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“You’re not going to lift a finger until it comes,” Jon had said determinedly, both of Martin’s hands in his own, when he had learned Martin was pregnant. And, as it turned out, he had fully and quite seriously meant it.
Martin was not, to put it mildly, accustomed to being looked after or taken care of, and that was something that Jon knew very well, judging by the amount of determination he brought to bear. Martin was to rest, and Jon would not take no for an answer, and while Martin could be extremely stubborn, he had nothing at all on the man he’d chosen to spend his life with. Martin’s life for the next ten months would be one of ultimate comfort, pajamas and warm baths and lotion. He was to rest when he was at home, in bed or on the sofa, and when he was at work, he was on reduced duty. No heavy lifting, no follow-ups (Sasha and Tim understood, were more than happy to step up, Martin was high risk, after all), no danger. He was to get plenty to eat, and he was to let Jon handle everything for him. Whether he liked it or not.
And, as it turned out, Martin liked it quite a bit.
Oh, of course the first few weeks were quite the awkward adjustment; there was lots of gentle chastising from Jon. (“I-I just don’t like feeling useless - ” “Martin, you’re incubating what will soon become a baby. What part of that, pray tell, is ‘useless?’”) But it felt as if there was some sort of barrier in Martin’s mind, fragile as sugar glass, that kept him from accepting and enjoying what Jon was trying to give him. Pregnancy had made it all the more brittle. Once it was finally broken, he relaxed into the warm ocean of Jon’s care, where Jon was only too happy to have him.
Jon’s nesting instinct was stronger than Martin’s, their flat filling up rapidly with cushions and blankets, each softer than the last. Nightly, as soon as Martin exited the shower, Jon was there with a bottle of warm lotion, every single curve tended obsessively to until Martin was practically glowing with the care, pale skin smooth as satin. He rubbed his feet, his back, his shoulders, his neck, and true to his word, took care of everything from housekeeping to dinner.
And there was quite a lot of dinner, Jon taking the dubious fact that Martin was “eating for two” more seriously than perhaps anything else. He cooked double portions, he brought Martin cups of tea at work (decaf, of course) in an inversion of their prior relationship, he showered him in pastries fetched daily from all of his favorite spots. Martin ate, because he would have felt guilty not doing so, and because it was all excellent. Jon had not been the very best cook to begin with but he had improved rapidly during their time together, and especially since Martin had taken that positive test - quite early in the grand scheme of things, he’d just had a feeling.
By eight weeks, Martin was positively round, and Jon could not keep his hands off of him.
Martin had always been on the larger side. Broad, tall, solidly built; not exactly overweight, but not thin by any means. He had not expected to start showing until towards the tail end of the pregnancy…and he still wasn’t showing, not really. He was just getting fat.
“And no wonder,” he told Jon, complaining good-naturedly from his nest on the sofa, cushions at his back and blankets piled atop him. “I-I mean, the way you’ve been making a go at it…”
He gestured with both hands. There was a spoon in one and a pint of ice cream in the other…and dinner was in the oven, so this wasn’t even dessert. Just an after-work snack. One that he most certainly hadn’t needed, considering he had come home from the Institute so full he’d had to discreetly undo the button of his trousers beneath the hem of his jumper. He was going to have to break out the maternity clothes he was really not far enough along yet to need.
“It’s ordinary to gain weight during pregnancy, Martin,” Jon said stubbornly. “Healthy, even. Surely you know that.”
He had made his way in amongst the cushions, hands on Martin’s belly, as they increasingly often were these days, where he rubbed gently and surely, soothing the overindulgence he was himself responsible for. He wore his heart (or, in this case, something rather lower down, anatomically speaking) on his sleeve when it came to Martin’s stomach - when it came to all of Martin, but his stomach especially. Martin suspected his frequent and very welcome belly rubs served a threefold purpose: to actually make him feel better, to satisfy Jon’s own desire…and to check to see just how much more he could get into him, lest he go hungry for even half a second.
“Mm.”
“Anyway, hurry up and finish your ice cream,” Jon instructed, bossily as ever. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
So Martin did, then heaved himself up with a groan and headed to the table for dinner, where he allowed Jon to fill him nearly to the point of bursting before being helped up out of his chair and guided waddling to bed, where Jon wrapped himself around him, hands roaming over him with undeniable greed as Martin drifted happily off to sleep.
(That was as far as it ever went, which suited Martin just fine. Although he could not help thinking that it was rather his luck, getting knocked up from the one, singular time they had had sex in their relationship…either they had unintentionally timed things just right or he was insanely fertile. That was something Jon actually liked to talk about, to the point Martin wondered which he liked more: the weight, or the pregnancy itself.)
The next morning, as Martin buttoned up his shirt over the pillowy swell of his belly, Jon began uncertainly, “You know. If you. If you really don’t like it, we could - I can - ”
“Don’t you dare,” Martin told him, turning to catch him in a kiss.
And so Martin let himself be fed, and pampered, and fed, and spoiled, and fed, and fed, and fed, and the weight poured onto him where he sat at his desk drinking tea made with full-fat cream and eating pie day in and day out. His hips softened and spread to the point he positively had to jam them into his chair, his face became rounder and gained a double chin, and his tits swelled into heavy, pink-tipped mounds.
Most of the weight ran, of course, to his gravid belly, which seemed to grow rounder and wider by the day under Jon’s expert ministrations. With over three months left to go, when Martin was on all fours on their bed, the front of it touched the mattress.
“Hard to believe you’re only having one,” Jon muttered as he rubbed lotion into Martin’s plush flank. So far, not a single stretch mark. “You given any more thought to starting maternity leave early?”
“Mm.” Martin slowly lowered himself back into a sitting position, buttoning up his pajama top. It was difficult, fabric sinking into soft flesh. “Well, I’m only guaranteed the year…”
“Elias’d let you take longer.” And Martin had to admit he probably would. The director of the Institute had been tracking his pregnancy - his growth - with nearly as much interest as the sire of the baby; an awful lot of gift baskets had been finding their way to Martin’s desk and their flat.
“I’ll think about it,” he decided, and the buzzer rang.
“Ah - that’ll be the takeout. Your lunch.” Jon jumped off the bed, and Martin did not point out he’d already had lunch, instead enjoying the way that Jon only managed to rip his eyes from him once he’d rounded the corner. He laid down, reclining against the pillows, and put a hand on his middle with a soft huff.
The way things were going, Martin thought lazily, he might not be able to lift a finger by the time the baby came…