Medication, Part 7

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Summary: All his life, Tristan’s mother forced him to take a daily medication, but never really told him why. After Tristan goes off to college, he starts skipping doses, and finally realizes just what the medication is for. Monthly mpreg. Contains: Male: belly expansion, breast expansion, butt expansion.

Previous Chapter

-

It was a small group. Tristan, Tim, and Miguel. James, one of the junior medics, had insisted on coming along as well.

Tristan had a runny nose, but he was sure it was pregnancy-related. It was probably nothing.

He was growing rapidly and it was rather overwhelming, especially with spectators, and getting used to his center of gravity shifting throughout the trek when he just wanted to rest. The others looked to him as though they were not certain if he had always been so round. He looked a full six months along and it was getting harder than ever to keep the baby under wraps.

Miguel guided the small group through the forestry. Tristan hung in the back, partly so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the sensation of having the others stare at him for the whole journey, and partly because he was the slowest and hadn’t much of a choice in the matter, his belly resting atop his narrow pelvis, its weight at the cusp of making him waddle.

He hated the way his nipples rubbed against his shirt, irritating them into swelling and stinging, his flesh keeping up, swelling to the stimulation, thinking there was already a baby to nurse.

And he hated the way his tactical shirt was stretching worse day by day, unable to accommodate his rapidly burgeoning body. He had untucked it, allowing it to hang free of his waistband to keep it from framing his belly even more than necessary. Besides, his pants button had finally snapped apart. He knew that untucked clothes made him liable to bug bites, but he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. Miguel was already sending him dubious looks throughout the day, sometimes doing a double-take, and Tristan would awkwardly rest his hand on his gut, trying to hide the protrusion of his belly button which might as well have been a flashing neon PREGNANT sign as far as he was concerned. He felt embarrassed, ashamed, and potentially judged, and he didn’t even know why. His bizarre medical condition was hardly his fault. He wasn’t sure how women dealt with this. Tristan sneezed.

“You okay, man?” James turned back.

Tristan was regretful that the group’s attention shifted to him. Despite it, he took advantage of the moment to stop walking and catch his breath. He was exhausted from Miguel’s ambitious pacing. “Yeah,” he said.

“Just another four hours.”

They had been walking all day and sunlight was already beginning to wane. Tristan knew it was an emergent situation, but it was tough, and he was miserable. His back was aching, nipples stinging, belly uncomfortably tense and pressurized, with gas pains that bubbled up forcing him to disguise his burps. He was sweaty and sticky, hot and flushed. He felt uncoordinated in his fatigue, his legs numbly moving beneath him. But he needed a break. He wanted to stop desperately. Of course, that wasn’t an option.

“We need to keep moving,” said Miguel impatiently. He again eyed Tristan in a dubious manner.

“Yeah,” said Tristan, feeling vaguely delirious. “Yeah,” he repeated.

He found that he was constantly being forced to exert himself physically while pregnant—admittedly, he was a physical person. But this aspect of his personality didn’t coincide with secret maternity. He wondered if he shouldn’t just own up to his condition, become a doting mother-to-be, and hope for society to accept him. It would certainly be easier. Mortifying, but simple. Tristan sighed. “Yeah,” he mumbled again, dragging his legs forward as the others started walking. His hand settled on the curve beneath his belly. The pressure was getting unbearable. Only the in the past few hours, it had begun to really shift forward, pushing outward, the size becoming too much for his abdominal cavity and slowly popping outward as he reached the final “trimester” of his month-long incubation. It was day nineteen after all. He could feel gentle movements, kicks and nudges, and wished he could just sit down as his body adjusted to it all.

Just a few more hours, Tristan reminded himself as he panted. They had to get the treatment. Ensure that Fiona and the others were safe. And if they stayed on track with Miguel’s pace, they might even catch their flight home.

Tristan thought of the lengthy process of flying, going through immigration, transferring, clearance and exit interviews, medical checks, then the long train ride back to his college. Was the prospect of keeping his pregnancy concealed through all that really plausible? Even if they managed to catch the flight out and did perfect with time throughout the rest of the process, and he somehow made it through the health tests without his condition being noticed, by the end, he would be in the last days of pregnancy and close to dropping. He was doomed either way. Tristan bit his lip.

By the time they stopped to set up camp, he was suffering a fit of coughs. They were so harsh and forceful, his stomach ached with each one. He held his gut and leaned back heavily on a tree trying to regain his breath and get control of himself.

“Hey, are you okay?” said James, coming over.

“Fine,” Tristan forced out, wanted him to back off, admittedly panicking.

“Tristan, let me check you—” James abruptly stopped speaking, his face going slack. Tristan stiffened in shock as James collapsed at his feet. In the back of his neck, a feathered dart protruded from his skin.

Tristan slowly looked up to see the shadows of figures approaching from the edges of the clearing.

“Run!” Miguel shouted.

Everyone fled in different directions. It was a confused jumble of movement. Tristan found himself running by instinct, and wasn’t sure he would have been able to were it not for adrenaline. They had accidentally stumbled upon a group of the tribespeople and not to a warm welcome.

Somewhere to his left, someone else went down, but Tristan didn’t see who it was. He tore out of the clearing as fast as he could, suddenly unconscious of his heaviness, achiness, his persistent cough, and the twinges of pain in his belly. He just had to get out of there, keep himself safe—keep the baby safe. Tristan continued to run, putting a good amount of distance between himself and the clearing, and just as he was sure he was a good enough distance, just when he was sure he was out of peril—

There was a stinging pain on the back of his hand, like a bug bite. Tristan slowly lifted it, surveying the orange-feathered dart protruding there.

