DIFFERENT

31 -- Michael

My Darling lovely Readers !

Our two handsome Princes have a daughter !  Who knew !  The Kingdom is celebrating the news, and Prince Laurent is beside himself with joy !  But how will our Mommy-Daddy Prince Larry take the news ? ....... ....... ........ 

"What ? ........... I'm sorry, what ?"

Deja vu all over again, again.

The phrase sounded familiar, and it was.  It was the same question Laurent had asked when the doc told him that Larry was pregnant.  The doc just grinned at his incredulity.

"Who knew ?  We should have, but we didn't !  We saw nothing on the scans, even Larry's bloods came back 50/50 male to female.  And as every other hermaphrodite born was male, we just carried on assuming the baby was, because we didn't have any evidence to the contrary."  Laurent was still holding his daughter as he was a few seconds ago, gently, adoringly.  He looked at her now, the full weight of this new reality hitting home.  A girl.  A daughter.  She was so pretty, he thought to himself.  She looked like Larry, of course she would be beautiful.  She was going to be a stunner.  He already had thoughts of standing at the front door, one second past his daughter's curfew, waiting to address the young man, or woman, who dared bring her home too late.  The first time she said "Papa", her first day at school, her sweet sixteen, her tears falling on his chest as she cried in his arms over a lost love, her graduation, her wedding, her first child.  It all flew through his mind in a split second.

"A daughter ?"  he repeated, rearranging her in his arms, his tongue escaping the corner of his mouth in concentration, but his lips pursing in kissing and cooing mode just as quickly.

Larry.

"Larry !"  he said nervously to the doc.  Larry would be awake soon, asking to see his boy, his son.  Laurent's heart leaped almost in fear at the idea that Larry would be upset.  How could he not be pleased to have a daughter though ?  They had a healthy, beautiful princess that would be loved beyond measure, more than their two lives put together, to the moon and back, and every other children's nursery book title you could think of.  It would take them a while to get their head around the idea of having a girl, but ....... blue.  A lot of the things they had been given, especially from sponsors and endorsements, had been blue.  But that was OK.  Both Laurent and Larry had committed to gender neutral colors, she would wear blue occasionally, so what ?  She would also wear a little pink, but they would not engulf her in it, as some new parents tended to do, Laurent had decided already.  A girl, a daughter, Daddy's and Papa's little Princess.  They had already decided that Laurent would be Papa, and Larry would be Daddy.  

As Laurent held her, still weeping, blinking his tears away, he didn't ever want to let her go, not now, not ever.  Unless it was to give her to Larry, and even then, he would want her back immediately.   As his angel lay sleeping in his arms, he looked over at Larry, still under the effects of the anesthetic.  To have endured what he had endured, to be as unique as he is, and now to have turned the medical world on it's ear, again.  It was something he couldn't wrap his head around, not yet anyway.   As Laurent still gurgled and giggled and cooed at his princess, the doc needed to speak to him now.

"Laurent ?"  He looked up at the doc again, his eyes glistening with tears, the broadest smile virtually splitting his face in two.

"You guys are still gonna have to go through some stuff, you know that, right ?  Larry's hormones still have to level out, they won't just disappear overnight.  It's possible, especially with this new turn of events, that he could experience some postpartum depression, this will be a complete shock to him.  But we'll be here to help you both, should that be the case."  Doc was hoping it wouldn't, these guys had been through enough.  He continued,