Take Me to Bits (Put Me Together Again)

Mike’s sitting on the floor in the bathroom, leaning back against the door, tossing a used pregnancy test from hand to hand. There’re three others on the floor beside him, all displaying the same result. Mike wonders briefly if there’s any more left, if it’s worth checking one more time.

“Mike?” Bill calls, his voice muffled through the door. “You done yet?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a few moments of silence, then: “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, knocking his head back. “Shit.”

He hears Bill slide down the door on the other side. “It’s Kevin’s, isn’t it?”

Mike frowns for a moment – Kevin who? – but then he remembers and his eyes go wide. “Shit,” he repeats.

“Didn’t you use protection?” Bill asks, and even through the wood Mike can hear the accusation in his voice.

“Of course we did,” Mike snaps, irritated. “What are you, my mom? Condom must’ve broke or something.”

“You gonna tell him?”

“I don’t know, should I?”

“Depends. Are you going to keep it?” Bill asks, carefully neutral.

“Come on, Bill, are you serious?” Mike gives a hollow laugh. “I’d be a shitty dad.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

Mike blinks a few times, fingers tightening around the test clutched in his hands. “Yes,” he says, quietly, “I would. Doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t want it.”

“Okay,” Bill says, calmly placating, and that’s the end of it.

***

Kevin’s on his way out of the film studies centre, books clasped to his chest, when he catches sight of Mike skulking outside and grinds to a halt.

“Mike,” he says, hoping he doesn’t look quite as shocked as he feels. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” Mike says, detaching himself from the wall he was leaning against. “Can we go somewhere more private?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Kevin says, and leads Mike over to one of the benches some way away from the building.

“So,” Mike says, when they’ve sat down, “you’re a film major.”

Kevin nods, jerkily. “How’d you know?”

“I got Bill to ask your friend, Demi?” Kevin nods in silent confirmation. (Demi’s the only one of his friends who hasn’t ditched him after what happened with Mike, and he has a sneaking suspicion it has a lot to do with the fact that she’s dating his brother.) “She said you come here every Tuesday.”

Kevin nods again, feeling like one of those dogs that live in the back window of people’s cars. “So what’s this about, Mike?” he asks carefully. It’s been a month and this is the first time Kevin’s seen him or talked to him; he figures he’s allowed to be suspicious.

Mike shifts, as if suddenly remembering why he’s here. “I’m pregnant,” he says, gaze flicking up from the floor to study Kevin’s face. “You’re the father.”

Kevin’s eyes go impossibly wide. “Shit,” he says, with feeling. It sounds strange coming out of his mouth, like it isn’t used to forming the word. “Are you sure?” Mike gives him a look. “Sorry, yeah, of course. So, um, are you keeping it?”

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t want it,” he says, shrugging. (He could pretend it’s because a baby would get in the way of his education, that he’s too young for the responsibility, that he wouldn’t be able to afford it. All of those things are true, technically, but they aren’t the truth and he doesn’t want to lie to Kevin.) “Bill’s taking me to get an abortion in a couple days.”

“Oh, okay,” Kevin says, nodding hard.

Mike eyes him suspiciously. “Is that all you got to say, Jonas? I thought you were really religious. Shouldn’t you be begging me to reconsider, to think about the baby I’m killing?”

“It’s your body,” Kevin points out, reasonably enough. “If you want to have an abortion, I don’t have the right to try and stop you. I just-” Mike arches an eyebrow and Kevin blushes, glancing away. “Nothing, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, come on, what do you just?”

“It’s not fair, I don’t want to-”

“Kevin,” Mike says sharply, “do you want the baby?”

Kevin bites his lip. “I love kids,” he says softly, by way of an answer. “I’d love to be a dad.”

“Oh,” Mike says, at a loss for words. “I- shit, Kevin, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Kevin assures him, his smile too bright to be real. “You don’t want it, it’s fine, I totally understand. Thanks for telling me, anyway.”

“Yeah, no, it’s no problem,” Mike mumbles, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Figured you had a right to know.”

Kevin smiles again, but it’s softer this time. “Well, thanks. I appreciate the thought.”

He shifts like he’s about to get up to leave and Mike blurts out, “How’ve you been, by the way?”

“Uh, okay,” Kevin says, shrugging. “Been working pretty hard, but things haven’t been too bad.”

(Even if Mike hadn’t heard the things people say about Kevin or seen the way he’d walked out of the building, hunched-over and ever-wary of passers-by, he’d know he’s lying. Kevin’s cheeks are flushed and there’s a tense set to his jaw and he’s looking anywhere but at Mike. Mike’s stomach does that churning thing again, but he thinks he’s starting to realise what it means.)

“I should probably be going, actually,” Kevin continues, rising to his feet with a graceless dignity Mike can’t help but admire. “Guess I’ll see you around, then?”

“Yeah, I guess. Bye Kevin.”

“Goodbye, Mike.”

Mike watches Kevin’s retreating back until it’s disappeared around the corner and then he puts his head in his hands.

***

“Let me get this straight,” Joe says, narrowing his eyes. “The guy you had a one-night stand with a month ago is pregnant with your baby.” Kevin nods. “And he’s not keeping it.”

“He doesn’t want it.”

“But you do.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kevin says, staring hard at the floor. “I’m not the one who’s pregnant.”

“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” Joe asks.

There’s no bite to his tone, just curiosity, but Kevin bristles anyway. “I can’t.”

“Kevin-”

“This is such a mess, Joe. It was bad enough that I slept with him, but now he’s pregnant and I-” Kevin gulps down his guilt and glances away. “They’d be so ashamed of me.”

“No they wouldn’t.”

Kevin plays with his ring finger, twisting the bare skin. He took the ring off nearly a month ago; it burnt with a reminder of what he’d done every time he looked at it. “Yes,” he says quietly, “they would.”

Joe narrows his eyes. “Do you think I’m ashamed of you?” Kevin doesn’t answer. “Kevin?”

“Aren’t you?” Kevin whispers, his voice cracking in the middle, and Joe pulls him into a fierce hug without a word.

***

“Mike?” Bill calls, his voice muffled through the door. “Come on, your appointment’s in an hour, you better not still be asleep.”

Mike isn’t asleep. Mike’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, fingers tracing vague circular shapes around his bare belly button. For a moment he thinks he feels something inside him return the motion, tap back against his belly, but he knows he’s imagining it because it’s far too early for him to feel the baby moving. It’s too small to be significant, right now; it’s not even a foetus yet.

“Mike?” Bill opens the door and steps inside, head cocked to one side. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Mike frowns down at his mostly flat stomach, trying to imagine himself big and round and bloated. “Just had a weird dream, that’s all.”

“Huh,” Bill says, peering down at him, an inscrutable expression on his face. “You ready to go?”

Mike looks up, his hand stilling on his stomach, and bites his lip.

***

He doesn’t go to the clinic.

He goes to Kevin’s apartment instead.

***

Kevin’s eyes widen when he opens the door; Mike is probably the last person he expected to see standing on his doorstep. “Mike, hi,” he says, glancing behind him. When he looks back at Mike, he’s shifted the door ever-so-slightly so it’s all but closed behind him. “What do you want?”

“I didn’t get an abortion,” Mike blurts out, before he can think himself out of this. “I- shit, I’m no good at this, but I- I could have the kid. If you wanted it. And then you could take it when it was born. And then you’d get to be a dad. If that’s what you want.”

Kevin’s face is caught somewhere between shocked and hurt. “Come on, Mike, it’s not that simple-”

“You want this baby. I don’t.” Mike shrugs. “Seems pretty simple to me.”

“You’d be carrying it for nine months,” Kevin says, carefully. “You’d have to have it inside you and watch it grow, watch yourself grow. You sure you want that?”

(No, Mike isn’t sure he does at all. But he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the look in Kevin’s eyes when he said that he’d love to be a dad, fond and wistful and kind of a little bit heart-breaking. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, Mike is not a complete asshole. If he can do this for Kevin, he thinks it’ll maybe make up for the fact that the rest of his life sucks right now and it’s sort of Mike’s fault.)

“Yep, I am,” he replies, with more calm than he feels. “It’s only nine months, right? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Plenty,” Kevin says, his lips pressed together in a worried line. “It’s not just the pregnancy, it’s everything that happens after. A baby is a massive responsibility, Mike.”

“I fucking know that, but you said you wanted it,” Mike snaps.

“I do,” Kevin says softly. “I do, Mike, but this is a big deal. Do you, I mean, do you really want to carry a baby for nine months just to hand it over to someone else?”

“I-”

“Is that Carden?” comes a disbelieving voice from somewhere in the apartment, cutting off what Mike was going to say. Kevin groans and puts a hand to his face. “What the hell is he doing here?”

Mike arches an eyebrow as a slightly taller, slightly better-looking version of Kevin – his brother? – pops up behind him, glaring at Mike like he’s the reincarnation of Satan or something.

“Carden’s just going, actually, not that it’s any of your business,” Mike says blandly, looking straight at Kevin. “Think about what I said, yeah? I’ll see you around.”

“What did he say?” Kevin’s brother demands. “Kevin, what’s going on?”

Mike doesn’t wait for Kevin’s response before turning and trudging back to his own apartment, hands shoved in his pockets.

***

When Mike gets back to his and Bill’s apartment after seeing Kevin, it’s filled to bursting with virtually everyone they know. It isn’t quite as impressive a list as Pete’s but is still nothing to be sniffed at. Or stuffed into one apartment. Mike throws Bill a dirty look but Bill only gives him a beguiling smile in return and spreads his hands, the picture of innocence.

Pete bounces over to Mike the moment the door shuts behind him, puts a hand on his stomach and says, very earnestly, “Congratulations, Carden. I hear you’re gonna be a mommy!”

Mike glares at him and he backs away, laughing. The rest of them laugh too because Mike’s friends are assholes and, seriously, he hates them all.

“I wanna be its godfather, can I be its godfather?” Brendon asks, eyes wide and excited.

“Hey, I’m going to be its godfather,” Bill says sharply. “He’s my best friend.”

“The best friend who can’t keep a secret to save his fucking life,” Mike says pointedly, rolling his eyes as he goes to shove Jon over so he can actually sit down on his own bed. (He doesn’t point out the fact that the baby won’t need a godfather, not on his side anyway.)

“Hey, I didn’t realise it was supposed to be a secret!” Bill protests. “You never said.”

“So who’s the baby daddy, then?” Victoria asks, head cocked. “Or don’t you know?”

“The Jonas kid,” Mike says, figuring the <i>duh</i> is evident in his voice. “Who else would it be?”

He tries not to be offended by the look of shock on everyone’s face except Bill’s. He isn’t very successful.

“You sure?” Ryland asks, cautiously. Mike would be pissed off at him if the same question weren’t painted on everyone else’s face as well.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Mike says evenly, “but I hadn’t fucked anyone for a while before Kevin and I haven’t fucked anyone since, so I am absolutely certain that he’s the one who knocked me up, okay?”

Bill rolls his eyes. “Jeez, I thought the hormonal bitchfits weren’t supposed to kick in for another few months yet.”

Mike flips him off and everyone laughs. He is not hormonal, dammit, he just has unsympathetic bastards for friends who seem to think he’s some kind of slut. (Which he isn’t, okay, he just likes having sex. What the fuck’s wrong with that?)

“I wish I was pregnant,” Brendon says, a wistful edge to his voice. “I’d love to have kids. You want kids, right, Spence?”

Every head in the room swivels to look at his boyfriend. Spencer’s face blanches and he manages, “Yeah, Brendon, I’d love to have kids. You know... someday.”

Patrick promptly holds out his hand, palm up, and Joe grumbles something under his before reluctantly pulling out a twenty dollar bill.

“You bet on whether Spencer would let me have his babies?” Brendon gasps, outraged.

Patrick just snorts, refraining from mentioning the pool they’ve got on how long it’ll take the two of them to get hitched. (Mike bet three years but someone bet six months which- well, actually, he wouldn’t be surprised.)

“Shit, you’re going to have a baby,” Chislett says suddenly, like he’s only just realised that important piece of information. Mike rolls his eyes, all no duh, but then Chislett shakes his head and continues, “No, no, you’re actually gonna have a baby, there’s a little baby Mike growing inside you!”

“Yes, Michael,” Mike says patiently. “That is generally what happens when you get pregnant. You do get the birds and the bees talk down under, right?”

“No, I mean-” Chislett breaks off to snicker. “You’re gonna get huge. You’ll be like a whale for months.”

“You won’t even need a costume for Halloween at this rate,” Dallon puts in, looking gleeful.

Mike narrows his eyes but the others all burst out laughing and Brendon starts making ridiculously over-exaggerated whale noises – Mike strongly suspects he’s imitating Dory from that movie about the clown fish, Finding Emo? – and then the rest of them join in and, seriously, seriously, Mike hates them all.

“I hate you all,” he informs them, flopping down on the bed and burying his head in the pillow.

“No you don’t,” Bill says, the laughter audible in his voice.

“Yeah,” Mike murmurs, his voice muffled by the pillow so no one else can hear.