“Oh…” he said dumbly.

Everything went dark.

It was dark for a while.

-

Tristan awoke to an explosion of senses. Brightness, heat, odors, and most jarringly, pain, excruciating pain squeezing his abdomen and rendering him unable to breathe.

He screamed and struggled, but hands pinned his shoulders down to the rough surface he was sprawled against. He clutched his stomach, and was startled by how large it was. Huge actually. He felt as though he was big enough to—oh.

He tensed and groaned through another contraction, hips twitchig, backside tight and stinging, and full of that unbearably pressure. “Oh god,” he choked out, his hand trembling as it slid to his hip. It felt as though the baby was already beginning to crown. What the hell had happened? How long had he been out?

It took a while for his eyes to adjust, and he could make out strangers through the beaming sunlight. Figures, with long hair, and brown, painted faced. The tribespeople. They had captured him. He was in a tent, and several were hovering over him, with wide, staring eyes.

An elderly woman turned and murmured something, and then the tent flaps closed, shutting out a good deal of the light, so his eyes stopped stinging, and he no longer had to wince.

“What happened?” he croaked, his throat incredibly dry.

But there was no comprehension on any of the hovering faces.

“Thoom-bah,” the woman said, pointing at his abdomen.

Tristan looked down at himself. He truly was huge. He belly was flushed and tight, sticking out from the shirt he still had on. The bottom buttons had been undone—or had broken off, one or the other, so that the bare flesh heaved visibly. His pants had been shoved down his hips, his knees drawn up, so the tribespeople could gaze down at his opening. It was humiliating.

Tristan cried out as his belly contracted and he pushed by instinct. He must have been out for days to be this far along, to be—to be birthing already. A dart shouldn’t have kept him out for that long. Why had the natives even kept him alive? Why were they spectating? It was like they were—they were—

The old woman lowered a cool rag to his head, lapping at the sweat. They were helping him. Tristan gave a shaky moan. The rag felt heavenly on his burning flesh. He was unbearably hot, even hot for being in labor. His throat wasn’t just dry, he realized, but stinging badly, to the point of feeling raw. He was completely drenched in sweat, his chest heaving erratically as he shook with sobs. It was only then that he realized.

He was sick.

“Faaaa!” The elderly woman said as his belly tightened and sized. “Fhaaa!”

He supposed that meant push because it was all he could think to do. He kicked his pants further down, so he could spread his knees wider, make way for the head he could feel shoving against his opening. He gave a strangled cry, trying not to twist in pain, as he struggled. It took a tremendous amount of effort, and left him trembling violently, his vision blurring as the pain peaked in incredibly levels, his heart feeling like it would burst right in his chest.

He must have passed out for just a moment, because the next thing he knew, there was the squalling cry of a newborn. Tristan whimpered. He felt a weight lowered against his chest, and his limp arms were lifted, mechanically wrapped about the soft body of a healthy-sized newborn baby. "Thank you,” he rasped, or he tried to. He wasn’t sure if he ever got the words out. He could feel the darkness overwhelming him again, and it scared him, but he submitted to it.

-

When he awoke again, it was just in time to throw up in the large water bowl beside him. He panted and trembled. It hurt to breathe and yet he did it relentlessly.

His arms felt thin as they crossed against him. His skin was still uncomfortably hot. He was feverish. Tristan gingerly laid back on what were—animal skins, apparently. He gazed dizzily around the tent. It was dim, the flaps closed, but he could see how intensely the sun shone from the glowing edges. Beside the stone water bowl was a modern-looking canister—it was the medicine. The very same kind his team had delivered weeks before. It meant that the tribespeople were treating him, trying to cure of him of the rare disease he had contracted during the expedition he’s taken to do the same for them.

Tristan hesitated, and slid his hand to his stomach. It encountered a gentle bump. He was pregnant again.

He winced at the beam of light as the tent flap opened. One of the natives came in, murmuring in an unfamiliar language. She looked at his sick in the bowl, yammered something, and removed it from the tent. She returned a few moments later with a wooden cup. She tried to bring it to his lips.

“How long was I out this time?” Tristan said hoarsely, his bottom lip stinging. He could taste the blood where it had broken. “Where’s my baby?” he said weakly, and was mortified to feel tears running down his cheeks.

The girl just yammered admonishingly, still trying to get him to drink. Too weak to fight it, Tristan took several gulps, and even managed to hold the cup himself. He felt nauseous. Another girl came in with a bowl of stew. It was a dark orange, and smelled like roots, and clay. He tried to refuse it, but the girls were persistent. Eventually he drank as much as he could, which only turned out being another gulp or two. The girls seemed satisfied enough, and it hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought it would be.

They took the dishes left him alone there, where he sunk back down against the animal skins, he body trembling as he tried not to sob. He felt resigned, and closed his eyes, prepared to suffer his next bout of unconsciousness, when he heard shrill, familiar wails outside of his tent.

The baby.

Tristan struggled to push himself up, body shuddering as he tried to get his weak limbs to get him to his feet. He had nearly toppled himself face-first in his desperate struggle to stand, when the tent flap opened again. One of the girls had returned, a baby cradled in her arms.

She giggled slightly at Tristan’s stunned expression. She knelt down beside him and nodded for Tristan to lay back. He did so, and he braced himself. She lowered the infant against him.

It was a boy. The baby looked healthy. He had not contracted the illness. Tristan sighed in relief as the baby squirmed against him. But he could feel himself losing his strength fast. He had overdone things. “Than…mghhh…” she trailed off.

And again, he passed out.