The ABO Serum

Grafting Lives

When Lance selected the king-sized mattress to share with Jonathan, he made a miscalculation. He'd been expecting the man to be reluctant to consummate their relationship so he figured the large bed would help convince him they could sleep beside each other without touching. He did not expect three little boys to crawl into it in the night and lever him out. Stephanie shoved them all forcibly out of their nest four weeks ago, so it was natural for them to want to reconnect with their dad like this. Lance didn't fight it, but he couldn't help being a little miffed as he tried to fall asleep on the couch.

Jonathan slept soundly despite the random kicks and elbow jabs. He had his babies with him again and the niggling parental separation anxiety he'd been suffering since he went into quarantine finally let up.

In the middle of the night, Lance suddenly came awake and realized he'd forgotten to tell Jonathan than Izzy was wearing big boy underpants. He snuck back into the master bedroom and roused the little one for his midnight bathroom break. Then, he roused Zeke as well since he'd also been having accidents more often than not.

He normally found them in their big brother's room, and he worried about that. Now they were all with their father and he could see how they slept better. But he hoped this wasn't going to be a permanent arrangement. He couldn't imagine Stephanie as the kind of parent that let her kids sleep in her bed, so this was probably just a trauma thing and they'd go back eventually. He'd ask his mom about it. Maybe there was a way to help move along the process.

Looking at the four of them snuggled up, he felt a little jealous that he wasn't included. Jonathan wasn't a desperate female with nothing else going for him. He wasn't an ambitious woman who wanted the status of being Lance's wife. His omega was handsome and gentle and not female at all. That he could be attracted to a man threw his views on romantic relationships for a loop. Apart from his biological situation, this man neither needed nor wanted Lance in his life. He'd never met a woman who could say the same.

He remembered him from high school as a quiet boy who didn't get involved in anything. Now he was the Pentecostal church's central figure. He had a large congregation looking to him for spiritual guidance.

A contingent of church board members came to meet with Lance at his law office after he moved Jonathan out of the parsonage. They wanted to know his intentions. It was highly unusual for a pastor to divorce and even more so for him to take a husband after. Worse if they lived together outside of marriage. But with his biology changing, growing a womb...well, they just didn't know how to think about all of this. They wanted to hear from the pastor directly before they started looking for a replacement.

While Lance felt a general disdain for people who relied on religion to make decisions in life, he knew that losing his job, and possibly his identity as a pastor, would be devastating for his mate. It was good they wanted to hear from him directly, but it could go very poorly.

Despite the alpha kidnapping defense he was preparing, that demanded more time than he had, he took a few precious hours and got paperwork started to file for official separation and divorce on the grounds of abandonment. He gathered from his conversation with the church board members that living together while Jonathan was still married was even worse than divorcing. He also pulled a marriage application. He got all the documents together in a binder for Jonathan to sign and show when he met with the board that while they couldn't fight their biology, they would take every step to legitimize their relationship in the eyes of the law and, hopefully, God.

After some thought, he added official adoption filing papers for the boys to the back of the binder. He wanted his mate to know that he wanted all of them. Once Jonathan signed, he could start filing them in the proper order. There would be waiting periods and court visits, but unless Stephanie showed up to object, everything would go through eventually and they'd be a legal family.