Never Love Again

137. Much Needed Advice

"I must have lost you in your thoughts again..."

"Oh, right!" Dad Joss stopped staring at Elric's protruding abdomen. "I'm still hung up on how you had to go and get yourself a tatoo, not to mention you kinda look different than the last time I saw you. I almost thought you were a different person."

"I've always wanted to get one."

"Why now?"

Elric squimered on the couch to a comfortable position and took the cup of tea that dad Robin handed to him. "You know what a tattoo is?"

"Tiny cuts made into the skin then applying ink into those cuts that even after the wounds heal, a lasting mark is left behind."

"You just had to go doctor on me huh?"

"Can't blame me here, it's in our blood." Dad Robin replied and sat down.

Elric smiled. He'd always felt at home around Stan's parents. 'I've really missed this place...and these two.' "Anyway, I meant to say getting one hurts, especially one as big as this." Lifting his shirt up, he exposed a thick line of stretchmarks from his lower belly coming up to the center of his stomach that both of Stan's dads still felt perplexed at the sight of them. Elric ignored their surprised look and shifted to his left side, revealing an art of a mahogany tree and below it were the four letters he'd earlier showed Niel sometime back. "I figured it's going to hurt like hell during child birth, might as well get some endurance lessons before hand."

After staring at the tatoo for a while, dad Joss broke the silence. "You must have loved pain to do this."

"You can't compare this to childbirth honey." Dad Robin glanced at his pair then back at Elric. "Ignore him dear, but he is right. Looks like you probably got this a week ago from how I see it. Aren't you scared considering you conceived much earlier? I also had Stannie at seven months and the repacutions were quite dire but you are carring two lives, three if we add yours."

"I'm going crazy everyday thinking how I'm going to tear open" Rubbing his belly, Elric formed s smile. " I just want to push them out and be done with it, but then, they are still backing."

Stan's parents looked at each other and nodded. There appeared to have been a nonverbal communication between them and when they shifted their gaze back to Elric, they seemed deeply concerned. "I can't say I fully understand how you feel. A lot of people would selfishly judge your statement without thinking that you're the one who has to go through that experience by yourself however, your fears are very much valid. As the carrier, I feel your pain and your need to protect the life of your child, or children for that matter. Maternal instincts when pregnant are very powerful. However, as your second parent and a doctor, I'd never have encoraged you to go this far. Perhaps that was why you kept this from us thinking we'd discourage you from keeping the pregnancy."

Elric took a sip of his tea and flinched. It tasted bitter and chose to place the cup back on the table beside him. "I can't share my fears with my mom, she'll worry too much not to mention, she has a lot on her plate at the moment. If I do tell Nelnel exactly what's on my mind, he'd freak out. It's hard keeping calm and instead of getting another tattoo out of stress, I figured I'd come here first and vent. I'm always hungry, my sense of smell and taste are heightened that every little thing keeps putting me off. I'm sweaty always, irritable, I have persistent headaches not to mention my swollen feet. I'm tired almost always and my vision becomes blurry every morning after a long nap. Nelnel tries his best but I seem to want more and more it's never enough." Elric covered his face with his hands. "Damn it, I feel like I'm loosing my mind everyday, I was never helpless and irritable as this."

"..."

"I'm I insensitive for saying that I wanted this pregnancy but now I regret everything? I could have just waited a little longer but I had to go and rush things between me and Nelnel. Look, we're married now yet we've hardly enjoyed a dating period to our fill." Elric showed Stan's parents his wedding ring.