t a replacement for birth control, but you’d think that between that and actual birth control, it would’ve been impossible for Scott to get pregnant.
But Scott isn’t a liar, and no matter how improbable it seems, it’s happened.
Joel sighs, bringing a hand down to pat his shoulder.
“You did the best you could, lad. No one would have foreseen this coming.”
“...Maybe he wasn’t on birth control at all,” Grian mutters. Jimmy’s head shoots up so fast he swears he feels his neck crack, gaze zeroed in on the other man. Grian holds his hands up in the universal sign of surrender at the glare he receives. “I’m just saying! Maybe he was lying! You don’t really know this guy, Timmy, you’ve only been talking for a few weeks!”
Joel looks troubled at the thought. “You don’t reckon he was tryna baby-trap Jim, do ya?”
“What? No!” Jimmy protests instinctively, looking between them incredulously. Who’d even⎯ Nobody did that these days! Why would anyone baby-trap him, anyways, when all he is is a failed actor with dwindling savings with a job at a bakery that one of his best friends owns? Talk about nepotism. “Scott wouldn’t⎯ Soctt wouldn’t do that, guys, stop it⎯”
“You don’t know him!” Grian exclaims again. “You’ve just met the fella in a coffee shop, Timmy, you don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“No, no, he’s not, he’s not baby-trapping me,” Jimmy snaps, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Because the last text he sent me after I missed our meetup this morning was to block him. A guy trying to baby-trap me wouldn’t say that.”
It’s quiet for several collective moments.
Jimmy’s chest heaves slightly and his whole face feels hot, but at least he’s gotten it out there. Scott had called him yesterday, sounding dangerously emotional, and told him the news, and Jimmy had mechanically agreed to meet up today, this morning… But instead he’d slept off his hangover long past his alarm until about mid-afternoon, and now he didn’t even know if there was a point to calling Scott, not when the man had told him very clearly to block him. Scott had never been the type to mince words, even less so over text, but Jimmy’s heart still aches at the callousness of it.
“What a dick,” Joel comments casually.
“It was a small mistake, he doesn’t need to be getting pissy about it,” Grian agrees, huffing. Jimmy frowns, sitting up straighter as he considers his friends’ words. They’re not wrong. It was a small mistake. It’s not like it was Jimmy’s fault he missed his alarm… Not really, anyway. He might’ve gotten smashed the night before, but only because Scott told him the news over the phone! What kind of person told important news strictly over the phone? That’s ridiculous. Jimmy would never have sprung that kind of surprise on Scott so indelicately.
“You’re right guys, and he told me over the phone, like, who does that with serious news? You should just ask to meet in person first!” Jimmy says loudly, sitting up straighter as he begins to get more heated. He didn’t ask for any of this, and to think that Scott was already refusing to give him a second chance, even after just one tiny mistake? Maybe it wasn’t even Jimmy’s baby!
“Yeah, lad, honestly, I say good riddance, you didn’t need him anyways.”
“You don’t have any obligation, Timmy, don’t you worry,” Grian assures, nodding.
“The way I see it,” Scar says from the floor, reminding Jimmy abruptly of his presence. The man doesn’t even turn his head, body angled entirely away from them as he concentrates on sorting through the pile of loose Legos between his legs. Deft fingers grab for a solid black piece, earning a small ‘aha!’, before Scar continues. “The way I see it, it takes two to tango, you know? S’all I’m saying. Two people to tango, two people to make a baby.”
For the third time, a silence falls across the room.
Scar hums idly, some vaguely Disney-like tune that Jimmy can’t place.
He sighs. Things had been getting a little too much there for a second, and he can always count on Scar to bring them sharply down to Earth. It’s sort of funny, when the man himself tends to always have his head in the clouds⎯ Scar is a remarkably grounding person. Jimmy knows, reasonably, that Scott didn’t do this to spite him. He’d sounded panicked and upset over the phone, and he’d been relying on Jimmy to show up this morning, so of course he got angry and sent a ‘block me’ text after hours of no-show.
Scott isn’t in the wrong here. He’s not the villain. Belatedly, Jimmy winces as he realises that he’s been acting exactly like he promised he wouldn’t⎯ A pushy asshole who assumed things. He should’ve known better; he was sure that Scott himself didn’t even know if he wanted a baby or not, and that he was just trying to do the right thing and involve Jimmy… The father of the baby. The father of the baby. Jimmy takes a deep breath.
There’s a real, human child involved in this, now. Regardless of what decision he and Scott come to, it won’t change the fact that it’s bigger than both of them, bigger than hurt feelings and wounded pride and stupid, stupid decisions. Jimmy has to act appropriately. He can’t be one more obstacle on this very hard road for Scott, no matter their end destination.
“I’m gonna call him,” Jimmy admits, squeezing his hands together.
“Yeah, that's good on you lad, good on you,” Joel says, smacking his shoulder. Grian nods.
“Be a bit rude t’leave him hangin’, I reckon.”
Jimmy’s lips twitch in a smile at the way his best friends both switch up. They’re good men, he thinks fondly. A bit too supportive at times, but good men at heart. He untangles himself from the mess of limbs on the couch and stands up, taking another few calming breaths as he glances amongst the three of them, Scar included.
“Wish me luck, then.”
“Break a leg!” Scar says cheerfully, snapping another piece onto the Lego Death Star. Grian shakes his head and rolls his eyes at the words, but it’s with a distinctly fond tone to the look, while Joel grins up at Jimmy.
“Good luck, Jim. You’ll be fine, and if you’re not, well, we’ve got you. Bad Boys stick together, eh?”
Grian nods firmly. “Bad Boys stick together.”
With that, Jimmy walks off in the direction of his room, bracing himself for a very long, very emotional conversation.
⎯end.