Good Day Sunshine

Four

Warning: Scenes of mpreg childbirth!

~~

"In here is best, it's safe and clean" - Mew lending both arms to guide Gulf up the short flight of steps and over the threshold into the reverently hushed, calm cavern of a simple, pinewood 'beach' hut, best shelter from summer sun's energy-sapping fervour.

Yet did he succeed in disguising the tremor of his veined hands? The fact that the louder breaths in that quiet place were his own raggedy gulps? The surely deafening heartbeat that thudded as bass drum through every mortal inch of his body?

Damn, how could his omega be so composed? So serene and collected? Mew questioned as he transferred sleeping elder children to the little hut's curious scene in their carriers, trusty emergency medical bag strapped to his shoulder once again.

Because this time - unlike 18 months earlier in the cave - the one labouring wasn't the anticipated, anonymous patient call out. He was his Gulf, his one and only, right there beside him.

"Mew" - a gentle voice seeking and finding him writhing, trapped in a quagmire of tangled anxieties - graceful fingers interlocking with his own, squeezing unworded comfort.

The omega had known it would be this way and told him so, why hadn't he listened? Trusted those primal bonds? 'Idiot...damn fool', he berated internally. Then looking up - meeting only warmth, acceptance in the gaze opposite.

"I get it", the younger said simply. "But we can do it, together. My body knows the map this time, thirak"

And it was the term of endearment that broke him: Instantaneously, tears of panic Mew had blinked back in shame for months, bursting their banks in roaring tidal wave - elder man rubbing furiously at cheeks as he battled to regain 'alpha' control. Yet the more he fought them, the stronger choking sobs racked his hunching frame, terror swelling that invisible lump at the back of his throat, vision blurring as he felt the crushing weight of the moment, all upon his chest until he really couldn't breathe.

Not a 31 year old father and mate and expert paramedic, but a little boy lost, scared and helpless, some echo of a childhood he, too, wished never to hear from.

Until a smell, a familiar smell. A divine, siren song of a scent that stroked his trembling still, that kissed his airways open and shushed that lurking demon duo of fear and failure, and when Mew straightened up as his adult self, he was being forcibly held at Gulf's neck, inhaling shakily from his scent glands - the best comfort a mate could give.

His palms had been placed upon the younger's belly, rooting. He could feel the life inside. Their babies' river flow of movement, a natural current which would soon deliver them into his waiting arms.

So, with last fortifying, vitalising breaths of the enchanting cherry orchard...

He was ready, ready to give his mate everything all over again with every pulse of his alpha heart.

Because if loving his family was his definitive weakness, then that would be his strength now:

"Omega, my name is Mew. I'm a paramedic and I'm here to help you - forget everything else".

//

With memories of Tay and Lay's arrival as coordinates, the elder man had been keenly aware that the delivery could well be rapid - a second birth tending to be sprint to the first's marathon, in the case of male omega carriers and their anatomical shifts. Text book emergency obstetrics training, khrub.

So it was no surprise when - after little more than half an hour of mutually soothing scenting, of gentle massages to his mate's lower back, of soft encouragement whispered over and again into ears as pain intensified her vengeful whip and thrashes - Gulf had lifted his head from its place of comfort upon Mew's shoulder, to groan: