All Kinds of Time

Five weeks later and Oliver had finished school for his Easter holiday and Joshua’s nursery was closed for Easter too. Gerard had spent the whole of Friday packing for their holiday in Grant’s house, with their flight to Scotland on Saturday. As soon as Oliver came home, he was trying to crawl inside the suitcases and zip them up, much to Gerard’s amusement.

“Are we going on an airplane, Daddy?” Oliver asked, poking up form inside a suitcase with a pair of jeans on his head.

“Yeah, Baby, we’re going on a big, big, plane.” Gerard said, trying to refold all the clothes that Oliver had crumpled.

“So I’m going to fly?” Oliver asked excitedly, pushing half of the contents of the suitcase out.

“Yeah.” Gerard nodded. “But we’ll get there quicker if you could get out of the suitcase.”

Oliver giggled and ducked back down. Gerard sighed and then heard a loud bang from the front room. Gerard rubbed a hand over his face and dropped the t shirts he was holding to go and see what Joshua had done to cause the noise. It turned out that he was sat in the living room and had knocked the coffee table over. Gerard swooped down to pick him.

“I don’t even know how you managed to do that.” He murmured, rocking Joshua from side to side to stop him from becoming distressed and crying.

“I was in a boat.” Joshua whined, pawing at Gerard’s face. Gerard smiled faintly and kissed the top of his head and decided to bring him into his and Frank’s room to keep and eye on him while he packed. As soon as he placed Joshua down on the bed, he immediately dived under the covers and began to crawl around underneath them. Gerard laughed to himself as he watched Oliver try to pounce on Joshua, who was crawling under the sheets. He began to fold more t shirts and jeans and packed some of Oliver and Joshua’s favourite toys.

Frank arrived home at five, having taken the next two weeks off from work (“I’ve delegated” He had said proudly when he came home last week) so that they could have a family holiday, and a much needed one at that.

“You need any help with that?” Frank asked as Gerard zipped up the biggest case. Gerard raised his eyebrows.

“It’s almost like you planned to arrive home just when I had finished packing.” Gerard said, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Never.” Frank gasped, bending down to pick up Oliver and throw him in the air. Oliver screamed in delight as Frank caught him, and wriggled in his grasp.

“We’re going to fly, Dad!” He squealed, hitting Frank’s chest. Frank chuckled and lifted him up to blow a raspberry on his stomach.

“You’re already flying.” Frank said, throwing him up again and making him squeal. Joshua peaked up from inside the sheets and a smile spread across his face as Frank threw Oliver lightly onto the bed, shouting “Fly, Ollie, fly!”

*

The plane ride to Scotland was better than the one to Florida a couple of years ago, when Joshua and Oliver were too young to know what was going on and were so scared that they screamed during the entire flight. This time though, they were far too excited to do anything but sit down, preferring to spend the whole bouncing in their seats and kicking the backs of the seats of the passengers in front of them.

“Sweetie, calm down.” Gerard said, trying to still Oliver as he practically buzzed during the flight. He had a hand on his temple as he could feel his familiar air sickness return, the nausea bubbling in his stomach. Having not flown for a while due to the children, he had forgotten how much he disliked flying.

“But Daddy!” Oliver protested. “I want to see the pilot.”

“You can’t see him, Ollie,” Gerard sighed, tucking some hair behind his ear. “He’s busy flying the plane. He has to concentrate very hard.”

“But Daddy!” He whined, crawling over the armrest and into Gerard’s lap. Gerard smiled and nuzzled his face into Oliver’s hair, his nausea subsiding.

“Are you excited to see Grant, Ollie?” Gerard asked, shifting slightly so that Oliver could wrap his arms around his neck and climb up his body.

“I want to play dress up with him again.” Ollie cried, pressing his small, sticky hand into Gerard’s cheek. Gerard turned his head and pressed a loud, sloppy kiss to his hand, much to Oliver’s disgust, and Oliver squirmed. Next to him was Frank, who had Joshua on his lap, who was staring out the window of the plane intently even though it was night and impossible to see anything. His small, chubby hands were spread wide on the glass, leaving dirty fingerprints. His mouth was open wide in fascination, even though he couldn’t see anything.

Oliver and Joshua finally fell asleep towards the end of the six hour flight with Gerard and Frank having to carry them through customs, waking them up only briefly for passport control. They had swapped children, so Gerard was carrying a sleeping Joshua, whose head was lolling over Gerard’s shoulder and with Gerard’s head on the back of his head, and Frank was holding Oliver on his waist as best he could. They managed to get a trolley for the suitcases and Oliver had woken up enough to sit on top of the suitcases piled on to it (as well as try to get onto the luggage carousel).

At eleven at night, UK time, they finally made it to the arrivals gate, where they saw Grant waiting for them, holding a sign bearing their name. Gerard laughed and nudged Frank, who pointed it out to Oliver. Oliver jumped off the cart and ran to Grant, getting swept up in his arms and swung around, shrieking and giggling loudly. Joshua was still fast asleep in Gerard’s arms as the reached Grant, hugging him in turn.

“It’s great to see you again.” Gerard smiled, kissing Grant on the cheek while trying not to crush Joshua. Oliver giggled and let Grant hold him, pressing his hand into his cheek.

“We’ve been looking forward to this for a while.” Frank said, hugging Grant and then going back to pushing the trolley of suitcases out to the car that Grant had parked in the airport car park.

“I’ve even cleaned the shack for your arrival.” Grant grinned, putting Oliver down to unlock the car door. He helped Frank unload their suitcases into the car and then Gerard and Frank got into the back of the car with Joshua still sleeping on Gerard’s lap and Oliver sitting in the middle seat.

They arrived at Grant’s house at around midnight and Oliver fell asleep during the car ride, so Frank carried him into Grant’s house and tucked him into bed in the guest room, still in his clothes. He was sharing the room with Joshua, who had been sleeping practically since they got off the plane, so Gerard carried him in and put him to bed in the bed next to Oliver’s. Gerard and Frank helped Grant bring in their suitcases, and after some quick conservation, departed to the room next to the children’s to sleep.

*

Gerard woke up the next morning to light streaming though the windows of the guest bedroom. He was chest to chest with Frank with Frank’s arm around his waist. He turned his head around as far as it could go to look at the clock on the bedside table; it was quarter to eleven. He turned back around and closed his eyes again - he rarely got time to sleep for as long as he wanted with Frank without their jobs or the children interrupting. Not that he minded, most the time. Gerard hoped that his boys were still asleep, otherwise he had a feeling that they could have been harassing Grant all morning.

Gerard relaxed again and moved closer to Frank, savouring the time in bed before, eventually, one of the boys would come in and jump on the bed until they woke up. After a few minutes, Gerard could feel the nausea from the plan journey yesterday rising in his stomach again and knew that his plan of lying in bed was doomed from the start. He got up reluctantly and shuffled over to the ensuite, as his body couldn’t seem to make up its mind as to whether he felt sick or not.

Unfortunately, it did make up his mind and that was how Frank found him, kneeling in front of the toilet, vomiting. Frank rooted around in their toiletries bag until he found some mouthwash for Gerard.

“I’m a shitty flier.” Gerard sighed, pouring out a capful of the mouthwash and swilling it round his mouth before spitting it out. Frank kissed him chastely and gave him a quick look of concern, weighing up whether he thought he was okay.

“Better go and see if the boys are awake.” He said finally, squeezing Gerard’s side.

They found Grant in the boy’s room, showing them a collection of action figures from various comic books that he had collected throughout the years. Joshua looked starstruck, but Oliver looked like he wanted to play with him and throw them around.

“Hey.” Gerard said, poking his head through the door.

“Hello, Daddy.” The boys chorused, not looking away from where Grant had them transfixed.

“Hello!” Grant greeted jovially. “Now your parents are up, time for breakfast, yes?” He asked the two boys, who seemed disappointed that Grant had finished showing them the action figures.

“Fine.” Oliver sighed in a put upon way, scrambling up, still dressed in his cowboy pyjamas. Joshua stared wistfully and only got up when Grant gently reminded him that they were there all week and could see them again.

They went down to the kitchen and had toast for breakfast, sitting just by one of Grant’s huge windows and looking outside.

“I was thinking we could go for a walk today and see the moors and show you city boys some sheep.” Grant said, pointing out various bits of the landscape to Oliver and Joshua.

“What do sheep do, Josh?” Frank asked, wiping some jam off Joshua’s face. Joshua screwed up his face in concentration.

“Baa?” He bleated, unsure, and smiling when he got a round of applause for his efforts.

*

After their late breakfast, they got dressed and headed outside to walk on the moors and fields. They managed to see a few fields of sheep and one of horses, both times having to stop so that the boys could ‘say hello’ to the animals and try to pet them through a fence.

“He’s smiling at me, Dad.” Oliver said, patting a sheep on the head. Frank didn’t have the heart to tell him that the sheep was probably finding Oliver’s actions more annoying that endearing. The boys loved being outdoors, constantly stumbling over rocks and tree stumps and rolling down hills. Frank helped Gerard take a picture on his phone as they tumbled down a hill, and then couldn’t help but kiss him as his cheeks were pink from the cold and his hair was windswept, which Grant caught a picture of on his phone.

It was warmer on the second day, and even though Gerard was still recovering from his airsickness, they went to an outdoor swimming pool as the weather was hot and sunny. This cumulated in Frank, Gerard and Grant playing games with Joshua and Oliver which involved pretending to be sharks and throwing them into the water. Grant even looked after the children in the evening while Gerard and Frank went to check out a club in the city and stumbled back at two in the morning.

The day after, they looked around an old castle and had to spend the day persuading Oliver to stop climbing up the ruins. Gerard ended up having to throw up in the bathrooms there, but was convinced after that that his nausea was over (Frank was sure it was the four shots he’d pounded the night before, but what did he know?).

*

It turned out that it wasn’t the end of his nausea, but it had always been a running joke int he family about Gerard’s intolerance for anything that travelled a few metres above the ground.

Frank and Gerard got up one morning to see Oliver and Joshua already up with Grant, questioning him about comics.

“It’s like they have no idea what you do for a living.” Frank snorted. “It’s like they don’t live with a comic book writer.”

“You tell them that, not me. Daddy’s never cool.” He sighed, pressing a kiss to Frank’s cheek and giving Grant a small wave.

“I told them my friend who draws Superman is coming over today.” Grant explained as Joshua pressed down hard on a piece of paper with a crayon to do a drawing of...maybe it was a person? Children’s drawings were hard to decipher, Frank thought. “Anyway, breakfast?”

“Thanks.” Frank said, flashing a grin. “Need help?”

“Not from you he doesn’t.” Gerard quipped, getting a smack across the head from Frank.

“You shouldn’t hit, Dad.” Oliver said loudly. “It’s mean and you’ll get put in the naughty corner.”

Frank tried to stop himself from laughing - the naughty corner being the corner of the room in his classroom with a chair where naughty children had to sit and face the wall to think about “what they had done”.

“Yeah.” Gerard smirked. “I’ll put you into the naughty corner.”

“You always have permission to put me in the naughty corner.” Frank muttered. Gerard grinned and rolled his eyes as he helped Joshua pack his colouring materials away so that they could make room for breakfast.

“My friend’s coming round in a bit so he’ll be having breakfast with us. Is bacon okay?” Grant asked, fishing a packet out of the fridge. “And I have vegetarian bacon too?”

“You are far too good to us.” Gerard smiled sincerely, squeezing Grant’s shoulder. Grant grinned at him and shook his head fondly as he got to work, opening the packets of bacon. Frank was trying to deal with a whining Oliver who didn’t want to get dressed.

As Gerard shoved Joshua’s crayons into his toy-bag, Grant threw the bacon into the frying pan and Gerard was hit with a wave of something he hadn’t felt since his first pregnancy, as they’d learnt to stay away from bacon while Gerard was pregnant. He felt bile rise in the back of his throat and knew he had a few seconds to try and make it to a bathroom before he threw up. He couldn’t even think about what it meant, all he could do was focus on not throwing up over Grant’s floor as he rushed to the ground floor bathroom.

“Gerard, are you okay?” Grant called from the kitchen as Gerard held onto the lid of the toilet seat and vomited, choking and spluttering as he realised what it meant. When he was sure he was done, he folded the lid down and his body crumpled so that he was sobbing into his knees. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, because everything made sense - the nausea, the headaches- god, he was so stupid. So, so stupid.

“No- No! Oliver, leave Daddy alone!” Frank called from outside as Gerard continued to sob. Frank edged towards the open door. “Gee...are you okay?”

Gerard squeezed his eyes even more firmly shut and continued to sob. In the kitchen he could hear Grant bravely making conversation with Oliver and Joshua to stop them coming into the bathroom. Frank stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“Gerard, what’s wrong?” He asked urgently, dropping to his side and putting a hand on the back of his neck. “Gerard?”

His tone was so full of concern, so frightened for Gerard’s wellbeing, that Gerard tried to choke out an answer.

“It...I can’t...I don’t...” Gerard choked, muffled by his sobs. Frank pulled him up and into his lap, comforting him.

“You’re scaring me.” He whispered into Gerard’s hair. Gerard buried his face into Frank’s neck and sobbed.

“It’s...I think...bacon.” Gerard gasped. He felt Frank’s body slowly freeze up as he pieced everything together.

“You’re...” Frank was speechless. “Was it...do you think it’s...?”

“It has to be.” Gerard sobbed, clutching onto Frank harder.

“Fuck.” Frank breathed, drawing Gerard closer to him. “God.”

Gerard tried to stop his tears by stuttering and choking until he finally calmed down enough to look at Frank. “It’s so, so dangerous, Frankie. I’m meant to be infertile. You know what the doctor said about having children at thirty. What do we do?”

Frank took one look at Gerard’s stricken, tear stained face and hugged him closer to his chest again. “We’re gonna - we’re gonna see if you are definitely first, okay? And then- then we’ll see. we’ll...look into all the options. See what the risks are. You’ll be fine, okay? Fine.”

Gerard breathed in deeply and hugged Frank tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He whispered. “I’ll make sure that you’re fine. We’ll harvest Mikey’s organs or something. Anything.”

“I trust you.” Gerard murmured, turning his head slightly to kiss Frank gently, a few tears slipping down his cheek. Frank brushed them away with the pad of his thumb.

“We’re going to go and pick up a home test, and if that’s positive, and only if, we’ll find a clinic to make sure. Then we’ll decide.” Frank said, calmer than before. Gerard nodded and rubbed at his eyes before standing up shakily and extended a hand to Frank.

Frank shrugged on a jacket and slipped into his shoes, still dressed in his pyjamas, as soon as they left the bathroom. “There was a pharmacy just down the high street, I’ll go and pick up a few, okay?”

Gerard rubbed his eyes and smiled weakly, giving Frank a quick kiss before he left.

“Have you been crying, Daddy?” Oliver asked tremulously from the doorway.

“Daddy’s just not feeling well, Sweetheart.” Gerard said, putting on a smile for Oliver. Oliver hesitated before running and wrapping Gerard in a hug, his small arms not even reaching all the way around his calfs. Gerard bent down to reciprocate the hug and pick him up to carry him through to the kitchen, even though the smell made him gag.

Joshua was sat at the table, looking at Gerard with a frown on his face. “I’m fine, Josh.” Joshua kept frowning until Gerard started to tickle him, placing Oliver down in a seat on the dining table to eat his breakfast.

“Are you okay?” Grant asked, placing a hand on Gerard’s lower back. Gerard ran a hand through his hair and pressed his palms into his eyes.

“We think we may have a problem.” Gerard said in a low voice, so that his sons, who was chatting to each other couldn’t hear him. “A...um...growing problem. That was declared medically impossible a month ago.”

Grant whistled lowly. “Jesus, Gerard.”

“I know. I have no idea what to do.” Gerard whispered. He felt Grant pull him closer and wrap him in a tight hug.

“There’s a clinic about a ten minute drive from here.” Grant said, once they had finished hugging. “You have travel insurance, right?”

“Yeah.” Gerard sighed. “Yeah. Frank’s gone out to get tests but if they turn out positive, which they probably will, we’ll make an appointment. God, way to put a damper on the holiday.”

“It could turn out to be a good thing.” Grant said, squeezing his shoulder.

“Yeah...but, god, it’s so dangerous, Grant. Baring in mind that I was declared infertile, I was told after Joshua’s birth that having another child wasn’t advisable, never mind having one when I was thirty. It may be normal for women, but thirty’s pretty old for a man to have a baby.” Gerard sighed.

After a while, Oliver and Joshua got restless and were whining that they were bored.

“Well we’re going to the science museum today, but you’re going to need to get dress first though!” Gerard chirped, helping Joshua scramble down from his chair. As they were climbing up the stairs, Gerard heard the front door open.

“Hey.” Gerard greeted him softly. Frank smiled and shook off his coat, handing Gerard the bag.

“I got about five, each one is a different brand.” Frank said kicking his shoes off. Grant appeared by Gerard’s side with a glass of water, which Gerard took gratefully.

“See you in a minute.” He joked weakly.

“He doesn’t like me watching him piss on the stick.” Frank explained to Grant as Gerard downed the glass of water and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Gerard only managed to use two of the tests at a time, but once he was done he went outside to wait for them to develop with Frank and Grant.

“Daddy, what are those?” Oliver asked as he edged down the stairs.

“Nothing, Sweetheart.” Gerard said, running a hair through Oliver’s hair as he came up to Gerard. “I can’t look at it. Someone tell me what it says.”

“Why can’t you look at it, Daddy?” Oliver whined, tugging on Gerard’s leg. Gerard bent down to pick him up and kiss his hair.

Frank was silent for a few seconds as he and Grant stared at the tests. “They’re positive.” He said finally.

“Well then.” Gerard breathed.

“What’s positive?” Oliver asked, tugging at Gerard’s ear.

“Just a test to see if Daddy’s well. And he’s fine. So you don’t have to worry.” Gerard said, flashing Frank a worried look over his shoulder.

“I want to see the science museum!” Oliver exclaimed, apparently over his worry for the pregnancy tests.

“Yeah, we’ll go in a minute. You want to grab your coat for me?” Gerard asked, shifting Oliver around.

“You’re so slow, Daddy. Let’s go!” He whined, frowning.

“I’ll help him find his coat.” Grant offered as Gerard put Oliver down. He and Frank waited until they were out of earshot.

“So I guess we just make an appointment and...see what happens.” Frank said, taking Gerard’s hand. Gerard exhaled.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s book one when we get back.” He said, touching Frank’s cheek and kissing him softly, breaking away only when he was interrupted by Oliver, begging them to leave.

“I just need to get your brother.” Gerard said and Oliver practically vibrated.

“Daddy! Let’s go!” He turned around to Frank with wide eyes. “Science!”

“I know, Ollie. We’re going as fast as we can, we swear.” Frank said.

“Dad...” Oliver sighed, in a put upon way. Frank tried to suppress a smile and rolled his eyes.

“We’re ready!” Gerard called as he wrestled Joshua into his coat, grabbing his phone before they bundled out the front door.