All Bark, No Bite [Jacob & Edward]

25

Visitors start showing up about a week into their trip. They trickled in slowly, finding housing on the island wherever it was available. The rest of the family goes to greet them. Jacob, however, isn't moving around much. He's thirty weeks pregnant and seemingly only wants to live off of fruit, bubble baths, and oil massages. Edward is willing to indulge him on at least two of those things. Anything to make him comfortable was at the top of Edward's list every day. 

It's yet another day of indulging him and trying to keep any stress to a minimum. It'd feel like a relaxing vacation if it wasn't for the impending doom that lay heavy on the island. He's downstairs making dinner and listening in to the meeting that the family was having. It seemed like they had ample time to prepare some kind of barricade on the coast. 

He almost falls into the lull of stirring the pasta for lasagna when he becomes increasingly aware of the smell of distress coming from upstairs. He barely has time to remember to turn off the eye of the stove before he rushes up the stairs four at a time. He pushes the door open without really thinking about what he needed to prepare himself for only to find Jacob curled up under the covers, sweating profusely.

"Jake?" He calls and gets a groan in return.

He's afraid to move him, not really sure what was ailing him, so he just sends out an SOS to Seth before trying to comfort Jacob in any way he could. Seth gets Carlisle to rush up to the house and he's there standing over Jacob trying to talk to him as well.

"Hey, can you describe the pain to me? Is it like a cramp?" Carlisle tries to speak calmly to him while gesturing to Edward. He runs downstairs, grabs some equipment that Carlisle had brought over in his haste. 

"No, it's just..." Jacob's breathing heavily, "uncomfortable."

While Carlisle's rushing to set up, what Edward realizes is a portable ultrasound machine, he uselessly runs his fingers through Jacob's hair and tries to say something that'll get him out of his own head.

"Everything's going to be fine."

When the screen flickers on and Carlisle places the wand on the gel, their baby pops up. They're moving, doing something with their arms. Edward would find it endearing if Jacob didn't look like he was in pain. 

"Ah!" Carlisle exclaims, making Edward whip his head around towards him. Carlisle does something to Jacob's stomach, and then they're staring at what Edward realizes after some frantic analyzing is another baby. They're a bit smaller and they're not getting their fair share of space from their sibling. They're also not moving as much.

Both Jacob and Edward stare blankly at the screen for a moment.

They hadn't had ultrasounds and images to put away of the baby before. Jacob had just let Carlisle look to see if they were healthy without really looking at the screen himself, providing that it freaked him out as an explanation. Edward hadn't looked because he hadn't wanted to spoil knowing what the gender was. 

"There are two." Edward says dumbly, blinking several times to try to clear his vision. He must be seeing things.

Carlisle, on the other hand, isn't even remotely surprised. He just nudges the bigger one and they shift making space for the smaller one.

Edward looks over to Carlisle who shrugs.

"You said you wanted everything to be a surprise." He points out.

"How long have you known that there were two?" Edward looks like he wants to be upset for Jacob's sake but he's way too enthralled in what the babies are doing.

"Since he was at about fifteen weeks." Carlisle confesses and Jacob looks like he's contemplating murder. "Because of the tearing and mending, it was caught far later than what's typical."

"You could see them on Bella's ultrasound?" Edward inquires casually and now Jacob's looking at him.

"Oh, Bella wasn't pregnant with twins. Even in the earliest stages, that would've definitely killed her. The couple of weeks she was pregnant with one baby was all her body would've been able to take without beginning to shut down." Carlisle says casually, turning to gather his things.

"What?" Jacob asks, eyes now back on Carlisle.

"You made this one on your own." He explains, pointing to the one that had been squishing the other one.

They sit in silence for about five minutes.

"They were conceived around the time that the witch was still potentially meddling with your insides, you know, finishing your uterus, which is probably why it hurt so bad." He states it as if it's just a fun fact he'd thought up. "You said that I should only tell you about things that may outwardly affect you. Things you could change. You can't really change twins."

They'd conceived?

Jacob is sweating at this point. He feels like he's having some sort of fever dream as Carlisle hums while he unplugs the machine. He holds out a Kleenex so that Jacob can wipe off the gel with a small smile. Jacob just stares at him like he's fucking lost his mind.

"Well, I'll let you two get back to it." He says, handing the napkin to Edward instead.

Edward gingerly cleans off the gel without a word before standing up to go run Jacob's bubble bath. He'll figure out dinner later once he's got his head on straight again. He lights a few candles and stumbles downstairs to grab the fruit bowl he'd preemptively fixed and a cup. He rushes back upstairs. He grabs the legless food tray from next to the bed and then he finally, really looks at Jacob. 

He looks like he's going to start crying if Edward lets him think for too long so he gestures to hold onto Edward's shoulders so he can gently lift Jacob up from the bed. The proximity to Jacob's face allows Edward to watch the exact moment when the tears turn to anger.

"He didn't mean to upset you, Jake." Edward's not really sure what Carlisle meant to do, but he's pretty sure it wasn't meant maliciously.

"I'm not mad at him." He huffs and Edward looks up from where he's tugging down Jacob's pants to see that the glare is being aimed at him.

He's genuinely confused, so he doesn't make any sudden moves.

"Baby?"

Jacob looks like he's thinking about socking him as his eyes narrow. 

"Maybe we can talk about this when your junk isn't dangling in my face?" He asks, in part trying to lighten the mood and in part not having had anything but kisses in about a week.

Jacob allows Edward to stumble up from the floor and help lower Jacob slowly down into the water. Edward places the fruit tray in front of him and hurriedly gets undressed so Jacob's not supporting his own weight for too long. 

Once they're in the bathtub, he has to deal with a seething Jacob as he grumpily eats a strawberry that's half the size of his head.

Edward slowly brings his hands around, hesitantly lowering them onto Jacob's belly, testing the waters. One of them kicks like they're trying to knock his hand off and the other kicks like they're looking for attention. He starts building up the bubbles so that they are casually sitting on top of Jacob's stomach and watches as they're slowly removed by his highly active children.

"Will you stop encouraging them?" Jacob huffs around watermelon. 

"If mom would talk to me, I wouldn't have to." Edward says directly to his belly and gets a splash directly to the face.

"Don't call me that." 

"I think it suits you." Edward says, tongue flicking out to hurriedly lick at the mark before Jacob can protest. 

To his surprise, he doesn't, in fact, protest. He instead lets out a very audible moan.

It's going to be hell soaking up all of the water they splash onto the floor, but it's definitely worth it.